Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: christopher plummer, exclusive, gravitas ventures, Heroes of the Golden Masks, interview, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, patton oswalt, ron perlman, Sean Patrick O'Reilly

Heroes of the Golden Masks Director on Plummer, Animation & More

Sean Patrick O'Reilly talks to Bleeding Cool about his latest animated film in Heroes of the Golden Masks, Christopher Plummer & more.

Sean Patrick O'Reilly is passionate about all the projects he's involved with, whether as a producer, writer, or directing. While he's involved with several live-action projects, the bulk of his commitment to directing is in animation. Some of his best known include the Howard Lovecraft franchise films, Pixies (2015), Go Fish (2019), and Panda vs. Aliens (2021). His latest is Heroes of the Golden Masks, which centers on Charlie (Kiefer O'Reilly), a wise-cracking, homeless American orphan who is magically transported to the ancient Chinese kingdom of Sanxingdui, where a colorful team of superheroes needs his help to defend the city from a brutal conqueror. Charlie joins the heroes and secretly schemes to steal the priceless golden masks that grant them their powers. O'Reilly spoke with Bleeding Cool about the inspiration behind the film, working with screen legend and star Christopher Plummer in his final film, casting, and the difference between working in animation and live-action projects.

Heroes of the Golden Masks: Sean Patrick O'Reilly on Bringing Asian Story to Life

Bleeding Cool: What intrigued you about 'Heroes of the Golden Masks?'
O'Reilly: Coming from a comic book background, I'm character-driven, and having all these characters with superpowers is something I was interested in, as well as the mythos; they all came from lost cities.

You have a wide range of talent to work with here. Can you break down the casting?
Christopher Plummer, I've had the pleasure of directing him probably about seven or eight times, and this one is fun because he read the character of Rizzo. He came in with a great vision of who we wanted the voice to sound like. Normally, I'm always a fan of the natural voice without any sort of thing. When it came to this, with his ideas and everything, it was super fun to work with, and it was great to hear him bring that in. Regarding Patton Oswalt, he is always amazing to work with, super funny, and professional, and that's Aesop, and he steals the show. The other one I love working with obviously is my son Kiefer, and he's the voice of Charlie, and it's the first time I've been able to work with him since the Howard Lovecraft franchise due to 'The Mighty Ducks [Game Changers].' Getting to work with Kiefer again in 'Golden Masks' is fantastic.

Were you able to record all of Chris's lines before his passing? How do you break down your sessions with him?
We recorded him in Connecticut. We had everything done, and I recorded him on that day. Two sessions for 'Heroes of the Gold Mask.' He could go through it, and I have him on video. To my knowledge, it might even be one of the last videos of Mr. Plummer, and he's truly a legend. It was great to work with him, and he always told me he loved working with fellow Canadians. I think back in the day; that's how he became the Pixie King in my 'Pixies' (2015) movie.

With the writing and the time you got with Ron [Perlman], Patton, and Natasha [Liu Bordizzo], was there anything the actors adlibbed on top of the existing script, or did they read everything as written?
I was given the flexibility of freedom to say it more naturally. There's a lot of adlib by all the actors, and they usually do like four or five takes. We pick the one we feel strongest, the one that's most cohesive with everything. Ron Perlman is a very adlib type person, as well as Patton. They both brought a lot to the table. It's interesting to see how they went with it, and there were a lot of laughs while we did it. It's fun.

Since the film delves into Asian culture, what do you find fascinating about the subject matter and mythos?
Sanxingdui is one of the lost cities, kind of like Machu Picchu, Jamaica, and Atlantis. When Sanxingdui was founded in the eighties, people were flabbergasted. From my perspective, learning about the history and all these cultures was cool. Naturally, I was already a mask collector, like I probably have a dozen masks in the office and another on my desk at home. Taking these real-life masks and then bringing some creative imagination, I'm like, "Maybe these masks back in the day had superpowers, and many superheroes wear masks. Dealing with that was honestly so much fun.

A lot of your work deals with animation, and you were able to work on the live-action film Corrective Measures. Was it a dramatically different experience for you?
I coincidentally explained it to a friend who also asked about the difference between directing animation and directing live action. In animation, we do a very iterative process, so we reiterate the iteration. We start with the script, then storyboards, modeling, blocking, animation, fine animation, lighting, rendering, then we composite. You're always building off the previous team's work.

Being on set for live action is like playing a sport like a basketball as much, practicing as many game plans as you put in. You're reacting to the situation at hand, like a quarterback [in football]. It's like, "We want to do this play, but everything goes wrong." There's always a problem on any given day, and they vary from whatever. I find with live-action directing, it's much faster, longer days, and you go with the flow a bit more. With animation, you can change and direct the boat. Still, with live action, you're dealing with so many people, personalities, weather equipment, equipment function, and things breaking down differently. It's more reactionary.

Gravitas Ventures' Heroes of the Golden Masks, which also stars Byron Mann, Osric Chau, Jack Gillett, Zeus Mendoza, King Lau, Jett Wu, Kingston Chan, Albert Steven Tsai, Michelle O'Reilly, and Rickie Wang, is out digitally.

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