Juno Temple Talks that Twist

[This story contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance.]

Venom: The Last Dance stars Juno Temple and Tom Hardy were both a part of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, but to say they passed like ships in the night would be an overstatement. They never interacted on set or at the New York City premiere, and that subplot makes the current handoff at the end of Kelly Marcel’s trilogy capper all the more interesting. 

Temple plays Dr. Teddy Paine, a scientist who studies alien symbiotes inside a top-secret underground facility near Area 51. At 13, she lost her twin brother as both were struck by lightning, and so she’s now carrying out his dream of discovering lifeforms well beyond Earth. Eventually, Eddie Brock and Venom make their way to Dr. Paine’s Area 55 Imperium base, before a battle breaks out between the symbiotes and Xenophages. The latter creatures are working to retrieve a codex inside Eddie and Venom, so that they can finally free Knull (Andy Serkis), the evil creator of the symbiotes who imprisoned him.

Facing an unwinnable situation, Venom decides to destroy the codex by sacrificing himself for Eddie and the rest of mankind. Amid the melee, Dr. Paine retrieves a symbiote vial, only to later bond with it in an effort to save her colleague. Thus, with Venom no more, Temple’s character is now the only known human in possession of a symbiote. 

As for the future, Temple is excited by the prospect of potentially playing a dual human-symbiote role like Hardy did.

“Oh my gosh, can you imagine how fun that would be? That would be an extraordinary experience,” Temple tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I would have to pick Tom’s brain a little bit about the physicality of it all …. But, yeah, I would be very open to it.” 

That said, she also wants to listen to the fans and proceed based on their demand for a new type of symbiote story.

“I would never want to disappoint a fan base like that, but I would be open to whatever everybody feels like would be an interesting adventure,” Temple says. “This universe is a real exciting one to be a part of, but at the same time, I don’t want to overstep my mark. I never thought I was going to be in a position where I would be asked to be a part of a film like this, with a journey like this. And to have such a — yeah, I’m going to say it — badass moment at the end, it was really cool.”

Marcel previously told THR that she knows where Dr. Paine’s story, among other possibilities, could go: “We have definitely given it forethought, so we definitely know what those stories could be, should [Sony] want them.”

Below, during a recent spoiler conversation with THR, Temple also discusses reading the Venom: The Last Dance script in 15-minute intervals on the Fargo set. 

I believe Venom: The Last Dance was your first job after wrapping Fargo a few months earlier. What was your decision-making process at the time? 

It came to me whilst I was still shooting Fargo. I was shooting the sequence on Fargo where [Dot] was in the burial ground, the dumping hole under the windmill. So I was in there, next to all these fake human remains, with a script that I had to log into every 15 minutes. It would log me out [every 15 minutes] because it was one of those super top secrets. It was this wild combination of two worlds at once. (Laughs.) 

But it felt like a real honor to be asked by Kelly [Marcel] to even think about being a part of it. I know it’s something that has mattered so much to her and Tom. They have deeply cared about it for a really long time. The two of them together have invested a lot of their friendship and put it on the page, creatively. That’s why I loved the Venom movies, initially. The friendship really meant something to me. I really enjoyed how they found each other and became friends and just how funny it all was. And by the end of reading The Last Dance, it was really moving.

I was also really proud and excited to be a part of Kelly’s directorial debut. It felt like a really special invite to a very special party. I was also nervous because it was my first time doing something like this, and they have been doing it for over seven years now. I was a huge fan of Chiwetel’s [Ejiofor] too, and I was excited about getting to work with him in some good conflict scenes. When you have admired people for a long time and you actually get to work with them, I’d be lying if I said that it isn’t still nerve-wracking. 

You and Kelly Marcel were raised in different parts of London; you both have director fathers. Did your shared background ever come up in conversation? 

Yeah, we’ve had little tidbit conversations about that, and we both ended up moving to different parts of America. We ended up setting up our lives out here too, which has been interesting. Having a director as a father has been a really important aspect to the way I look at the world in general. It’s a lens that has always been filled with a fascination of light. My dad taught me about light at a very young age, and I am always in awe when walking onto a set. Sometimes, you look around and you’re like, “Wow, this is a privilege to walk into this lighting.” It’s amazing. 

I realize you didn’t have any scenes together in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), but did you ever cross paths with Tom for anything related to that movie?

No, other than being in the same room at the New York premiere. I don’t even remember us getting to say hi to each other at the premiere. He was Bane. A lot of people wanted to say hi. (Laughs.) 

Tom Hardy is such an incredible actor, and he’s done so many different roles. He’s really transformative like that, and then getting to be on set and witness his process of playing Eddie and Venom together is a pretty extraordinary thing to watch. It is so physical and funny. It’s also emotional, and sometimes, it feels like it would drive you a bit insane. But he’s so alive in it. When you’re making these movies, Venom is so present even though you can’t see him. He really feels like he’s there, and it’s a pretty magical thing to watch. 

I’m always fascinated by how small a world this industry can be, so were there any direct reunions for you on the Venom 3 set? 

I had been in [Maleficent: Mistress of Evil] with Chiwetel, but we did not work together. I had also done three or four movies with Rhys Ifans, but we’d only done one where we’d met before, so that was a really great reunion. I was super excited to see him and work with him again, and we had a laugh about just being us.

Your character, Dr. Teddy Paine, lost her brother at a young age, and so she’s devoted her life to living out his dream. On one hand, it’s touching that she’s honoring her brother like that, but I also found it quite sad that she’s put aside whatever she originally wanted for herself. How did you reconcile that? 

They were very young when that happened, and she probably wasn’t really sure of what she wanted. So it’s more than the decision of, “I’m going to follow his dream.” It’s more about allowing herself to feel him present all the time. I hope it’s not a spoiler, but he saved her life. So every time she looks in the mirror or goes to put on a jacket or tuck her hair behind her ear, it’s a constant reminder of him. So exploring the thing that he was fascinated by — and I’m sure he talked to her endlessly about it — is something that she was interested in and then continued. She has him in her heart while she does it, and that makes her an interesting scientist. It’s a lot more personal than just research. General Strickland is technically her boss, but her interactions with Chiwetel’s character create a really interesting conflict because her judgment isn’t always necessarily the best for the people around her. It’s for somebody that is inside of her heart, so that makes her make some complicated decisions at moments. 

In the accident that killed her brother, she was also left with a paralytic arm. Was there anything attached to your costume to prevent you from using your left arm? 

We did something interesting with an elastic band, which just made me hyper aware of the fact that I couldn’t use that hand. If you meet people who don’t have a use of one of their arms or hands, it’s not rigid. So attaching something to the costume would’ve made it not look real, but the elastic meant that I was hyper-aware that I couldn’t use it. I had to try and keep it as loose as possible. It then became a struggle when I started doing the action stuff, and I had to run over not necessarily smooth terrain. Instinctively, if I stumble, I would put out both of my hands to catch myself, so we put a stitch in the lab coat so that I could at least extend the arm. But you don’t realize that both of your shoulders move when you jump after a loud noise, and I couldn’t do that here, so it was really interesting. Tom was actually the one who was like, “Have you tried doing some kind of elastic thing with your fingers?” And I was like, “That’s a really good shout.” So we ended up making a kind of specific finger tie.

She’s very successful based on her impressive desert house, but she drives this older Bronco pickup truck. Was that her brother’s truck? Is it a monument to him just like her Roswell t-shirt is? 

That house is also a place where she can observe, and I don’t know if that would come with being close to the facility where she works. But her devotion in life is not to buying new cars or having the perfect outfit to go to work in. She wants to just be in the action, and I liked that about her. There’s this juxtaposition of being in this facility where you have to decontaminate yourself and be professional as you’re protecting [alien] life that we don’t know all the answers to, but at the same time, underneath it all, she is still a version of her teenage self. So I, personally, can relate to that too. (Writer’s Note: Kelly Marcel later clarified to me that the twin siblings were around 13 at the time of the accident, and that Marcel herself was just a fan of Broncos.)

In the action sequences with all sorts of alien combat, I kept wondering what the actual day must’ve been like for you. You probably had some practice on the Maleficent movies, but was this the most you’ve ever had to rely on your imagination? 

It’s definitely up there. I have never worked with as many tennis balls. (Laughs.) But something that blew my mind about this job was that a lot of the sets actually worked. A lot of it wasn’t CGI-oriented. A lot of it moved and popped out and changed colors. Yes, there was a lot of stuff that we had to imagine, but I love that because it feeds into my inner child. I spent my [childhood] imagining things all the time, and I still do. But at the same time, there was quite a lot that we actually had to react to. It was amazing how much stuff they could do practically. Again, this is a new kind of world for me, but I get to go to the cinema and be a genuine audience member. Seeing the final VFX and what the artists created and the imaginations that they have, it’s like, “Wow, I need to up my imagination.”

Your character is left in a very interesting position at the end of this movie. I presume you’re open to any and all possibilities? 

Oh my gosh, can you imagine how fun that would be? That would be an extraordinary experience. I would have to pick Tom’s brain a little bit about the physicality of it all and understand how to create that amazing thing that he did by genuinely having both characters present all the time. But, yeah, I would be very open to it. 

It’s an interesting one. I’m learning about how much it means to the fans to be a part of these universes and how invested they are in these stories and the different heroes and villains that they fall in love with and feel passionately about and, sometimes, I’m sure they really dislike, too. So I would never want to disappoint a fan base like that, but I would be open to whatever everybody feels like would be an interesting adventure. And if not, I had an amazing time on this one.

Returning to my first question about decision-making, was that also a major factor in it? 

I definitely thought it was a cool thing to get to go through, but I hadn’t thought of it going further in any way because this is “the last dance.” So I imagined that it could end here, but I’m very up for whatever. This universe is a real exciting one to be a part of, but at the same time, I don’t want to overstep my mark. I was extra excited when there was a color conversation about it too, because I’m a very pinky-purple person. I like those colors. (Laughs.) So I never thought I was going to be in a position where I would be asked to be a part of a film like this, with a journey like this. And to have such a — yeah, I’m going to say it — badass moment at the end, it was really cool. 

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Venom: The Last Dance is now playing in movie theaters.