Godzilla Minus One Director and Star Unpacks the Kaiju's Best Film in Years (Exclusive)

It feels good to be the king, and nobody knows that better than Godzilla. For decades now, the titan has towered over the movie industry, and Godzilla's legacy is far from finished. After debuting decades ago, Godzilla lives on through the MonsterVerse in Hollywood while Toho Company continues exploring the beast on its own terms. This week, stateside fans will get to see Godzilla make his latest movie appearance as Godzilla Minus One is slated to hit theaters. ComicBook was able to speak with the movie's director Takashi Yamazaki and lead actor Ryonosuke Kamiki before the film's U.S. launch, and the pair were eager to talk about the monster's charm. 

From Godzilla's past to his present-day popularity, Yamazaki and Kamiki touched upon the best parts of Godzilla Minus One. So if you'd like to learn how one of Godzilla's best movies to date came together, read on below:

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• First, I want to ask how the setting and story for Godzilla Minus One came together?

Director Takashi Yamasaki: I decided to set it when it was set, is because I really love the Godzilla that set in The Showa-Era when we first see it. And we're talking about a situation in world for these civilians that there's no government, they have no weapons, and they have to use their knowledge and get together and overcome this huge challenge.

• I wanted to ask, beyond Yamazaki San's interest in the Showa-Era of Godzilla, what is it about this despair story that made him so interested as a writer?

Yamazaki: For myself, it was really important for me to portray how these characters, these civilians, really rise to the occasion and that they, as a massive monster, and so that's why I needed Shikishima and all the characters really start at the very, very bottom of the barrel. And sometimes there's a glimmer of hope and then he gets slapped back down again. Right? So I wanted to really show bravery and hope that people really starting from the bottom, like emotionally and even post World War II materialistically to then, "Oh yes, and there's a Godzilla in your face too." And so for them to have collect all that bravery and to overcome their biggest challenge.

• Kamiki-san, I wanted to know, what was your first impression of the character when you were introduced to Godzilla Minus One.

Actor Ryonosuke Kamiki: When I first read the script, and my first impression of Shikishima is that he's pretty unstable. He's not really standing on his two feet, so to speak. He has a lot going on. He has PTSD from war. He obviously sees Godzilla face to face. He has his own personal regrets that we find out. And for me, my first impression was how much can I take on that energy of just loss, loss and losing so much? And also how much of that energy then gets converted into the motivation of killing Godzilla.

• The Godzilla we meet in Godzilla Minus One is nasty. He's very mean. And so I wanted to know, what do you think it is about this iteration of Godzilla that's so different and appealing compared to those that we've seen in past iterations?
  

Kamiki: As an actor, as a director mentioned, it is important to really portray the story, the human story, of having hope, even if there was a teeny little fragment of hope to really grab that and then make it into a bigger hope as we see throughout the movie. So I think the Godzilla in this movie really helped me really take that journey from being at the very bottom. But yeah, I think the director can probably be more specific compared to all the Godzillas.

Yamazaki: I feel that my Godzilla for this Godzilla is very specific for the story because there's a tendency with Godzilla is that he's obviously a massive existence and there can be a tendency to split the story a bit versus this is going on with Godzilla, this is going on with the people or the government and things like that. However, one of my goals was to have a good balance between the Godzilla side of the story and the human story. So in Godzilla Minus One, I think it's a lot more unique because you're looking at the individual relationship, what kind of relationship they have to Godzilla, how they see Godzilla. So it's individuals and also civilians that are really focused on their story and relationship to Godzilla. So I think that's unique out of all the Godzillas.

• I wanted to ask, what was it like for you to bring Godzilla to life in scale on film?
  

Yamazaki: Our overall goal was to create a convincingly real Godzilla. So as you mentioned, Toho has that history where Godzilla started as a costume. And when Shin Godzilla came out that was the first time that Godzilla is a hundred percent digitized. And it proved that the more realistic Godzilla can be scary. So not just us, who work in effects or filmmakers, I wanted to make sure that an average person can look at Godzilla and say, maybe that exists. So maybe a lot of us might have these VFX filters in our heads these days when we go to the movies, but to reach that goal of that average person looking at Godzilla, maybe he actually exists. So by achieving that realisticness through VFX, we're able to really amp up the scariness, which then lends itself to the story because then we see what Shikishima and all the civilians, what they have to overcome, not only just materialistically, but emotionally they're going against this really scary monster. So that's when everything really tied in together and that's why the VFX was so important to get that scariness, real scariness.

• It feels like Godzilla these days is bigger than ever. He's been around for decades, but as a mythos, as a creature, Godzilla is massive. And the excitement I've seen online for Godzilla Minus One in America is unlike anything I've experienced in a long time that I've been doing this job. So I wanted to ask to both of you, what do you think it is about this time period we're in right now that's made Godzilla have this resurgence?

Yamazaki: That's a hard question. As filmmakers, obviously we want to make something and obviously show what we create. So on a fundamental level, just as being a creator, we want to show things. So that's a very fundamental, just created thing. But one thing is that obviously this started pre-production several years ago, and that time was that time and now in 2023. And oftentimes when things released, we don't really have control when it releases and what kind of climate, social, political climate it ends up being released in. But I do feel that the themes of the film are quite universal throughout the world.

And I think that what all the characters are going through right now, we're in 2023, but I think there are similarities what these characters are going through physically in our world as well. So yeah. So I think perhaps the universal themes that resonate now and can also resonate in the future, I think that's why people keep gravitating back towards Godzilla.
Yeah, I think that currently there's a lot going on. There's a lot of worries, there's fears, and I think when Godzilla is created, he takes on that physical form going on in the world and all your worries.

So people want to, perhaps, create a physical form of these unknown fears and worries that they have. And in Japan, this goes to, has Shinto and animism origins, but it's the idea that a living or non-living thing could accumulate so much negative energy that it takes on a life of its own. And back in ancient Japan, the idea was that, okay, this object or animal has accumulated so much negative energy. We need to, in the context of then, we need to pray for it to calm down. We need to do ceremonies and things like that. And I think by going to the movies and seeing Godzilla, which is representative of the fears that you might have, and watching the story through in a way, calming those evil spirits, is to recognize your fears and see it through in the form of the movie and then to calm it down. So I think, maybe, in a sense the world might be looking for that to be able to calm things down.

What do you think about Godzilla Minus One? Do you have plans to check out this Toho kaiju flick? Let us know what you think in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me up @MeganPetersCB to share your take!