In his latest movie, The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud, action star Scott Adkins pokes fun at his own screen persona as the titular Max, the hero who will save the day (although he originally wanted to be something quite different). The movie pays homage to films like The Last Starfighter with its premise of 1990s teenagers getting pulled into a video game for real. Shortly before Christmas, Paul Simpson caught up with Adkins over Zoom…

 The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud feels basically like ‘Carry On Gaming’ at times.

Yes it is a little bit, isn’t it. I like the old Carry On films.

When at the end the girl says to the Dad, ‘Oh, you know how to handle your joystick’ and I just thought “Oh for goodness sake, that’s a Kenneth Williams line!”

Yes, we just need him to do an ‘ooh matron’.

How did you get involved in it? Were you involved early on or did you come into it once it was already set in stone?

It was already set in stone. It came out of the blue, to be honest. I was looking for something a bit more comedic so I had my agent on the lookout, but yes, it came across at the right time. I read the script and I liked what they were trying to do.

I had a conversation with the director, Martin Owen. I hadn’t worked with the producers before or the director so it’s always a little bit of a leap of faith, but I liked the material and I thought that this was something I’d like to have a crack at and so we did it.

Was there an issue with getting the tone because it’s one of those things where the timing for the comedy can’t detract too much from the seriousness of what the characters are feeling?

I can’t say that there was any conscious effort on my part to portray the character in a realistic or lifelike way because it’s a video game, isn’t it? So for my part I just said to Martin, “I’ve never done this before and I don’t really know where the barometer is. I don’t know what’s too big and what’s too little so…I’m just going to try different things and you tell me if it should be bigger or if I should do a bit less. You’ll have choices in the editing room.”

To be honest, no matter how big I went, Martin was happy for me to keep going bigger. So there were times when I thought, “Bloody hell, am I going to be happy with this when it comes out because maybe I’m going to be a completely off the wall crazy guy?” But I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

It starts off as one thing and then it does get a little bit more depth to it… although his backstory is just such a ridiculous concept.

Exactly, it’s ridiculous but what we wanted to lean into was the fact that here was the stereotypical action 80s and 90s guy. Martin was happy that I wasn’t afraid to make fun of my image as that guy, which is something I am perceived to be. I just wanted to turn that on its head and make fun of that.

I was happy to do so and that’s really what he wanted from whoever was going to play Max Cloud because they needed a guy that could do some comedy – and we didn’t really know that about me yet – but he also needed to be convincing as an action hero because there are action scenes in there. It was a leap of faith on his part as well.

Did you basically just turn your own action persona into the comedy or were you going back to people like Arnold and Bruce Willis and people like that, the people who would have been in this film had it been made for real thirty years ago?

I think the best way to explain it is, you know what the cliché pitfalls are, the tropes, and those are things you’re trying to avoid doing an action film today. You don’t want to hit those cliché moments of the 80s and 90s, you’ve been through it so many times.

But for this one it was like, “No, you’ve got to hit those notes, that’s what we want. We want the cliché, we want the tropes.”

Martin kept saying that Buzz Lightyear was what the character was based on but for me, I got inspiration from one of Will Ferrell’s performances, something like Anchorman where he’s just this big brash doofus that, yes, he thinks he’s got all the answers but he’s just a bit of a dick.

That building of his own ego in his own head and just not realising what a pratt he’s coming across as.

That’s it, and it’s a defence mechanism, isn’t it? When he finally lets [his guard] down and talks about how really he wanted to be a pastry chef then that gets thrown back in his face as well so he reverts back to being Max Cloud again – but somewhere along the line he learns something about himself.

But probably not very much and particularly if there’s a sequel.

Exactly: we want a sequel, don’t we, we can’t have too much of an arc.

What were you talking about as the cliché tropes?

Just the way the character portrays himself. “I’m Max Cloud and I don’t have time for death”: that would be something that Arnold might have said in the 80s and was perfectly acceptable but of course now it’s just stupid. These were the sort of things we were looking for for that character, to make him funny, and be able to laugh at that sort of character, and to some extent some of the characters I’ve played in the past and probably will do in the future.

Sounds like you obviously enjoyed taking the mickey out of your own character for this..

I don’t mind, yes, I’ve got a thick skin. I wouldn’t have taken a part like this if I minded that.

Were there things that surprised you, places that you were having to go to with it?

Nothing surprising, it was just uncharted territory with the comedy and going very big… just going as big as possible and not really having to worry about that and trusting that the director was going to find what works in the editing room.

You didn’t see any material as you were going along, there weren’t any rushes or compilations of footage to get a feel for it?

No, I didn’t see any rushes. I didn’t even see playback on the set. Sometimes that slows down the process, when everyone’s clambering around the video village trying to see what they did, what they look like, “is my hair OK?” and all the rest of it. Sometimes it’s better just to get on with it.

This brought back so many memories of films like The Last Starfighter…

Yes, that’s right. Well, these were all the films that the director was saying he wanted it to be like.

Did you go back and watch them?

There wasn’t enough time, it was a last minute thing but we’re all around the same age so we all had a good idea of those 80s movies that inspired him. It wasn’t hard to get inside his head.

Were you brought in on it very late in the day then?

Once I knew I was doing the job, it was a couple of weeks then I was doing it. so to go through watching a load of films, that was just never an option. It was work on the character, get out there, rehearse the fights, shoot the movies, done, Christmas.

Obviously with your experience of producing, did you have character notes? Did it change? Did Max change much once you’d read the script? Or was it more just in your own physicality when you were playing him?

I didn’t change much because it was all written in the script, how he wanted the character to evolve, but I did do a lot of improvising and quite a bit of that found its way into the finished film. Whether it was throwing a different line in at the end of a scene or even in a fight sequence, I did some daft stuff at the end of one fight that they kept in the movie. Many lines, like when I blow that guy’s head off and I say something like, ‘That guy’s head came completely off his shoulders’ and stuff like that was just thrown in there.

Was the comedy the biggest challenge for you?

Yes certainly, because it was something I’d not done before. It wasn’t a challenge I was scared about or overly worried about. I connected to it, I got stuck in, I made some choices and I went with it. Do that and move onto the next one.

Has it given you the urge to do some more or has that scratched the itch?

No. I definitely have an appetite for more but I will want to see what the general public thinks first and then I will make my informed decision.

Sometimes people find it very difficult to accept an actor in a different sort of role don’t they?

Yes, and sometimes I’m not the best person to judge myself, for good or for bad.

What sort of projects interest you at the moment? Are there particular things you look for?  Like this one had the comedy, that was different.

I like to keep trying to do new things but also I enjoy very strong characters.

I want to stick with action because that’s what I’m good at and that’s what I’m passionate about. Not that I wouldn’t do something different but in terms of being the lead, I like to find character-based action films that are less about the plot and more about the character.

The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud is out now on digital, DVD & Blu-ray