“Creed II,” the second installment to the 2015 Rocky spin-off film “Creed” hosted its world premiere in New York City Wednesday night.
To celebrate the film’s release, the cast and crew showed up in full swing, and stars like Michael B Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Dolph Lundgren, and more spoke to The Knockturnal about their experience making the movie.
“Anything that’s in the script I got to feel, it has to be real to me,” star Michael B. Jordan told us. “So having an amazing cast, you know Tessa Thompson, Sly, Viktor- I mean Florian [Monteanu], they make it easy because they’re such great actors. Put us together in a room in front of a camera and we got what we got.”
Tessa Thompson, who reprises her role as Creed’s love interest Bianca, spoke about how her character inspires her. “She’s a woman that has her own agency, she’s also deeply compassionate and loyal and curious … She’s from Philadelphia, I’ve met so many incredible women in Philadelphia that really inspire me and have become good friends. So there’s so much about her that I just love.”
Florian Monteanu, who’s new to the franchise as Adonis Creed’s rival Victor Drago, considers it an honor to be apart of the film. “I was growing up with the franchise, I’m a big fan of the franchise. My father, who’s here, who came all the way from Romania is a big fan of the franchise. You know we kind of used to watch the movies together and we were big fans of the guys because my father’s a sports guy, too.”
He added, “We kind of were looking at those guys being in great shape and I always told my dad, ‘I want to be like them, I want to look like them.’ My father always said, ‘Hey you have to work hard and maybe one day,’ and now the day has come so it’s crazy. It’s crazy.”
Monteanu’s on-screen father Dolph Lundgren touched on how he interpreted playing his classic character as a father in this film. “It’s a guy that has a lot of pain and a lot of hate for the world because he feels misunderstood, and I’ve felt like that many times in my life as an actor … Also the fact that my father was very hard on me when I was a kid so I had to fight that, I get a chance to play him now and it was satisfying.”
Creed II hits theaters nationwide November 21.