Character Bios

Watchmen Preview

In an alternate New York City, costumed super-heroes who scour the streets taking out the bad guys are a distant memory. To the government they were vigilantes, but for the superheroes, their mission and ruthless means to watch over the city and make all of humanity feel safe was justified. But their no-holds-barred, ruth-less form of justice was eventually no longer tolerated. The government solution was simple: ban all superhe-roes. And with the Keene Act of 1977 passed, they were outlawed.

Eight years later, when one of their own, The Comedian/Blake Edward (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is found dead, the neurotic Rorschach/Walter Kovacs (Jackie Earle Haley) convinces the old crime-fighting gang, including Silk Spectre II/Laurie Juspeczyk (Malin Akerman), Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), Dr. Manhattan/Jon Osterman (Billy Crudup) and Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) to band together and fight against a plot he's uncovered that plans to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes.

Watchmen is not your regular superhero movie. Based on the DC Comics graphic novels created by Alan Moore with graphics by David Gibbons, it boasts an intense, sophisticated storyline in which the characters often cross the line in their duties, but do it for the greater good. "In my movie, Superman doesn't care about humanity, Batman can't get it up, and the bad guy wants world peace," director Zack Snyder (300) quipped to ew.com. "The average movie audience has seen so many superhero movies, and some of this stuff is hard to take seriously, but then, Watchmen came along and took it to the next level by breaking all the rules."

To get everything right, Snyder, the cast and crew followed the graphic novel religiously. "Everyone has such an idea in their heads about what this guy is and what he sounds like and all of that," Haley told mtv.com about his character Rorschach, who has his own ruthless way of dealing with justice. "So I had a very strong sense of responsibility and accountability, but you have to go in there and work with your director and make decisions and give it your best. That's what we did."

Continuing to stay true to the graphic novel's storyline, a scene in the film between The Comedian and Silk Spectre II/Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), who, at the time, were part of the original gang of heroes, the Minute-men, is so violent that Morgan says was one of the hardest scenes he's done. "He's an animal. His physical actions are horrendous," Morgan told media. "Certainly the most horrendous things I've ever seen. But I think my job is to make you not hate him. My job is to do these horrible things and yet have the audience not hate his guts. Because when you read the novel, you don't hate The Comedian. There's a reason he does what he does and you know he maybe takes it to a level that most people wouldn't but for him it's normal."

But the Watchmen are anything but normal, and Dr. Manhattan, the only member to have real super-natural powers, is one superhero that is reluctant to return on the scene. "He was being asked to be a dutiful man by his government, and was trying to attend to those duties while trying to carry on a relationship with Silk Spectre II, and I think ultimately he discovered, through his own journey, that he was no longer as interested in people as he was in the universe," Crudup said of his character. Although Dr. Manhattan is not interested or emotionally connected with humanity, he is urged to return to earth to help them fight their imminent demise and an impending nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union by his former lover, who holds no grudges from their past love affair.

"When she finally realizes that she's starting to find her footing in life she also realizes that Dr. Manhattan is looking at her as more of a molecule than a person," Akerman said at Comic-Con of her character. "I think when she finally finds Dan (Nite Owl II) she finds herself and finds that human quality. It's a relationship that builds — it's sweet and real and beautiful."

While the reunited Watchmen set out on their mission, they discover a deeper and far more diabolical plot or-ganized by one of their own, Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt. "He's one of the richest men in the world and one of the smartest men in the world," said Goode of his character to superheroflix.com. "He has this double life. Everyone in America thinks they really know him but he's very morally ambiguous. He's got his fingers in a lot of pies, a bit like Donald Trump. But I'd say it's all meant to be a business mirage, you know, to take people's minds off of what he's really doing, which is the darker part of my character."

Watchmen hits theaters March 6th.

Zack Snyder

Director Zack Snyder established himself as an acclaimed director in the commercial and music video industries, earning numerous awards over his career. He made his directorial big screen debut with the cult horror film Dawn of the Dead, for which he was nominated for the prestigious Camera d'Or Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.
His direction of the hit 300 not only cemented his status in Hollywood, but also proved his creative skills as a director.

Selected Filmography
Watchmen (2009)
300 (2006)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)