Josh Duhamel's Colonel William Lennox has outlasted all of the other human characters who were introduced in Michael Bay's 2007 Transformers. Though Lennox was absent from the fourth entry in the movie mega-franchise, he returns in Transformers: The Last Knight and finds himself in the uncomfortable position of treating his former allies like criminals. As a member of an anti-Transformer taskforce called the TRF, Lennox is charged with rounding up Autobots and Decepticons alike, as well as hunting down one of the Autobots' greatest allies - Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg).
It isn't long, however, before Lennox finds himself caught up in a situation that's much bigger than humans vs. Transformers. From secret societies to an evil Optimus Prime and a decrepit Cybertron threatening the destruction of Earth, The Last Knight brings all hands on deck to stave off complete disaster - and Lennox is there for the ride. Ahead of the movie's global premiere in London, Screen Rant caught up with Josh Duhamel to learn about what it's like to make a movie on such a massive scale. Check out a video of our interview above, and a transcript below.
You’ve now got 10 years under your belt doing Transformers movies, is that right?
Josh Duhamel: Well, we started 11 years ago but the first movie came out 10 years ago, yeah.
Has the experience changed a lot since the first movie? Is it more streamlined now, the process?
JD: No it’s actually less streamlined now. This particular one was the most… It’s the craziest set I’ve ever been on. Not because it was… Just because there was just so many toys. He had helicopters, and drones and these giant - like two or three cranes going at once with the Porsche Cayenne flying around… It’s truly a sight to see to watch these movies being made and I’ll sit there and I’ll just watch how it all plays. Like all these people come together to help make this movie and it’s kind of an amazing sight to see.
Speaking of toys, do you have your own action figure at all?
JD: Do I have an action figure? No, but I need to speak to Hasbro about that.
You should get one that transforms into something. Even though Lennox isn’t a Transformer, it should transform, I think.
JD: What should he transform into?
Maybe a sidecar, like you know you get a motorcycle, maybe a sidecar. And Cade could be the motorbike - or is that kind of insulting?
JD: Oh so I would be like Cade’s sidecar.
Maybe he could be the sidecar, and you could be the motorbike.
JD: Why don’t you just make him a kangaroo and I could be the baby sitting inside of him.
Well, we’ve got time to think about it.
JD: It’s a good start, I like the sidecar idea.
Yeah, sidecar, we’ll put it in the box.
JD: Sidecar Willy…
And something that kind of gets overlooked about Transformers is that they’re first contact movies. It’s about how human beings would react to discovering giant scary aliens, which is a popular theme right now, we’ve got Arrival and Man of Steel which explore the same thing. How do you think humans would react to aliens coming down, would we try and kill them, would we try and make friends?
JD: Well the popular theory is that if they come, we’re in trouble. Yeah, I think that we would definitely try, we would do everything we have to… unless there was some way to sort of figure out that they were here for, y’know, friendly reasons. Part of the problem with what I do in this movie with the TRF is we’re trying to exterminate all of these Transformers from the face of the Earth. We don’t want them here anymore. Having worked with them for all these years now, knowing that some of them are actually good and can actually help us, is a problem for my character because he knows Optimus and Bumblebee can help. So eliminating all of them is not necessarily something he wants to do.
But he stays with the TRF I guess because he thinks he can have more control over the situation rather than if he just walked away.
JD: Yeah if he walked away then he doesn’t have - it’s almost like ‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer’. And he’s posing as part of the TRF but not necessarily in line with what they believe in.
And do you have a favorite Transformer, out of all the guys do you have a favorite?
JD: I gotta go with Bumblebee, only because I have a yellow Camaro at home.
Does it transform?
JD: No, but my son thinks it does. My son actually thinks it does and I’m just going to let him keep believing that.
Are you encouraging that belief?
JD: Yeah, why not?
If you could have any vehicle other than a sidecar that could transform, which would you like to have?
JD: I would definitely be a - y’know my car would transform into a helicopter so then I could just fly around L.A. and not have sit in that traffic for hours at a time.
It’s handy for a commute.
JD: It really is.
More: Transformers 5 is Mark Wahlberg’s Last Transformers Movie
Directed by Michael Bay and starring Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Jerrod Carmichael, Isabela Moner and Santiago Cabrera, The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).
There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.
