Nathan Sawaya Comic Con Interview

Hollywood Journal

The master builder of all things Lego Nathan Sawaya sits down with us at Comic-Con to talk about his upcoming Brickumentary and DC Comics collaborations.

Transcript

00:00Nathan Swaya is the guy behind the world's most recognizable Lego art, including the

00:05Lego Oscar.

00:06And this year at Comic-Con, he's got a lot going on.

00:08What's your tattoo about, Sean?

00:13It's a Lego brick.

00:14Oh, nice.

00:15Nice.

00:16I just pressed it in and said, fill it in.

00:18Really?

00:19Yeah.

00:20So did you put marker on it?

00:21No, no.

00:22I just pressed a brick in and then told the tattoo artist, just fill it in.

00:26And now I can get it into any club.

00:28You know, I was here earlier.

00:41Tell me about Comic-Con.

00:42What can people look forward to?

00:43Yeah, well, last night we had the screening of the Brickumentary, which is something that's

00:47been near and dear because we'd been filming this two years ago.

00:50They'd come to my studio.

00:51Keith and Daniel came to my studio and watched me preparing for this big show I was going

00:57to be doing in New York City.

00:59For the rest of Comic-Con, actually I'll be announcing I'm working on a new project.

01:03It's pretty exciting.

01:04I wanted to explore themes of good and evil and really just heroes and villains.

01:10And so where do you turn?

01:11You know, I turn to comics.

01:12It makes the most sense.

01:13Nice.

01:14So I've started a project with DC Comics to turn their heroes and villains into art, but

01:21into art out of Lego bricks.

01:22Because I'm taking the world's most popular toy, let's bring in the world's most popular

01:26superheroes and see what we can do in a new type of art exhibition.

01:29So that's been fun.

01:30Well, I'm focusing on the Justice League and then some of the villains, of course.

01:34But there'll be a wide variety of DC Comics characters in there.

01:37Of course, the favorites like Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and the Joker, of course.

01:42But there'll be others as well.

01:43We're actually pretty excited to be debuting the exhibition this fall.

01:47It'll be opening in Sydney, Australia.

01:49And then it'll tour the world from there.

01:51That's awesome.

01:52Yeah.

01:53Where did the passion come from for Legos?

01:54Yeah, I mean, I had them as a kid, right?

01:57I had them growing up and I was always playing with them.

02:00And then later on in life, like so many young budding artists, I went to law school.

02:06And I was practicing law and I would come home at night and I would need some sort of creative

02:11outlet.

02:12So I started exploring Lego as an art medium and I just kind of went with it.

02:16People come to me and they say, can you create this out of Lego?

02:19Can you create that out of Lego?

02:20And that was how I got started.

02:22What's your favorite Lego piece?

02:24You know, if you look at my art, I use a lot of rectangular pieces.

02:27Just the traditional stuff I had as a kid.

02:29And that's because...

02:30That?

02:31The one that's tattooed?

02:32Yeah, the two by four brick right there.

02:34I mean, that's what I use.

02:35And I think when you see my art up close, you see it's all these sharp corners and tight

02:40right angles and rectangles.

02:42Then you back away from it and all those corners blend into curves.

02:45And you see the human forms I'm building out of these little rectangles.

02:48That's kind of the magic of using Lego.

02:50Now the bigger pieces that you've made, what's kind of been your favorite, your baby?

02:55I've done a variety of pieces over the years.

02:57There's the figure, a yellow figure that's tearing its chest open and all these yellow

03:02Lego bricks are filling out.

03:03I've seen that.

03:04Yeah, that's become pretty popular.

03:05A lot of people contact me about that work.

03:08They connect with it on some level.

03:10So that one's pretty important.

03:12It's become pretty iconic.

03:13And then the Oscar Lego.

03:15Oh, the Oscars.

03:16Yes.

03:17That was a fun project as well.

03:18It was right before the Academy Awards and I got the call to say, can you build 20 Oscars

03:24for the Everything is Awesome song and dance performance?

03:29I think they hand them out to the audience.

03:31Yeah, they went to some celebs in the audience.

03:34I know Clint Eastwood got one, Meryl Streep got one, Bradley Cooper.

03:38Oprah's reaction when she got one was amazing.

03:41And then even watching the after parties at the Oscars, seeing Emma Stone clenching on to hers the whole night.

03:47That was great.

03:48And finally, do you have any kind of passion project that seems like a little bit unattainable with what you do that you're going to be like, that's my next move?

04:00There are some things that are far out there that I hope one day can happen.

04:04I just tell people you have to wait and see.

04:06You know, if you want previews, follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

04:09That's the best place.

04:10Just at Nathan Sawaya.

04:11It's the Battle of Custer, isn't it?

04:13That's what you're doing.

04:14Life size.

04:15Larger than life size.

04:16Larger than life size Battle of Custer.

04:18We'll see.

04:19A lot of red bricks.

04:20Right.

04:21Okay.

04:22So don't forget to check out Brick Inventory.

04:23I'm Charlie Behrens.

04:24Follow Ed Hollywood on Twitter and Facebook.

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