Comic-Con: McG says “I need to do less talking.”

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After the ‘Terminator Salvation’ panel, filmmaker McG was praised backstage for his smooth and enthusiastic stage manner.

But he winced a bit at the compliment.

‘I’m just trying to keep my lips shut these days, really, I want to let my films speak for themselves,’ he said. ‘I want to take me out of it. I need to do less talking. I don’t want to be ‘McG the cheerleader.’ I’m just trying to grow as a filmmaker and let the films be judged.’

It’s a mature and savvy attitude for the director, whose nickname and public enthusiasm have sometimes made him a target for people who tagged him as more flash than substance. You can sense that he’s a man on a mission.

That was very clear to me when I was on the ‘Terminator’ set recently in New Mexico, where the director and his team are making an intensely grim reboot of the franchise. They were shooting until 3 a.m. the night before arriving here in San Diego.

‘And Sam [Worthington, one of the stars] cut the hell out of his hand. We only snoozed for about two hours but, hey, we wouldn’t have traded it for the world,’ he said. ‘This is what we want to do, bring this movie here and then bring it to the world.’

-- Geoff Boucher

Photo: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times