We caught up with the stars, to talk life, careers and the success of the John Wick movie franchise. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00It's not that you almost check, but you come to New York,
00:02have a lovely five-day, you know, have a lovely week
00:04over Thanksgiving and whatever, and that's why Willem Dafoe did it.
00:08You're like, oh, let's go, and then you see her and you're like,
00:10okay, it's on, we gotta go, you know?
00:12So, um, it was very impressive to watch her work.
00:16Any film that's worth its salt, whatever its origin,
00:20you know, it has to take you away for somewhere,
00:22for however long it is, the two hours,
00:24and then deposit you back again, and you go,
00:26that was a great ride, where were we for two and a half hours?
00:28Hey, McShane, hello, sir.
00:30Hello, Johnny, how are you?
00:31I'm very well, mate, very well.
00:32I didn't realise you were born in Blackburn.
00:34I grew up in Blackburn for a long time.
00:35Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, I was born during the war,
00:40and my grandma and my grand, Dad was off in the RAF,
00:44and we all lived in, like, four blocks of each other
00:45in Freckleton Street, right opposite a Catholic church.
00:48Then my dad got transferred to Manchester United in 1950.
00:53What a shame.
00:54So he moved to Manchester.
00:55Could have played for Preston.
00:56But I went back, I took my wife to a game back in 1981,
01:01at Ewood Park.
01:03I was going to ask, how do you find going back up north?
01:05How often do you get back there?
01:06I used to go back a lot,
01:08until my mother sadly passed away in December 2001.
01:13I'm sorry, 2021.
01:15So I haven't been back there much,
01:17except I've got some friends up there,
01:19and obviously Ferguson's a friend of mine,
01:22and, you know, I go and see games now and again.
01:24But, no, it's odd when you've got no,
01:26suddenly you've got no,
01:28nobody lives there anymore that you know.
01:31All friends are dead, or friends, you know,
01:33close friends or whatever, and your family's gone.
01:35And it's an odd feeling.
01:36It's like the connection is, the connection is football.
01:39That's my connection with Manchester now, basically, you know.
01:42Yeah, it is strange.
01:43Whenever you go back anywhere,
01:44you realise the memories are the people,
01:45rather than necessarily the places.
01:47No, Maridis, hello, mate.
01:48We had a chat many moons ago,
01:50about the Walking Dead.
01:52And I always regretted, in that chat,
01:54not telling you how much I love Boondock Saints.
01:57The joy that you and Sean, I know.
01:59You and Sean and Billy Connolly brought to me back in the day.
02:03Can't be measured, man.
02:05So my first question is,
02:07where the hell are we on part three of that?
02:08It feels like it's been in purgatory for, like, 15 years.
02:11Yeah, the third Boondock Saints is being made.
02:14It's, we have a script that's being massaged right now.
02:18We've got good people behind this one.
02:21Yeah, it's happening.
02:23I'm taking that as a personal promise.
02:25Yeah.
02:25I've got friends who are very disappointed.
02:26I've been doing Zooms about it since I've been here.
02:29Awesome, man. I can't wait.
02:31You've been in many things that are my favourite things.
02:34Hot Rod and Sexy Bees.
02:36That's a good movie, isn't it?
02:36It's a great movie.
02:38It's a fun movie and a great soundtrack, too.
02:41Yeah, a really good soundtrack.
02:42Great soundtrack, yeah.
02:43What was it?
02:43John Farnham, you're the...
02:44I can't remember now,
02:47but me and my mate used to listen to that on the way out.
02:49And Sexy Bees is a great movie.
02:50Sexy Bees is a great movie.
02:51Jonathan Glazier did a great job.
02:52American Gods is great.
02:53The Pillars of the Earth is, like, really, really good.
02:56American Gods could have been better.
02:57It was a great template.
02:59I think they screwed it up.
03:01The studio screwed it up.
03:02First series.
03:02First series was unbelievable.
03:03And then social media got involved
03:05and they got involved with the two writers,
03:07the two creators who created it,
03:09stepped away and there was a legal thing went on.
03:11And you go,
03:12oh, come on.
03:13It's never going to be the same.
03:14Anyway.
03:15Obviously, great success with Deadwood
03:16and the Housewives of the UK
03:19will hold Lovejoy to their hearts
03:22to their dying day.
03:23Yeah.
03:24But this character,
03:25this franchise,
03:26really feels like it's kind of defined
03:28this period of your career.
03:31And I wondered, like,
03:32do you get sentimental towards characters?
03:35Does this character mean more to you than others?
03:38And do you...
03:40Or is it very much just like,
03:41oh, this is a fun job to do?
03:42No, it means a lot more
03:44because I'm very close to Keanu
03:46and obviously in Chad.
03:48And it is a kind of a family.
03:50I mean, it's the same people
03:51who have been involved with the movies,
03:53all of them, since 2013.
03:55When we did this independent movie in New York,
03:59they sort of went to New York.
04:00Oh, it's, you know,
04:01it's not that you almost checks,
04:03but you come to New York,
04:04have a lovely five days,
04:05you know, have a lovely week
04:06over Thanksgiving and whatever.
04:08And that's why Willem Dafoe did it
04:09and Michael Nyquist sadly departed,
04:14as is Lance, my usual partner,
04:18Lance Reddick, who played Sharon.
04:20But it's been very...
04:21And since that time,
04:22I remember I was just talking to somebody,
04:24I said, you know,
04:24a year later I was making a film in Atlanta
04:26and this came out.
04:31And, you know, you go in,
04:32I nipped into the first show
04:33around about noon
04:34and the first five minutes you look at it
04:36like you do with anything.
04:37You know within five minutes
04:38if it's worked or not, you know.
04:39And I thought, yeah.
04:40Chad filmed the script.
04:42You must be absolutely buzzing
04:43to join a kind of the Wick franchise.
04:45I mean, it's definitely a dream come true
04:48to be part of a John Wick film.
04:49I mean, I think, you know, actors,
04:52if you get that call to be in a John Wick film,
04:54it's a good day, you know what I mean?
04:56So I'm very excited.
04:57There's a new documentary coming out
04:58called Wick is Pain.
05:00Yeah, I heard about that.
05:01And then from the little bits I've seen of it,
05:03it just seems like this kind of movie is,
05:05it's brutal to watch,
05:06but it's brutal to make as well.
05:08So I wondered like how much of a shock
05:10to the system was that on the knees,
05:12on the elbows, where their eyes packed, like.
05:15I've been shocking my knees and elbows
05:17for a long time now.
05:19It's a lot of Advil.
05:21A lot of Advil goes down,
05:22but you sort of get caught up
05:24in the adrenaline while you're in it.
05:27So you just sort of, you know,
05:29keep your chin down and go to work.
05:31You know what I mean?
05:31I'm always impressed by the people
05:33in these films
05:33because it seems so, like, precise.
05:36You know, you see a lot of action.
05:37You can think, oh, they've cut there
05:38and cut there and cut there and cut there.
05:39But this just looks like
05:40it really would shake you up a bit.
05:43It's not just a normal day at the office.
05:45It's a different sort of fighting style.
05:47You know, these fights are choreographed
05:49down to the T for cinema.
05:54You know, Daryl Dixon and stuff like that,
05:56that's a very sloppy fighting style.
05:58This is a very choreographed thing.
06:00But you have to sort of do the math
06:03for what's exploding around you.
06:05And that's a sharp bit.
06:06And, you know, there's a lot of stunts
06:10and a lot of choreography going on
06:11at the same time.
06:13And the timing of all of it
06:14has to sort of match.
06:15So it's a very rehearsed process.
06:19I remember, I think a lot of people
06:20remember the first five minutes of John Wick.
06:22And it's kind of, you're watching it,
06:23you think, okay, this could be
06:24a paint-by-numbers action movie.
06:25And then you get this, like,
06:26little smile which starts to grow.
06:28And you're like, okay,
06:29there's something kind of self-aware about this.
06:30And then it just turns into this
06:31just beautiful, brutal symphony.
06:36Well, I think, as you said,
06:37that sort of the slight smile
06:39is when it all happens.
06:41And then a policeman comes to know
06:42and says, everything all right, John?
06:44It's like it's got an odd self-referential
06:48without being sort of smug.
06:51And I think that's worked through the movie
06:53when they bring in all these sort of assassins
06:55from all over the world
06:56who are basically fanboys of John Wick.
06:59There's this whole world of assassins
07:01all over the world.
07:02So any film that's worth its salt,
07:04whatever its origin,
07:06you know, has to take you away for somewhere
07:08for however long it is, the two hours,
07:10and then deposit you back again.
07:11And you go, that was a great ride.
07:13Where were we for two and a half hours?
07:15And I think they've, excuse me,
07:16consistently managed to do that
07:18with this franchise in a good way.
07:20And there's this one, bringing a female dynamic
07:24in it was, I think, essential at one point.
07:27And it's become essential.
07:28But they've done it in a way
07:29that doesn't seem like they just have a woman in it.
07:32I mean, you've met her before.
07:33You met her character as a child.
07:35And then you met, and it's set,
07:37this ballerina's set between number three
07:39and number four.
07:40And then you get the backstory
07:42because I've known her since she was a kid as well.
07:44So that's where Winston comes into his own
07:47with a person.
07:48I mean, I think, you know, I said that, you know,
07:50I think John and Eva is two favorite assassins
07:53if it's such a ridiculous thing can be said, you know.
07:55Let's talk about Arna de Armas.
07:57Sure.
07:57She's kind of really,
07:59she's really making a name
08:00of one of the most, like,
08:00versatile actors out there at the moment.
08:04And she, in this movie,
08:06obviously shoulders a lot of the action herself.
08:08What was it like to see that up close?
08:11How much fun did you guys have,
08:12like, blowing stuff up together?
08:13It's very, it was very impressive
08:14to watch her work.
08:15She, she gets it down
08:17and she works super hard.
08:18She's, she's a badass.
08:19She just kills it in this movie, you know.
08:23It's one of those things, too,
08:24like, you get, you know, you know,
08:26and I flew in from France
08:28and, you know, that I'd come back
08:29and I'd fly in from France
08:30and I was working the whole time there
08:32and, you know, you're like,
08:33oh, let's go.
08:34And then you see her and you're like,
08:36okay, it's on, we gotta go, you know.
08:38So it's, it was very impressive
08:40to watch her work
08:41and, like, really get in there.
08:43You know, she's, she's a killer.
08:45And finally, like,
08:46I don't want to give anything away
08:47of the plot,
08:48but this is an expanding franchise.
08:50Correct.
08:50They're in TV now,
08:51they're in movies.
08:52How much fun would it be
08:54to have another roll of the dice here?
08:56Like, super crazy awesome fun?
08:58Let's just plant some seeds.
09:00Just plant those trees.
09:01Long may it continue, mate.
09:02I'm sure a lot of the actors
09:03that come into this
09:04are kind of fanboys
09:05of what's come before
09:06and it just seems like
09:07this was a kind of a water test
09:09sort of movie
09:09to see whether that would work.
09:10Can you make a movie
09:11with another kind of central character?
09:12And I thought it worked perfectly.
09:15That's great.
09:16The flamethrower work
09:16and grenade work itself
09:17was absolutely like
09:18chef's kiss.
09:20All right, pal,
09:20lovely to meet you.
09:22Good luck with this
09:23and very much hoping
09:24you rock up for part five as well.
09:26Let's see what happens.
09:27Let's see what happens.