Norman Reedus & Ian McShane Breakdown Ballerina

ODN

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

Transcript

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.

00:56Well, I went back, I took my wife to a game back in,

00:58mind, in 1981, at 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, Meridus, hello, mate.

01:48We had a chat many moons ago about 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.

02:02Yeah.

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.

02:17Yeah.

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 to be very disappointed.

02:26I've been doing Zooms about it since I've been here.

02:29Awesome, man.

02:30I 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?

02:36I think it's a great movie.

02:38It's a fun movie and a great soundtrack, too.

02:40It's a, yeah, really good soundtrack.

02:41Great soundtrack, yeah.

02:43What was it?

02:43John Farnham, you're the, what was it?

02:45You're the, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

02:47Can't remember now, but me and my mate used to listen to that, like,

02:49on the way out of town.

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.

02:57I mean, it was a great template.

02:59I think they could, 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, and they got involved with the two writers,

03:07the two creators who created it, stepped away, and there was a legal thing went on.

03:11And you go, oh, come on.

03:13It's never going to be the same.

03:14Anyway.

03:15Obviously, great success with Deadwood, and the housewives of the UK will hold lovejoy

03:21to their hearts, to their dying day.

03:23Yeah.

03:24But this character, this franchise, really feels like it's kind of defined this period

03:29of your career.

03:31And I wondered, like, do you get sentimental towards characters?

03:35Does this character mean more to you than others?

03:38And do you, or is it very much just like, oh, this is a fun job to do?

03:42No, it means a lot more because I'm very close to Keanu, and obviously in Chad.

03:48And it is a kind of a family.

03:50I mean, it's the same people who have been involved with the movies, all of them, since

03:542013.

03:55When we did this independent movie in New York, they sort of went to New York.

04:00Oh, it's, you know, it's not that you almost check, but you come to New York, have a lovely

04:04five days, you know, have a lovely week over Thanksgiving and whatever.

04:07And that's why Willem Dafoe did it, and Michael Nyquist, sadly departed, as is Lance, my

04:16usual partner, Lance Reddick, who played Sharon.

04:20But it's been very, and since that time, I remember, I was just talking to somebody, I

04:24said, you know, a year later, I was making a film in Atlanta.

04:26And this came out.

04:31And, you know, you go in, I nipped into the first show around about noon, and the first

04:35five minutes, you look at it like you do with anything.

04:37You know within five minutes if it's worked or not, you know.

04:39And I thought, yeah, Chad filmed the script.

04:42You must be absolutely buzzing to join a kind of the WIC franchise.

04:45I mean, it's definitely a dream come true to be part of a John WIC film.

04:49I mean, I think, you know, actors, if you get that call to be in a John WIC film, it's a

04:54good day, you know what I mean, so I'm very excited.

04:57There's a new documentary coming out called WIC is Pain.

05:00Yeah, I heard about that.

05:01And then from the little bits I've seen of it, it just seems like this kind of movie is,

05:05it's brutal to watch, but it's brutal to make as well.

05:08So I wondered, like, how much of a shock to the system was that on the knees, on the

05:13elbows, where there are ice packs, like.

05:15I've been shocking my knees and elbows for 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 in the adrenaline while you're in it.

05:27So you just sort of, you know, keep your chin down and go to work.

05:31You know what I mean?

05:31I'm always impressed by the people in these films because it seems so, like, precise.

05:36You know, you see a lot of action.

05:37You can think, oh, they've cut there and cut there and cut there and cut there.

05:39But this just looks like it 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.

05:46You know, these fights are choreographed down to the T for cinema.

05:54You know, Daryl Dixon and stuff like that, that's a very sloppy fighting style.

05:58This is a very choreographed thing.

06:00But you have to sort of do the math for what's exploding around you.

06:05And that's a sharp bit.

06:06And, you know, there's a lot of stunts and a lot of choreography going on at the same time.

06:13And the timing of all of it has to sort of match.

06:15So it's a very rehearsed process, you know.

06:19I remember, I think a lot of people remember the first five minutes of John Wick.

06:22And it's kind of, you're watching it, you think, okay, this could be a paint-by-numbers action movie.

06:25And then you get this, like, little smile which starts to grow.

06:28And you're like, okay, there's something kind of self-aware about this.

06:30And then it just turns into this beautiful, brutal symphony.

06:36Well, I think, as you said, the slight smile is when it all happens.

06:41And then a policeman comes to know and says, everything all right, John?

06:45It's like it's got an odd self-referential without being sort of smug.

06:51And I think that's worked through the movie when they bring in all these sort of assassins from all over the world

06:56who are basically fanboys of John Wick.

06:58There's this whole world of assassins all over the world.

07:02So any film that's worth its salt, whatever its origin, you know,

07:06has to take you away for somewhere, for 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, consistently managed to do that with this franchise in a good way.

07:20And there's this one, bringing a female dynamic in it was, I think, essential at one point.

07:26And it's become essential.

07:28But they've done it in a way that 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, this ballerine's set between number three and number four.

07:40And then you get the backstory because I've known her since she was a kid as well.

07:44So that's where Winston comes into his own, with a person.

07:48I mean, I think, you know, I said that, you know, I 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, she's really making a name of one of the most, like, versatile actors out there at the moment.

08:03And she, in this movie, obviously, 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, like, blowing stuff up together?

08:13It was very impressive to watch her work.

08:15She gets it down, and she works super hard.

08:19She's a badass.

08:19She just kills it in this movie, you know.

08:21It's one of those things, too, like, you get, you know, and I flew in from France, and, you know,

08:29then I'd come back, and I'd fly in from France, and I was working the whole time there, and, you know,

08:33you're like, oh, let's go, and then you see her, and you're like, okay, it's on, we got to go, you know.

08:38So it was very impressive to watch her work and, like, really get in there, you know.

08:43She's a killer.

08:45And finally, like, I don't want to give anything away of the plot, but this is an expanding franchise.

08:49They're in TV now, they're in movies.

08:52How much fun would it be to have another roll of the dice here?

08:56Like, super crazy awesome fun?

08:58Let's just plant some seeds.

09:00Plant those trees.

09:01Long may it continue, mate.

09:02I'm sure a lot of the actors that come into this are kind of fanboys of what's come before,

09:06and it just seems like this was a kind of a water test sort of movie to see whether that would work.

09:10Can you make a movie with another kind of central character?

09:12And I thought it worked perfectly.

09:15That's great.

09:16The flamethrower work and grenade work itself was absolutely like chef's kiss.

09:20All right, pal, lovely to meet you.

09:22Good luck with this.

09:23And very much hoping you rock up for part five as well.

09:26Let's see what happens.

09:27Let's see what happens.

Category

Transcript

Recommended