By Gill Pringle and Anthony Frajman
So, how are things different this time around?
I think it’s more ambitious, there’s more exteriors. In Sicario, we filmed a lot of stuff in the studio, on this one we filmed primarily outside, it was very cold.
On Sicario you had a very fun relationship with Emily Blunt’s character. In what way do you miss her?
As an actor, of course, and her personality, she just makes everybody laugh.
This is a different assignment and there is a kid. I don’t want to give up too much of the script, but part of it is to kidnap this kid. She’s the daughter of a cartel guy. Suddenly the lion is with the puppy. Hopefully it will be the same thing that happened with Sicario, you’ll get a sense that ‘what can go wrong here?’ The people that have seen Sicario, then come see this film, they’re going to go like ‘oh my god he just killed kids and now he’s like kidnapping a kid, oh my god’, so there might be an element of suspense to that.
We have heard that at the end of every day you go home or to your trailer and read the script again.
Yeah, I have to, somebody has to do it. So, somebody’s got do it. I mean, that’s what I get paid for right? When you read something on a page, and then it makes sense, and then you go out there and you’re really doing it and you go like ‘my god, this is not going to make sense’, so I try to get as prepared as I can so that when I get on the set , the problems are not as big as if I wasn’t that prepared. Basically, what I’m trying to do is understand the story and understand the journey of my character and have to look at the script and the story and the character, from the point of view of that character, which is not me.
It’s like solving a riddle, you just have to keep trying to look at the scene from different angles. I’m not the only one who’s going home and thinking about this movie, I’m sure there’s a lot of other people too and I’m glad there’s a lot of people thinking about the movie but it’s just making movies. Especially, these kinds of movies that are like very gritty, we’re trying to be real, and that makes it a little more complicated.
Savages, Escobar, Sicario, we often see you cast as the morally ambiguous guy, but every time we ever meet you. Do you ever seek roles that show that sweeter side of you?
I like to explore that, a little bit for sure, but, I think that I enjoy these kind of movies as well. I like those film noir movies, I like those movies that are ambiguous in some ways. Am I being typecast? Well so be it you know, once you learn about these kind of worlds, you keep learning about it and you keep improving your realism that you try to bring to it, because over the years I’ve done so many movies that deal with this, with the issue of the drug wars. I’m an actor, I like to play anything but there is something about these movies that I enjoy. I would call this one a western kind of film noir kind of film, there is an element that is kind of like a western. And they’re fun.
The last half hour of Sicario. What is your take on Alejandro as a character, as a person, do you like him?
Yes and no. He’s made by revenge in a way, so I don’t know if I like him, but I do understand him which is what’s important as an actor. It’s easier to work on a character if you understand him, than if you don’t really understand him. You don’t have to like the character, but you need to understand him.
Sicario: Day of The Soldado is in cinemas June 28, 2018
