'Those Who Wish Me Dead' Interviews with Angelina Jolie, Jon Bernthal and more
"Those Who Wish Me Dead" star Angelina Jolie and co-stars Jon Bernthal, Finn Little, and Medina Senghore discuss their upcoming HBO Max/Warner Bros.’ release with Cinemablend’s Sean O’Connell. Stick around for Jolie’s thoughts on working on set after nailing her directorial debut, how the cast felt about the intense stunts and scenes throughout the film, and of course, some Marvel talk about Chloé Zhao the upcoming “Eternals” film in the MCU.
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00:00 My dad said if anything happened,
00:03 I should find someone I can trust.
00:05 Are you someone I can trust?
00:08 The government guard's gonna cut you down.
00:12 Mr. Lee, you were such a successful director.
00:15 I'm really curious if it's difficult now
00:17 to turn off that portion of your brain
00:19 that is always thinking about how to get the right shot
00:22 or how to stay on schedule.
00:24 Is that sort of stuff that just stays with you regardless now?
00:26 Oh, that's a nice question.
00:28 No, it does, but I think it helps
00:31 because I think, I hope anyway,
00:35 that now working with other directors,
00:37 I'm more sensitive to what they're going through,
00:40 what they need, and then able to offer assistance to push.
00:44 You kind of look at the whole production.
00:46 I would know what he was up against
00:48 if we were dealing with the fire elements
00:50 and the crew and the stunt and the hours and Finn's hours.
00:53 And so I hope it helped to be able to support more.
00:59 And when I was younger,
01:01 I was just more aware of what the actor needs.
01:03 And now I'm very, very aware of the actor needs
01:06 to step back and listen to the whole production.
01:10 Yeah, well, it was nice to have a pro on set
01:12 to help me out and teach me through it.
01:14 So, yeah.
01:15 You get to do some really crazy physical scenes in this movie.
01:18 You're either dodging lightning bolts or running from fire.
01:21 And I'm just curious what your co-star, Mr. Lee,
01:24 taught you about surviving stunts
01:26 and how to make them realistic and did her advice help?
01:29 Sure. She sort of just said, "Trust the gear."
01:33 And I completely did.
01:35 There were some pretty awesome stunts on set
01:38 and that were physically demanding.
01:41 But, I mean, I absolutely put faith in Wade Allen.
01:46 He was the stunt coordinator.
01:48 And, yeah, it was amazing to be in that actual forest
01:54 that they built and they would light those trees up.
01:58 But that's the magic about Taylor Sheridan, the director.
02:03 He really creates an environment for his actors to work in
02:07 to help them be in there and in that scene.
02:11 Yeah, and it was just amazing to work on.
02:14 My heart was in my throat for you often.
02:16 You're going to run.
02:18 Run on for a long time.
02:20 And you're going to keep running.
02:21 Sooner or later, I'm going to cut you down.
02:23 Medina, you are an absolute badass in this.
02:26 And one of the elements of your character is that she's pregnant.
02:29 And I think right away we start to assume that a pregnant woman
02:32 is a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more fragile.
02:34 And so I want to know if you leaned into that cliché
02:37 to go in the opposite direction.
02:39 I absolutely--
02:41 That was one of the things that excited me so much about the movie
02:44 because pregnant women are in a state of physical vulnerability,
02:50 but they still face out-of-ordinary challenges and dangers.
02:56 But just day to day--
02:58 I have two children, and I'm in an online group of women
03:04 for breastfeeding support.
03:06 We trade ideas and all that.
03:08 And a lot of the women in the group are in the military.
03:11 And hearing how they balance their training
03:15 and being away from their families and away from their children
03:18 and still managing the logistics of breastfeeding,
03:22 I had them top of mind.
03:24 I love how this movie subverts expectations
03:27 in a lot of different scenes.
03:28 And John, I want to start with one of you
03:30 because you had a really fun scene that goes in a different way
03:33 than I expected in that your character has--
03:36 bad guys have the drop on him.
03:38 And they're sort of pushing him along.
03:40 And he's at gunpoint.
03:42 And he finally turns to him and he says,
03:44 "Hey, I know how this is going to end.
03:46 Let's just get it over with right now."
03:48 And I've never seen a character do that on screen.
03:50 Did you recognize that as a unique and different scene
03:53 and was it fun to lean into?
03:55 Look, Taylor had a cousin-in-law, his brand name,
04:03 a former Green Beret who was there.
04:05 I think originally that whole idea was supposed to be
04:09 this tactically proficient scene of a guy just trying to
04:13 create chaos to stir things up.
04:16 And I think there was a lot of frustration
04:18 on how to make that tactically proficient
04:21 because it didn't seem tactically proficient to me.
04:24 And there was a lot of debate going forward.
04:26 And I think it's one of those things that, again,
04:28 is sort of a testament to a filmmaker like Taylor
04:30 where the whole thing with what we do is you prep and you plan
04:35 and you write this script and actors come in with their takes.
04:39 But I think the real great filmmakers really let just things
04:42 happen in front of the camera.
04:44 I really don't know what--
04:46 Whatever was happening in that scene was all the sort of
04:48 frustration and all the sort of different things
04:50 going back and forth.
04:52 And so what you got is kind of what you got,
04:54 which I think sometimes can be enormously effective
04:57 and when really, really special work can kind of go down.
05:01 We promise absolutes.
05:05 Act accordingly.
05:07 Real fast, Miss Jolie, seeing some Eternals footage today.
05:10 I'm curious what it means to you to see your--
05:12 I didn't know it came out, although that's interesting.
05:14 Oh, yeah, there's footage this morning.
05:16 We saw Athena with a golden sword holding it up.
05:19 Very brief, very brief.
05:20 I hope a trailer comes out soon.
05:22 But I was wondering what it meant for you to see
05:24 Chloe Nguyen, best director at the Oscars.
05:26 I was very, very happy.
05:29 Very, very happy.
05:30 I think she's a special director.
05:33 She's a really interesting woman.
05:34 She's very thoughtful, very serious about her work.
05:37 And I think she's bringing a new voice through her films
05:42 and I think to Marvel.
05:44 So I'm very excited for people to see.
05:46 Good.
05:47 (upbeat music)
05:49 you