Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Retta, Sanjay Rao and iconic director Richard Linklater sit down with CinemaBlend’s Jeff McCobb to talk about their bonkers and brilliant new film ‘Hit Man.’ Watch as we discuss Glen Powell’s impressive range in the film, compare it to ‘Anyone But You,’ get the cast’s reactions to seeing Powell in makeup for the first time and, of course, pet his dog, Brisket.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Hearing you do all those different voices made me just think, like, when are you going to host SNL?
00:04Like, I mean, I keep saying that, too. I really I would love, you know, if you got Lauren's number,
00:09man, you call him, you call him, you let him know. I'm gonna work on this. Yeah. Yeah. This is put
00:14Audrey to the task. When he sees this, he's gonna be like, oh, wait, that guy's got voices. We got
00:20I am in service business.
00:21Well, I was I was wondering if you got involved with writing this specifically
00:32because you were eager to showcase your range in that regard.
00:36None of these none of these characters were cooked up before we we created this script,
00:41like the real Gary Johnson, you know, in the Texas Monthly article is this really fascinating guy.
00:47You know, he's a he's a psychology professor who moonlights with the police department.
00:52He's he's he, you know, ends up becoming sort of what they called the Lawrence Olivier fake
00:57hitman, where he looked across the table from whoever was trying to hire someone to murder
01:02their husband or their wife or their business partner and would become that fantasy.
01:06And that was such a like a compelling idea. So that's where it started off.
01:09So it's not like I had any of these characters in my arsenal
01:12until like a couple of weeks before shooting. This was this was all sort of how Gary did it,
01:16which is on the fly. But it was always a joy because because we were also running so short
01:20on time that I was never really able to show Rick these characters before we were able to
01:24shoot them. So it was all very last minute, but a blast.
01:27Because I had to go to Andorra right after filming, you know,
01:30I was kind of shot out of this and we shot our part fairly quickly.
01:36And then I went straight to London to start Andorra. So I didn't see any of them,
01:41nor was I around really. All I saw was teeth laying around in his house when we would go in
01:47for rehearsal, because that's where we would rehearse the three of us. And it would just
01:51be like random teeth or like random little objects. And he would hide them from me.
01:55He really didn't want me to see anybody or he didn't want to ruin the illusion of Ron
02:01that he was creating for me. This is serious.
02:04So, yeah, so when I watched it, I was so surprised, but also so impressed of
02:11his ability as an actor and his range. And I was I was just kind of blown away by
02:18by him. And it felt like a very different movie than than I had been a part of, for sure.
02:24Did you see him performing all these various personas,
02:29or did you see it for the first time when you screened it?
02:31First time I screened it.
02:33Was that a choice?
02:34Yeah, because I didn't know, you know, I thought, you know, Glenn's a good actor,
02:38but I just thought he was that was the handsome guy. And he's like, no, he's going to play the
02:42guy with the terrible teeth. He's going to play the guy with the terrible hair.
02:46He's going to play the guy who's, you know, kind of a jackass and and full on.
02:51So I would I really enjoyed seeing that.
02:54Yeah. Also, the main character, Gary, that's not Glenn.
02:59Right. It's really not.
03:00So even that is a departure from the real Glenn Powell.
03:05The real Glenn Powell is much cooler.
03:06Almost like an actor playing an actor and that whole meta thing.
03:10You know, there's levels of performances going on in here.
03:13You know, I'm the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude.
03:17We're sort of deconstructing the hitman
03:20genre, you know, or are debunking maybe is the word just, you know, it's a it's a pop culture
03:27myth, basically this notion of a retail hitman.
03:31You know, it's a comment on consumerism, maybe that you could just buy someone's life.
03:36You know, it's ridiculous.
03:37You know, this whole thing, there's a certain, you know, artifice to so much of this
03:44as there are the genres we're operating in.
03:46So it was kind of an interesting headspace to be in.
03:49Remember, the lady came in trying to have her husband killed that we let go.
03:52Yeah, her husband was just found dead.
03:54I'm sorry, what happened?
03:59You know, you just got done with a very successful
04:03rom-com that comparatively is a little more wholesome.
04:08Were you like my next onscreen romance?
04:11There's going to be murder like we got to get it darker.
04:13We shot this before.
04:14We shot this before, anyone but you.
04:17Oh, yeah, that's right.
04:18Yeah, yeah.
04:19So we actually right before, really?
04:21Actually right before, really?
04:23Yeah.
04:24Yeah.
04:26Yeah, because that was the next movie up.
04:28I think, no, I mean, like the crazy part about those two movies is they really just exist
04:35in completely separate universes.
04:37Like they really couldn't be more different.
04:39And I think what you take away from them, those movies are very, very different.
04:43At the end of the day, like, you know, I'm obviously, you know,
04:48blessed to share the screen with two wonderful co-stars.
04:51I will say that this movie in particular is really interesting because, you know,
04:58that was a Shakespeare adaptation.
05:00Our entry point into this movie was very, very different because it was really taking
05:07the premise of, you know, it was a really contemplation of identity and passion.
05:10You know, there's a much more Linklater cerebral aspect to this one that was just,
05:17it's just different.
05:18You know, it's just a different beast completely.
05:20And just, I would just say the nature of how Rick works, you know, is, he's just his own
05:27beast.
05:27It's his own ecosystem and how you bring people together and bake it up.
05:31So again, I'm proud of both movies in their own right.
05:36But yeah, if we had murder in Anyone But You, I think it would have really changed the whole
05:41vibe.
05:42How did you see him change as an actor since Everybody Wants Some?
05:48That feels like it was yesterday, but it was eight years ago.
05:50You know what I mean?
05:51Yeah, we shot it coming up on 10 years ago.
05:54Um, you know, it just deepened.
05:58He hasn't changed.
05:59He was always the smart, funny, you know, hardworking, charismatic guy, you know, same
06:06guy.
06:07But, uh, I don't know, a little experience.
06:10You know, you learn from everybody.
06:12Glenn's an absorber, a learner.
06:15So, you know, that much more experience, that much, you would say, tools in the toolkit,
06:19you know, in a good way.
06:20Some actors get worse because they protect themselves in weird ways.
06:24They're less open for things, where Glenn was more open.
06:28He was really pushing himself and not afraid.
06:31So I don't know.
06:32It was cool to work with him, you know, as always.
06:37Do you think this movie has a villain?
06:41Yeah, Jasper.
06:43Yeah.
06:44Yeah, Jasper's not a nice guy.
06:46Cop or no cop?
06:47He's still a jackass.
06:48I thought you guys are going to be like, no, that's a good question.
06:53Oh, no, we, I think we took on what our characters felt.
06:58We, you knew they did not like Jasper.
07:01So he is the villain, you know?
07:03He's that guy at work that you just, you don't want to be stuck at lunch with him, you know?
07:09By the end of the movie, Gary has become something he couldn't have fathomed at the
07:13beginning, you know?
07:14He even said it in the dialogue and he's incapable of being that guy.
07:19But by the end, you know, mix in some passion, some sex, some romance, take him on this ride.
07:24It's like, oh, okay.
07:26Don't be so sure what you're capable of or not capable of.
07:28I think we all are.
07:29We're all contradictions and you can't really say what you're capable of.
07:34I like the idea that you could consciously dial up something that you want in your life
07:42that you think is there.
07:43You're just not, you know, the as if principle that's stated in the movie.
07:46So that's interesting to me.
07:49My name is Gary Johnson and my simple question for you is, who is your hitman?
08:03We'll see.
08:05Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.
08:10Who knew that a meet cute could be so romantic when the premise of it is plotting a murder?
08:16You know what I mean?
08:18What's meet cute?
08:18A meet cute?
08:19So it's like in a rom-com.
08:20It's like how the two people that you want to fall in love like meet for the first time.
08:24Oh, okay.
08:25On my first dates, we talk about who we're going to murder.
08:28But you know, it's just weird to see it in a movie.
08:29Yeah, man, you got to get off those apps, man.
08:32That's what's going on.