Exklusiv interjú Death Sentence sztárjával Garrett Hedlunddal

Miről szól a Death Sentence?
“Hát, Kevin Bacon és Kelly Preston nagyon boldog és szerető családi életet él. Két fiúk van, az egyiknek nagyon jó lehetőségei vannak valamint hockeys jövő.  És, valahogy, egy véletlen folytán rossz helyen voltak, rossz időben és megtörtént ez az incidens, Kevin fiát megölték. Ennek következtében elmennek bíróságra és megláthatják milyen egy széleskörű tárgyalás. [Kevin] az egyetlen szemtanú. Bárhol is legyünka  városban, akármilyen helyen nincsenek kamerák. Csodálatos módon a kés is eltűnik.  Like, ‘It’s only on you. We can get this guy put away for a few years, but then what?’ So basically it’s up to Kevin to say if this is the guy or if not. If it’s not the guy, he gets let free and when he gets let free, what happens from here?”

És ez az első alkalom,hogy a közönség rossz fiú szerepben láthat téged,nemde? 
“Én még nem játszottam rossz fiút eddig. Alapvetően sebezhető karaktereket játszottam,amik a gyenge oldalamat mutatják. De van olyan filmem is,ahol volt néhány  bátor pillanatom,de másik az hogy nem játszottam eddig gazembert és polgárőrt."

Volt valami ,amit kerestél a Death Sentence forgatókönyvében?
“Igazából érdekelt a projekt, mert olvastam a forgatókönyvet egy éve, amikor zöld utat kapott, A karaktert 28-30 évesre vagy 29-30évesre  és emiatt  valahogy félredobtam a  forgatókönyvet. Úgy voltam „ Tudod mit?” Ha megszervezték, hogy bemenjek és elolvassam , akkor megmondanák, hogy túl fiatal vagyok." Így épp hogy félredobtam , rövid idő után, amikor  úgy voltam, hogy egy „sötétebb” forgatókönyvre várok. Akkor épp a Georgia Rule kezdése körül voltunk és egy igazán ellentétes dolgot kerestem  azutánra.Mondtam „Emlékszel a Death Sentence-re? Gondolod, tudnánk találkozni James Wan-nal? ” Azt mondták, „Nem, azt gondolom a szerep már valaki másé.”  Vagy más valakinek ígérték. Végül aztán befejeztük a Georgia Rule-t ,anélkül ,hogy tudtam volna felkerestek telefonon az ajánlattal.

I thought it was just such a weird sort of irony and it kind of followed in the way that I had received my first three roles, you know? It was kind of one of those things where it will come to you if it’s supposed to. This one followed in those tracks like it was meant to happen so I was happily jumping on it. Everything happened just great after the first three films that were meant to happen so, you know, I needed to do this one.”

Did they change the character, re-tool it to make it younger for you?
“No. I mean, I tried my best to just get myself older. I’d come off a film where I was supposed to be young kid. I’d done Georgia Rule with Garry Marshall and I’d had long hair. I played a Mormon virgin and I couldn’t go on to this with any of that. We really had to pull just a whole sort of revivification in a way. Like, I’d say it revived because I’m reviving myself from a person I’m completely not in that one, but also going to this whole different role.

We immediately had to shave the head down and I haven’t even shaved my head in my life. I didn’t look so mean when I had like dried, chafed skin on the top of my scalp for the first two weeks. I just looked like, ‘Who’s the bald guy who looks a little sick!’ And I’d done a lot of studies. I knew this guy had to be the leader of this group and a lot of these guys in my gang were flirting with 40 years-old, so how was I going to control them? We go out and I’d throw a few glasses here and there in a bar where it’s completely not expected and they suddenly start having a little respect. Like, ‘This guy, he is a little crazy,’ and I just kind of held onto that.”

How was working with director James Wan?
“It was really the reason I’d done this because in order for me to do this film, because I was looking at a film for me which would have been my first lead, a starring role from page 1 to 120, and the reason why I took this film was because I got on the phone with him and he told me immediately what he wanted to do with the character, and the depths that he wanted to go. And at the very end of the film, [he wanted] to make his last scene very poetic which is a scene between him and Kevin. It was just music to my ears what he’d said about this scene, which I can’t really throw a spoiler. But I was just like, ‘You know out of all that this guy goes through in the script and to have it end like that is yeah, all right. I’ll do that. I’ll do that arc. I’ll do that guy really trying to be a leader and a man, but really when it comes down to it is just a boy that was getting himself way over his head.’”

How did it feel to co-star with Kevin Bacon?
“Awesome! I knew it from the moment we had our cast get-together. We’re sitting at the table and two older guys are playing some music, just kind of setting the environment for our sort of get-together, and they start playing the tune from Footloose and…”

They actually did that?
“Yeah, they started playing that and Kevin turns to me and he goes, ‘Every f**king where I go…,’ and then he turns around. He just puts down his glass, he stands up and he gets up there and he performs the whole Footloose thing. I was just like, ‘I love this guy!’”

Was anyone videotaping it?
“I’m not sure. Definitely pictures, everybody’s got a camera on them nowadays.But no, from Kevin I just… He’s a father of two teenagers. His wife’s working hard, he’s working hard, and it’s a strange life when you get to be a veteran and you’re having a family but you’re still doing what you’ve been doing all your life. But for him, he’s done it for so long and he’s such a pro where I just took from him that he’s just as calm off camera as he is on camera. It’s just reassuring because sometimes you can get some butterflies in you. But I don’t know, maybe he just doesn’t let us see it.”

How easy was it to get that adversarial relationship with him on screen? Was it hard to play off someone like that?
“Well, it’s, you know, that’s kind of where the acting goes in. I’ve always gotten along with everybody. I know on Friday Night Lights, me and Tim [McGraw], both of us agreed when we talked after we’d gotten along, we said we didn’t even want to meet each other. I told him, ‘I didn’t even want to meet you.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t want to meet you.’ We met each other and we became good pals, but we still also did the scenes. I found out you really don’t have to ignore the hell out of a guy like Kevin Bacon to play the bad guy in the film. It’s because you can get more if you just sit down and chat with him and you guys come to an agreement about what this film can be.”

Besides shaving your head, how else did you physically prepare for the role?
“I did a lot of training prior to coming on between Georgia and this. I’ve done, you know, just two work-outs usually a day. One would be swimming a mile. I’d just go to the ‘Y’ and swim a mile. The other would just be just complete weight training.

Once I got to South Carolina, I was working out for the first couple of weeks. I was just like, ‘This isn’t the headspace I want to be in because I’m self-conscious.’ I’m looking in the mirror and I’m looking if my body’s fit or if there’s results from last week from the training and it was just like, ‘You know what? Screw it. That’s the attitude: screw it. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.’ Then I just kind of went with that and just dove straight head-first into Southern hospitality fried chicken. I was eating at the Waffle House at five in the morning. I ate whatever at that point and it all started coming on.”

How about the gun training? Did you do anything special to prepare for handling a gun?
“I’d actually had my rifle permit when I was 11. And so, yeah, it was strange for me when they actually make you put on ear plugs because I’d just been so used to not hearing anybody for two days after. I’d had some gun training, but it’s always nice again to pick up a pistol.”

James Wan was saying he believes this is more of a character-driven drama than an action movie. Do you see it that way?
“Yeah. If I was telling somebody why they should go see it, I’d say it’s that great sort of classic almost family vigilante film with $80,000,000 less budget but all your money’s worth of performance.”

So it’s all on the screen?
“Yeah. Everybody does a great job.”

Is there any particular actor you’ve worked with who you really learned a lot from that you take from role to role, or is it whoever you work with at the time?
“I’m what they say in the Mosaic calendar. They call me an opaque white mirror or something like that. They say I really reflect the person in front of me. I feel I kind of start imitating those people as they’re in my presence, and then finally I’ll sort of forget about that.

There are actors I learned a lot from. Because it was my first film, I learned a lot from Brad Pitt and I never knew anything about just all the technicalities on set. The crossing the line, and what that means is the camera angles from it pointing over here and you looking over there, but really you’re supposed to be looking over there. It’s just like from the technicalities just on set and taking your mark and just all the little things like that. Brad always said, ‘Different colors, man, different colors.’ He said, ‘You were scared in this one, be mad in the next one.’ There’s just so many colors and so many options of how you can approach a scene.”

Did Kevin Bacon give you any tips?
“No, not necessarily because Kevin and I really never had anything to do with each other until the very end. The rest of it was chasing each other and I knew that him being just over 40 or whatnot, he wasn’t going to give me tips on how to run unless it was, ‘Slow down!’”

Character-wise from all the roles you played, is there one you feel most attached to?
“I’d say, you know, I’d say maybe something like Friday Night Lights.”

Igazán?

“Bizonyos szempontból.Bizonyos szempontból. Mert azt gondolom talán,hogy egyedül vagyok mint mindig... I have this place in my mind where I want to go, but then there’s always these obstacles that you have to overcome to complete your objective. A lot of that deals with my mind and what’s going through my head, and a great deal of that character was his insecurities and his failing to constantly meet up to his father’s expectations. My feelings are basically I’m just trying to meet up to my expectations of what I want to be. I guess, you know, and there’s always that sort of feeling of guilt.”

Mi a következő filmed?
“Azt még nem véglegesítették."

Ez egy főszerep?

“Lássuk , hogy ez hogyan megy."

Meg tudod mondani,hogy milyen műfajú lesz?
“Nem, nem tudom megmondani. Mert nem tudom - nem tudom igazán megmondani . Úgy vélem a következő hétben megtudom."

Link:http://movies.about.com/od/deathsentence/a/deathgh072807.htm