When Josh Duhamel initially appears on the screen in the new action comedy by Allan Unger “London Calling”, he is barely recognizable. The eternally beautiful leading man became bald for his first scenes.
“It was me who was trying to be Jason Statham for a second,” said Duhamel. “I said to myself: ‘OK, Alan, I have an idea. I really want to be bald because I want there to be a visual difference between the first part of this film and when we see it a year later. I want to be bald, I want to be a hard to cook, I want to look like a badass successful man, like Jason Statham. ‘ ‘But we quickly realize that it is not entirely this guy.
Duhamel plays a former murderer-conforming that flees his job in London for Los Angeles after a crime boss (Aidan Gillan) made him a blow after accidentally killed one of the members of his family. When he decides to return to London, his shaded boss of the (Rick Hoffman) agrees to protect him if he agrees to bring his son (Jeremy Ray Taylor) to harden him.
Have I mentioned that Duhamel’s anti-hero vision is a bit offbeat because he needs a new prescription of glasses?
I spoke to Duhamel only a few days before he started to shoot the second season of his successful series “Ransom Canyon”.
How fun is it to play an action hero who can’t see where he pulls?
This action hero who lost his quick ball? This is, for me, which makes films like this pleasure. I love the idea of characters who do not have everything together, who are not perfect, who have to face these insecurities from which they have turned away for years. He has to face the fact that he is not what he was in the past. It just gives you a completely different room to play.
Your character is also confronted to age.
It’s like this moment for each athlete who has already played a professional sport. There is this moment when you say to yourself: “What do you know? I’m now too old for that.” It is a difficult pill to swallow. I think that for him, he has not done much else for 20 years, 25 years. What is a guy doing with himself when he is really good for killing contracts? This really forces him to hide in Los Angeles. But the irony of this film is that we start in London, then he must flee London and find himself in Los Angeles. I left Los Angeles to fly for Cape Town to shoot a film in Los Angeles. There is something that is not going with that. We were able to understand this. Let’s put these crews at work here in Los Angeles.
How does industry recover in Los Angeles?
I think there must be more incentives. I think we have to make it more conducive. Right now, there are so many obstacles to do so. I just made a film in London entitled “Preschool”. These are two dads who fight to bring their child to this last place in this super high -end and pretentious nursery school. He was originally scripted in Malibu, but we could not shoot him there. It was just too expensive. We have rejected it for London and we did more like a nursery school of 50,000 years of Hogwarts-Y style which is very revered. It has become so prohibitive on so many different fronts, and I am everything for unions, but it simply balances your budget. We have to find a way to bring him back because I have a lot of friends who find it difficult to find work.
You can feel it in the air in Los Angeles. Everyone seems to be on board for a certain number of reasons, especially due to the uncertainty of the industry.
Then you add the AI to the mixture – it will make it even more difficult, because now it will really reduce the need for so many of these key crew members. I hope we can somehow find a way to make it work. There is really nothing that will stop AI. You can put railing on it, but guy, if you can make a 100 million dollars film for $ 10 million, they will do it.
This does not make sense that the films are not made in the capital of the film of the film.
I think there must be a real push to recover it. We could do it. We could certainly do it. Whether it is to encourage him more or work with unions to make him more conducive. I don’t know what is the answer, but it would be good to work here, so I don’t have to travel as much.
Even with obstacles, how much do you like to direct?
I really do it. I love being able to shape history as I see it. I had so many times when I trusted a young director or something like that, and I just say to myself: “Dude, that’s what we did. What is it?” At some point, I said to myself, “What do you know?” I want to at least give a shot to see what I can do with the story I see in my head. ” I found that it was a massive amount of work. It is devouring. It’s long.
Are you going to direct episodes of “Ransom Canyon”?
No. No. I will let them do this. I wouldn’t mind doing it, maybe one of these days, if we get another season. Maybe next year if they left me. I really love the show. I think the new season will be as good, if not better as the first, from what I have read so far.
What should we expect in season 2? How many scripts have you been able to read?
I have only read two of them. I probably can’t tell you too much without getting a spanking from Netflix, but it’s really good. Some things have happened since our departure for the last time. The character of Minka Kelly, Quinn, left for New York. Many things have happened at the Ranch and many things happened in New York. You will see when it comes back. I really loved working with Brent Cullen, my father, in the series. It is a heavyweight and it brings it. Our characters do not see the eyes at all. There will be a lot.
Did you expect the show to be such a success? He went to the number one on Netflix within days of the drop.
It’s so nice when things like it happen. You have so much that you never know what people will answer. I had the feeling that they could because he had all these elements, and what I saw looked like an old pair of jeans or comforting foods in one way or another. I said to myself: “It could really, really work”, but you never know. People decide and have done so for 26 years, 27 years, victories are difficult to obtain. When you get them, you are really grateful.
We all like a good soapy time and cowboys.
And tight jeans.
“London Calling” is now in theaters.
What was edited for length and clarity.
