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MILLEN’S BACK IN BLACK
There’s a definite Tarantino vibe
to the structure and tone
of the film; what were your
first impressions?
I loved it. It was clever, entertaining and
unpredictable. Even though the characters
were committing these heinous acts, you
feel the mortality and fragility underneath.
There is a discomfort in the paradox of
people trying to kill people in between
punchlines, but if you allow yourself to
go on the ride, it can be entertaining.
This style of film is not for everyone,
but the absurd irreverence is the point.
How did you see the character
of Jack?
Jack is a tragic character. He’s a
romantic and an artist at heart. He’s
sentimental, loves deeply, and cannot
accept he has lost his wife’s love. That
broken bitterness causes him to turn “evil”
and become the “bad guy”. It’s my job to
create depth, dimension and complexity
to these types of characters. Even with
characters that are completely horrible,
you must find the humanity underneath.
Apparently there was more to Jack
than what made the final cut; can
you elaborate on what was left out?
In the script, Jack had terminal cancer.
There was also a scene where Jack forced
Alice to sing a song in front of a packed
bar of well wishers for her birthday. As
he watches her sing Slipping Away, he
remembers how much he loves her and
ends up in tears. He walks away in disgust
with himself. This said so much about who
he was. The cancer gave a background
to his actions, which explained how he
came to make the choices he made. He
was a dying man. The cancer was why I
was crying in some of the scenes where it
might not have seemed an obvious choice.
Simon Pegg doesn’t immediately
come to mind when talking about
movie villains, yet he’s perfectly
cast here. What do you think he
brought to the film?
I agree. He was a wonderfully
interesting choice for the role. Simon
has a gravitas that grounds the film. He’s
incredibly charismatic and charming which
makes for the perfect villain, really. If you
consider Christoph Waltz or Javier Bardem,
it’s so much more interesting when the
villains subvert the stereotype. Simon is
a highly intelligent, witty guy. Most great
comedy actors are just phenomenal actors.
Kill Me Three Times is out on
September 9
DVD/BLU
Ari Millen tells Scott Hocking about the challenge of playing a clone in Orphan Black .
This Aussie actor, best known
for tough guy roles in
Underbelly and Bikie Wars,
is one of the targets of hitman
Simon Pegg in the black
comedy Kill Me Three Times.
Director Brad Bird on taking
a positive view of the future
inTomorrowland.
“Pessimism has become the only
acceptable way to view the future,
and I disagree with that. I think
there’s something self-fulfilling
about it. If that’s what everybody
collectively believes then that’s
what will come to be.When I was
a kid, even though there were
many negative things going on, it
was acceptable to view the future
in a positive light. Now there’s this
sort of giant cosmic shrug and I
hate that. I just don’t think that
we’re on the planet to do that.
We hope audiences will be
entertained but with luck we’ve
also made something that will
give them something to think
about later…maybe even start to
imagine a different kind of future.”
Tomorrowland is out on September 30
Leda sisters’ main adversaries in Season Three.
Growing up in a tight knit, secret military wing,
the Castor clones are a cohesive, brutal wolf pack,
called upon to do the military’s worst bidding.
“Coming into this season, we’re discovering that
they need something from Project Leda and they
have a lot more intel on Project Leda than Leda
knows about them,” according to Millen.
So what else can we expect to see in Season
Three? “What Clone Club can really look forward
to is Project Castor is really going to help Project
Leda sort of tighten up and pull together and see
what’s really important in the greater scheme
of things. For the last two seasons we’ve been
asking a lot of questions and the world is getting
bigger. Now, in the third season, I think Clone
Club can look forward to getting answers
to some of those questions. More
questions will be asked, and there’s
going to be some really great payoff
in this season. I think Clone Club
is really going to love where we’re
taking them.”
Orphan Black: Seri
Three is out on
September 2
O rphan Black star Ari Millen was literally
beside himself in the third season of
the cult sci-fi series: that’s because in
season 3 there are four of him. Millen first
appeared in the cult sci-fi TV show in Season
Two as Mark Rollins, but this time he not only
reprises that character but plays his clone
brothers Rudy – AKA Scarface – Seth and Miller.
And the Canadian actor admits that playing
multiple characters does get a little complicated
from a performance perspective.
“I have a fantastic clone double named
Nick Abraham,” he explains. “We would
read the scene that has two Castor clones in it,
then we would talk with the director and block
it. So I would be dressed as one clone, he
would be dressed as the other, and we
would shoot it.
“The challenge was I had to
remember what he was doing once
we switched – we would shoot it, he
would step out, I’d put in an earbud,
there’d be tennis balls for eyelines,
and I would act to the air and we
would flip and do the whole process
again. Thankfully the visual effects
people would put it all together and
make it look real, and fool even me!”
Millen’s characters, dubbed
Project Castor, are Orphan
Black heroine
Tatiana Maslany
and her Project
Soundbites
Callan Mulvey
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10 SEPTEMBER 2015
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