Opening in select theaters, on digital, and on demand beginning September 2nd is the new action movie ‘Wire Room’ from director Matt Eskandari (‘Hard Kill’).
The new movie stars legendary actor Bruce Willis (‘Die Hard’) as Shane Mueller, a Homeland Security agent who runs a wire room, which is a high-tech command center surveilling the most dangerous criminals. New recruit Justin Rosa (Kevin Dillon) is assigned to monitor a cartel member named Eddie Flynn (Oliver Trevena), and keep him alive no matter what.
When a team of assassins attack Flynn in his home, Rosa goes against protocol and speaks with the gangster directly to save his life. As the armed soldiers ascend on the wire room, Mueller and Rosa make one last stand against the corrupt officers who want to destroy the evidence and murder them both.
Actor Kevin Dillon has been working steadily in movies and on television for almost 40 years! He’s appeared in such acclaimed films as ‘Platoon,’ and ‘The Doors,’ both directed by Oscar-winner Oliver Stone, and on classic TV programs like ‘NYPD Blue,’ ’24,’ and ‘The Simpsons.’
But the actor is probably best known for his role as Johnny “Drama” Chase on HBO’s hit series ‘Entourage’ and the movie adaption of the same name.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Dillon about his work on ‘Wire Room,’ working with Bruce Willis, his approach to his character, the challenges of acting by himself at times, shooting the entire movie in one week, and exactly what a wire room really is!
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, how did you get involved with this project?
Kevin Dillon: You know what? It was a straight up offer. The way I like them. Sometimes I have to audition for things. This was an offer. I read the script. I thought it had some cool plot twist and turns. I wanted to add as much humor wherever I could.
They said, “Bruce Willis is going to do it,” the legend! So, I said, yes. I did a movie with Bruce before, but I didn’t get to act with him. This time I did. He’s great. I’m a big Bruce Willis fan, love the guy.
MF: Can you talk about your research for this movie? Did you learn a lot about real wire rooms and how they work?
KD: I knew nothing about wire rooms beforehand. I didn’t even know they existed. I didn’t have a lot of time to prep on it. Just for anyone out there, a wire room is when the CIA or the FBI has to have wires in certain rooms when they spy on people, they record it all in one room. That’s where my character finds himself, doing wire room duty. It’s his first day and things get crazy.
MF: How would you describe your character and your approach to playing him?
KD: I look at my character, Justin, as he’s a screw up. He used to work with the secret service. It’s backstory, it’s not in the script, but I like to think that he screwed up because he doesn’t listen. He won’t listen to what they tell him to do. I believe he got let go, and that’s why he is stuck working in a wire room, which is kind of like a demotion in a way. He, once again, doesn’t listen to Bruce and he gets in trouble again.
MF: You have a lot of scenes in the movie where you are acting in a room alone or on the phone. Can you talk about the challenges of acting without another performer to play off of?
KD: Yeah, it’s tough. It really is. Because you’re looking at screens and you’re seeing all this action that’s not there. It’s a blank screen, so you got to use your imagination a little bit. I was lucky to have Oliver Trevena come in and run lines with me, so we were able to kind of build up a little chemistry, even though we weren’t on film together.
I thought he did a great job. I thought we had some chemistry. It was definitely challenging to do a movie like this. We did it in seven days. We did my stuff in five days, so, it’s unbelievable what we got done in that time period.
MF: That’s shocking! Is that the fastest movie production you have ever worked on?
KD: Well, I did a seven-day movie with the same production company, called ‘Hot Seat.’ That was amazing that we did that. These guys know how to get it done and they knew I could get it done, so they brought me in on this one. It’s a real challenge and I actually like stepping up to it. You got to really be on your game.
MF: What was it like working with director Matt Eskandari on such a fast shoot?
KD: Oh man, he’s the best. Very few guys could have done this. He’s open to ideas. He’s open to improv, and we had lots of that on the set. He just has a real vision. I saw it last night for the first time, I didn’t know all the things he had going on. He had a lot of cool directorial tricks. When the bombs go off, you actually feel dizzy from the bomb going off. I mean, he just did some really cool things as director.
MF: Finally, the movie concludes in a way that is open ended, is this a character you would be interested in revisiting in the future?
KD: Oh, hell yeah. Justin, he’s going to hunt him down. He said, “I will track you down.” And he’s a man of his words.
