Moviefone Editorial

Tag: ethan-hawke

  • ‘The Kid’ Trailer: Ethan Hawke and Chris Pratt Go Western

    ‘The Kid’ Trailer: Ethan Hawke and Chris Pratt Go Western

    The Kid trailer still
    Lionsgate Movies/YouTube

    The life of a boy on the run becomes intertwined with some unusual characters in the upcoming Western  “The Kid.”

    Lionsgate dropped a trailer Thursday for the film starring Ethan Hawke, Dane DeHaan, Jake Schur, Leila George, and Chris Pratt. The preview teases a lot of action as the boy, Rio (Schur), tries to save his sister (George) from his dangerous uncle (Pratt). During their journey through the American Southwest, they cross paths with Sheriff Pat Garrett (Hawke), who is after the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid (DeHaan). They come to serve as examples of the type of man Rio could become.

    Not surprisingly, the West is wild, as we see in the trailer. There are a lot of gunfights and what looks like general lawlessness. Hawke makes for quite the gunslinger, while Pratt looks like a seriously sinister villain. Watch below.

    “The Kid” is directed by Vincent D’Onofrio and presented by Lionsgate and Mimran Schur Pictures, in association with Suretone Pictures. The film opens March 8.

  • Did Ben Affleck Almost Play Shakespeare in ‘Shakespeare in Love’?

    Did Ben Affleck Almost Play Shakespeare in ‘Shakespeare in Love’?

    Miramax

    A new Variety interview with Gwyneth Paltrow on the 20th anniversary of “Shakespeare in Love” has prompted an odd debate: Was Ben Affleck (who has a small part in the film) ever in the running to play Shakespeare?

    Paltrow says that at one point, yes, that was definitely the case: “At the last minute, Harvey [Weinstein] wanted Ben Affleck to take over and play Shakespeare.” She said she nixed the idea, telling Weinstein , “No, you can’t do that. You have to have an English person.’”

    No comment so far from Affleck, but Weinstein, whose inappropriate behavior with Paltrow is also mentioned in the interview, had a response.

    The disgraced former movie mogul, who was arrested on rape charges last May, issued a statement saying: “The only other contenders for the role of Will Shakespeare were Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke, no one else. Ben Affleck did a terrific job as Ned Alleyn, which is the role he was considered for.”

    Joseph Fiennes, who ended up playing the Bard, told Variety he hadn’t known until now that it was Paltrow’s intervention that landed him the part. But did Affleck, who later dated Paltrow, know that her intervention supposedly lost him the plum role?

    The Oscar-winning role of Viola, by the way, was once Julia Roberts’, who left the project after her choice for Shakespeare, Daniel Day-Lewis, passed on the project.

    The role then went to Kate Winslet, who also ended up bailing. (We’re trying to picture a version now with a post-“Titanic” Kate Winslet and a post-“LA Confidential” Russell Crowe!)

    Paltrow herself nearly turned it down since she was recovering from her break-up with Brad Pitt.

    In other Paltrow news, she mentioned that she’s done playing Pepper Potts.

    [Via Variety]

  • 11 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Reality Bites’ on its 25th Anniversary

    11 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Reality Bites’ on its 25th Anniversary

    Universal Pictures

    “Reality Bites” debuted in 1994, coming along at the perfect time to serve as one of the quintessential movies about the Generation X experience. And now that the movie is 25 years old, those same Gen-X’ers are probably feeling very old right about now. Ease that sting by reading some fun facts about this cult classic romantic drama.

    1. Ben Stiller was approached by the film’s producers on the strength of the pilot episode for “The Ben Stiller Show.” Originally Stiller signed on only to direct, but he eventually took on the role of Michael Grates as well.

    2. The film was originally titled “The Real World,” but had to be changed after MTV debuted the reality TV series of the same name.

    MTV

    3. While the movie is set in Houston, most of the interior shots were filmed in Los Angeles instead.

    4. Winona Ryder was so adamant that co-star Ethan Hawke be included that she made his casting a stipulation of her contract.

    Universal Pictures

    5. Ryder also campaigned for Janeane Garafalo after Garafalo was temporarily fired during production over disagreements with Stiller.

    6. Quentin Tarantino attempted to include The Knack’s “My Sharona” in the soundtrack to “Pulp Fiction,” only to discover “Reality Bites” had beaten him to the punch.

    Giphy

    7. As for Lisa Loeb’s “Stay,” that song was added to the soundtrack at the express request of Hawke.

    8. Writer Helen Childress was a 19-year-old college freshman when she penned the screenplay.

    9. “Reality Bites” originally featured a subplot about Leilana’s sister struggling with rehab for alcoholism, but these scenes were cut from the final film.

    Universal Pictures

    10. Both Stiller’s mother, Anne Meara, and sister Amy have small roles in the film. The former plays  the woman who requests a definition for irony and the latter plays the telephone psychic.

    11. A man named Troy Dyer sued Childress, Stiller and producer Danny DeVito in 2005, complaining the film’s DVD commentary track caused people to associate him with Ethan Hawke’s character. The suit was eventually settled when Childress provided Dyer with written confirmation that he had no connection to the film.

  • 17 Movies That Came Out In January That Weren’t Totally Terrible

    17 Movies That Came Out In January That Weren’t Totally Terrible

  • Paul Schrader Wants to Make a Western With Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe

    Paul Schrader Wants to Make a Western With Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe

    Lionsgate

    What’s “First Reformed “director Paul Schrader’s next movie? He wants to make a western with Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, where one is “the righteous lawman” and the other “a slinky weasel.”

    Speaking at the Critics’ Choice Awards, where he won Best Original Screenplay for “First Reformed,” Schrader said he’s working on a western called “Nine Men From Now.”

    It would likely be a remake of  ’50s western “Seven Men From Now,” starring Randolph Scott and Lee Marvin, in which a former sheriff hunts the men responsible for his wife’s death.

    As Schrader wrote in Film Comment in 2000, “‘Seven Men from Now’ is, for me, the quintessential Western … [Director Budd] Boetticher was deeply invested in the symbolic hero… He saw his protagonists as matadors: alone in the hot sun, figures of grace and style surrounded by noise and danger.”

    He also described the two main characters to Deadline: “One character is like Randolph Scott, the righteous lawman, and the other character is the slinky antagonist, the weasel… Ethan and Willem have both played both. They’ve both been an upright, they’ve both been weasels. So, which one should play which? Then I realized I could have it both ways, start Ethan out as the righteous one, Willem as the reprobate, and then at the beginning of the third act, flip ’em. So, all of a sudden, nobody in the story actually knows it, but all of a sudden they are playing the opposite roles. Now, I couldn’t do that with an actor who can only really play himself.”

    Sign us up!

    Dafoe has worked with Schrader before, including in 2016’s “Dog Eat Dog.”

    “First Reformed” is Hawke’s first film with Schrader; For his role as a conflicted minister, he’s received a number of critics’ awards and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. And he’s already proved he’s at home in westerns with “In a Valley of Violence ” and the remake of “The Magnificent Seven,” both in 2016.

    The two actors previously costarred in the 2009 vampire flick “Daybreakers.” And they’ve both been busy on the awards circuit this year: Hawke for “First Reformed” and Dafoe for his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in “At Eternity’s Gate.”

    It’s possible we’ll see all three men at this year’s Oscars, but if not, we’re here for this western.

    [Via Slashfilm]

  • ’80s Movie ‘Explorers’ Is Becoming a TV Series

    ’80s Movie ‘Explorers’ Is Becoming a TV Series

    Paramount

    “Explorers,” the 1985 Joe Dante movie where River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke build a spaceship and meet aliens, is getting the TV series treatment, just like fellow cult movie “Time Bandits.”

    And not just anyone is behind the project: Cary Fukunaga (“True Detective”) and David Lowery (“Pete’s Dragon,” “The Old Man and the Gun”) are teaming to write a pilot script for Paramount Television, Deadline reports.

    The two will write the script together and one of them might be directing the pilot.

    They’re both busy, busy guys: Fukunaga,  just directed and exec produced the first season “Maniac” for Netflix and then he’s tackling the 25th James Bond film.

    Lowery just signed on to direct the Arthurian fantasy epic “The Green Knight” and is in pre-production on a new live-action version of “Peter Pan.” He also directed the first two episodes of CBS All Access’ “Strange Angel.”

    Can we hope for an Ethan Hawke cameo if the TV series actually happens? (Today, by the way, is Hawke’s 48th birthday.)

    In a 2015 video interview, Hawke recalls that the movie was a massive failure when it came out. He thought it was going to be the “next E.T,” but instead it bombed: “I don’t think it got one good review and nobody went to see it,” he says. But, because he survived that, he said it “gave me the tools to survive ‘Dead Poets Society.’”

    So, it’s a good thing that “Explorers” flopped?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5c1dlrJiCM

    [Via Deadline]

  • Ethan Hawke Dissed ‘Logan’ and Superhero Movies, Launching a Heated (and Hilarious) Debate

    Ethan Hawke Dissed ‘Logan’ and Superhero Movies, Launching a Heated (and Hilarious) Debate

    Logan
    20th Century Fox

    Ethan Hawke just had a great interview with The Film Stage. He talked about his acting lengthy career — including his early jealousy of Christian Bale, his non-McConaughey moment, River Phoenix, the Oscars, another “Before” movie, his new movie “First Reformed,” and the necessity of film festivals.

    But it’s Hawke’s comment on James Mangold‘s “X-Men” movie “Logan,” and superhero movies in general, that got the most attention.

    That part of the Q&A came toward the very end. Here’s that section, and the preceding paragraph as a lead-in:

    “I’m always astonished, I’m sure you are too, you can go on Apple TV now and see that Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow made a movie together that I never heard of. What? And like, Matt Damon’s in a Clint Eastwood movie I never heard of? So many things get lost in the cracks and if those big names are getting lost, where are the ‘Gattacas’ of right now? It might be like other art forms where it might take 50 years to curate what’s happening right now. That’s why film festivals have become so important because you guys at film festivals are like curators of, like, what does the world need to be paying attention to. What should be seen? If we didn’t have these festivals, big business would crush all these smaller movies.

    Now we have the problem that they tell us ‘Logan’ is a great movie. Well, it’s a great superhero movie. It still involves people in tights with metal coming out of their hands. It’s not Bresson. It’s not Bergman. But they talk about it like it is. I went to see ‘Logan’ cause everyone was like, “This is a great movie” and I was like, “Really? No, this is a fine superhero movie.” There’s a difference but big business doesn’t think there’s a difference. Big business wants you to think that this is a great film because they wanna make money off of it.”

    The fact that Hawke brought up “Logan” himself for a public shaming — and then brought up directors Robert Bresson and Ingmar Bergman as comparisons — ruffled a lot of feathers. He came off, to some, as being a pretentious film snob, dismissing superhero movies en masse.

    First Reformed
    Killer Films

    (“Logan” was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2018 Academy Awards, as the first live-action superhero film ever nominated for screenwriting.)

    Social media took the comments and ran with them, debating both sides of the superhero issue again:

    https://twitter.com/yahboyantman/status/1033421726351347714

    https://twitter.com/CinemaVsDave/status/1033733658379780096

    https://twitter.com/9_volt_/status/1033872312158830593

     

    https://twitter.com/andymannion77/status/1033594067182145537

    https://twitter.com/Soderberghian/status/1033505655250972672

    https://twitter.com/charles_kinbote/status/1033861637277720576

    https://twitter.com/JesabelRaay/status/1033528448101150720

    https://twitter.com/charles_kinbote/status/1033469707008004096

    https://twitter.com/TooDamnCreative/status/1033432678501150723

    https://twitter.com/aoscott/status/1033881573366607873

    https://twitter.com/JamesConoway/status/1033436341219016710

    https://twitter.com/faceyouhate/status/1033845412036313089

    Well, it sure sparked a lot of conversation for something that couldn’t matter less.

    Meanwhile, Ethan Hawke’s “First Reformed” arrived on DVD/Blu-ray/Digital on August 21.

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  • 17 Things You Never Knew About ‘Training Day’

    With Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, and director Antoine Fuqua topping the box office charts last month with their “Magnificent Seven” remake, it’s worth looking back at the first time these three strapped on their guns together: “Training Day.”

    Released 15 years ago this week (on October 5, 2001), the instant-classic crime drama offered a pioneering, still-relevant look at abusive policing, made a star of Eva Mendes, and won Washington his second Oscar for his atypical villainous role. Still, as many times as you’ve heard Denzel’s Alonzo Harris boast, “King Kong ain’t got sh** on me,” there’s plenty you may not know about the film. So make like Hawke’s rookie Jake Hoyt and prepare to be educated.
    1. The primary inspiration for “Training Day” was the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart corruption scandal of the 1990s. In fact, Washington chose to wear a goatee in order to resemble Rafael Pérez, an officer central to the scandal.

    2. Screenwriter David Ayer, who grew up in an area of Los Angeles affected by the scandal, put his personal knowledge into the story. “I spent a lot of time observing and talking with people who live and work in these areas,” he said at the time of the movie’s release. “I really wanted to get beneath the surface of what it’s like to be a cop out here and how the community looks at them.”
    3. Fuqua (far right) was raised in a tough Pittsburgh neighborhood. Of power-abusing policemen like Alonzo, Fuqua said in 2014, “I grew up with that. I’ve seen that. I know that guy. That guy choked me out before. I was just a kid who was playing basketball and walking home with my friends.”

    As a result, Fuqua said, “I had a love-hate relationship with police officers as a kid. Whether it be color or just feeling powerless. That’s why ‘Training Day’ was so appealing to me, because I had known some black officers who were worse, because they were part of the neighborhood, so they would manipulate that situation.”

    4. Tobey Maguire, Freddie Prinze Jr., Scott Speedman, Paul Walker, and Ryan Phillippe all auditioned for the role of Jake. Fuqua chose Hawke after seeing the “Reality Bites” star in a TV appearance.
    5. For research, the two stars met with several undercover cops, gang leaders, and drug dealers. Hawke even went out on patrol. “I did a bunch of these drive-arounds to figure this whole thing out,” he recalled.

    6. Fuqua’s street background helped the production secure permission to film in some of the most notorious gang-controlled areas of Los Angeles, including the Imperial Courts housing project — which had never allowed a movie shoot before.
    7. Fuqua also put members of both the Crips and the Bloods in the movie as extras. Fuqua came to the project with a street credibility that uniquely prepared him for what was to come. “Antoine Fuqua might be the only director around who can move through Hollywood and the gritty streets of Watts or Rampart or Crenshaw with equal agility,” producer Bobby Newmyer said during the production. “And that’s what this movie required.”

    8. “Training Day” features notable dramatic cameos from prominent musicians, including Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Macy Gray. Fuqua praised the famously laid-back Snoop as a serious, disciplined actor. To play a thug’s wife, Gray went undercover herself, wearing a wig and a gold tooth to mingle with neighborhood women.
    9. Mendes had played tiny roles in half a dozen movies, but playing Sara, Alonzo’s baby mama, turned out to be her big break. She was 27 when she played the love interest opposite 47-year-old Washington. They would work together again a couple years later in “Out of Time.”
    10. Washington has said he ad libbed the famous “King Kong” line.

    11. (Warning: This item contains a major spoiler.) Washington has said that the original screenplay ended with Alonzo escaping punishment for his crimes. Washington said he told Fuqua that the ending felt like a cop-out, and that Alonzo ought to die violently because “the wages of sin is death.” Fuqua agreed and shot a bloodier, more cathartic ending.

    12. Hawke claimed to have predicted his co-star’s Oscar win even before shooting started. “I said to my close friends when I got that job, ‘If I do my job right, Denzel Washington will win the Academy Award for this,’” he said in 2014. “It’s a Jason Kidd job. You’re throwing the passes, and Denzel was making the shots.”
    13. Similarly, Fuqua claimed he predicted Hawke’s nomination for Best Supporting Actor during production, while filming one of Alonzo and Jake’s intense conversations in Alonzo’s car. The director recalled telling Hawke, “You get this right, Ethan, and you’re gonna get nominated for an Oscar.”

    14. “Training Day” cost a reported $45 million to make. It earned back $77 million at the American box office and another $28 million abroad.
    15. A decade after the film’s release, there were rumors that Warner Bros. was developing a direct-to-video sequel involving none of the principals behind the original “Training Day,” though its script was supposedly written by Antwone Fisher, whose memoir famously became a Washington-directed movie in 2002.

    16. The second “Training Day” would supposedly have taken place years later, with a much older-and-wiser Jake mentoring a younger, African-American officer. The rumored project never came to fruition.
    17. Nonetheless, there is going to be a small-screen follow-up. Fuqua is developing a “Training Day” TV series for CBS. In the show, an update set in the present day, the races are reversed, with the corrupt-but-effective older cop played by Bill Paxton and the idealistic rookie by Justin Cornwell. It’s expected to debut mid-season in 2017.
    %Slideshow-433884%

  • Antoine Fuqua Knows What You Want From a Western Starring Denzel Washington

    Denzel Washington stars in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Columbia Pictures' THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.Director Antoine Fuqua reunites with his “Training Day” stars Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in a more diverse version of “The Magnificent Seven,” which opens Friday.

    The premise is the same as the 1960 film that starred Steve McQueen — seven gunslingers unite to defend a small town from a ruthless land baron.

    Fuqua sat down with Moviefone to discuss his take on the iconic western, Ethan Hawke’s unique (and intense) way he went after a role, and why no character throws racial slurs at Denzel in this movie.

    Moviefone: How did you get involved with the remake?

    Antoine Fuqua: MGM decided to remake it and they had heard I loved westerns. They asked me if I’d do it and, at first, I was hesitant because remaking a classic film like that is tricky. When I read the script, I said, “Yes, this could be good.”

    The DNA of the story remains the same, the same as “Seven Samurai‘” (the original version of the story.) As long as it stays true to essence of the story of people coming together to fight against tyranny. And self-sacrifice is an important story to continue to tell, as human beings, to do for others that might not be able to do for themselves. I think that basic story is always worth telling.Chris Pratt and director Antoine Fuqua on the set of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Columbia Pictures' THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.Can you talk about assembling the cast? Did you always have Denzel in mind for the lead?

    I wanted to have the right level of actors to make it an event. Akira Kurosawa told the story and John Sturges repeated the story, but his movie was cool because of the actors that were in it — Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner. So I asked, “Today, who are those guys?” And once I got the actors involved — Denzel and Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onfrio — then I said, “Okay, I’m gonna do it.”

    I understand Ethan Hawke heard about it and asked to be part of the movie.

    Something like that. I was in New York for “The Equalizer,” and he pretty much cornered me and roughed up my nice suit and said, “I’m in that movie, no matter what. It’s ‘Magnificent Seven,” and Denzel’s one of them so there are six other roles. And I’m one of them!” I said, “Of course you are!”

    It was an opportunity for us to have some fun, we love working together, and to get him and Denzel together again in a movie like this, I just felt it was the right thing … He really wanted to do it and I’m happy he did.His character, the alcoholic sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux, has the equivalent of PTSD from the Civil War and you’ve said that choice was partly inspired by Christopher Walken‘s character in “The Deer Hunter.”

    Yeah, we played around with some of that idea of PTSD in that sort of world, what would that be like? Because that was their Vietnam — that was a very violent, ugly war. And a lot of people didn’t even know what that was back then. We used to watch movies every Friday night and talk about the characters.

    What movies did you watch?

    Mainly westerns. “The Wild Bunch,” “Duel in the Sun,” “The Good The Bad and the Ugly.” And “The Deer Hunter.” It was just for fun, but it was bonding, too. We’d just sit around and watch great movies. Just reminds us how much fun it is and how blessed we are to make movies. And it’s a good reminder of why we’re making “Magnificent Seven.”

    In the movie, there’s some acknowledgement of racial prejudices against the Asian and Native-American characters, but no one says anything against Sam Chisolm (Denzel) being black. Was that a conscious decision?

    It was. It was a conscious decision. I’ve always been that way, especially when working with Denzel. The lesson you learn is, just being in the business for a while, is that people bring so much to the theater themselves. We’re all aware of what prejudice exists and sometimes it’s good to challenge the audience. Denzel walks into a bar and the bar stops. Everybody gets quiet. Is it because he’s a gunslinger and duly sworn warrant officer that people know about? Or is it because he’s black?

    Clint Eastwood walks into a bar, the bar stops. Is it because he’s a gunslinger or is it because he’s white? So people just bring whatever they bring to the theater. And I don’t need to say it or hit them over the head with anything. Let them interpret the looks and the attitude toward people based on what they see. I didn’t want to make a big deal about any of them. I figured they’re all rough, tough gunslingers, and they’re all dirty and rough around the edges, so they all get the same look when they walk in a room. [Laughs]At one point, Matt Damon and Tom Cruise were mentioned to be in the film and that didn’t pan out.
    I wasn’t involved with the film then. Tom was interested at one point, I guess, and the schedule with “Mission” and all that stuff didn’t work out. Matt Damon, I don’t know anything about that. I never spoke to him. I would love to work with either of them, of course, but it wasn’t part of the conversation.

    The famous “Magnificent Seven” theme music by Elmer Bernstein wasn’t really used in the film until the end credits. Why was that?

    You’re waiting for that anyway [hums theme]. The pacing and the rhythm of the film is different [from the 1960 version] because we’re in a different time now. They were a little more innocent as far as cinema goes back then. You have those long dissolves of those guys riding — you couldn’t get away with that now. You have to play the whole song to let it evolve and let it really play out. In order to do the song justice, you have to let it play out and as I tried to use it in certain places… for a young audience that doesn’t know that score, it would feel a bit abrupt, and people who love it and remember it, it would feel a bit abrupt.

    It would just feel like it just cut off. As I started to move it around in the film in different places, it just made sense that it was a big, nice bow in respect to that score and the audience can just enjoy it without me having to edit it and change the tone of the film.What was the most challenging action sequence?

    The final battle. I didn’t think I’d ever get back home. [Laughs] We shot all that in Baton Rouge. We built that town. So between the rain and the weather and all that — we were getting hit with lightning and rain storms and 110 degrees — you name it. It was a lot of stop and go. And we had to do all that stuff with the guys running and shooting in that heat. And the horses, it was just taxing on everyone.

    Of course you can’t have a big western battle without a Gatling Gun. Do any of those still exist or was that a replica?

    No, that exists! Yeah, they’re still around. I think one of them was an original and one was a replica. We had two because, you know, they jam. But they’re a beautiful piece of art. I mean, as far as weapons go. You’re not going to just have a Gatling Gun sitting around. [Laughs]

    %Slideshow-429821%

  • ‘Magnificent Seven’ Star Vincent D’Onofrio Had Way Too Much Fun Playing Cowboy With BFF Chris Pratt

    In Antoine Fuqua‘s “The Magnificent Seven” remake, Vincent D’Onofrio plays one of six hired guns who join forces with Denzel Washington to defeat a villainous land baron played by Peter Sarsgaard.

    D’Onfrio plays Jack Horne, a trapper and former Indian scalper who’s really handy with a hatchet. He is also one of the most distinct, and likable, members of the posse — all of which comes in handy once the shooting starts. And there is lots of shooting.

    Moviefone recently chatted with the actor, where he revealed his process for coming up with Jack’s unique characterization and how playing cowboys brought the cast closer together.

    Moviefone: How much of your characterization was in the script and how much did you contribute?

    Vincent D’Onofrio: I contributed a lot. When you work with a director like Antoine Fuqua, he wants you to come in and take it off the page and turn it into something, so that’s what I did. The religious stuff and the voice, things like that were basically what I brought to it — with Antoine’s support and the writers supporting me as well.(l to r) Byung-hun Lee, Ethan Hawke, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio and Martin Sensmeier in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Columbia Pictures' THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.How did you come up with that unusually high-pitched voice for Jack Horne?

    I met a guy like that once who was very big and burly and seemingly dangerous, and then he had a very high-pitched voice. I immediately liked him and I thought that was so interesting, so I knew that I would use it eventually.

    Did you develop a camaraderie on set with the rest of the seven?

    All of us guys got along immediately. It took about six hours for us all to hit it off. And then every day that went by, with all the shooting, riding, and grooming our horses — all that stuff — and living in Baton Rouge [during the shoot]. We got to know each other really well and that translates into the film. We all felt very comfortable with sticking our nose in each other’s business and sorting things out on set. There was no ego, there was just this kind of attitude of trying to make it as interesting as possible and have fun doing it.

    You’ve worked with Ethan Hawke several times before this, including “The Newton Boys”.

    Mmm hmm. Yeah, Ethan’s a good friend of mine. He’s not just a colleague, he’s a friend in life.

    And you worked with Chris Pratt on “Jurassic World.”

    Yeah, Chris and I get along great. He’s also a friend.So the scene in the bar where you and Chris rib each other, was any of that improvised?

    Most of it was improvised, yeah.

    What was the “cowboy boot camp” for the movie like?

    It wasn’t really cowboy boot camp, it was more like we had access to all of our stuff and to wranglers and our horses and guns and people who knew guns really well. We were just taking advantage of that. There wasn’t really anything set up, other than Antoine and the producers wanted us to know that it was all there. Me and Martin took advantage of the horses a lot. Both of us ride really well now. We were both decent riders when we got there, but nothing like we can ride now. The teachers were so amazing.

    Your character and Martin Sensmeier‘s are initially at odds – you play an Indian scalper and he’s a Native American! But, by the end, you’ve really bonded.

    I think that happened in Fuqua’s eyes through my relationship with Martin in real life. Martin and I became close on the movie and it was so nice to meet a young Native-American man. The stories he had to tell me about his family and his parents and his siblings and their lives, it’s amazing stuff. I think Fuqua might have seen that and brought our characters together a little more in the story because of that.

    As a veteran actor, do you tend to pass on industry advice to newcomers like him? Or do you steer clear of that?

    As long as I get to know them and if they’re in any way looking up to me, I make sure that I give them as much as I can. I first make sure they understand that we’re totally equals and that there’s no mystery behind what we do and then I share whatever they learn. I do it all the time. Martin’s going to stay over at our house on Monday. And I talk to Chris maybe once a week ever since “Jurassic World.”
    Were you a fan of the 1960 “Magnificent Seven“?

    Only because I liked Steve McQueen. So everything he was in, I watched. I just loved the guy, he was so charismatic.

    Did you talk about the original film and the differences in your version during filming?

    I’d like to say we talked about it a lot, but I don’t ever remember talking about it at all, to tell you the truth. Fuqua never spoke to us about it. We watched the 1960 “Magnificent Seven” together, but we also watched “Seven Samurai” and “The Wild Bunch.” Never on set was it ever brought up or did we ever talk about it amongst themselves.

    What is your favorite western?

    I guess “The Searchers,” which was the first time I realized that there was a dark side to the whole thing. I remember John Wayne’s character and I remember thinking, “Wow, he’s not very nice” and that kind of freaked me out a little bit. I think that’s the first time as a boy that I realized there was another side to the whole western story.

    What was your favorite day on set?

    I had a couple of good days. I think my favorite was when we were in New Mexico, at the end. We shot about three weeks in New Mexico and there were days when we were just riding out in the mountains and it was so beautiful. It was like a band of brothers. Really awesome. The days went by too quickly. We’d just be on our horses all day, it was amazing stuff. I’ll never forget those days.

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