00:00I've been asked that a bit lately, you know, who knows, anything's a possibility, isn't
00:07it?
00:08I'll lean over and ask my wife and then lean over and ask Netflix and then I don't know.
00:20Miles this movie is fantastic, it's so wild and everybody in it's so great.
00:26I'm curious how far you even get into a screenplay like this before you just say, yeah, I'm totally
00:31in, I'm doing this.
00:33Probably not too far with this one just because it came from Joe and Joe and I have, you know,
00:40this was before this movie, we had just done two movies prior and I had such a great experience
00:44with him.
00:45So, I don't know, I mean, I'm not going to say he could offer me anything, but he could
00:49probably offer me a lot of stuff and I would say yes, but I just really enjoyed the world.
00:55I thought it, I think Joe coming into this, having done Oblivion and Tron and the worlds
01:01that he's able to create visually, but still maintaining it, you know, with really rich
01:06characters and performances, I was excited.
01:11I'd never done anything in this genre before, so luckily for me, the script was also very
01:17good.
01:18I think I was so, I was leaning into so many themes and ideas about it.
01:23The Milgram experiment was something that I kept thinking about as I was reading it,
01:27which was an experiment that I had read about when I was in high school and it stuck with
01:30me.
01:33And then, you know, when I met with Joe Kosinski, our director, you know, I had ideas and opinions
01:40about ways to really bring Lizzie to life and things that I wanted to do to just flesh
01:45her out more.
01:46And it became a brainstorming session right the very first time we met and I was like,
01:52I want to work with him, you know, I'm buying into his vision.
01:56He's such a visionary.
01:57You know, the music choices, the presence of an Etch-A-Sketch, all these things that
02:01make you think it's the past, but the tech is obviously the future.
02:05Did you think about what timeframe it was?
02:07Did it even matter?
02:08Good question.
02:09I mean, I think we had had that discussion.
02:13It was kind of, I had assumed it was a little further in the future than today, than present
02:20day.
02:21But it's up to interpretation.
02:22And as you say, again, it's just something unsettling about what era am I in?
02:26Where are we?
02:27What country is this, you know?
02:30And I think Joe did such a great job at combining all of those elements to have it feel unexpected
02:38and slightly unsettling.
02:41I mean, I think it should feel present day-ish or as science fiction goes, you know, in the
02:49not-so-distant future at times.
02:51I think that's kind of the dystopian reality that we're creating here.
02:56But I think it feels kind of parallel to the life that we're living now.
03:00Well, I think it's timeless, you know?
03:02Like, that's the thing.
03:03Like, Lizzie's costumes intentionally are from another era, you know, very influenced
03:09by like the 80s and the 90s period.
03:14And even like Lizzie's Walkman is like, not from now, it's not like some high tech thing.
03:22And yet everything else in the facility is high tech.
03:25And I think one of the things we spoke about was like, well, Lizzie has to feel like analog
03:31to digital.
03:32You know, like she's got to feel like vinyl player when everything else feels like, you
03:40know, an MP3.
03:42I liked the kind of hermetically sealed world of the Spiderhead where you don't understand
03:47what time it is, just as Jeff and Lizzie have no idea what time of the year it is.
03:51You know, it's this, you're going off on this journey to this place that is tightly controlled
03:57by Steve.
03:59Everything's designed, the soundtrack is curated by him.
04:03It's all part of this elaborate plan centered on the theme of control.
04:09And so it was a fun world to create.
04:13Let's do this.
04:20This film is amazing.
04:21The story is incredible.
04:23It's a terrific exercise in how far along you're able to string an audience before they
04:28finally start, need to receive some answers.
04:31So I'm just curious what kind of conversations you guys had as you were assembling the picture
04:35in terms of when you can just dole out some of the details.
04:41I think it was important.
04:43And if you've read the George Saunders short story, you like this guy, Ebnesty.
04:49There's a sort of facile quality and a charisma to him that makes you think, oh, you know
04:56what?
04:57I'd follow this guy.
04:58And I think that was important, that his villainy comes out at some point when you
05:04realize he's taken this too far.
05:07I think that was also why Chris was the perfect choice, because you like him.
05:15And I think there is a long history of charismatic villains that under different circumstances
05:21you would very much follow.
05:25So I think that to me was the goal, getting people comfortable with this thing before
05:33it becomes uncomfortable and then unpleasant and then terrifying.
05:39Beautiful people get away with too much, and I say that having benefited myself from time
05:42to time.
05:43You know, it really read to me like a piece of theater, this film.
05:47And it takes place in one set, basically, one environment.
05:52Because I had a lot of dialogue and American accent, I didn't want it to start to sound
05:57repetitive.
05:58I wanted to have it be, there was a sort of intimacy and a very personal way he spoke
06:05to people and individuals and very welcoming and opening.
06:09And that was the goal, to constantly be kind of luring people in and drawing them in.
06:14You like that word, but no, I mean, how attractive is she?
06:18And the script allowed me to do that.
06:21And what was great then was the moment they're drawn in, you're kind of hit with, whoa, hang
06:26on, this is not what I thought it is.
06:27And this individual is not who I thought he was.
06:30So yeah, I had a fantastic script and a great cast and Joe Kaczynski to collaborate with
06:37on it.
06:38Have you even had a chance to celebrate Top Gun's success?
06:42I mean, I guess, yeah, I'm being able to celebrate it when we're doing all of these premieres,
06:46really.
06:48Because as actors, that's really the only time you get to kind of experience it with
06:53the fans.
06:54It's not, you know, we're not, it's not theater where it's live and we're not, we're not rock
06:59stars.
07:00We don't get that kind of live feedback, but from, yeah, but I have felt it even just a
07:05little bit.
07:06I've been out, if I'm at the grocery store or something like that, the people are very
07:10generous with their, with their kind of praises for that film.
07:13So it feels nice.
07:15Well, we can't talk too much about Spider-Head because there's a lot of secrets.
07:18Joe, have you had a chance to celebrate Top Gun's success or have you just been nose to
07:23the grindstone?
07:24You know what?
07:25I am happiest when I'm working on something.
07:28So it's great.
07:30Obviously, you know, the Top Gun release has been phenomenal and being able to go around
07:35the world and talk about it was great.
07:37But now I'm pumped to be able to talk about Spider-Head and, you know, and then right
07:43after this, jump into prep on the next thing.
07:45You know, that's, that's my, that's how I like to do it.
07:47All right.
07:48How do we get the Interceptor and Extraction franchises to cross over Expendables?
07:52I've been asked that a bit lately.
07:56You know, who knows?
07:58Anything's a possibility, isn't it?
07:59Yeah.
08:00How do we do it?
08:01I just have to lean over and ask my wife and then lean over and ask Netflix and then, you
08:05know.
08:06Thanks for your time, Chris.
08:07I appreciate it.
08:08Thanks so much.
08:09Time to worry about crossing lines was a lot of lines ago.
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