00:01The original Redding Man is so iconic.
00:04How did you deal with the pressure of stepping into Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoes?
00:07Oh, man.
00:09Well, you know, the fun part is we got to screen this for Arnold last night.
00:12I don't know if you've heard that yet, but Arnold loved, loved the movie.
00:18Was so impressed.
00:19I mean, I think just on the aspect of, like, he's done so many action movies.
00:24He knows what it takes to have a good action movie and not a great action movie.
00:28And this one really just, like, works on every level.
00:31And so he saw not only the filmmaking aspect, but was also just like, he's like, as an actor, he's
00:36like, it's exhausting.
00:37I mean, you just have to keep an energy level to a certain place, and you're throwing yourself around.
00:41You're taking real hits, like, the whole time.
00:43And, you know, whenever you sort of retread on anyone's, you know, territory, you know, you always want to ask
00:51their permission.
00:51So I got to FaceTime with Arnold ahead of time.
00:53But the best part about this story is that it's not, you know, the Arnold version of the movie in
00:5987.
00:59They kind of took, like, a bit of a creative license because just logistically it's really hard to do what
01:04we're doing in this movie,
01:05which is they isolated it to, like, an American Gladiators type of studio and had people hunting in there,
01:11which makes it a little more practical to shoot.
01:13Our movie is out in the real world, you know.
01:15It's like it's one guy released in the world where the entire world is hunting him, which makes it very
01:21difficult to shoot, very epic, you know.
01:23Very cinematic to watch, but hard to shoot.
01:26So, you know, he talked about, you know, his version, and, you know, they had a lot of, like, I
01:31think a lot of drama, you know.
01:32I think they lost their director at one point, and there was just some things that happened.
01:36But he was very proud of the version that we put on screen because this is really the first time
01:40the Stephen King book has ever been put on camera.
01:42You got approval. That's awesome.
01:44Yeah. For me, the thing that I connected with is that Ben's, I would say Ben's trigger is a bully,
01:52you know.
01:52I also hate a bully. I hate people who punch down, you know.
01:56I was like, you can punch across, you can punch up, but don't punch down, you know.
01:59And Ben, you know, is sort of like the thing that I just kept paying attention to is sort of
02:04like in our world, like how often people punch down, you know.
02:08You know, it's a terrible thing, but the more you observe it, the more fire you get in your belly
02:14about all of it.
02:15And so I love Ben.
02:17You know, Ben's a fun character to play because, you know, sometimes getting to unleash that is a, it's a
02:23nice, it's a nice, it's meditative a little bit, you know, to let your anger out.
02:29Yeah, it looked very therapeutic.
02:30Yeah, it was. It's therapeutic, yeah.
02:32So we see Ben try out for the network.
02:33You've done your fair share of auditions.
02:36Do you have a horror story that still haunts you?
02:39I have way more bad auditions than I have good auditions, you know.
02:43I was not a good auditioner.
02:47Maybe I cared too much.
02:48I don't know.
02:49I think I just would, you know, I've always been kind of built for set.
02:52You know, I've been auditioned for everything.
02:55There were times in my career where I auditioned for three things a day.
02:59And there were times in which I had to, like, knock on people's doors for weeks at a time to
03:03get them, to even get a shot, to get into a room where they weren't even rolling the camera.
03:10So, yeah.
03:11I mean, I've had some really bad ones.
03:13I think a particularly bad one that haunts me is Piranha 3D.
03:19I auditioned for Piranha 3D.
03:21I did an improv where I get eaten by a piranha on an office room floor.
03:25Not a proud moment.
03:27Not a good audition.
03:29So, yeah.
03:30Hope you never find that footage.
03:33I mean, how much better would a Piranha 3D have been that you were in it?
03:37No, no.
03:38You know, some bullets are meant to miss you, you know.
03:42So, this movie holds up a mirror to society.
03:45We have class, power, privilege.
03:47What do you hope people walk away thinking about?
03:50One thing I really love about this movie is it's, look, it's obviously, like, nonstop action, you know, Hollywood thrill
03:56ride.
03:57But when you leave the theater, I got to show this movie to a bunch of my friends the other
04:00day.
04:01And they were like, that movie was so intense.
04:03Like, that was incredible.
04:04And then the conversations that happened afterwards about, like, how timely this movie is.
04:09I mean, Stephen King wrote this book in 1982, set in 2025.
04:14It's coming out in 2025.
04:16And it's the most familiar world.
04:19I mean, look, this is a world that's, like, got all this, like, color and dimension.
04:22It doesn't look like our world, but it feels like our world.
04:26You know, all the things that are happening in terms of, like, defakes and AI and how we label heroes
04:30and villains and all the stuff that's happening in the movie.
04:33It's, like, it's pretty incredible to see how timely this movie is.
04:37And I think that's been the fun part, you know, in a world in which I feel like humanity is
04:43getting lost.
04:44You know, we sit there and we scroll and we judge other people's lives and we sort of wish for
04:48other people's pain in a weird way.
04:50This is a movie that's really about humanity, you know, and coming together and listening to each other and not
04:56trusting the forces that are trying to tear us apart.
04:59And Ben has to deal with some fake narratives surrounding his life.
05:03Yep.
05:04Is there a rumor you've heard about yourself that you'd love to outrun?
05:07I, I, it is a constant, constant battle.
05:11You know, the fun, the fun part about this, uh, this phase of my life is, is I obviously have
05:17been dreaming to do things like this my entire life.
05:19It's like, I used to pretend to do, like, you know, action sequences in my backyard and fake fights and
05:24all that stuff.
05:25And then there's this other side that no one, you know, you don't really expect that kind of, you know,
05:29it's a little bit of a rogue punch that comes out of nowhere where you just sort of have to
05:33deal with, like, noise that, that you didn't expect.
05:35And, and, uh, yeah, that, that, that, that's, it's, that's its own battle.
05:39But, you know, it is what it is.
05:41It's, I'm, it's uncomfortable at first and now, now you, you, you get to laugh at it.
05:45Yeah.
05:45You get to smile at it.
05:46And Stephen King, obviously a legend.
05:49Do you remember your first introduction to his work?
05:52Oh, God, that's a great question.
05:53Um, I would say, I mean, it, I think it was one of those books in high school that everybody
05:59was carrying around.
06:01You know, everybody was reading, um, it, I mean, I, I, I hate clowns.
06:07I remember, I mean, I remember my first introduction to a clown, that's for sure.
06:11And, and it's like, and Stephen King, I think that he kind of captured, um, he, he has just such
06:17an interesting sense.
06:18Like Edgar knows Stephen King really well.
06:20J.J. Abrams knows Stephen King really well.
06:22And, uh, so I've gotten to be, like, around a lot of Stephen King emails and just seeing his creative
06:27process and, and, and work.
06:29And he's just filled with so many stories.
06:30He has so many stories within him that he actually wrote this, this story under a pseudonym because he was
06:36churning out so many stories, writing so much, that he wrote it under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
06:41Um, so it's actually kind of crazy, like, it's a Richard Bachman novel, but it's actually written by Stephen King.
06:47Just a moment.
06:49Just a moment.
06:49You
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