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2 0 J U N – E I F F KILLER INSTINCT
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James Mottram speaks to Hollywood hot property Emile Hirsch, the star of William Friedkin’s violent thriller Killer Joe, which is set to open this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival
‘O h man, the human punching bag is here!’ laughs Emile Hirsch, as he walks into the room. Don’t worry, though the 27-year-old star of Speed Racer and Into The Wild is not covered in bruises (unless you count a bruised ego). He’s recounting his time on the set of Killer Joe, the violent new thriller from veteran director William Friedkin that will provide an explosive opening to this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.
‘Classic Billy Friedkin,’ chuckles Hirsch, in that laidback Californian drawl of his. ‘I’m on the ground, and he’s like, “Limp!”. I’m limping around – I look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’m lying there beaten up and Billy takes a bucket of blood and he goes, “Hey Mo!” – he calls everybody “Mo”. And splashes me across the face with a bucket of blood. He always blood. He always wanted more blood.’ He sh blood.’ He shrugs. ‘The guy made The made The Exorcist – he likes blood likes blood!’ We shou We should point out, Killer Joe i Killer Joe is not a horror. Based on Based on the play by Tracy Lett Tracy Letts, who also penned the penned the play behind Friedkin’s 2006 fi lm Bug, the Friedkin’s 2006 fi lm casts H fi lm casts Hirsch as Chris Smith Smith, a debt-ridden traile trailer park sleaze who who decides to bu bump off his ow own mother to to collect the l life insurance. ‘Well, my mom was not a huge fan of my character i in this movie,’ l laughs Hirsch. ‘I ‘I’ll just say tha that right off the bat bat!’ W What follows, how however, feels like like a Deep South cous cousin to Fargo, as as Smith’s plan – w – which involves hirin hiring the services
of Matthew McConaughey’s titular assassin – goes disastrously wrong. ‘There was something Hamlet-y about Chris,’ says Hirsch. ‘He’s like this tormented guy who’s not sure of anything he wants. He’s limping around, and he’s obsessive and dark. I liked him because I found him amusing. He’s an ideas guy. Not a good ideas guy, but he thinks he’s a lot smarter than he is, and I found that funny.’ With his own ‘pretty mellow’ manner, Hirsch doesn’t come across as particularly career- driven. Indeed, when we meet, he’s just come off a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, which he took after completing two gruelling fi lms almost back-to-back – the Wachowski Brothers’ psychedelic action movie Speed Racer and Into The Wild, Sean Penn’s haunting study of real-life backpacker Christopher McCandless. ‘They were both very challenging fi lms for me in different ways. Speed Racer really exhausted me mentally. I loved the movie but it was very diffi cult to make and [to] just go through that whole experience.’
‘MY MOM WAS NOT A HUGE FAN OF MY CHARACTER IN
THIS MOVIE’
So how did he spend his time off? To start with, he got back into drawing and oil painting. Growing up, his mother Margaret earned a crust as a visual artist and ‘she always put art supplies in front of me’. He also travelled to the Congo on behalf of Oxfam (a charity McCandless supported). ‘If you’re going to use your celebrity for something, I’d rather do that than some stupid bullshit, you know what I mean?’ he says. Born and raised in LA, where his father David is a producer, it was his older sister Jennifer who fi rst inspired Hirsch to act. ‘She loved singing and performing, and I took after her in a lot of ways. We had a great time. I just tagged along for the ride.’ His early screen years were restricted to one-off bit parts in shows such as 3rd Rock From The Sun and Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, which suited him perfectly. ‘The good thing about the way my career developed
was that I was never a child star. I was a child actor. I didn’t get any celebrity or success until my late teens – at all! It was something I did but I was still anonymous.’
Even his later fi lms – playing a vicious thug in Alpha Dog, a skateboarder in Lords of Dogtown and a straight-A student in studio comedy The Girl Next Door – let him fl y under the radar. But ever since Speed Racer and Into The Wild, not to mention working with Gus Van Sant on Milk and Ang Lee on Taking Woodstock, Hirsch has become Hollywood hot property. What’s more, he’s got his energy back for acting. ‘You’ve gotta love Red Bull, huh?’ he says, slyly. In that time, the missteps have been few – though Hirsch’s return from his self-imposed exile in Moscow-set alien-invasion fl op The Darkest Hour could count as one. Not that he’s apologising for the fi lm. ‘I had just gotten out of [watching] Avatar, and I loved the 3D science fi ction, and I was a science fi ction geek growing up,’ he says. ‘And I said I would love to make a 3D science fi ction movie. Then my agent called with the offer for Darkest Hour.’
If Hirsch is one of those actors who can switch between blockbuster leads and more character- based efforts like Killer Joe, he’s enjoying the best of both worlds. He next has a small role in Oliver Stone’s Savages, another violent tale – set around the marijuana trade. ‘He made me a money launderer who is obsessed with biking. All my wardrobe is tight bike shorts, like Speedos, and gloves. Very strange!’ But, let’s say, perfect for an actor like Emile Hirsch.
Killer Joe opens the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wed 20 Jun and is on general release from Fri 29 Jun.
EIFF ONLINE
The List will be covering the Ed Film Fest inside-out at list.co.uk/fi lm. Read interviews with directors and stars, get fi rst-look reviews and hear up-to- the-minute announcements about the programme. Log onto the site from 30 May to read an exclusive interview with
Festival director Chris Fujiwara.
24 May–21 Jun 2012 THE LIST 47