Guy Ritchiethe most recent film, The Ungentlemanly War Office, received mixed reviews, but I had a blast watching the movie! I thought it was great and provided some wild fun.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ritchson spoke about his experience working with Ritchie and how particular he was about details. He explains how the director makes sure “everything looks the way he wants it to.”
Ritchson plays Anders Lassen in the film and explains how he was able to personally immerse himself in the character, saying: “I’m happy that I worked so hard on the character, the dialect and the script before arriving on set, so that I could understand the meaning.” character, learning archery before coming out, so it was all good because what we shot that day is all completely new.”
Once Ritchson got on set, Ritchie told him to “throw away the script” and improvise for most of the filming. This was after the actor had memorized the entire script.
He also explained, “I learned every line with a dialect coach, and then I came in and Guy said, ‘Forget this. We’re not going to make that movie. The real movie will be what we find on the set.’ “
He went on to say that the experience was horrible for him. Ritchson felt a lot of pressure playing his character, who was a decorated Danish soldier and a true war hero. He worked especially hard in bow and arrow training, as Lassen “was the first to campaign to make the bow and arrow an official weapon of war, and he succeeded.”
Ritchson then went on to talk about the film’s action and how he wanted to make it more brutal and violent than Ritchie had originally intended.
The actor said: “Once we got there, I realized there was no real plan for action. But it’s a war movie, and we’re going to go into enemy camps and slaughter Nazis, and I read four books about my character before we got there, and this man hated Nazis.”
Ritchson continued: “He put all his physical energy into stopping this movement, and so he was inventive and creative, and he was sinister in the way he did it. And he was smart. And since there was really no plan for action, I felt like we were missing this and needed to see it on screen.
So, Ritchson approached Ritchie about it and ended up getting into a “creative discussion” with the director! It was a bold move as he struggled to make the film more violent.
He shared that experience by saying, “I told Guy, ‘Look, man, if we do this action sequence tomorrow, I don’t think it could be something where we just throw a dagger and dispatch a couple of guys. This guy hates the Nazis, so this should be a murder it should be full of malice.’”
Ritchson went on to say, “’He came from the Danish aristocracy, half of his family sided with the Nazis and half of his family didn’t sympathize, and so there was a civil war in his own family. They were killing cousins and brothers. That really left a scar on this family, so when he survived and fought against this movement, it was very personal.'”
He added: “So I was throwing around the idea that this should feel incredibly personal when he goes to kill these Nazis. There’s a real bloodlust there.”
Speaking about Guy’s initial reaction, he said: “Guy looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, ‘I don’t know, man.'”
So, Ritchson and his stuntman Ryan Tarran worked all day and night to come up with a “brutal” sequence to show Ritchie the next day. “Guy walked onto the set and said, ‘Where do I sit to see this?’ He was almost mad about it.’
The action sequence follows Anders in hand-to-hand combat, as he makes his way through the interior corridors of a ship and takes down the numerous hordes of Nazis in his path.
Ritchson recalls after showing it to him: “And Guy loved it. He was like, ‘Great, I love it, shoot it. Have fun.’ And he goes. We then spent all day doing what we proposed, and it’s in the movie and it’s in the trailer. When you think about the action of this movie, that’s what you think of, that scene.
He continued: “It’s hyper-aggressive, but it’s action-packed and with a different purpose than a lot of the action movies we get. I don’t think there is a bigger motivation than what Anders Lassen was fighting for.”
The actor went on to talk about the confidence he gained from making this film and convincing Ritchie to change things in his film.
He said, “This is still what I was born to do: I can actually get into a creative discussion with Guy and say, ‘Dude, I think you’re wrong about this. Let me tell you why I think we should do this.'” and get him to try something that ends up in the film and adds value.”
He concluded: “I’ve fought these fights with the best directors in the world now and I’ve come out better. It’s not that I’ll never be nervous again, but if I can do that and I can work in that environment and those conditions, there’s nothing that I can’t do. It really changed my life, in a big way.”
In the end, I think the movie was better for the crazy action it had!
by Joey Paur
Source: Geek Tyrant
Lloyd Grunewald is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. He is a talented writer who focuses on bringing the latest entertainment-related news to his readers. With a deep understanding of the entertainment industry and a passion for writing, Lloyd delivers engaging articles that keep his readers informed and entertained.
