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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Deadwood and Die Hard 4.0 bloke Timothy Olyphant talks about rising fame and getting shaved and dangerous for Hitman

You've been in flicks for a decade [see breakout], but you’re only just getting to be major news recently. Does that feel kind of weird?
Yeah, it does. But I figure I’m old enough now, so f–k it – it might become fun. I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to do a real variety of stuff. So the fact that after 10 years of working fairly consistently, someone like yourself says my star is on the rise, it’s nice. I’m not going to lie to you, I’m enjoying it.

How rad was it to play a kick-arse killing machine in Hitman?
Every single one of these jobs usually has a childhood fantasy built into it. That’s the fun of the whole thing. But it was cool. I think the whole thing was cool.

Hitman was filmed in some out-of-the-way places. How was that?
It was alright. Bulgaria is not a place I’d take a vacation or spend a lot of time there, but Istanbul was unbelievable. But we were shooting six days a week, just getting it done, and you’re away from your family for months. They told me they wanted to shoot six days a week, I told my lawyer to counter with seven.

Do you have any idea how many people you off in the film?
I don’t. There was a pretty strong head count going into the thing, then we’d just sprinkle in a couple of extras every now and then. “Look, we could kill three people right here before I even get in the elevator.” We were just looking to kill people whenever we had a chance.

You had to hit the gym to bulk up for Hitman. Did that suck?
Oddly enough, I enjoyed it. Again, it’s one of the perks of this job – you get to transform yourself and learn different skills. I enjoyed it like I enjoyed learning to ride a horse for Deadwood.

What about weapons training?
Yeah, I did a little bit. It wasn’t quite as intensive as the workouts where you were trying in a very short amount of time to get as much lean muscle mass as possible, just so a bunch of punks on the internet wouldn’t complain that I’m not big enough for the role. But the gun stuff, that was cool. It was mostly machineguns and stuff like that.

The guns you’re using here are different to the old-school six-shooters in Deadwood.
Yeah. The high-powered rifles, like sniper rifles, that’s something I’d never done before. That was kinda cool.

There was a lot of nerd concern on the internet when you got the Hitman role. Did that bother you?
What can you do? You show up, do the best you can, collect your cheque and go home. You don’t pay attention to them. That’s the sort of thing you just don’t give too much credence or it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning.

What about going the chrome dome for the role?
You know, I wouldn’t have volunteered. It wouldn’t have been my idea. They showed me the script, and I hadn’t seen the video game character the movie’s based on; I wouldn’t have said, “You know what, I should shave my head for this one.” It’s not what I wake up in the morning thinking or looking forward to. I just pretended every morning that I was getting a head massage.

Were you ever scared that you’d get it all shaved off and find out that you had a shit-shaped head?
If I wasn’t worried about it, I had the studio and producers constantly reminding me that they were worried about it. You could just feel it. They were like, “How about you shave your head now. Before we pay you. Just so we can see it.”

Did your missus like the slick look?
She said she’d talk to me sometime in a couple of months. She said, “Call me when it’s grown back. Good luck with the kids. Talk to me when your hair gets to a decent length.”

In Die Hard 4.0 you’re like this high-tech villain bloke. Are you handy with that shit in real life?
No. I wish I was. My grandfather once told me the world is run by a bunch of stupid high school kids, and it’s true on certain occasions. When you’re at the store trying to get your new phone hooked up you know what he’s talking about. It’s just a bunch of numbskulls. I wish I was a techie so I could say, “Let me show you how to hook it up.” But you’re talking to this guy, then you’re coming home and you’re on a 1800 number for an hour trying to figure some technical shit out.

So how was it acting like you knew what you were doing in Die Hard 4.0?
Well, I didn’t have to do much. If you look closely, all I did was walk around barking orders at people. I had a little fiddle with this and that, but for the most part you don’t really have to get your hands too dirty.

And you got to hang with the very-hot Die Hard 4.0 actress Maggie Q. Then there was Jen Garner in Catch And Release, and Olga Kurylenko in Hitman. Nice perks of the job?
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with that. All three of those women were just really great. Real class acts. And real pros. All three of them. I was real lucky.

Are you making an effort to play bad-arses these days after your character Seth Bullock in Deadwood was such a stand-up bloke?
Not so much. Seth Bullock was a little on the fence. He woke up every morning trying to do the right thing, but he felt like he was just a smidgin away from going apeshit and killing people. So there’s always something fun in there. Those kind of characters, there’s a lot of angles that you can look at them. That’s kind of the fun of it.

Was there much sadness when Deadwood got cancelled? ’Cos we were spewing.
Not from my wife. She was just like, “So you’re not growing that moustache again?” That was her angle. I said that was a lot of money. She said that was an ugly moustache. The way I look at it was that we were so fortunate – both as a participant in that show and as a fan. I felt very lucky that the show went as long as it did. The fact it existed at all – you just don’t see those kind of things on television or at the movies very often.

So your missus didn’t dig on the shaved head for Hitman or the Deadwood mo’. Did she mind you stacking on some extra muscle?
Yeah, she’s had a couple of tough hits over the last few years. But she was all for me getting in shape. She was like, “Bring it on. Put on another 10 pounds of muscle.” There were no complaints with that one. It kind of evens out.

Luke Anisimoff