It’s been nearly a year since we saw The Guest at the Sundance Film Festival, and it’s finally coming to theaters. By now we’ve also seen A Walk Among the Tombstones, which also opens next week. Both star Dan Stevens. In The Guest, Stevens plays David, a soldier who returns to visit the family of a war buddy and helps the family by killing or at least maiming their local enemies. In Tombstones he plays a drug dealer who helps recovering alcoholic Liam Neeson investigate a child’s disappearance. So it’s a good time to talk to Dan Stevens, and Stevens was very chipper himself. Chipper, that’s a word the Brits use, right?
The Guest opens Wednesday, September 17. A Walk Among the Tombstones opens Friday, Sept. 19.
Related: Simon Barrett & Adam Wingard on ‘The Guest’ (VIDEO)
CraveOnline: Which movie did you do first, The Guest or A Walk Among the Tombstones? We know how release dates don’t always reflect shooting order.
Dan Stevens: I did Walk Among the Tombstones first, just shortly before. It’s quite extraordinary they’re both out the same weekend. It’s amazing.
I hope you take this as the compliment it’s intended, but after The Guest, I have a female friend who says she wants to fix you.
[Laughs] I do take that as a compliment.
She hasn’t seen Tombstones yet but she wanted to know how badly she’d want to fix you in that?
Oh right. [Laughs]
I’m glad you’re laughing, but I think your character in Tombstones is even more broken and damaged than David in The Guest.
Yeah, they’re very different. They’re both much darker territories than I’ve previously gone to I think. We’re having a little bit more fun in The Guest. There’s a bit more black comedy at play, and also it’s a real celebration of those kind of ‘80s and ‘90s action/thriller movies. Tombstones is a different kind of film. It’s a slower pace and harks back more to those ‘70s thrillers, the kind of Lumet films, Klute, Dirty Harry, The Conversation, those kind of things. Different genres really, but The Guest is a bit more playful.
Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard do genres very well. Were you very familiar with the ‘90s “dangerous friend” movies like Single White Female and Unlawful Entry?
Yeah, I was. I think as soon as I sat down with Adam, we realized we had clearly a similar sense of humor but also that we’d grown up watching the same kind of movies. I loved You’re Next. It was obviously quite a nasty film. It actually really made me laugh when I saw it in a big crowd at the LA Film Fest. I could see that it was a movie that crowds really enjoyed. It was the sort of film that you’d want to go see with your mates and enjoy and have a thrill watching. Adam and Simon really celebrate that sitting in a big dark cinema and being played with by filmmakers, really. Films that make you move in your seat either through thrill or shock or laughter.
Is there a delicate balance there where we really like David up to a point, even though we know early on some of the things he’s doing are dangerous?
Yeah, it’s definitely a paradox that we wanted to play with and dance that line between hero and villain, and entertain the audience really. One of the great ways I find with any piece of work really, to engage an audience is to have them asking questions, particularly of the protagonist but of any situation really. That’s one of the entertaining things. It doesn’t matter whether he is a hero or a villain really. If the protagonist is doing something that’s entertaining, it almost doesn’t matter.
Was that sort of all-American boy, veteran war hero easy for you to get your head around?
Yeah, as an actor it’s a real delight to get the opportunity to step into something so far outside of your own experience and such a new landscape. It was obviously a big physical physical transformation for me and a vocal transformation too. That really is an actor’s dream. I’ve always loved doing accents and voices.
Had you ever done a project with this much stuntwork and action?
I hadn’t done it before. Since then I’ve taken on Night at the Museum which is, certainly from my character’s perspective, an action comedy with a lot of very, very big action sequences. But no, The Guest was a first for me in terms of all the machine gun fire going off while you’re trying to crawl along the corridor. A lot of the fight scenes were new to me but it was a great challenge to take on.
How did you adapt to it? Was it just another form of acting? Was it difficult to learn choreography on that level?
Like you said, it’s choreography. At the end of the day, I’ve done choreography of various forms in a lot of other things. The physical preparation was key really for the psychology of the character as well. Looking the part, feeling the part but also the ordeal of going through some of that training really put me in a particular headspace. It was very appropriate to David I think.
How did the training alter your headspace?
Well, I’m very much from a headspace of “if it hurts, stop.” I was encouraged to punch through those pain barriers and quite extraordinary things happen when you do that. Not only do you see very rewarding physical transformations but I found my attitude changed. My attitude to the work changed. I saw only a fraction of what those special ops guys go through but it really is a mindset to be able to put yourself through that kind of regime.
What kind of headspace did you have to go to for A Walk Among the Tombstones?
Well, that was a very much darker character than I’ve been to before. It was very exciting for me as an actor to hear Scott Frank, the director, come to me and say he was looking for someone unexpected for this role of Kenny Kristo, this drug trafficker, and also that he was really excited by the fact that I had never done anything like this before and he’d like to see me try and go there, which is the most liberating thing you can hear as an actor, really. Someone having faith in your abilities to be able to go there and not purely based on everything that’s come before. Almost the opposite, and that really opened the gates to get me to take on roles like David in The Guest and all the rest really.
Was it ever a challenge to get casting directors or directors to see you as American characters?
It’s always a challenge to get anybody to see you in a slightly different light. That’s one of the great challenges as an actor. Sometimes you do come across people like Scott Frank or certain casting directors who have a bolder sense of imagination and really delight in the idea of seeing you do something very different. Those are the kind of people that I look for really.
Has this been a real whirlwind for you since “Downton Abbey?”
“Downton” was a pretty crazy experience for all of us. I think none of us would ever really expect a show to blow up in that way. To be recognized for that show all over the world is a real privilege really. It’s been amazing.
And launching into movies after “Downton,” were movies always your goal?
I don’t know. If you’d asked me when I was very young, I wanted to be an actor and try and play a variety of different roles in all different kinds of mediums. I don’t think I ever believed that I would end up in movies. I think I first and foremost wanted to be a theater actor, which I was lucky enough to achieve quite young. I was working in theater a lot, and then roles in television and movies started coming along. I’m really enjoying that intense burst of focus that you get with feature films.
Is your Night at the Museum character based on a real historical character?
Well, kind of, not really. He’s a fictional historical character. It’s Sir Lancelot, but he happens to be in our version of the British Museum and comes to life and wreaks his own form of havoc. Not quite as much as David but almost.
Is Lancelot an ally to Ben Stiller or is he the villain?
A little bit of both. I don’t want to give too much away. It’s a fun role for sure. He’s a large presence in the museum, shall we say.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
