Now out, Rogue Hostage is a passion project with a particularly powerful cast at its center. The action flick revolves around Kyle Snowden (Tyrese Gibson) ex-Marine on a downward spiral who must return to his heroic roots to save his daughter, step-father, and an entire store full of shoppers from a hostage crisis.
John Malkovich, who plays Kyle’s step-father Sam, spoke to Screen Rant about the tight shooting schedule and COVID protocols of the film – as well as the estranged father and son dynamic lurking under the surface of the story.
What were some of the themes that interested you in Rogue Hostage?
John Malkovich: Yeah, that's hard to say because I haven't seen it. I did 32 scenes in the three days of shooting. I don't know what's it or not, but there was a very nice scene with Tyrese Gibson near the end.
There's a good scene where my character is taken hostage, and that whole sequence was quite interesting. There were a lot of interesting scenes to shoot, actually.
Can you tell me a little bit about the character you play, Congressman Sam Nelson?
John Malkovich: He's a Congressman who owns a chain of stores, which I suppose would be somewhat similar to something like Walmart - but I think on a much smaller scale; just a few stores.
And in this piece, he is going to open one of his doors when he is taken hostage by people who claim that a former business partner of his was done wrong by him. That's the basic outline of his story.
It's a pretty cool hostage movie. Can you talk to me about the relationship between Sam and his stepson Kyle, played by Tyrese?
John Malkovich: Kyle's wife has left, and he's very much at that moment in time on a downward trajectory. I don't think he ever had a great relationship with my character, and certainly the relationship got worse after his mother - my wife - died.
His life seems to have darkened and continued downward, along with his mood and his outlook, after his wife left him. So, it's quite a contentious relationship.
Your filmography is iconic, and you've done so many legendary roles. What did you want to bring to the role that wasn't necessarily on the page?
John Malkovich: What I try to do is just make anything I can as good as I can make it. I don't necessarily always think of what I'll bring to the role, or what I'll bring differently from someone else. I try to go scene by scene and make it as effective as I can, and that's sort of how I go about it. I don't know if I ever really have a long term goal of what I will or won't bring to something.
One of the great foils for Sam character is Eagan, the leader of the suicide bombers, played by Christopher Backus. What did he bring to the world that made Eagan come to life?
John Malkovich: I knew his work a bit from that series [Mindhunter] about serial killers that was on Netflix, which he was excellent in. He played a character called Tex Watson, and I thought he was terrific. He brought a lot of various shadings to it, and I thought he was excellent colleague. Just very believable and very good, very well prepared.
It was very interesting to do that film, because it was really the first film I did last year. When all of this COVID business hit, I was on tour in middle Europe with a classical music collaboration, and then everything shut down for quite a while. This was the first one back, and that was just very interesting in itself, beyond all protocols.
I believe you said you shot 32 scenes in three days, that's quite intense. Can you can you run me through the protocols and how that affects the shooting now?
John Malkovich: Well, I think it adds an extra layer of expense. But of course, I think that was late August or maybe early September.
You get a test every other day; you get tested on arrival. And this has held true up to now; I ended up doing 5 films last year, and now I'm a little over halfway through with the second season of a Netflix series up near Vancouver and British Columbia, Canada.
And the protocols are basically the same, which are shields and masks for the crew, and masks for the actors. In Canada, they're stricter probably than in America, because actors are always meant to wear the shield when they go from place to place on a set. If there's a positive test, that can have disastrous effects even if the positive test turns out to be a false positive.
I was shooting on film in Montana about two months ago, and we had a couple of false positives, which caused shooting to shut down for over a week quite mistakenly and and cost the production company a mini-fortune. The cost are pretty onerous, but on the other hand, you want to work and you obviously want people on the cast and crew to be as safe as possible. People need to go back to work, that's a given.
So far, with the two films I did with Jon Keeyes and Yale Productions last year, I don't think we had any positive - even false positives. There's a nurse on set who's a kind of safety officer. You get your COVID test every other day. Your temperature's checked every morning. At least it was then, and that pretty much held in this same way up until today.
Switching gears for a second, Tyrese does a really good job of portraying Kyle's PTSD. What surprised you the most about Tyrese in this role?
John Malkovich: I think Tyrese is very talented, so I can say it's his pride for his job. But he brought a lot of pathos and a lot of pain, and it was generally a very good representation of spiritual malaise.
Sam and Kyle have an interesting conversation towards the beginning and also towards the end. Can you tell me about how we see their relationship grow throughout the course of the film? Or at least how the perception that Sam might have of Kyle grows?
John Malkovich: I think probably at the end of the film, Kyle maybe comes to the conclusion that Sam is not as awful as he once thought, perhaps. And I think maybe Sam comes to a realization or understanding, through the actions that Kyle takes during the course of this story, that he's starting to make his way out of this depression or morass that he's been [going through].
I know this isn't your only time working with Jon Keeyes, but I just wanted to get a feel for how he approached this film. What made this film unique to him?
John Malkovich: I had not worked with Jon before - I did do films with him last year, and I'm doing a little one-a-day gig in something he's producing as soon as I finish what I'm doing here in Canada in about three weeks. But this was the first film; the second one is called The Survivalist, and we did that a few months later in December of last year.
I think he's very clear-minded about what he wants and what kind of story wants to tell; what kind of film he wants to make. He's very collaborative, meaning he's very happy to listen to any script suggestion or cut or change that one might proffer. He's happy to listen to any shot suggestion, meaning how this particular action may be seen or from where it might be seen or how it may be seen. So, I think very collaborative.
And it's small budget, passion project. It's a very short shooting schedule, and The Survivalist was also a short shooting schedule. Now it's amazing how quickly they make movies. When I started three months or four months; now they take 10 days, it's incredible. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I don't have the slightest idea, but I found Jon a very excellent director to work with. He's very knowledgeable about movies and, as I say, knows what he wants to say and knows what he wants to do. And yet, at the same time, I think he's very open and collaborative.
Rogue Hostage is now playing in select theaters and available On Demand.
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Reviewed by Riyad
on
June 11, 2021
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