Clive Owen

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Clive Owen Interview For ‘Killer Elite’

By kishor212 on | From flicksandbits.com

Inspired by true events, ‘Killer Elite’ is an action adventure spy film following Danny (Jason Statham), one of the world’s most skilled special-ops agents. Lured out of self-imposed exile to execute a near-impossible feat of retribution and personal salvation, Danny reassembles his old team of operatives to help rescue his former mentor (Robert De Niro), and to penetrate the highly feared and respected military unit, the British Special Air Service (SAS). Facing off against a covert group of ex-SAS soldiers known as “The Feather Men,” who, under their leader Spike (Clive Owen), provide a deadly cloak of security around all SAS members, Danny and his team must take down a rogue cell of solider assassins before their actions result in a global political meltdown. Accompanying Jason Statham, Robert De Niro and Clive Owen includes Yvonne Strahovski, Dominic Purcell, Aden Young, Ben Mendelsohn, Lachy Hulme, Firass Dirani, Grant Bowler and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. ‘Killer Elite’ is set for release September 23rd.

What interested you about ’Killer Elite’?

Clive Owen: It’s always the same things, it’s the script and the director. I read the script, I liked the script. I thought it was a very unusual and original spy movie really. It had some very cool action but it was rooted in this very unusual real world, these guys who were living very much in this world, it felt like a real spy story. And then I saw Gary’s short film that he was nominated for an Academy Award for, and thought it was really impressive. I had a number of conversations with him about the vision of the film, and then decided I wanted to do it.

Can you tell us a little bit about your character Spike, and what he means to the story?

Clive Owen: Something has happened to Spike, he’s damaged his eye and he’s left the special forces, the SAS. But he still feels like he wishes he was very much involved, he’s apart of this clandestine group that kind of meet and protect members of the SAS and their families. Basically they begin to suspect that some of their men are being targeted, they don’t quite know why, and they don’t quite know who’s doing it. But certain people have been around asking questions about certain operations that the SAS were involved in. So he begins to set up a counter intelligence among ex-SAS guys, who are now trying to find out what’s going on and prevent their guys being killed. The group Spike is apart of, the feather men, they wield a lot of power. They look after their own basically. I’m really the guy on the street, the very established guy.

How did you prepare for this role, him being SAS, and also the fight sequences?

Clive Owen: Luckily I know a few ex-SAS guys so I picked their brains a bit. I also had a couple meeting with an SAS consultant, a guy who had been in the SAS for twenty five years. The interesting thing is he’s ex-SAS, which is what I was playing, it was fascinating to pick his brains about just the whole selection process for the SAS, I had no idea what that was like. To hear how rigorous it is, how very very few people pass that test, procedure. It’s pretty much just people who show themselves to be incredibly adept and highly skilled. Then they’re picked and put through this process, where a lot of them are eliminated, only very few of them get through. So, he taught me about that whole process, also he was a great explainer of what it’s like to be ex-SAS. There’s something about the film, which for me is the most interesting aspect of playing this part, and why I wanted to explore it, and that is when a guy is that highly trained and that highly skilled, he’s been inside such extraordinary, intense situations, lots of situations where it is life or death. To suddenly have to let that go and try to live a normal life, what that is? How people are? What a lack of understanding it would be for someone who hasn’t been through that.

clive owen killer elite Clive Owen Interview For Killer Elite

There’s a couple of very big fights I’m involved in in ‘Killer Elite’. I’ve got a really fantastic stunt team, it was the best I’ve ever worked with. It just requires a few hours a day for quite a few weeks to get on top of something like that. It’s not something that you can wing on set and kind of work out – it’s very specific. Fight scenes are acting, it’s just like dialogue, it’s about rhythm, it’s about precision. You’ve got to execute something very specific, you’ve got to be very prepared and ready to do it. It certainly helps if the stunt team around you are very skilled, and these were. There’s something very satisfying about doing fights in movies, they’re very very specific. The lines of what you have to execute are very clear. It’s like there are beats in certain things, it’s precision and very clear with the objectives. It’s different with dialogue because there’s so many different ways you can interpret it. But with a good fight, it’s very clear what you have to execute, I find that quite satisfying.

How did you find working with director Gary McKendry?

Clive Owen: I had a really great time working with Gary. It’s his first feature, there’s always risk involved when you work with a director who’s never directed on a feature before. I really liked his short, I really liked him when I met him and talked to him about the movie, and his vision for it. But you never know until you start shooting, quite how the thing will pan out? I was hugely impressed with him, he is incredibly prepared, always has a good perspective – where you position a camera on a movie can tell us much of the story as dialogue can, and the script, just in terms of the way you’re coming at the characters and the story. His visual eye is really impeccable, his choice of shots. He comes in very clear, he’s not one of these directors who comes in and tries to find his way in the scene. He’s a great collaborator, very easy to work with.

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