Regé-Jean Page on The Gray Man: ‘It has a nice balance of physical and psychological action’

As we gear up to welcome the Russo brothers in Mumbai, Firstpost was invited for an informal round table conversation with actors Regé-Jean Page and Jessica Henwickon the making of The Gray Man. Regé plays the role of CIA's director Denny Carmichael. He mentions that it was more of a psychological preparation than physical as he plays the role of a villain for the first time.

 Edited excerpts from the interview:

On playing the role of a villain in The Gray Man.

 Regé-Jean Page: I believe every job that has been taken up by me in the past ten years is going to shift. Each character lives in the right environment and challenges and obstacles and hopefully comes across in their own unique way. I wanted to bring something creative and unexpected to this part. I try and be consistent in every new role that I take up. There is a lot of effort that goes behind evolving as an actor.

On working with an incredible team.

Regé-Jean Page: It was brilliant and we were on the first day and we started filming on it. Our scene was the very first scene. It was very inspiring to have a cast of this standard. It was a great feeling to know that everyone on the set is capable of incredible things. To work with the best directors on the planet who have done and achieved everything under the sun is an opportunity to die for. The best thing was the creative freedom that was given to all the actors by the Russo brothers.

Jessica Henwick: Everyone was so amazing. I feel Julia’s role is the most amazing. She for me is the heart of the film. I can’t wait for the audiences to see and discover all these brilliant performances.

The psychological preparation for the role.

Rege: There was a lot of psychological preparation that I had to actually go through. There is a nice balance in the way the film has a physical action and psychological action trying to show how people manipulate others into their physical action and watch the chaos unfold.

The part of the psychological preparation was about keeping a rhythm and matching with the energy of the character that I played. The energy is about getting under your skin and is about antagonising people into action in ways that they can’t defend again. I am in real life a people pleaser. But here I tried to keep that character of my real self away from it. Anyone who reaches this position of power within the organisation has to have a level of focus and ambition that is almost super human and that is one of the first things that I did learn from my research. For the kind of profession, I am in The Gray Man, I have to be insanely focussed and specific in the action and capable of lying constantly to your family and of course the people you are meeting when you are in the field.

Jessica: It was different for me because I don’t have any action in this. For me the preparation came down to talking to CIIA. And he would answer any question I asked him and I asked him a lot of questions (laughs). So that was the bulk of my preparation. I think just the way Rege said, I am also a people pleaser. I think anyone who works in the entertainment industry is a people pleaser. They want to make people happy and entertained. But my character Susan doesn’t care about being right. She doesn’t care about honour or reputation. She is very career focused and she will do everything to get there.

What is like working with Rege and Chris Evan considering that you have such intense scenes with them?

Jessica: Working with Rege was fun. We got along from day one. I had such a wonderful time and we were shooting it on and off for about seven to eight months. He stayed in his American accent throughout.

I spent a lot of time yelling at Chris and he spent a lot of time belittling me. He had a good working relationship with the Russos and it was lovely seeing them sparkle together and come up with lines together to make magic. Ryan Gosling was not what I expected him to be. I thought him to be sombre, but he was such a joker. His performance is brilliant and I must say he has got a great twinkle in his eye.

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