Copyright The Mercury News
Josh Brolin, Lee Pace and the rest of a star-studded cast go back to the future — sort of — in “The Running Man,” director Edgar Wright’s Easter Egg-stuffed gift to cinemaniacs that’s set in the near future and constructed around a deadly reality game that Stephen King envisioned in a 1982 novel of the same name. And if it all sounds familiar, the novel was previously adapted for the big screen and became a popular 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger action/sci-fi flick. Wright’s R-rated visual feast opens Nov. 14 in area theaters. Colman Domingo co-stars as the cheeky host of the deadly game show (a role played by Richard Dawson in the original). Other cast members include Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, and more. Brolin plays slick and conniving TV producer Dan Killian, and Pace, who also stars in the dystopian sci-fi TV series “Foundation,” portrays Evan McCone, one of the evil Hunters tasked with tracking down and killing the gameshow contestants. In this case, his would-be prey is contestant and out-of-work dad Ben Richards (Glen Powell). So what is it about sci-fi movies that drew Brolin and Pace to this remake? “Because they’re hypothetical,” Brolin explains during a Zoom conversation.”’ The Running Man’ is exactly what ‘Dune’ did, with Stephen King imagining what it may be like in 2025. Now it’s 2025 and we’re doing it, and it is the future. And what about this future? Parallels with what King imagined and ‘Dune’ (author Frank Herbert).” Brolin said he also appreciates sci-fi because it challenges the imagination and invites reflection. “It’s a great way to remind you to live in the present as much as you can,” he said. And it’s “a great way to remind you to be kind because it’s ruinous if you’re not. This is what could happen if you’re not careful.” Pace is also a fan but considers “Foundation” and “Running Man” more along the lines of speculative fiction rather than pure sci-fi. “I mean ‘Foundation’ is about the science in many ways, but it’s also about the speculation of what may come if we expand the idea of an empire to be the entire galaxy (and) what does that look like? What does that feel like? What if we expand the idea of an emperor into a cloned emperor and what is the culture inside of that little family? That’s what’s fun about sci-fi, if you’re going to call it that. I like the genre and I like the freedom of thought that it allows.” Both Brolin and Pace are also fans of Wright, which is evident in how they talk about working with the director of “Shaun of the Dead,” “Baby Driver,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and many more. Wright stuffs his visually alluring films with cameos, energy, style and numerous film references. Brolin considers “The Running Man” a timeless tale about the abuse of power — an issue that echoes throughout history “whether you’re talking about leadership or whether you’re talking about the personal, it doesn’t matter.” “I just think you see it in spades right now. You see it in all directions,” he adds. “There seems to be a chaos and then, in this movie, you get to experience the chaos but you get to see it through the eyes of Edgar, which is always entertaining to me. He kind of exploits the absurdity of who we are.” Brolin met Wright at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, which he was attending that year for the premiere of the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men.” Their paths crossed several more times, including when Wright visited director Rian Johnson on the set of the upcoming “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” the latest installment of the Netflix series in which Brolin plays Monsignor Jefferson Wicks. “Then suddenly we’re working together,” he said. “We always wanted to work together. I enjoy him very much. I think he is a true cinephile … and he saturates himself with the world of story and he has a very, very unique perspective. I’ve loved most, if not all, of his movies, especially the earlier films.” Pace was particularly impressed by Wright’s ability to make his vision materialize from screenplay to screen. “I will say from my first conversation with him when he described to me what the film was going to be and what he wanted me to do as Evan McCone, to reading the script for the first time, to the movie that I watched last week, it’s the same movie,” Pace said. “He did what he set out to do and that’s due to his incredible cinematic expertise. There’s no bigger cinephile than him” and he knows “the camera can do many different things. Pace is equally in awe of King. “I went through a time when I was a teenager where it was one Stephen King book after another,” he said, adding he gobbled up “The Stand,” “Cujo,” “Pet Sematary,” “The Shining” and “Gerald’s Game.” He was “obsessed with the scope of ‘The Stand.’” “But ‘The Shining’ is such a perfect example of an extraordinary book that in the hands of Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall becomes like a whole other thing, equally as brilliant. I think that’s similar to ‘The Running Man.’ “This is Edgar Wright. He’s going to make an Edgar Wright film.” Wright is known fir stuffing numerous Easter eggs and film references into his films, and “Running Man” is no exception. Pace’s personal favorite involves an extended and hilarious Michael Cera cameo, which, well, is too good to reveal here. One of Brolin’s favorites features a blink-and-you-might-miss-it cameo from his dad James Brolin. There are many more as well. To get into their perspective roles, Pace and Brolin had to tap into the physical attributes of their characters. As McCone, the lead Hunter and reality TV star stalking contestants for up to 30 days, Pace leaned into his threatening physicality since his character is masked and wears a distinctive suit. “I had to think about the character physically because he does have a face, (but) he’s choosing to hide it. That’s a choice the character is making or the world is making for him. It led me to a nonchalance with the character. He’s unbothered about this incredibly violent, brutal job that he’s got hunting these people and killing them in spectacular ways.” Pace savored playing the villain, but thrives on a wide variety of TV and movie roles, including a heralded performance playing a trans woman in 2003’s “Soldier’s Girl.” On stage, he has portrayed Joe Pitt in the 2018 Broadway revival of Tony Kushner’s iconic “Angels in America.” Pace’s eyes light up as he talks about “that extraordinary experience” of performing on Broadway and equates the first moment walking out on stage to “jumping out of a plane.” To nail down playing super-slick and manipulative TV producer Dan Killian, Brolin drew inspiration from an amalgamation of different people he’s known, some good, some not so nice. “I’ve known more than a few of those guys,” he said. “When I did ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ I met a lot of billionaires. It was interesting that when you get those people drunk you ended up hearing the realities, not the presentational.” The toothy look came by way of his “Brothers” costar Glenn Close, whose character in that film flashed serious pearly whites. That toothiness fit with his character, he said. “He’s wearing the best clothes. Of course he would have nice teeth. And my kids tell me I don’t have the nicest pearly whites.” Brolin made his film debut in 1985’s “The Goonies,” an adventure/comedy film about a group of kids searching for treasure. That might seem like a world away from his latrest film, but Brolin sees narrative threads that bind them. “What’s the difference between ‘The Running Man’ and ‘The Goonies’? It’s like someone who’s down and out and desperate and trying to change their lives and then doing something about it and enduring whatever there is to endure. Whether it be Sloth (a ‘Goonies’ character chained in one family’s basement) or One-Eyed Willy (the skeletal pirate captain villain in ‘Goonies’), it’s just that there are (only) so many stories, it’s just how you tell it.” Forty-one years on, “The Goonies” continues to entertain generation after generation. Brolin says that’s because it reminds audiences of their innocence and their sense of wonderment. . “It goes down as being one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Brolin said. “And I’ve had a lot of really good experiences, but that was one of the greatest.”
