When Josh Duhamel initially pops up on screen in Allan Unger’s new action comedy “London Calling,” he’s barely recognizable. The perennially good-looking leading man went bald for his first few scenes.
“That was me trying to be Jason Statham for a second,” Duhamel tells me. “I was like, ‘OK, Alan, I got an idea. I really want to be bald because I want there to be a visual difference between the first part of this movie and when we see him a year later. I want to be bald, I want to be a badass, I want to look like a badass hit man, like Jason Statham.’ But then we realize quickly that he’s not quite that guy. In a movie that doesn’t have a ton of money, those bald caps are not cheap. That’s a full process. I think it was worth it. It tells that little story.”
Duhamel plays an ex-pat assassin-for-hire who flees his London home base for Los Angeles after a crime boss (Aidan Gillan) puts a hit on him after he accidentally kills one of his family members. When he decides to return to London, his shady L.A. boss (Rick Hoffman) agrees to help keep him safe if he agrees to bring his son (Jeremy Ray Taylor) along to toughen him up.
Did I mention that Duhamel’s anti-hero’s vision is a bit off because he needs a new eyeglass prescription?
I spoke to Duhamel just days before he was set to start shooting the second season of his hit Netflix series “Ransom Canyon.”
How much fun is it to play an action hero who can’t see where he’s shooting?
That action hero who lost his fastball? That, to me, is what makes movies like this fun. I love the idea of characters that don’t have it all together, that aren’t perfect, that have to face these insecurities that they have turned away from for years. He has to face the fact that he’s not what he once was. That just gives you a whole other room to play in.
Your character is also facing getting older.
It’s like that moment for every athlete who has ever played a professional sport. There comes that moment where you’re like, “You know what? I’m now too old for this.” It’s a tough pill to swallow. I think for him, he hasn’t done much else for the last 20 years, 25 years. What does a guy do with himself when he’s really good at contract killing? This really forces him into hiding in Los Angeles. But the irony of this movie is that we start in London and then he has to flee London and ends up in Los Angeles. I left Los Angeles to fly to Cape Town to shoot a movie that’s in Los Angeles. There’s something wrong with that. We got to figure this out. Let’s put these crews back to work here in Los Angeles.
How does the industry get filming back in L.A.?
I think there needs to be more incentives. I think that we need to make it more conducive. Right now, there are so many obstacles to getting it done. I just directed a movie in London called “Preschool.” It’s about two dads who are fighting to get their kid into this last spot in this super high-end, pretentious preschool. It was originally scripted to take place in Malibu, but we couldn’t shoot it there. It was just too expensive. We rejiggered it for London and made it more like a Hogwarts-y style 500-year-old preschool that’s highly revered. It’s become so cost-prohibitive on so many different fronts, and I’m all for the unions, but it just balloons your budget. We have to figure out a way to bring it back because I have a lot of friends who are having a hard time finding work.
You can feel it in the air in Los Angeles. Everyone seems to be on edge for any number of reasons, especially because of the uncertainty in the industry.
Then you add AI to the mix — that’s going to make it even more difficult because now that’s going to really reduce the need for so many of those key crew members. I’m hoping that we can somehow find a way to make it work. There’s not really anything that’s going to stop AI. You can put guardrails on it, but man, if you can make a $100 million movie for $10 million, they’re going to do that.
It doesn’t make sense that movies aren’t being made in the movie capital of the world.
I think there needs to be a real push to get it back. We could do it. We could definitely do it. Whether it’s incentivizing it more or working with the unions to make it more conducive. I don’t know what the answer is, but it sure would be nice to work here so I don’t have to travel so much.
Even with the obstacles, how much do you love directing?
I really do. I love being able to shape the story the way I see it. I’ve had so many times where I’ve trusted a young director or something, and I’m just like, “Dude, that’s what we did. What is that?” At a certain point, I was like, “You know what? I want to at least give it a shot to see what I can do with the story that I see in my head.” I found it’s a massive amount of work. It’s all-consuming. It’s long.
Are you going to direct any episodes of “Ransom Canyon”?
Nope. No. I’ll let them do that. I wouldn’t mind doing it, maybe one of these days, if we get another season. Maybe next year if they would let me. I really do love the show. I think the new season is going to be as good, if not better than the first, from what I’ve read so far.
What should we expect in Season 2? How many scripts have you been able to read?
I’ve only read two of them. Probably can’t tell you too much without getting a spanking from Netflix, but it is really good. Some stuff has happened since we last left. Minka Kelly’s character, Quinn, went off to New York. A lot has happened at the ranch and a lot has happened in New York. You’ll see when she comes back. I really loved working with Brent Cullen, my dad, on the show. He’s a heavyweight and he brings it. Our characters don’t see eye to eye at all. There’s going to be a lot of that.
Did you expect the show to be such a hit? It shot to number one on Netflix within days of dropping.
It’s so nice when stuff like that happens. You have so many things that you just never know what people are going to respond to. I had a feeling they might because it had all those elements, and what I did see felt like an old pair of jeans or comfort food in some way. I was like, “This could really, really work,” but you never know. The people decide, and having done this now for 26 years, 27 years, the wins are hard to get. When you get them, you’re really grateful for it.
We all love a good soapy time and cowboys.
And tight jeans.
“London Calling” is in theaters now.
This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.