How did you get the role in the first place?
So it came across as any role back then. This is about two years ago, I had just finished doing, I think, season two or season three of my TV show. And it was just an audition tape. I was in London, I read the script, I loved it. I sent a tape and then they said "Yeah, we'd love to offer you the role," and I was in Hungary preparing for it. It was right after my TV show, so I had about a month and a half to prepare. But yeah, just from seeing, like you say, seeing the finished product, it was all worth it.
So your part was recorded in 2019, what's it like watching a movie that involves vaccine delivery to a war-torn area in 2021?
[Laughs] That is the greatest question in the world! Movies do this magical thing, man. You make them, and then all of a sudden the exact same thing happens in life. It's really weird, isn't it?
Yeah!
But with Outside the Wire, I think there's tons of stuff that correlates to modern life. And despite the fact that it's in 2036, I believe what it speaks to is the history of warfare and our relationship with casualties of war, our relationship with AI and technology and how that's rampant today and are we ready for Gumps in our reality. Are we ready for robots? Do we really need to assess and fix some of the problems we have today? This movie speaks to many times, the future and the past. And that's why it's so special.
Did you find your mind changing about warfare, about technology, about anything while you were making this or when you saw the finished product?
A hundred percent. I played Lieutenant Thomas Harp, who's a young hotshot drone pilot, who believes what he's doing is great. He believes he's God's gift to earth, but unfortunately he disobeys a direct order because he feels he's doing what's right. One thing I learned through my research, watching movies, like a Good Kill or Eye in the Sky and watching all of these war movies, was how so many soldiers have PTSD and trauma. And what that means for those soldiers going forward, when they're looking at a location from far, far away, with little kids playing and families. And just because a target is in that location, they need to press a button because someone told them to. With heart being thrust on the front lines of Marines, having that reaction, the first time he killed someone up close or having a reaction to the math of a drone strike, a button he's pressed so many times. As a human being it's made me see how difficult their jobs are, but it's also made me see that this is something that needs to come to an end very soon.
