WAMG At The 3 DAYS TO KILL Press Day

3 DAYS TO KILL hits theaters this Friday, and in promotion of the film, held a small press conference last week where Director McG and stars Kevin Costner and Amber Heard talked about the physicality of their roles in the film with WAMG and other members of the press. Check it out below.

In this heart pounding action-thriller, Kevin Costner is a dangerous international spy, who is determined to give up his high stakes life to finally build a closer relationship with his estranged wife and daughter, whom he’s previously kept at arm’s length to keep out of danger. But first, he must complete one last mission – even if it means juggling the two toughest assignments yet: hunting down the world’s most ruthless terrorist and looking after his teenage daughter for the first time in ten years, while his wife is out-of-town.

How was your experience shooting the stunts, and how did working with a whole new French stunt crew impact your design and execution?

McG: Kevin’s the kind of guy… he’s never seen base camp. He loves to be on the set and be active in the filmmaking process and that goes for the stunts as well. Every once in a while, you’ve got to grab him by the back of his pants and say, “Kevin, this one’s not all that safe for you to be in the car as it rams the other car off the bridge and down into the river.” He’s just very focused in that respect. It was fun just shooting things practically in the spirit of Frankenheimer, and those films that I grew up on and were real seminal. We wanted to do it in camera and shutting down the streets of Paris was fun in that respect. But I think it’s clear to everyone who’s seen the picture that the action is decorative. It’s ultimately a character-driven piece that we’re hoping the defining characteristic of this film is the balance of certainly action and comedy but most particularly a dramatic investment in this Ethan character who’s played by Kevin.

 How challenging was the physicality of this film for you?

Kevin Costner: Well, you’re cold. And any time you’re cold, things are harder. I’ve been involved in my stunt career. It used to be that my stunt guy, we would talk about it and about when it was time for him to take over. And the way you know you’re getting older, with my stunt guy, we look at the thing and he goes, “You could make it.” I can tell he starts getting scared. “You could make that.” So, it was an evolving thing. Fortunately, I didn’t have that over there because I had a new stunt guy, a new stunt coordinator. You have to measure things. I wanted to ride with the buffalo. I wanted to do those things. Whenever you can put the audience in the car, on the horse, carrying your daughter, they’re now in the movie. But stunts have always had their place and I have to measure them right now. I’ve done things that if I make a mistake, you could die, and you really need to look at something. That usually is mechanical. I wouldn’t jump this, right there to there. I’d go, “You know what? You could really die straight down there,” because weird things happen. So I’ve gone from doing everything to listening to say, “Maybe you shouldn’t do this.”

On screen Ethan struggles with the balance between work and home life. Did that ring true for you in real life?

Kevin Costner: When dealing with women, my boss in this instance, my hellish relationship with her… But he gets frustrated by women, and my house is the same. There’s a level of humor that we tried to bring into the movie without winking at the camera. I think it’s funnier if you don’t wink and say, “I’m really frustrated by you, by her, by my wife, by my daughter.” So there’s a part of the world where he’s very efficient in his life and he’s not that great in this particular aspect. He can be shut down.

Amber Heard: I agree. For my part in it, our relationship is an interesting one. And the power struggle of these two strong characters constantly going against each other was interesting. He’s very accomplished. He’s very good at his job. He’s tried and true. He’s a veteran of the trade that they’re in. She’s a whole other school. It’s a new school. It’s completely opposite people in some ways and we’re the adversaries, which is what I liked. It’s rare that you see that dynamic between a man and a woman in a film. And I liked that it didn’t bother or hinder McG’s imagination or his desire to see that come to fruition. It’s like he didn’t care. It’s like, “Yeah, why couldn’t I be his boss? Just because I wear high heels?” But you don’t see that often, which is why I liked it.

McG: For me, what you talk about is the central theme of the picture. I think you guys as journalists — everybody can understand — sometimes you get so caught up in your work life that there’s atrophy on the home front. And I think that’s one of the primary stories of the film. You have a guy in Ethan who’s so focused on duty that he’s spent a lot of time in the field and then he gets a piece of information and gets deeply in touch with what matters the most in his life, which is clearly his daughter and his wife. And that’s not going to be an easy road to win his way back into their hearts.

FOR MORE INFO:

3 DAYS TO KILL HITS THEATERS FEBRUARY 21