SPOILER ALERT: This article contains minor spoilers about “Weapons,” now playing in theaters.
Halfway through opening weekend, Zach Cregger’s genre-blending horror movie “Weapons” is giving audiences more than ghastly thrills and gallows humor – the film is helping its established cast show some versatility in a wholly original script.
Unexpected and aggressive performances from Amy Madigan, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong and Julia Garner abound in the project, which is certainly true of another key player: Alden Ehrenreich. The once “It” boy muse of the Coen Brothers and, later, an attempted franchise starter in the world of Star Wars, Ehrenreich shines as a stunted Podunk cop whose town is rocked by the wee hours disappearance of 17 children.
Ehrenreich’s Paul is trapped in a marriage he doesn’t want, working for his sheriff father-in-law and occasionally backsliding into addiction with an old flame and fellow fuck-up played by Garner. Neither is ready for the supernatural forces that turn their mundane self-destruction into a terrifying death trap. Variety caught up with Ehrenreich to discuss the film’s symbolism (already the subject of much social media discussion), rocking a mustache and carrying the physical and emotional weight of his character.
Zach Cregger previously said that he wanted you and Josh Brolin for this film because of your work in “Hail, Ceasar!” Is that true?
I believe that’s the piece of material that made him notice me as an actor, I’m not sure about Brolin. I saw the “Weapons” script a long time ago, and thought it was one of the best I’d ever read. Each character has such a specific world. It’s a genre film, but it’s completely different, especially in terms of quality. I met with Zach and we really got along, but then the strikes happened and all the other obstacles. I’m lucky the stars aligned where I could end up in the movie.
Is that mustache glued on, or did you go method?
It’s my mustache. We had initial conversations about it, and I just felt, “No way. It’s such a cliché.” But then we looked at a picture of me with a mustache, and he said, “Let’s not cut it just yet.” After we did a screen test, it just felt right.
Did Zach have you do a ride along with a police officer?
I did. It was something I really wanted to do. I went out in the middle of the night with an officer in Long Beach, and I also talked to another cop from a small town. Those two beats are enormously different. But the Long Beach officer helped me understand a day in his life. I spent some time with him at his house. His wife was very lovely and agreed to be a stand-in. He handcuffed her in their living room and showed me how you hold someone to the ground – a lot of the things we end up doing in the film. Then we went to a cop bar.
“Weapons” is a genre film, but it’s got a diverse tone. You wind up doing a lot of action, which almost translates to physical comedy.
One of the more important things for the character was to be carrying around as much weight as possible, physically and emotionally. I wear a bulletproof vest, and production was going to spare me because we shot in Atlanta and it was so hot, but we wound up keeping it. I gained some weight for the role, not so much to play a cop but to play someone moving through a life that really isn’t his own. Someone in a circumstance, a relationship and a job, that’s not genuine to who he is. And that is what’s tonally unique about Zack. Francis Ford Coppola told me on my first movie [“Tetro”] that if you write something really personal, it will become something no one has ever seen before. Because each one of us is completely unique and original. I think that’s true of this movie.
What do you think Zach is trying to say with this film?
Trying to boil it down to a thesis is probably in vain, I think this story is more like a dream. It’s more poetic than rational. We had some conversations, [for instance] there is a moment where a gun appears in the sky.
A lot of people are already talking about that.
I think there’s clearly some relationship between that gun and a bunch of missing children and school shootings. He didn’t say that, but to me it feels like it’s there in a poetic sense. The thing that feels more concrete to me is that all of these characters are an expression and a part of Zach. Julia said, during our press tour, that she kept making certain choices wearing T-shirts and glasses. In the end, she realized she was just dressing like Zach. It’s proof positive that filmmakers should take more personal risks. It smells original, in the same way that the audience can smell when something’s formulaic and they’ve seen it a million times.
You recently converted a historic Los Angeles streetcar station into a playhouse. How’s it going?
It’s been kind of amazing. We had a soft launch over the past six months. We did five staged readings. Our first full production is coming this spring, and the excitement is really encouraging. The goal of it was to have a kind of Off-Broadway-style theater on the east side of LA, and a home for artists where they can experiment. We started an acting class and a playwright’s circle.
Has opening this impacted how you work and perform?
In a way. I’m as interested in impressing the people in that space as I am in a commercial audience. It’s forced us to articulate some of our artistic values in the way that we want to work. On a personal level, when you spend your life as an actor, it’s very itinerant. You’re traveling all over, you can work 9 months on something that comes out and doesn’t open and feels like it never happened. The solidity of putting this time and work and energy into a 120-year-old trolley station community? It’s like feels very real and forced me to be a grown-up in a way I probably wouldn’t have had to otherwise.