ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Detective Knight: Independence star Jack Kilmer about working with Bruce Willis and playing Pelle “Dead” Ohlin in Lords of Chaos. The film is now playing in select theaters and is available digitally and through video-on-demand. It will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on February 28.
“Bruce Willis stars as Detective James Knight in this final, tense chapter of the trilogy,” reads the film’s synopsis. “Knight’s last-minute assignment to the Independence Day shift turns into a race to stop an unbalanced ambulance EMT from imperiling the city’s festivities. The misguided vigilante, playing cop with a stolen gun and uniform, has a bank vault full of reasons to put on his own fireworks show … one that will strike dangerously close to Knight’s home.”
Tyler Treese: Tell me about what you found most intriguing about Dezi from an actor’s portrayal perspective. Because there’s a lot there and he has quite the transformation throughout.
Jack Kilmer: Thank you very much. So the guy I played, Dezi, is an incel and he’s a kind of a guy that, unfortunately, we’re getting to know in the public consciousness. He’s one of these guys that spends a lot of time on the internet, trying to get all the answers out of forums like Reddit and and trying to be the best American man that he can be and just trying to make it in this country. We reference a lot of movies like Joker. Detective Knights is a franchise. Bruce Willis is an action star and it’s unique to most franchise movies because it’s from the perspective of the villain, which is my character, Dezi. We wanted to play around with that … play around with that theme of the antihero, you know?
You don’t paint him super broadly as the villain. We see him trying to do good in his own way, but he gets so twisted. Seeing him break over time, how did you kind of approach that?
Yeah, totally. I mean, Dezi’s a guy that’s like many working class Americans who work super hard and deal with whatever cards he was dealt in life and is going for his version of the American Dream. That kind of gets perverted in a sinister way through his lack of sleep and his lack of an outlet to express himself and also just life circumstances where this character has come from a background that is very working class and works for what they have. But it’s a character that I think a lot of people can relate to. We just had this anniversary of January 6th recently and just reflecting on that, we were kind of fresh off of that in 2021 when we shot the movie.
There was a lot of unrest and division in the country back then, and there still is now. And Dezi’s the kind of person that you might run into at one of these political rallies. In their minds, they’re doing the right thing and they are trying to honor their country and honor themselves. I guess the point of this character is you might have more in common with some of these people that go crazy in this country and snap.
I think what demonstrates the difference in privilege in how you were raised is you and Willow Shields’ character. The interactions between you two are so great. How is she as a scene partner? Despite being so young, she’s a big time veteran at this point. So how was working with her?
Willow was fabulous. She’s so professional, like you said. I guess she is really young. I didn’t even think, because she’s so professional and brought so much to the role with such little time to shoot. Her character is so important because it anchors the whole movie and brings all the humanity to my character and to Bruce’s character, but also brought a really flawed and interesting performance and I think she crushed it.
I was really impressed by your performance and I saw that you didn’t grow up wanting to be an actor. When did you really fell in love with the craft? Was it doing Palo Alto or when did it really click that you wanted to go down this career path?
Yeah, it’s funny, a lot of people bring that up and it’s kind of like … it’s funny to me, because I’ve always been interested in acting, but I had my own way about going about it when I started. I just wanted to make sure I was getting into it for the right reasons. I was really fortunate to have good experiences right when I started with working with friends and just getting really inspired to do it, because it’s such a crazy thing to do, really. But you have an experience with a movie or you have an experience acting and it is addictive because when it works it’s really glorious and really cool. I have a lot of gratitude for the connections I have and the stuff I’ve been able to do in the industry. To me, it’s like I can’t believe it, you know? Every time I get to work it’s so fun.
Another resume item you get to put on yours now is that you are on the receiving end of a Bruce Willis one-liner. He has so many iconic one-liners, so to be the villain and for him to eventually take you down, how fulfilling is that?
It’s so awesome. Bruce Willis is “the guy” when he shows up on set. He comes with an energy of a king and a boss and a legend. The way he delivers lines, they hit … they hit so hard. There’s a reason why he is a legend. It’s because he has that within him, he has that power and he comes around and when he looks at you and delivers the line, it hits and you feel that energy and he elevates your acting. That’s one cool thing about working with guys like that, that are on that level, is that they do bring a certain energy … and I don’t know what it is, but everyone is charged by it, you know?
With Willow, you got to voice your father’s character, Madmartigan. How special was it to continue that legacy and give that great nod to the fans?
Totally. I talked to the director, Jonathan Kasdan, a lot about it, and he had a lot of questions for us because my parents both met on that movie Willow. Jon was so obsessed with the fact that we were all down to do this TV show. Going in, I did a little voiceover for one of the episodes and helping out my dad’s character, Madmartigan. I just got to sit … it was really like I got to go to Warner Brothers and hang out with Jon Kasdan and just talk about the legacy of it. We both were fanning out about the whole movie and just having a laugh, you know? And then he was like, “Well, can you help with these lines?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure. I’ll take a crack at it.” And so it became a little Easter egg in there.
My favorite performance of yours was in Lords of Chaos. Are you looking to do more work in the future where you’re depicting a real-life figure or do you prefer creating your own character and having that extra freedom?
Right. I love biopic stuff like that. My dad’s a big character actor and he really loves to do that stuff. So it was a way I could connect with my dad, talking with him about it, you know? There are things you can do when you’re doing a biopic you can do like a walk or a voice that you wouldn’t normally do because you have all this history to reference and I would love to do more stuff like that.
For me, with Lords of Chaos, it was like … this guy is sort of the Kurt Cobain of the metal scene. He’s very important to a lot of people and I definitely felt some of the weight of that because you talk to anyone with a Mayhem t-shirt on and they’re going to be pretty protective over their music. So there was a certain dangerous element to that that I was attracted to.
