Summary

Fight or Flight director James Madigan and stars Josh Hartnett and Katee Sackhoff join Collider’s Perri Nemiroff for a post-screening Q&A.

During the conversation, the trio breaks down how they managed to pull off such ambitious (and sometimes gory) fight scenes on a limited budget.

Fight or Flight hits theaters on May 9.

After years working as a second unit director, visual effects supervisor, and television director on projects including Runaways, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and See starring Jason Momoa, James Madigan has finally gotten behind the lens of his very own feature film, the adrenaline-charged action thriller Fight or Flight.
The movie stars Josh Hartnett as exiled American agent, Lucas Reyes, who’s given one last chance to redeem himself and return to the US. Katee Sackhoff’s Katherine Brunt tasks him with boarding a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco where he needs to identify and apprehend a high-value target called The Ghost. Trouble is, Lucas isn’t the only person on that flight who’s after them. The plan is filled with assassins who are not only assigned to kill The Ghost, but Lucas too.
Following a Valnet exclusive screening of Fight of Flight in New York City, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff moderated a Q&A with Madigan, Hartnett, and Sackhoff to dig into how they crafted such an impressive independently made action film. During their conversation, the trio discussed the inspirations behind their anti-hero lead, Hartnett’s hard work and dedication while performing all of his Fight or Flight stunts himself, what it was like working with The Raid cinematographer Matt Flannery, and so much more.
You can catch the full conversation in the video at the top of this article, or read the interview in transcript form below.
‘Fight or Flight’ Is No “John Wick on a Plane,” And That’s a Good Thing!

“You can’t make John Wick unless you’re Chad [Stahelski], and you shouldn’t try.”

PERRI NEMIROFF: James, I love hearing about how story ideas can evolve, and one of the first things that I read in your director’s statement was, “As soon as I met Lucas on the page, I had a strong vision of what I wanted him to be, and then these hopes meet reality when the part is cast.” Can you give us a sense of who the character was on the page, who you wanted him to be, and then what makes him uniquely Josh’s?
JOSH HARTNETT: I can’t wait to hear this.
JAMES MADIGAN: It’s not that it was drastically different. I think there was just a certain attitude that we wanted him to have. I think a lot of times when you get action scripts, and all of us adored this script from the second that we read it, but everybody wants to make “John Wick on this” and “John Wick on a plane,” and “John Wick goes to Bangkok,” or whatever it is. You can’t make John Wick unless you’re Chad [Stahelski], and you shouldn’t try. The attitude that we were talking about here was about someone who was less perfect. We were talking about kind of anti-heroes — people like John McClane or Indiana Jones. When he gets hit, you feel how bad. He gets hit once, he falls down, and he doesn’t get up. To really make sure that we could track how injured he was getting, and also how down and out he was, we probably started him at a lower ebb.
The rest of that statement is basically, as soon as I met Josh, we talked for hours, and it was like, “Oh my god, this is perfect.” That was the thing that really guided us through a shoot where you can’t do everything that’s on the page. When you have to call an audible like that, the fact that we were so locked into that guy he wanted him to be really helped guide us through a really chaotic situation.
HARTNETT: Who was it who you first thought should play this guy?
MADIGAN: You. There honestly was never anybody. As soon as it was given to me, it was you. There was never anybody else involved but Josh. Honest to god.
Josh Hartnett Performs “100% of the Stunts” in the Movie

“I’m in my 40s. I haven’t done a stunt since I was 29.”

Image via Vertical Entertainment

Before we dig into the performances, I wanted to carve out time to give James some flowers because I still can’t believe this is his feature directorial debut. He has a lot of other experience, of course, but it’s really an ambitious film to start with in that respect. Josh and Katee, what was the first thing you saw in him that made you think, “I’ll be in good hands with you,” and also, “You can actually do this?”
KATEE SACKHOFF: Oh my gosh, so we had a conversation, and I read the script, and I was like, “I have to be a part of this. I’m so excited to be in a film where I don’t get punched in the face. This is amazing!” Then we talked about it some more, and he just had such a vision for what he wanted it to look like that I jumped on board immediately. He was so specific, and that’s always a wonderful thing.
HARTNETT: No, totally. James is very specific, and I feel like our conversations always led back to character when we first got together, and not so much about set pieces, unless it was in reference to how the character was going to be mentally addled in some way or another, or physically hamstrung, and I thought that that was a really nice way of going about it. You said to me in one of our first meetings that you wanted it to be like a musical. Do you remember that? You said in the best musicals, the old-fashioned musicals, the characters change through the songs. So, at the beginning of the song, they’re one way, and by the end of it, they’ve had a transformation. The same thing has to happen in each fight. And that’s storytelling, right? That’s what it should be. It shouldn’t just be this epic blowout, and then by the end of it, the same character’s just standing there the way he was at the beginning. There’s a lot that has to happen.
I was super excited to have this script to begin with because I’m in my 40s. I haven’t done a stunt since I was 29. We were just talking about this backstage. So, to have anybody trust that I could pull this stuff off was very exciting. Then, to have it also be so ambitiously realized, and taken from that particular tack of character first, just felt like an ideal sort of situation for an actor. Any actor would love to do that.
MADIGAN: The first time we talked, Josh said, “I really want to do all my own stunts.” And I was like, “Well, that would be amazing, but it’s a very tight schedule,” and we didn’t really have much prep. That’s usually when you would figure that kind of thing out. I was like, “I really, really hope that happens, but this is really, really hard.” 100% of the stunts that you just saw, Josh did. He did every single bit of fighting.
HARTNETT: That’s very, very kind. We had an amazing stunt team, and these guys helped me every step of the way. They made me look really, really good. Clayton [Grover], who was my go-to, my on-screen stunt double, but also just there to kind of guide me through everything, he would work with the rest of the stunt team and work with me to find ways to make these things happen so that I could actually do them. You don’t always get that sort of bespoke sort of situation, but yeah, I was able to do them without dying.
SACKHOFF: You’re downplaying that. The amount of work that you took on to be able to do all of that fight coordination, and granted that there was a team around you, for sure, but that is so hard to do. Especially with your dialogue, especially staying true to the arc of the character, that is hard, and you did amazing.
HARTNETT: Thank you!
These ‘Bridgerton’ and ‘White Lotus’ Stars Shine in ‘Fight or Flight’

Charithra Chandran and Julian Kostov wowed their co-stars.

Image via Vertical Entertainment

Before I get too deep into the stunts of it all, I wanted to make sure to highlight two scene partners. Josh, I thought Charithra [Chandran] was something else. I see you in this movie, and you’re such a force right out the gate, so I’m wondering, “Who’s going to go toe to toe with him on the plane?” And then she’s electrifying in that role. What’s the first thing you saw her do, either in prep or on set, that made you think, “She’s really going to pop in this movie?”
HARTNETT: I love Charithra. She is the most inappropriately, ambitiously talkative human being I’ve ever met in my life. She’s so bright and she asks so many questions. We had such a lovely time getting to know each other, but it was immediate. You walk into a room with Charithra, and there’s a whole new thing to contend with. It’s not about you anymore; it’s about the millions of things she wants to know. So, you’re going to be there answering as much as you can. Then, most of the time, she’s going to get bored because you can’t answer them all and move on to someone else and find some more answers. She’s electric in person, so I knew she was going to be electric on screen.
Do either of you recall a big burning question she had that enhanced a beat of the movie?
MADIGAN: It wasn’t even about the movie most time.
HARTNETT: The world and life and politics. It was about literally anything that she was thinking about at any moment. Then it would circle back to the movie sometimes. She’s just a ray of sunshine.
MADIGAN: She’s just a bright light we got. We got so lucky with her. She was in Bridgerton, but she sent a self-tape where she got a little flight attendant outfit, and she acted this scene out, and I was just like, “Wow.” I mean, she was just perfect from day one, so we adored her. She was a pillar of the shoot, for sure.
I also read that initially her character didn’t have any fights. At what point did you realize that needed to change?
MADIGAN: I didn’t want her to be a damsel in distress, and I didn’t want it to be a situation where she’s just getting saved all the time. But also, to do these kinds of stunts, especially when you don’t have a big prep where you can really sit down and practice them, and if the only thing that you’ve done is Bridgerton, it’s sort of like, “Is she going to take to this?” I knew a place where I wanted her to get that, and it could be a thing where Lucas is like, “I’ve got to save her. I’ve got to save her.” And then, holy shit, she saves herself, and it fit in there really nicely. It was like, “Okay, that’ll work. Let me go to her.” And I was like, “Do you think maybe…?” And she was like, “Oh my god, yes!” She was so excited to do it. A lot of times, actors say they want to do that, and then when you get into it, sometimes they can, sometimes they can’t. She started working with the stunt guys, and within, like, 20 minutes, she could run that whole fight without pause. It was incredible.
She’s something else in this.
And Julian [Kostov] is also something else! Katee, do you remember the first moment you realized, “Yes, he is the Hunter to my Brunt?”
SACKHOFF: It’s so interesting because he also talked a lot. He was so joyful and such a ball of energy every single day. He brought 110%. I was jet lagged, and he was like, “This is amazing!” He brought such an interesting dynamic to Brunt, who is so controlled the entire time, that I never knew what he was going to do, which was really fun. He’s just the most excited, game person I’ve had a chance to work with. He’s really positive and so much fun, and always game to do anything crazy, which I loved about him. He took the character and really, really made it his own and made it more than what it was on the page, and I loved that.
MADIGAN: The line, “Well, isn’t that a bag of dicks?” Yeah, he made that up on the spot. [Laughs] “Isn’t that a bag of dicks?” I was like, “Alright, that works.”
Hearing about that energy doesn’t surprise me given the performance we see on screen. Also, he’s an A+ producer doing incredible things for Bulgarian storytelling.
MADIGAN: He’s a busy guy.

Image via Vertical Entertainment

21:24

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Katee and James, with a movie like this, I suspect it can be really challenging to ensure the control room material keeps the energy just as high as these wild fights on the plane. What were some top priorities the two of you had in order to accomplish that?
MADIGAN: To just tell everyone, “Keep saying it faster.” [Laughs] No. It was one of those things where they kind of have the thankless job in the sense that if we don’t have those scenes, there’s kind of no story. They really are buttressing the plot. And to just find as many ways as we could to get through it, get to the point, move the camera as much as possible. Actually, I wound up seeing — and this is going to be a terrible reference — there are all these scenes in Armageddon with Billy Bob Thornton where it’s the most exciting control room you’ve ever seen. I mean, that’s kind of over the top, and they have lots of money, but for those kinds of things, you just need to make sure that you keep it moving as much as possible, and that you hit the plot points that you need.
Also, William [van der Vegt], the guy who played Simmons, and Julian were just constantly telling jokes. William would do these Brando impersonations. So, there were always these comedic moments that were kind of coming up that we were trying to figure out how to infuse into the story. We shot all that in a matter of days. It was a very quick shoot.
SACKHOFF: I think we did it really quickly. It was, like, four days, or something like that. I just wanted Katherine the entire time to be really hungover. She comes to work, and we’ve all been there, where all you want to do is wrap it up fast so you can go home, and it’s the worst day ever when you’re hungover. It’s just like everything falls apart. So, I just wanted her to have this level of disdain the entire time for everyone who talks to her, at all times.
[Editor’s Note: The next answer contains a plot spoiler for Fight or Flight.]MADIGAN: Quick story. One of the first times we talked, after you were officially cast, you were like, “I just want one thing. I want to kill Hunter at the end of it.” Because that wasn’t there, and I was like, “Okay! Why not?” And so we’re like, “Julian, we’re going to kill you.” He’s like, “I won’t be back for the sequel?” I was like, “Oh, I guess not.” So, you wouldn’t believe it, but we actually shot that at the airport in Hungary. Like, the terminal’s right there. We got out there that day, and it was just completely fogged in. So we were at this location that was really hard to get because planes are landing nearby, and we needed all these permits, and it was pointless because we can’t even see the terminal that we were there to shoot. Anyway, it was hard to get anything in, and they would only let a few people in, and so the fake gun that Katee was supposed to use for that scene where she takes it out and shoots him, they wouldn’t let it through.
SACKHOFF: Because it’s an active runway. You can’t get a gun through customs. We couldn’t even take liquid more than three ounces.
MADIGAN: They would only let, like, two crew members through. So, we got there to shoot it, and they were like, “There’s no gun.” And we’re like, “Really? What are we going to do?” So, she’s actually holding her sunglass case.
SACKHOFF: Because they were like, “I guess we won’t do it,” and I was like, “I am killing him.”
MADIGAN: So I was like, “We’re just going to keep the focus on him.” I was like, “Julian, just keep looking at the thing and I’ll cue you when to die.” And she basically takes out her sunglass case and boom. There’s no gun.
SACKHOFF: And it felt so good.
MADIGAN: It totally works.
‘Fight or Flight’ Is Shot by the Cinematographer of ‘The Raid’ Movies

“I have pictures of him in a full poncho, because he’s holding the camera just completely covered in blood.”

Digging into the visuals now, the first thing I have to ask you about is working with Matt Flannery, who’s one of the best. He shot The Raid. There’s one particular thing in our press notes that I jotted down. You said, “We met, and I explained that this is not your run-of-the-mill action movie.” Then you said, “I let him in on a few secrets I had planned, and he was in.” Do you remember what those secrets were?
MADIGAN: The whole toad venom thing wasn’t really written like that. And mostly the tone of it. Everyone’s saying “John Wick on a plane,” and me and Josh are like, “We’re going to be in pajamas.” You know what I mean? It’s going to have a different kind of tone to it. We do want there to be this redemption story and to lean into the character a bit more and to really make sure that we’re filming it in a way that we’re kind of tracking the degradation of this person physically, and to just have it not be your boilerplate kind of action movie. The third act had all these different pieces of these things, but I wanted it to be as unconventional as we could afford to make it because I knew Josh was on board for that. The more I pitched those kinds of things, he was like, “Oh, wow, great.”
I mean, I kind of threw his name out as a joke. “We should get the guy from The Raid.” Then he was like, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” We were like, “Oh! Alright, great!” [Laughs] He also is the camera operator, so 90% of the shots you see, the cinematographer’s actually holding the camera, and he’s, like, 6’4”. He’s this gigantic guy, and it’s this tiny plane that he had to squeeze into. It’s pretty amazing.
Can you tell us something specific that you were able to accomplish visually that only he could do?
MADIGAN: I mean, the easy answer is kind of everything, because as soon as we started getting into, “How are we going to shoot this?” You work it out with the stunt guys, and they do a pre-vis. They’ve got a nice, easy little camera, sometimes their phone, where they can go in and around all the scenes and film it all quite easily. We’re like, “Well, that’s all well and good, but we have a proper camera. How the fuck are we gonna get in here?” And it came down to having to remove seats, having to move all sorts of things that made it a lot more difficult, and because he was so accustomed to shooting like that, he could just kind of roll with it in a way that made the entire thing possible. For that scene with the blood, I have pictures of him in a full poncho, because he’s holding the camera, just completely covered in blood, for the axe in the head. What would you say to that?
HARTNETT: He was so much a part of the choreography of these fights. You can choreograph a fight in many different ways, but if you don’t have the camera moving through it the way that he was moving through it physically, then you don’t get that sense of actually being within it. There were a couple of things that you wanted to shoot that were like tracking shots down one side of the plane when other things were happening on the other side of the plane, but we always mixed that up. It would kind of then shoot across the aisle, and that required moving seats around, and then moving the back. So, there was a whole team of people with the camera department and with the art department, putting back the seats. That plane looks like a plane, but oh my god.
MADIGAN: Not when we were done with it. They rehearsed it. They worked out all the fights. The stunt guys didn’t have any place; they took away their rehearsal space. So they were like, “Alright, fuck it, we’ll do it on the set.” And they worked out all their fights in the actual set. So, then we went in the shoot, and everything was broken. We were like, “What are you doing?” [Laughs] But that’s kind of how it went down. I mean, things were sort of falling apart.
HARTNETT: But yeah, Flannery was just very much a part of the fight sequences. He was doing his own stunts, too.
Of all the epic set pieces in this movie, going into filming, which did you two think was going to be the toughest to pull off, and ultimately, was it, or did a different scene catch you by surprise?
HARTNETT: I think we were always thinking that the final sequence was going to be the hardest, and I think it was.
MADIGAN: The final sequence is like eight different sequences. When you go into something like this, this is a small, independent movie, so there was a lot of talk in prep of, like, “You’re going to have to let that go and you’re going to have to let that go,” and I was really trying not to. But there’s a point to it, which is you’ve got wire work, you’ve got blood rigs, you’ve got all these different things going on, and there’s no way you can have all of it. I just kind of kept saying, “I think we’ll find a way.” And luckily, we did. But we did shoot all those pieces last, and going into it, I honestly didn’t know if we were going to get it all.
HARTNETT: I had faith.
MADIGAN: As a matter of fact, that chainsaw bit was just the preamble. That was just the opener. Then, we go to JuJu [Chan Szeto] getting killed, and then we come back, and that was going to be this really bonkers scene, and then we come back for the guy getting the chainsaw in the head. The whole meat of the scene, we didn’t do!
HARTNETT: That’s true. But we got that great turnaround shot where it’s like, “Oh, something really bad is going to happen.” Then we cut away, and then we come back, and we just see the chainsaw go through the head. I think that works, comically, so much better. Then also, I would say that you’re tenacious as hell. People kept saying, “We’re going to cut this, we’re going to cut this day, and we’re going to do this.” And he would be like, “Well, we’re going to find a way to do it.” He just would will it into existence. It was amazing to watch that. Sometimes, with just enough ingenuity and the right temperament, and just having it in your head and being able to work really, really hard, you can make something like this happen for not as much. I mean, this is, in my opinion, as entertaining as a movie can get, and we didn’t have to spend $200 million to do it.
MADIGAN: Thank you.
I’ll harp on that point a little more because I do think it’s really important to zero in on a specific thing. Can you recall something that might make an audience member go, “There’s no way you could do that without $200 million,” and then tell us how you accomplished it on an independent film budget?
MADIGAN: You tell me what in there looks like that. I mean, I did half the visual effects myself. I feel like they’re terrible. I’m like, “Oh, I did that on my laptop.” So, I don’t know. I worry.
HARTNETT: It doesn’t. It looks fantastic. Shut up, Jim. Jesus Christ. He’s not selling the movie. We’re here to sell the movie. The movie is great.
Everything looks expensive.
MADIGAN: Good!
HARTNETT: He also does visual effects. It’s not like he woke up one day and was like, “Hmm, I’ll tinker with this. We’re not getting the budget for it, so I’ll just make it up.” You knew how to do it.
For anyone who doesn’t know, James has a background in visual effects, and you’re also a very accomplished second unit director. Those two skills come together brilliantly here, and I think everyone can see that in the finished product.
MADIGAN: Thank you. Thank you.
HARTNETT: And the theater director. I will say that, as well. You’re a theater director, as well. So, that’s the acting side.
MADIGAN: I love the actors. It’s my favorite part of it.
HARTNETT: At least that’s what you told us.
MADIGAN: I keep winding up in these situations where it’s having to shoot action scenes in Transformers and things like that, but that’s really my favorite part of it because that’s the X factor. The amount of times that these guys came to me because I’m like, “I have it in my head. I know how it works,” and then Josh would be like, “What about this?” And I’d be like, “Oh, wow, that’s way better.” There were so many things. I mean, the pajamas were you, that bit with the gun. It’s a very, very long list of things that 100% came from you in prep, came from you in the moment, that are now in the movie that I just love. That X factor of what the cast brings is the magic of it for me.
I’ll build on that a little more with the two of you. This is another thing that you’re explaining, and I see it all over the movie – as far as action goes, and also with the more dialogue-heavy control room material. What is it like working with James as an actor’s director that lets you get all that work done, but in a way that ups character development and lets them, as a person, shine through?
SACKHOFF: Katherine had a lot of dialogue, and exposition is something I love to do. I really love it. I’m a weirdo. I do love it. But he came to me and he said, “So, we’re not going to shoot any of this on camera except for these pieces.” And I was like, “Oh no, no, no. I’m prepared for all of it.” And he went, “All of it?” And I was like, “Yeah, all of it.” He went, “We don’t have time to do all of it.” And I was like, “We can get it.” I was like, “Turn the camera on. I promise we can get this. I know we can get this.” And he allowed me to do that, which takes time on a movie. But I wanted to find out who she was. I wanted to have her movements. I wanted to live in her skin. For a character like this that comes in and out very, very quickly, you don’t always get the luxury to do that, and he allowed me to do that. I was so thankful because it made me feel like he believed in me, which just made it so much more fun.
HARTNETT: He believed in you so much, like, from the word go. We were in prep, and he was like, “Katee’s this character, Katee’s this character.” And it was so obvious you are. So, you guys were on the same wavelength. I had two days off on this, and two of them were when these guys were doing it, and I came down to set to watch them work, and they were at breakneck speed. I watched you guys for a little while, and you guys were just on fire.
SACKHOFF: We have an entire backstory, though, Josh. So, for the next movie, we’re ready. We created all of it.
HARTNETT: I can’t wait to read it.
I kind of want a prequel about what happened before — and I want the sequel, too, so let’s make this a cinematic universe, please.
Because somebody brought up blood and because I love horror and gore, blood rigs and all that fun stuff, I have to touch on that briefly. Can you each tell me a bloody part of the movie that made you go, “I cannot believe this is what we have to do to make it look like that on screen in the end?”
HARTNETT: I can say one thing that was gross. A lot of the stunt guys were this excellent crew who had been working together for a long time, and some of them were, like, the granddaddies of the group. They’ve been through it. They had all their stripes. They would come in to do specialty things occasionally, and so my fight with Balázs at the end, where I have to strangle him with a seat belt, he was so happy to have the blood caps in his mouth and to spit blood everywhere. There were so many times when Balázs was spitting blood right into my mouth.
MADIGAN: Oh, there’s a really funny moment, and it’s in the movie because it was the only take we did of it — this is a true story — when Marko [Zaror], who’s the guy that he fights in the bathroom, when he’s dead, at the very end, he falls off the toilet. The way that he fell, his knee went straight into Josh’s crotch, and if he had done anything, it would have screwed me, because it was the only take of it that I had. If you watch that, because I need to give it a few more frames after he’s down, there’s a moment right as he hits the ground where Josh kind of goes [grunts], but he did not break! He stayed completely in character. It was amazing.
HARTNETT: And now I can’t have any more kids, but that’s okay. I’ve got plenty.
MADIGAN: So I wanted to have all these prosthetics, I really wanted the chainsaw thing to be, like, the Crazy 88 from kill Bill, and all these real rigs and it was like, okay, “This prosthetic, that prosthetic.” And it was like, “Okay, we have money for zero prosthetics.” And it was like, “Oh, then how are we going to do this?”
So there was this big shop that had all these body parts and different things. So the one bit where he slices through the guy, it’s basically on him. And then it cuts to seeing through the guy as Josh, you know, tripping is like, “Whoa”, you know? And that is me and the prosthetic guy. They had a body that came apart like this from some medieval show or something, and it was meant to be laying on the ground in two parts, and we basically had them tear a costume in half and put it on this body. And I’m holding the arm part of it, and the other guy is holding the body part. And we just pulled it apart with some blood squirting through, it’s some real Sam Raimi shit.
I mean, a lot of the prosthetics, like the first one (The Evil Dead), you know, and he didn’t have any money. A lot of those things were us finding whatever we could – you know, they gave us, like a kit of parts, and we really made it work because I’m like, “This can’t be CG number one. We don’t have any money for CG, but it’s going to be very practical.”
HARTNETT: Are you sensing a theme? I feel like there’s a theme amongst these.
MADIGAN: But it was the practical stuff really, really worked. You know, it wound up saving us.
It looks so good. It delights me to no end.
Before we wrap, let’s see if we can get in one or two audience questions!
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Congratulations to all three of you. James because you have worked in the industry for so many years, what is a filmmaking lesson you learned on a past project that you applied to your work here?
MADIGAN: Oh, I mean, it sounds like a bullshit answer, but like all of them, I mean everything. But, you know, I worked on this movie, Sean Connery’s last movie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That’s got some stories. And the director, Stephen Norrington, he had built the alien for Aliens. He was a prosthetic guy. And we use so much in-camera stuff for, like, hide and everything. I mean, it was just all over the place, and it was really kind of glorious in how he would use those things and shoot those things. And, you know, like, we wouldn’t have a CG hide. We would shoot it like how they did the hobbits and Gandalf, you know, like force perspective and all these different things. So, I really take a lot from that, I would say, just in how much better it is to try and do things practically, than to use too much CG, probably.
We Know the Perfect Broadway Role For Hartnett

“I’ve thought a lot about doing a Broadway show.”

Image via Vertical

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is for Josh. It’s funny that James brought up Extraordinary Gentlemen because it kind of ties into my question. I know you worked with Reeve Carney on Penny Dreadful. He’s a Broadway legend. I was wondering, have you ever thought about doing a Broadway show? What would be your dream role, and why is it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
HARTNETT: So, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I have actually, I’ve thought a lot about doing a Broadway show. I just …I live in the UK now. My wife is English. So whenever the thought of doing theater comes up, she’s like, “Oh, you’ll be home,” because she thinks London. So, like, it would be a really tough sell to be like, “You take the four kids and I’ll go to New York for the indefinite future if it does well.” But I would love to. I would love to work. Of course, everyone would love to work on Broadway. There was a moment where I thought I was going to do something years ago, and it just never came together in the way that we hoped. We wanted to. But I am going to go back and do some theatre soon. I was supposed to do something this summer, but there’s another project I have to do, so I can’t, but that was going to be in London, and I will.
And as far as Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde goes, you think that that’s what I should do? I’m going to look into it because that sounds like a lot of fun. Has it been done recently?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Not in a long time!
HARTNETT: No?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You’re perfect for it.
HARTNETT: Okay!
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Trap and this together, it would be perfect.
HARTNETT: Are you an agent?
[Audience Laughter]
HARTNETT: What agency do you work at? Thank you!
Fight or Flight releases May 9 in theaters.

Fight or Flight

Release Date

May 9, 2025

Runtime

102 minutes

Director

James Madigan

Producers

Basil Iwanyk, Tai Duncan, Erica Lee

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