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The previews for Armored shows what goes down when a gang try to take an armored money truck. By the time we got to the set, things had gone down in a big way. The truck was crashed with burned money and gunshot debris all over the place. Milo Ventimiglia took a break for a roundtable interview, in between his second and third season of Heroes.
Q: How did your character get into this current state?
Milo Ventimiglia: You mean dirty, bloody and half way dead? My character Officer Eckehart responds to a siren. When getting to the location, he thinks he hears the siren and the siren goes off. He gets himself shot when he does his job and pulls his weapon. He gets a shotgun blast to the gut.
Q: Who shoots you?
Milo Ventimiglia: One of the bad guys shoots me.
Q: Is your character in this state for much of the movie?
Milo Ventimiglia: Quite a bit. The majority of the film I’m in the back of an armored car laying, dying, wailing, crying, thinking about my own morality. He’s a mess, but this is the worst where I’m at.
Q: Is there extra stuff seeping from the holes?
Milo Ventimiglia: Oh yeah. There’s actually tubes connected to this that run down. Some of the scenes on the truck they’re pumping a lot of blood in me. This is all very dry right now. But it’s pretty wet and pretty sticky and pretty messy.
Q: So this is kind of your homage in Tim Roth in Reservoir Dogs?
Milo Ventimiglia: I intentionally didn’t watch that because he was so genius in that role. It’s kind of hard to be there and witness somebody getting shot in the gut and do an honest interpretation of it. I think for me it was just understanding more the mental pain and disconnect from the physical of what you go through if you know you’re going to die which is pretty painful and pretty tiring too.
Q: Would this shoot have fallen into your hiatus or did the writer’s strike allow you to be available?
Milo Ventimiglia: This probably would not have been possible if the writer’s strike didn’t happen. I think it’s one of those good things and bad things where I was torn out of my day job, but I got the opportunity to do three films on my break. This is my third.
Q: What was it about this project that you liked?
Milo Ventimiglia: First of all the actors. To be able to work with Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Skeet Ulrich, Amaury Nolasco and Columbus Short, that was an initial draw of course. Then the story to tell. This kind of hopeful youth going against the desperation of guys that are kind of at the end of their rope. There’s a story to tell there. I think ultimately I’m never going to jump into anything that I don’t think there is a story to tell or a character arc to understand so for me it was just being a part of that.
Q: What are the other two films and have you noticed different offers since being on Heroes?
Milo Ventimiglia: Yes. Heroes brought about more of an awareness. Heroes is across the world so I think people understand and go, “Peter Petrelli why did you cut your hair?” But still it’s getting jobs the old fashioned way. Going in and speaking to the director and the producers and the studio. Making sure it’s the right fit. I have two other films. One is called Chaos Theory with Rhys Coiro. Do you watch Entourage? You know Billy Walsh, the crazy director. That’s who he is. Amazing. In the movie it’s a two hander. It’s him and I. He plays the straight man so he’s not this wild and eccentric guy. He’s actually very in the box. He doesn’t really step outside of it too much. I’m the opposite antagonist to him. The other film is Gamer.
