I can hear Joe Carnahan from far outside the room. The boisterousness, the exuberance, the laugh. Here was a director who really wanted to talk about his new movie The Grey, a survivalist thriller starring Liam Neeson, and – as I was soon to discover – swears by it. And about it. Actually, he just f*cking swears. It was hard not to reciprocate, so I didn’t bother trying. The man who brought you Narc, Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team was a mile a minute the whole interview, which spanned from a defense of his last movie, an explanation of how The Grey would have worked with Bradley Cooper instead of Liam Neeson (which almost happened), how Pokemon crushed his spirit, and his next film, Killing Pablo.
There are some genuine SPOILERS ahead, but we’ll call attention to them so you can easily avoid ruining the movie for yourselves.
CraveOnline: I gotta tell you, I loved The Grey. I think it’s your best film since Narc, and I think Narc is the sh*t.
Joe Carnahan: Oh, I think you’re right, dude.
I personally love The A-Team, not everyone is as big a fan of it…
I don’ t know why, brother, I don’t know why.
It’s so fun! It’s not intelligent fun, but it’s smart. It works on its own merits. You look at like, the Transformers films, they don’t work on their own merits. A-Team at least works for what it is.
You know what it is, that I knew I was in trouble when I read it, when Roger Ebert started like, citing Newtonian law and taking me to task about the tank drop. By the way, is it such hallowed ground, the f*cking A-Team?
It’s not!
It’s not! I was a lot more p*ssed off about what happened to Miami Vice, because I loved that show as a kid.
I actually defend Miami Vice. I liked Miami Vice. It’s more of a tonal piece than anything else, and granted that’s not what anyone wanted or expected, but I think if you look at that film on its own merits, it’s just a sort of dry character piece with just a couple of action beats in it. I do think it works on that level.
I think the contrarian in [Michael] Mann loves to do that. It’s like, “Oh really, you want the pastels and the flamingos and the art deco? F*ck you. The palette is ‘bruise.’”
People were mean to that movie because it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be. And that’s kind of fine, I blame the marketing department for that. But what are you gonna do?
Yeah, exactly.
But let’s talk about you for a little bit, and not Michael Mann.
[Laughs]
Your movies are interesting because it feels, in a way, like there’s two Joe Carnahans. There’s the fun, crazy, Smokin’ Aces, A-Team Joe Carnahan, and then there’s the f*cked up Joe Carnahan.
Right. [Laughs] I love that it goes from like, the fun to the fun to the fun, and then the f*cked up guy.
And The Grey, I think,was a very nice return to that, because you’ve done some fun ones lately.
Well I think I had to, and I only because I think I started to see myself as like, “Do people think you’re a schmuck? Are you an a**hole?” I felt that it was time to make this type of movie because I think, one – and not that I didn’t love The A-Team, and have a great time making that – but that’s not where my heart beats. White Jazz, and Killing Pablo, and The Grey – these are the kind of movies I want to make. And you know what? They’re difficult movies to make, dude. You can’t tell people you wanna make Killing Pablo and say that 80% of it is gonna be in Spanish, and have people go “Yay!” It’s just not gonna happen. So for me this was a great opportunity to do something like you said. Listen man, I love Antonioni films, and I love the Three Stooges. Just like if you look at my musical tastes, there’s Iggy and the Stooges right next to Barbra Streisand. I don’t want to do any one thing, and the careers of the guys I admire, like Ang Lee and Soderbergh, they deliberately take themselves out of [that]. Nobody says “Oh that’s a Steven Soderberg film,” beyond the execution, beyond whatever commonality the director’s hand…you know.
Yeah, although I do think that if there is something of a common thread in your work, you have a very masculine view. And The Grey is sort of like the peak of that.
Sure. Hopefully not a hollow one though…
