True Blood Cop vs Red Hill Cop
While Jason Stackhouse isn’t a cop (yet), Ryan Kwanten, the wonderful man who brings Jason to life, is playing a real cop in his new movie Red Hill. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Ryan talked about his childhood, his acting career, and much more.
Since Ryan has been playing characters who have an interest in the law and careers as police officers. However, that doesn’t mean Ryan has always been the most law-abiding citizen. He says that he was rebellious as a teen, even though there really was no reason or motive in how aggressive he was. However, once he got past 21, he got it out of his system, and now all of that drama is let out on-screen.
Ryan’s played a lot of different characters and has taken different approaches with them. When comparing how he approaches a tv show character versus a movie character, Ryan said:
The beauty of True Blood is that Alan Ball and his expert team of writers have allowed the character to breathe over the course of multiple seasons, and I now have a sense of ownership. But beyond that, as an audience member, you become invested in the character. With an hour and a half, I know the ending of Red Hill, but I don’t know where Jason’s going to end up. There’s certain liberties you have to abide by, but there’s freedom attached to that, too.
Both True Blood and Red Hill are dark, but True Blood has a campiness to it that lightens the aesthetic. Ryan said that part of the way Red Hill kept its dark aesthetic was by shooting on 35mm film. That way, the crispness of high definition wouldn’t hurt the “old-school Western” style of the film.
Ryan continued talking about film and shared what draws him to the visual aspects of filmmaking:
I have very lengthy discussions with any potential project and film director about all that stuff. I want to know what D.P. [director of photography] they’re using, the lighting schemes, what they’re shooting on, the lenses they’re using. I know enough about the filmmaking craft to talk about it; it’s beneficial for them to know how much I know, but it’s also beneficial for me to know how I’m going to be shot. I just love the business. If you look at what Tom E. Lewis did, with the character of Jimmy Conway—he had one line, but he said more throughout the entire film than any other character. That shows the power of the eyes and the power of filmmaking.
Ryan continued discussing the film industry and the importance of how film is edited before transitioning back to more questions about his work as Jason. He said that people do assume that he’s from the South because of Jason. Ryan also said that he doesn’t have any actual training as an actor except his experiences while being on-set. Instead, he takes a lot of pride in creating characters and using his own life experiences to do so.
There is a lot more to this interview, so to check it out, just click here and enjoy!
SOURCE: Vanity Fair — Ryan Kwanten Will Pay You Back
(Image Credit: HBO Inc.)
Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason Stackhouse on True Blood, sat down with Red Hill writer and director, Patrick Hughes, and made a special video message for Red Hill’s Facebook fans. The two Aussies seem like old buddies, teasing and poking fun at one another for the majority of the short clip, but still managing to slip in some details about the movie, which opened to a wide release in the U.S. on November 25, 2010.
