A Good Day To Die Hard - Trailer
John McClane travels to Russia to help out his seemingly wayward son, Jack, only to discover that Jack is a CIA operative.
- Autoplay OnOff
- Video feedback
- Video settings
Before he became Hollywood's newest action star in A Good Day to Die Hard, Australian actor Jai Courtney wondered if he'd even be allowed into the country again.
''I started coming out to LA as often as I could, for three months on and three months off because immigration kicks you out after 90 days,'' the 27-year-old actor says. ''I certainly made the immigration authorities suspicious and I got detained at LAX after my fifth or sixth trip with this intense questioning, like, 'Why do you keep coming back?' And I'd say, 'I've got friends', or 'I love LA so much.'
I was running out of excuses by the time I finally got a job!''
Action man: With Hollywood icon Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard.
Not only did the unassuming Courtney get ''a job'' - starring opposite Tom Cruise in the 2012 thriller Jack Reacher - he followed that up by co-starring with Bruce Willis in the fifth Die Hard film, A Good Day to Die Hard.
In the big-budget action thriller, Courtney plays Jack McClane, the estranged son of New York detective John McClane (Willis). Dad travels to Moscow at the request of his daughter to check on Jack when they discover he is in jail. Unaware that Jack is an undercover CIA agent, John inadvertently blows his cover and father and son are reluctantly forced to finish the mission together.
''I was too young to be an avid enthusiast for the franchise, but like billions of people, I remember as a child sitting around with the family on a Friday night with pizza and popcorn and a Die Hard movie on,'' Courtney recalls. The Sydney native was a toddler when the original film came out - which also featured the toddler Jack in one brief scene - and he smiles as he admits, ''It's crazy to think that I am now part of that legacy that the franchise will leave behind, and not only that, but now I'm one of the McClanes!''
Found a job or two: Jai Courtney.
Courtney is sitting in the same Beverly Hills hotel suite where he held court just a few months earlier to promote his role in Jack Reacher, with Cruise, a film that helped prepare him for working with another movie icon. ''I definitely had nerves but it did help desensitise me a little so when I stepped into that space with Bruce, I tried not to let the pressure of the franchise and the expectations of the fans infect me too much because I had a job to do.''
Describing his own upbringing as ''pretty humble'', Courtney acknowledges he's the first actor in the family. ''My mum is a school teacher and my dad is an electrician,'' he continues. ''I was just a bit of a show-off in school and loved playing dress-up and my passion for it just grew as I got older.''
After finishing high school, Courtney took a job with a local camping and adventure warehouse. ''All our clientele were school groups who would take tents and backpacks and waterproof clothing up to the mountains for two weeks and then return the gear, so my job was to clean it,'' he elaborates. ''You don't know how many pairs of filthy underwear and old clothes and rotten apples and crap
I pulled out of backpacks, and how many mouldy tents I scrubbed or zippers I fixed on sleeping bags! It was mind-numbing work,'' he says, ''but that's what made me think I needed to take acting more seriously, and that's when I decided to apply to WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts).''
Courtney graduated from WAAPA in 2008 and after only a handful of episodes on All Saints and Packed to the Rafters in Sydney, where he supplemented his income bartending at a local pub, he won a major role in Spartacus: Blood and Sand as gladiator Varro and moved to New Zealand for filming.
His character was killed off in the 10th episode but his friendship with original Aussie Spartacus star, Andy Whitfield, continued until the 39-year-old actor passed away in 2011 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
''Being close with him on Spartacus had a lot to do with me coming out to Los Angeles in the first place, hearing about his experiences and how the town worked and what you need to do to get an agent and he really helped guide me through all that, so when he got sick it was unbelievable,'' Courtney says, softly. ''The guy was an image of health and it's pretty extraordinary when something like that happens and you can't seem to find a reason why. But I guess what I took away from that was just to live the way he did and get clear about your objectives and make it all count.''
The busy actor has two thrillers coming out later this year: Felony, with Joel Edgerton, and I, Frankenstein, with Aaron Eckhart. He's still somehow managed to maintain a relationship for the past seven years with Neighbours star Gemma Pranita. She left the series last year so she could move with him to Los Angeles, where they are based for now. ''It's good to be spending time together,'' he beams. ''We've been way too used to the Skype relationship for the past few years.''
Asked if he minds being typecast as an action star, Courtney shrugs. ''It's great to be given these opportunities and if action is where my roots lie and that's a theme that I've got to just build upon and continue through my career … fantastic. But I am interested in many different types of filmmaking so I certainly hope I can show some versatility as a performer, too.''
A Good Day to Die Hard
Genre Action drama
Critical buzz Poor reviews didn't stop the film making a killing at the box office in the US and internationally
Stars Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney
Director John Moore
Rated M
Release Thursday
No comments:
Post a Comment