Jeremy Ray Taylor (Big Sky) spoke to Bleeding Cool about his latest Quiver action-comedy, London Calling, Josh Duhamel, LARPing and more.
In an ideal world, most actors prefer not to get typecast, but sometimes work is work. For London Calling star Jeremy Ray Taylor, it was the perfect opportunity to break out of his shell of “playing the funny fat kid” by playing Julian, a mob heir who doesn’t fit into the ideal mold his father, Benson (Rick Hoffman), wants him in before taking over the family business. He tasks former UK hitman Tommy Ward (Josh Duhamel) to make “a man out of him” and harden him into the boss he should be. Taylor spoke to Bleeding Cool about playing against type in the Quiver film, working with director Allan Ungar, timing filming with Duhamel’s short window, learning from him and Hoffman, if he participated in Live-Action Role Playing (LARP) before filming, and what characteristics he shares with Julian, and his most demanding scenes.
What intrigued you about ‘London Calling ‘?
That’s a good question. Everything, really. I grew up with ‘Transformers’ (2007), so I’m a huge fan of Josh Duhamel. I’ve watched Peaky Blinders, so I’m a huge fan of Aidan Gillen. Cape Town was a new place for me, so we did 100 percent of the filming there, which was awesome. Josh and I had some conversations early on about exactly where we wanted our careers to go, and this was a perfect opportunity for both of us to be taken a little bit more seriously. Although I owe everything to it, and that’s where I learned everything, this is me trying to break away from being the “funny fat kid,” and trying to be taken a little bit more seriously. [‘London Calling’] was the perfect opportunity for that.
What was it like working with Allan as a creative?
Absolutely, Allan was incredible. Allan and Josh are both very collaborative, so [Allan] let us do our own thing and get his vision in. That was a phenomenal experience, and we had a huge time crunch. Josh’s wife (Audra Mari) was pregnant during the filming, and if she gave birth, he would be gone, so we had to get it done, which made it easy in Cape Town. The South Africans work very hard and very fast. It was a huge time crunch, everybody stayed calm, and we got it done.
Did you and Josh bond before filming to build that rapport between your characters?
This was one of the few films that I didn’t get a chance to bond with my co-star, and that’s crazy, because this was one of the first times I ever had to have that much one-on-one chemistry as well, and it just worked; we didn’t need much. We had some stuff where we had to do some firearms training, some fight choreography training, and stuff like that. Other than that, our chemistry was the naturalness of our relationship. Josh is a great guy and easy to work with.
Did you have any experience LARPing before filming this?
Believe it or not, I have never LARPed before. I am a huge gamer, but no, I have never had the chance to LARP. I have heard of it, and I’ve seen some old YouTube videos that went viral, and we referenced those in the movie a little bit, but no, I have never LARPED myself.
What was the most difficult scene for you to film?
That’s tough. There are a couple of different aspects of toughness in this movie. There are some physical and some emotional. Some of the stuff towards the end of the movie was tough emotionally. I can’t say exactly why, obviously. I don’t want to spoil anything, but many of the fight sequences were very mentally or physically taxing. They gave my character short sleeves, so I wasn’t allowed to hide elbow pads or anything. All that army crawling in the sand over glass is all real, but I love doing my own stunts. That stuff is quite fun. At the end of the day, it’s very physically taxing, for sure.
What was the most difficult part about balancing the action, comedy, and when the scenes call for it to be more serious?
When it comes to action and comedy, they have similar timing, and where I had to be funny in this one, it was fun to play with the physical comedy of it, like jumping over the hood in the trailer. That kind of stuff worked well because it was all written seamlessly, and it works.
As an actor, did you pick up any pointers from your more seasoned peers, such as Josh, Rick (Hoffman), or anyone else?
It was interesting working with Rick, as he has a very different comedy style than I do. He talks very quickly, and he likes to have my line right on the heel of his, so some challenges were working with an actor who has his own complete comedy style, and that was a lot of fun. I don’t think it is as many tips as you learn from these very seasoned actors doing their thing.
