Mark Williams Interview: Blacklight | Screen Rant
Liam Neeson is back with a vengeance in Blacklight. The new action-thriller centers on Travis Block, an off-the-books cleaner for the FBI tasked with pulling undercover agents out of dangerous situations as he finds himself caught in the center of a deadly government conspiracy.
In time for the film's theatrical release, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with director Mark Williams to discuss Blacklight, reuniting with Liam Neeson, filming in the midst of the pandemic, the future of Ozark and more.
Screen Rant: Blacklight is an interesting one in that it really sort of flew on my radar during development, how did this one sort of come about?
Mark Williams: It was a script that I found that was that was actually set in 1971, about COINTELPRO, which was J. Edgar Hoover and the program that he had about counterintelligence. But I knew it was a little dated, and it wasn't really gonna live up to current audiences, especially when you throw the action genre part of it into it. So I really wanted to update it and then as I was thinking about it, I thought, "You know what, the program might have ended in 1971, but they might still be doing this stuff," which wouldn't surprise me with all the alphabet agencies, who knows what they're really doing behind closed doors and whatnot.
So I transplanted it to today, added some of the "thrills and spills," as Liam says, to the car chases and the gunfights and all that. We kept it under the radar, partly because this is all during COVID version one, where it was really hard to mount a movie, especially of this size and scale. So we were just being careful and thoughtful and I went to the other side of the world to Australia to shoot it and that's why it sort of crept up on you, because we weren't advertising, we were just there to do the work.
Australia and New Zealand were safe havens for filming for a while in the early pandemic, what was that like for you traveling out of country to film like this?
Mark Williams: It was nerve wracking, no doubt. When I arrived in Sydney and sat in a small hotel room for two weeks, it was a little bit odd. Fortunately, I was prepping a movie, so I was very occupied during that time. But even when I got out of quarantine from Sydney, I was supposed to go to Melbourne, but they were in lockdown because they had a bad outbreak, so I went to Canberra, which is in between the two and I sat there for 10 days, waiting to figure out where I supposed to go next. [Chuckles]
So it was all pretty, let's say, unclear, which in some ways is what the movie business is usually, so it wasn't that far off for me. Then, once we got into prep and such, the hard part was every meeting started with 20 minutes talking about COVID and COVID protocols and whatnot, which we were basically inventing at the time. But once we got to shooting it, it was pretty normal, other than masks and testing and all that. But we had a great crew, which really was helpful.
It is pretty amazing the scale of this movie, as you mentioned, given that it was filmed in that pandemic. Was there any action scenes or whatnot that you had to, during prep, tone down due to the pandemic?
Mark Williams: Not at all, we were very careful with it. It was really just about finding intelligent ways to do it, because sometimes we couldn't go scout locations because they were closed, there was nobody to open the doors for us or whatever. But no, in some ways it was helpful, because there weren't a lot of people on the streets too, so we could control things in places a little bit more than normal.
In fact, obviously, there's one action scene in the middle that people seem to want to talk about with the garbage truck, which we actually went back to Canberra, because I'd been there and I got to know it a little bit, where they gave us four streets all connected and basically made a loop. We did it for real, it wasn't a visual effects thing, so it actually allowed us to do more, because we could own those streets for four days and just create havoc, as you saw, as you can see from at least the trailer, and obviously in the movie, but we really went out and did all that.
Since you do mention that sequence, the fact that Dusty elects to choose a garbage truck as his method of escape is interesting, how did that sort of come about in your mind or in the original script?
Mark Williams: I was trying to figure out, "If he's that desperate to tell his story, how can we demonstrate it from a visual point of view, to pass along the information that he had?" So a garbage truck is something, like, he's going to show us that he's not going to stop at anything and it's very hard to stop a garbage truck, as we saw, he does a lot of damage. It really was about a visual demonstration and then also I like blowing things up and having a little fun. [Chuckles] So what would do the most damage to do that and so I was looking for a creative way to to have fun with it.
I had a blast with Honest Thief last year and with this it feels like you're building up even further with with the action and set pieces. What is that like for you, both creatively and practically, finding a way to continue ramping up the ante?
Mark Williams: I was limited in Honest Thief a little bit from a budget point of view and the story was a little bit smaller and more intimate because I was weaving in a love story through that. So for me, this story allowed for more creative license with the action and I think one of the things I tried to do is have the action come from the characters in this predicament, not from the need for action. To make it feel more personal, so it's about intertwining the right type of characters into the right situation that allows for things to go bigger, and yet believable. That's one of the things that I really was trying to focus on this is make it bigger, but make it believable, because once you make it too unbelievable, then it becomes a cartoon type of movie or comic book type of movie. You don't really want to do that in this scenario, because it feels real, so it was it was about how can we push the envelope to be big and exciting, but also feel like this could really happen.
So then what were some of your creative challenges weaving the the nature of the story itself, this deep web of conspiracy, from the original script that you got with your own ideas for that?
Mark Williams: For me, it was about coming from character and I think the best way to demonstrate that in this conversation is the second car chase, which is what I call the Porsche chase. That was to say, "How can we have a car chase that feels more intimate yet it's action packed and exciting." That was, for me, about coming from character, which is what I tried to lean on for any scene, but in that it's from the point of view of Drew, who's driving the Porsche, and we're feeling his anxiety as he starts to think, "Is somebody following me, I think somebody's following me, something's definitely following me. They're not following me. They're chasing me." So it's that buildup, so we feel as he's felt during the story, because in some ways, we've felt that before when we look behind us and go, "Is that car following me?" So it's really making it about the character and how they go through that moment and experience it to make it feel more tense or more emotional.
With so much importance being placed on character, the casting is obviously always an important thing with helping with that. You've, of course, worked with Liam before, but what was it like building the rest of the cast around him?
Mark Williams: It was really a challenge and a benefit of me going to a new place, because I really wanted to try to bring in as many Australians as possible into the cast, because I thought they have a lot of talent and we should just explore that. So I ended up spending a lot of time with casting locals to just to see what was out there. For the Dusty character, I probably saw 150-200 Australian tough guys that had come up through the ranks in Australia, some very, very talented guys. But really it was about looking for the layers for me and Dusty being one of them. He has to have the capability to be in the fights and to do all the stuff that he does, but also to look in his eyes and go, "Something's going on there." It's a little more intelligent or thoughtful is the probably the better word. It really was about finding that guy and Taylor John Smith, when I auditioned him for it, it was just obvious that he was the guy.
Aidan [Quinn] was actually one of the more interesting ones to cast because I was looking at other characters that could go opposite of Liam and be menacing yet likable and they've known each other for 35 years, Aidan and Liam. So as I was thinking about that, as a friendship, it made sense for the characters, because in the movie, they're friends, they've been together a long time, so when they got to some of the more emotional scenes, it wasn't coming from just two actors acting, they actually have a history and everything else. So I thought that was really helpful, and it's always fun to to cast somebody that's a well-known face like Aiden, everybody knows something about him.
Emmy Raver-Lampman was just a joy to see audition, she really just had all the elements and she's an interesting person, smart and layered and really got the part. It's a complex part for her, too, she's like this woman who wants more in life and thinks she deserves more, but she hasn't gone through life enough to be there. But she feels like she has, so she's always striving to prove herself and I think Emmy's been doing that too. By the way, she's doing great, she's been in Hamilton and on Netflix now too, so she's doing great.
I'm a big fan of hers on Umbrella Academy as well. So now that the movie is finally gearing up to come out, how are you feeling about it? Is this getting a wider theatrical release in comparison to Honest Thief?
Mark Williams: Actually, it's the same. Honest Thief released the same as this one is and we learned from Honest Thief, we learned from The Marksman — both Liam movies that I produced — it was more of a learning curve of how best to present it. But it's a different time, you know, Honest Thief opened at No. 1 two weeks in a row at the box office, and Marksman opened No. 1 at the box office with a little less competition. Now it's just more competition's coming out and then really it's about creating an experience for an audience that has those big action moments that you want to see on a big screen and the big sound and everything else. So really, we wanted to amp it up and be big so you felt like if you saw in the theater, you'd be thankful for seeing it there.
For my final couple of questions, I wanted to look away from the movie for a minute. I know Ozark season 4 part 1 came out, I know Chris Mundy is running that, but given that you and Bill [Dubuque] co-created that together, what is that like for you seeing this journey nearing its end?
Mark Williams: It was always meant to end at about this time, so for me, it's doing its path. I never expected it to be as successful as it has been, it's happened so rarely in life, so I'm just thrilled. I think Chris Mundy and Jason [Bateman] and the entire cast and writing team have done such a great job that I'm just thankful that they took good care of it and took it on the ride that they have. I'm excited to have everybody see the whole story.
Do you and Bill ever look at your roster of characters and think about potential spinoffs in that world sort of like Vince Gilligan did with Better Call Saul because I always see people discussing online possible spinoffs for the show?
Mark Williams: I haven't personally and I think it's, for Netflix and Chris to really figure out a little bit more how they want to take it, if they do that path. But I'd be thrilled for that to happen, obviously Ruth has been such a great character throughout, but I think it's got to be right for it. I think what we don't want to do is just put out another version just to have. I think Better Call Saul is the perfect fit, obviously, they did it so well on top of Breaking Bad, so I think it only makes sense if it works.
I couldn't agree more, it's a tricky rope to walk, but if you get it right, you get it right. Very last question, we've heard on-and-off talk about The Accountant 2 over the years, I was a huge fan of the first one, is that still progressing? Can we look forward to maybe hearing news on that sometime in the near future?
The news I can give you right now is that it's a work in progress. We're working on the script right now and we all have high hopes that it's going to move forward as we planned, but yes, we're all excited about it and we're hoping to see in come out very soon as well.
Blacklight is now in theaters.