Richard Linklater (Houston, 63 years old) feels happy to be in Barcelona, ??where tonight he will receive the BCN Film Fest Honor Award at a gala where his latest film, Hit Man. Murderer by chance, she will be in charge of closing the eighth edition of the contest directed by Conxita Casanovas. Starring and co-written with actor Glen Powell, Hit Man is a black comedy based partially on real events that follows Gary Johnson, a philosophy professor who, during his free time and for a season, collaborated with the New Orleans police to impersonate for a hitman and ‘hunt’ for people interested in hiring the services of a hitman.
His double life works perfectly until a woman (Adria Arjona) who wants to escape from her husband crosses his path. “Gary Johnson was a real character, a college professor. I read an article about his life and was very intrigued by the way he made a living. Glen and I thought it could become a fictional film in which the center of everything “That was the identity,” the American director said this afternoon at a press conference at the Verdi cinemas.
Powell, recently seen in the blockbusters Anyone But You and Top Gun: Maverick, plays a complex role in which to pose as a hitman he must assume different personalities and disguises. “I’ve known him since he was a teenager. In fact we lived in the same city. He’s a very talented actor, very intelligent and I think he’s more like Ron – the character he plays to meet a woman who wants to get rid of her husband and with whom she will begin a romantic relationship – than to Gary,” she says about an actor whom she signed in a small role for Fast Food Nation and later participated in We All Want Something and Apollo 10½: A Space Childhood.
Although the real Gary – who died in 2022 – did not dress up like in the film, Linklater wanted to play in fiction with the different accents, influenced by the pop culture around the figure of the hitman. The film was acclaimed at the last Venice festival, where he participated out of competition, and in Toronto. It will be released in Spanish theaters on June 7.
The Texan director, creator of an eclectic filmography where titles such as the trilogy Before…, Boyhood -shot over 12 years with the same actors-, Waking Life, Bernie and School of Rock stand out, to name some of his most notable works. , has always been attracted to cinema and believes that “movies help me process the world. It’s my brain’s way of analyzing the world and, in a way, I have become obsessed with it. I think you have to be a bit of a geek to make movies. Cinema is a very powerful medium to explain stories.
Powell’s character talks to his students about Nietzsche and Freud and invites them to take risks in their lives. In a way he is doing it with his. “Movies can have many layers and metaphors and this character of Gary called for this kind of philosophical analysis. We are all constantly asking ourselves who we are, if we can change.”
Linklater has an almost frenetic pace of work. He has co-directed the miniseries God Save Texas and a film about how the New Wave began. “You can’t film anything secretly anymore,” he mentioned with a laugh. “We finished filming in Paris a couple of days ago. It’s a kind of comedy set in 1959. Every filmmaker should make a film about how a film is made.”
And he has also spoken about the musical comedy titled Merrily We Roll Along with Paul Mescal leading the cast: “I don’t know how much I should talk about a film that no one will be able to see for 17 years. We are in the third chapter of the nine that we are going to shoot. I think it works more as a film than as a musical. Asked what he thinks of sequels, he admitted that everyone likes to know how the characters evolve, but that they must be given “depth” and not make a continuation a week after the premiere.
Linklater has stressed that he likes working on dialogue, “someone once told me that I was like the dialogue surgeon and I think that’s true,” with actors, and “I don’t believe in improvisation.” Regarding the Honor award that the BCN Film Fest gives him for his career, he says he feels very lucky. “When I fell in love with cinema I never thought I would end up making films and being so successful, so sometimes it is very surprising.” And he added: “Actually, what I constantly do is work and think about the film I’m making. I don’t think about the awards.” The filmmaker has explained that he does not feel especially proud of any film he has made, but rather “grateful” for having been able to make it and that if he feels proud of anything, it is his children and his friends.
