Norman Reedus: Yeah of course how are you?
TFS: I’m good, let me just start right off. It’s been 10 years since the last movie so what changed in that gap?
NR: You mean as far as the brothers?
TFS: Well, you as an actor, the brothers, your relationship with Troy [Duffy]. Speaking of which did you keep in contact with him?
NR: Yeah of course we did. I mean Sean’s in L.A. and I’m in N.Y. so we didn’t see each other that much but every once in a while, but the first Boondock was one of my first films ever, so I’ve probably done 35 films since that movie came out. So I was super-uber-nervous for the first one and I know Troy fought for me to have that part and it was just a lot of fun during the first one. The second one we all went in a little more professional, I mean Sean had done some stuff before the first one but I hadn’t, and Troy went in with a certain attitude in the first one and he learned a lot of lessons I think. Yah know he got a bad rap from a lot of different angles.
TFS: Yeah
NR: Ya know he approached it very professional and there was a chance we could get the second one to theaters and were gonna get a legitimate shot at actually showing the film. But the first one we didn’t get that shot and it became such a big deal and I think he put a lot of time and effort into making the second one what he really wanted it to be, ya know we al did.
TFS: Yeah I saw the Overnight documentary and felt it was very one-sided for sure.
NR: Well, even with footage of Santa Clause you can edit it to make him look like a dick ya know.
TFS: Yeah absolutely, I actually disagree with a lot of what I saw in that, I could tell there was a lot of trick editing involved. Like a lot of the conversations where he is yelling at you are missing a lot of the other end of that conversation.
NR: Right, basically you could have taken the same footage and made him look really good.
TFS: Was it hard to get the persona of Murphy back? Like, it’s been so long were you looking back at the first film?
NR: Yeah, ya know I watched it a few times, the first one and ya know playing it in the beginning was a little weird but then I just sort of jumped back in yah know. I mean once you play a part in a movie as an actor it doesn’t really leave your brain. The location and the people and the time might be different but you remember that dude you played.
TFS: Was there a lot of feeding of you and Sean during production? Were you trying to help each other out so you could get that connection back?
NR: Yeah totally, Sean and I are friends already and we already clicked before we did the movie so ya know you help each other, you watch each other, because you act like brothers ya know what I mean.
TFS: Right, well going along those lines was there any films or just anything that influenced you and became something you wanted to bring into the character during the first one?
NR: No, I just wanted to do certain things with conviction and still have a light heated attitude in between. With the first one you kind of walk with each other you move with each other but still the brothers do these things but they’re still normal dudes ya know. I think that’s why so many people like the film and relate to it because yah know they’re not like your normal heroes or vigilantes, yah know they’re just normal guys like…
TFS: There like normal guys put into an extraordinary situation type deal.
NR: Exactly
TFS: You know in that 10 years, you’ve done a lot of growing, Sean’s done a lot of growing, Troy’s done a lot of growing so in the characters did you try to portray them as a little more mature and like they’ve just grown up a little bit since then? Because, they were I want to say very young adultish in the first one.
NR: Yeah you’re exactly right, we’re a little bit more mature, I mean we’re 10 years older so ya know that plays a factor just being 10 years older and you can tell, not just physically like your face or anything like that, but you approach things differently, Murphy’s still the hot head he always was and Connor’s the one who lays out the plans.
TFS: Was it hard to get the accent back?
NR: No actually I think I did a better job on the accent. Like the first one was one of my first films so I hadn’t really done an accent before, yah know and we were so rushed to get the first one done because we had a smaller budget and a lot less time so yah know we had dialect coaches with us and we just kind of threw um out the door because the thing is that we were from Boston and we were Irish so its like you couldn’t go full Irish in one direction and you couldn’t go fill Boston in one direction, ya kind of had to like weave in between the two. I mean with the second one because it starts off where we are in hiding in Ireland, the accent is just a little bit thicker because we’re hanging out with pop again.
TFS: Yeah I watched a lot of those videos that Troy put up on YouTube. I was following it since day one and it looked like you guys had a lot more resources this time around.
NR: We did and we had 10 years to think about it, we had more time on this one; there are more characters in this one so Sean and I aren’t in every single scene like in the first one. I was exhausted especially in the first couple weeks of shooting.
TFS: When it came to the script in the first one and maybe you can correct me if I’m wrong but it looked like there was a lot of improvising, so in the case of All Saints Day is it there again? Like, was there just a bare bones script that Troy wrote and then you were adding to it?
NR: Yeah we actually wrote new scenes as we were on set and they made it to the final cut. There were certain things that we clarified story-wise, like why we were there and what’s driven us for 10 years. There’s actually a great scene in there, ill just say it involves and ice skating rink
TFS: [laughs]
NR: We improvised quite a bit ya know, we all sat down and we wrote new scenes together. The thing about that film as opposed to their films I’ve done is that it’s like a big family. So it’s easy to communicate with each other. Ya know, Troy’s ego is just the same as everyone else’s, he’s not a maniac so he really listens to people and we listen to each other and the chemistry is just there already.
TFS: On the first one I felt was really just about the brothers and Rocco. But this one you had a lot of other cast including two other saints with Billy Connolly and Clifton Collins Jr. What was it like having two more saints in the mix?
NR: Well the saints are still the saints. I don’t know if we had more saints in it, rather we had the saints working with other people. Ya know the brothers definitely have their brother stuff, and they have their stuff with Cliff, and the brothers have their stuff with Julie Benz’s character. So it’s still a saint’s movie but there are just more of us now, we’ve just grown in number.
TFS: What was it like to work with Billy Connolly again?
NR: Billy’s fun, [laughs]
TFS: [laughs]
NR: The guy’s a blast; in this one we just have a lot more scenes with him.
TFS: That is great I am really looking forward to seeing it. Was it fun to work with Julie Benz?
NR: Well, Julie had to walk on a set full of testosterone ya know what I mean, and Julie’s got big elephant balls, she just walked right into it and took over, she is just a great actress and a great personality and a sweet lady. She totally held her own and brought a whole new vibe to it. She did a great job.
TFS: That is awesome. When I heard that she was cast I was a little taken back at first that the really big name was someone like her.
NR: Yeah she’s got like a sex appeal to her and she’s tough and the same time and likeable at the same time. She added a really nice piece to it
.
TFS: In the YouTube videos it looked like there was a lot more physicality this time around. Did that take a toll on you?
NR: I pulled my shoulder before we even started the film just doing the training and I had to deal with that going to Pandorum and in Boondock at the same time. So it was just Toronto, Berlin, Toronto, Berlin, Toronto, Berlin and it really started to hurt after a while. At one point we almost stopped and had surgery on my shoulder. Like the ligaments that connect your shoulder to your skull had snapped and like a rubber band coiled up in my back. So they wanted to do a quick surgery and attach that but that would have meant being in a sling for 6 weeks that I would be coming out of and swinging guns so I just chewed on my tongue and went through it. But it definitely hurt.
TFS: I noticed in the trailer you guys were rocking .50 cals now. So was there just a lot of upgrade in the Saints arsenal?
NR: The guns are sick let me tell you, they are hand cannons.
TFS: [laughs] …were like heavy, 1:1 ratio prop guns?
NR: With a bad shoulder they were heavy as fuck.
TFS: I saw it in the trailer and I know it has been talked about. Is there anything you can tell me about Rocco’s cameo in this one, since he dies in Boondock 1?
NR: I can’t tell you [laughs]
TFS: [laughs]
NR: If I tell you I’ll give away a lot. But Rocco’s kind of like the voice between the saints and the people. He explains what it means to take that point of view and move with that. So he’s defiantly a pivotal part of the story line. His character explains what we’re doing in a way if that make any sense.
TFS: Yeah that makes complete sense.
NR: Like he explains out psyche a little bit.
TFS: I was really happy when I heard he was coming back but I was afraid of how it was going to be done. Because I didn’t want to see a cheesy Rocco ghost pop up in the middle of nowhere.
NR: No, he’s done in a really hardcore, nice way. He’s introduced and brought in, in a way that’s not funny and everyone sitting around and has opinions but I don’t think anyone would let him get away with coming in corny.
TFS: Absolutely.
NR: Sony is in on this, Troy is on this, all the actors are in on this, and nobody wants to be part of a corny film.
TFS: Is this story maybe a little darker, like the last one was pretty dark but is this one just a bit more mature?
NR: Yeah, I’d say that. It’s heavier for sure.
TFS: That’s the word I’m looking for. I was also a fan of a lot of the stuff you did outside of Boondock. Blade 2, I remember seeing you on a Law and Order SVU episode, so what can you tell me about Pandorum because I saw the trailer and it looks interesting.
NR: It’s really cool, Christian Alvart is a really good director. He and I were supposed to do a movie called Anti-bodies together and ended up doing different things but became good friends. He and I became friends when I got in a car crash in Berlin, I went to the Berlin Film Festival and got hit by a truck and he sort of stood by my bed the whole time and spoke to the doctors and translated their German. I was kind of like the Elephant Man lying in bed for a couple months. He sort of talked me though it. So when Pandorum came up I joined up. I saw the final version of it and was just blown away, the cinematography is just ridiculous and it’s just awesome.
TFS: Yeah it looks like an excellent fall/horror/action/sci-fi film, just a perfect blend of a lot of genres.
NR: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.
TFS: You said you were working on both Pandorum and Boondock at the same time, were you jumping in between sets?
NR: Yeah, they were actually shooting around me during the first part of Boondock and the producers on bother films knew each other so they were working on my schedule, but I was just beat during that first 2 weeks of shooting. But I was getting my sleep on the plane going from set to set.
TFS: What was your favorite part of Boondock and Pandorum?
NR: Well, Pandorum was a lot of non-English speaking people around me so Ben [Foster] was constantly working everyday and he spoke English and Cam [Gigandet] and I didn’t work on the same day so I didn’t get to see him, but I was coming to set just dead tired and the work was very emotionally draining and my scenes are packed in Pandorum. I was just constantly screaming and fighting for my life and running all over the fucking place. I would sleep and the plane and go back to Boondock and it was just sort of like going back to my family. I think getting back into Boondock, it was such a fun movie to make, and I could do Boondock 7 it was just great.
TFS: Well going along with that, I am certainly hoping, like everyone else, that Boondocks 2 is a huge success. But if it is are we looking at a possible trilogy?
NR: Dude, never say never, I’m hoping it’s a big success too, it seems like it’s going to be.
TFS: Based on the Comic-Con footage where you couldn’t hear you guys over the mic because the crowd was so loud.
NR: It was insane. They said that the line to get in was over a mile and a half long. It was crazy.
TFS: I notice that you, Sean, and Troy took advantage of Twitter to keep in contact with the fans, you actually responded to me once when you put up the link to the fake Boondock trailer, I was the one who replied NOT COOL!!
NR: [laughs] It’s funny because the person who set all this up has been running all of Sean’s Myspaces and Facebooks and Twitters and all that stuff, and I just don’t do the Facebook and Myspace thing really, and she’s just like, do the Twitter thing, promote it promote it, cause it’s like we’re promoting our own little family here. It’s been great to get such great feedback from the first one for so many years. It seems like the fanbase just grows and grows and grows on that. It feels good when people appreciate what you’re doing.
TFS: Did you do anything in terms of DVD commentary yet?
NR: Yes, Troy has done it with Billy so far and I think the next one is us.
TFS: Awesome, thank you so much for your time
NR: And I apologize for the Rick Astley video
TFS: [laughs] It’s cool.
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