He's best known for playing TV police detectives in Miami Vice and Nash Bridges, but Don Johnson has told Sky News it's not just on screen that he's good at solving problems.
The actor, who stars in new whodunnit Knives Out, says he could not do his job without using some investigative skills.
IMDb sits down with Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Daniel Craig, Don Johnson, Ana de Armas, Jaeden Martell, and Katherine Langford to learn what makes director Rian Johnson such an eager and easy collaborator on set. Nov 27, 2019 'Knives Out': Daniel Craig Discovers Whodunit to Christopher Plummer Suspects in the year's best murder mystery include Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Collette. By Tim Appelo, AARP, November 27, 2019 Comments: 0.
'Actors by definition are detectives,' he said, 'because when you get a character you go on a search, because sometimes you don't get a lot of description.
'You get some vague background stuff about the characters, so you have to fill it in and that takes a little bit of detective work.'
Johnson says there is a lot he considers when rounding out a character.
'I use all kinds of techniques to find out more. What is the emotional make-up of this character? What was it like when he was a child? How did he get to be that way?
'Does he have childhood trauma like most of us do? What was the childhood trauma? How would he react to it? And how does it relate to this situation?
'It's not an uncomplicated process.'
Knives Out is director and writer Rian Johnson's first film since Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and is the culmination of 20 years of work for the film-maker.
The movie features a huge and starry ensemble cast, including Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans and Toni Collette.
It came together quickly as it had to be made during a break in Craig's filming for James Bond, and Johnson says he was delighted he could be involved.
'I couldn't believe my good fortune. I mean, a beautifully written script with arguably the top one or two directors in the world right now - screenwriter and director in the world right now.
'And then the opportunity to play this character, I mean, goodness.'
The cast have all talked in interviews about the fun they had while on the set of the murder mystery.
I asked Johnson if with so many big names there was a risk of egos getting in the way.
'Professionals who are not insecure about how they do their work… are confident in their abilities,' he said.
'They generally have learned that ego is not their friend, and so everyone generally shows up for the joy of actually doing the work and to work with these other people, and that was the experience here.'
The 69-year-old said the cast 'had a blast' while shooting.
'Between shots we would all get together down in the room… that we affectionately called the green room, and we would congregate down there and talk about our films and experiences and relationships,' he said.
'And a lie or two might have been told, a lot of jokes and just funny, funny stuff.'
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While Johnson admitted there were many conversations he couldn't share with me, he did give me an idea of what the stars chatted about.
'We'll talk about philosophy and children and our experiences in childhood and so on and so forth.
'We make each other laugh like crazy by being so painfully honest.'
'Some things that you go, whoa! Maybe I didn't need to know that.'
Knives Out is out in cinemas in the UK on 27 November
We don’t typically write about Hollywood paydays at /Film unless they’re especially huge, but a new report brings word of three new instances which absolutely fit that description. Writer/director Rian Johnson, producer Ram Bergman, and star Daniel Craig are all poised to make $100 million each thanks to the surprising Knives Out sequels deal that Netflix made last week. The deal itself was worth $469 million, but the fact that these three players will receive $100 million each puts them in rarified air in Hollywood history. That’s Robert-Downey-Jr-Avengers-level money.
According to a new piece in THR, “The pact gave Johnson immense creative control, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. He doesn’t have to take notes from the streamer. The only contingencies were that Craig must star in the sequels and that each must have at least the budget of the 2019 movie, which was in the $40 million range. Sources say that Johnson, Bergman and Craig stand to walk away with upwards of $100 million each.”
Again, that is a lot of money. Downey is the only person I can think of who’s in in the same stratosphere. For Avengers: Endgame, he’s rumored to have made around $75 million when you factor in his lucrative back-end profit participation deal.
If you’ll allow me to concern-troll for a moment: when you make that much money, you run the risk of becoming disconnected with reality to a degree and either being unwilling, unable, or uninterested in taking notes and advice from anyone when it comes to creative decision-making on future projects. That may sound great on paper, but it’s also probably how things like Dolittle end up happening. There is something to be said for the idea of compromises and restrictions being essential to creating the most interesting version of a film. But Johnson knows this, and he’s one of the most humble and hardworking people in the industry. I fully trust his creative instincts and have no doubt that these sequels will end up being great.
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The THR piece mentions that in January, “with the pandemic in full swing,” Johnson and Bergman (who own the rights to Knives Out) “questioned the near-term viability of theatrical releasing” and decided to go out to streamers for the sequels, and a bidding war erupted, with Netflix coming out victorious. There may be some grumbling about this deal being a big blow to theatrical moviegoing, but considering the circumstances around which this decision was made (remember, it was long before the vaccine rollout was as effective as it has since become), it’s tough to blame Johnson and Bergman for doing what they had to do in order to guarantee that these sequels could get made.
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