(Aug. 19, 2019 – Source: Getty Images North America)
*“Getting to work with Morgan Freeman was surreal,” Lance Reddick tells EUR/Electronic Urban Report about starring opposite the Hollywood legend in the Lionsgate actioner “Angel Has Fallen.”=
The latest stand-alone installment of the full-throttle Has Fallen action series is now available for home entertainment on Digital, DVD and Blu-ray.
When there is an assassination attempt on U.S. President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), his trusted confidant, Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), is wrongfully accused and taken into custody. After escaping from capture, he becomes a man on the run and must evade his own agency and outsmart the FBI in order to find the real threat to the president.
Reddick joined the cast for the third installment in the franchise as Secret Service Director Gentry. We caught up with the veteran actor to dish about his performance and the DVD release, which he noted includes cast interviews, special features such as several featurettes, and the 3-part·“Angel Declassified” audio commentary with Director Ric Roman Waugh.
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Coming onboard for third installment of a successful franchise I imagine was pretty exciting. Do you have any stand out moments from filming?
LR: It was fun and challenging. One of the biggest challenges for me was the confrontation scene in the hospital when the president orders me to bring Gerard’s character in, and he’s arguing his case about why he’s not the guy and he knows who the guy is and what we should do. That whole confrontation was rewritten several hours before we shot and some of it was ad-libbed, and my tendency is not to improvise but to want to see the words on the page, so that was a challenge for me. It ended up not only working out well but when I saw it in the film it was my favorite scenes.
How intense was your training to play a secret service agent.
LR: There’s a scene where we’re running from the car and into the building and it exploded behind us and we shot that twice. We shot on a stage in London and we shot it outside on location in Bulgaria. So there’s a moment where I’m running and I’m trying to trip and I actually tripped. I landed hard on my hand and hurt my wrist. Other than that, the stuff I did wasn’t nearly as extensive as the stuff with Gerard. I actually would have liked to have a little bit more gun training but in the end, it all worked out well.
How do you prepare to occupy the headspace of a Secret Service Director?
LR: I did talk to two guys who were high-ranking secret service in the white house and ironically, I found them from two different sources and then found out that they knew each other. They’d worked together. One of them was the technical consultant on the film, and his real job at the white house was he actually did Gerald’s role. He was the head of security for the presidential detail.
I also read a couple of books, one in particular… I can’t remember the guy’s name but he was actually there when Kennedy was shot and he was Jacqueline Onassis’ detail. So I read his autobiography and watched a very good documentary about secret service.
Was Gentry hard to shake off at the end of filming?
LR: No. I’m not a method actor. I’m a classically trained actor. Even though there are elements of method that I use, I don’t have the tendency of shaking characters off. I do a lot of intense preparations. The hardest kind of things for me to shake off are emotional.
How would you describe the creative energy that Hollywood icons like Gerard and Morgan bring to the set?
LR: In some ways they are very different actors. Gerard’s personality is so similar to the character that he’s playing. He’s very much an alpha. He’s very macho and gregarious, and when he’s actually doing the work he’s really intense. And the thing with Morgan is, Morgan has so much presence. I was intimidated because he’s larger than life. Even though he was very friendly and kind and gracious, I hold him in extraordinary regard. It wasn’t until we had our first scene together that I was blown away. There was a moment where he ordered me to go get Gerard’s character and I didn’t want to do it but I had to and I took a pause and in that beat, he ad-libbed, “Hell, David, Go!” And when Morgan Freeman says to do that sh*t, you do it! He’s just so powerful. The presence that you see onscreen, you get when you’re working with him.
What do you think Hollywood is trying to say with these films? I know its entertainment but, three films later… do you think there’s social message embedded in the fabric of this franchise?
LR: The monologue that Nick Nolte has where he says “They’ll take everything from you and you’ll give it because you don’t know any better.” If there’s a message in this film, I feel like it’s in that moment and that monologue.
Usually actors learn something from their character or director that they implement in other roles or tasks in life. What, if anything, are you taking away from this experience?
LR: Well, there are two things. One is something that I learned as an actor and the other is something that I learned as an America. The first thing was the scene that I mentioned earlier where we have to improvise. It was a big confrontation scene in the hospital room, where the president orders me to bring Gerard’s character back into the room and it turns into a big confrontation between me and Gerard. That was rewritten that morning and it was a fair amount of improvising. Something that I generally hate to do when I’m working dramatically. But it’s one of my favorite scenes in the film. So it’s just another example for myself of learning that I can rise to the challenge and stay present. And the other thing that I learned was, playing this role gave me another level of understanding and respect for what the secret service does. There’s this whole set of secret service agents who train pretty much like Delta Force and they’re basically commandos that you never see that are a version of SWAT. My character and Gerard’s character have that training. You always have to be on the alert. There’s no relaxing but you always have to look relaxed. There’s a level of mental disciple that I have so much regard and respect for the secret service now.
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