Tina Kakadelis
It takes a special kind of director to have a directorial debut as impressive as Con Air. What you may not know is, ten years prior, that same director was behind the camera of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” music video. Simon West’s filmography is nothing short of impressive. His latest outing, Old Guy, sees an exciting team-up between Christoph Waltz, Cooper Hoffman, and Lucy Liu. Waltz plays Danny, an aging hitman recovering from surgery who can’t seem to retire. Danny’s assigned to mentor Wihlborg (Hoffman), a Gen-Z up-and-coming hitman who doesn’t have a life outside of his job. Anata (Liu) is caught between them as she tries to help them understand one another and complete their mission.
Ahead of Old Guy‘s theatrical run, Simon West sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to discuss how the action genre has changed since Con Air, the life of a hitman, and the culture clash at the heart of the film.
The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Film Obsessive: I’m curious, what excites you about how much the action film genre has changed, or maybe stayed the same, since Con Air?
Simon West: I think it’s gotten more like Con Air now. To me, Con Air was quite comedic. It was outlandish, outrageous, operatic, and larger than life. I realized that it was kind of funny. There’s a lot of humor and a lot of funny lines, but everyone in the story took it seriously.
What’s happened over the years is that it’s become so endemic, trying to get the humor in the action film, that now the audience is part of the joke, I suppose. The actor is almost turning to the camera and winking. They actually are turning to the audience, winking, and talking to the viewer directly in some movies. It’s become so self-aware that I wouldn’t be surprised if we start pulling back from that because everything has to change, and that’s where we are at the moment.
Is the comedy angle what made you interested in directing Old Guy?
Partly, but it’s the character. I think everybody is interested in people who have a sense of humor. It’s very boring being with someone who has no sense of humor, and if you’re going to sit through a film, it helps to like the characters. Life is not a comedy, but we meet funny people all the time, and you’re more attracted to those people.
I was attracted to a real character, Danny Dolinsky, who Christoph plays as being a flawed—deeply flawed—character with all sorts of problems and issues, but he’s funny, warm, and living life to the fullest. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure because Danny is probably behaving like most older men would like to behave, but they shouldn’t really, because he drinks, he’s womanizing, and he goes clubbing all night. He eats the worst food, but he’s a very nice guy. He has good friends and everybody loves him. Lucy Liu plays this very good old friend of his. Danny gets along with women on all levels and he’s a very appealing character. That’s what I was attracted to.
The other two characters with him are a great counterforce. Cooper plays the Gen Z guy, a kid who comes up against Danny, so you get this Boomer-versus-Gen Z dynamic. That’s fun to watch because the audience is one or the other or somewhere in between. They like watching the sparring between these two guys, with Lucy Liu acting as sort of the referee who’s trying to make them get along and understand each other.
They’re both pretty frustrating characters. Lucy’s character has to try and explain to both of them what’s wrong with them and why they should try to learn something from the other person. It’s that triangle of those three characters that attracted me. There’s action and there’s shootouts. The hitmen go on missions, but really it’s about the dynamic between the three of them.
They could be anything. They could be plumbers, electricians, or door-to-door salesmen. They just happen to be hitmen. Their problems and their issues are more to do with everybody’s normal day-to-day issues of age, isolation, family, relationships, and things like that. It’s a real story with a real hitman. It’s not like someone who’s a machine with no friends. I’ve done that. I did The Mechanic with Jason Statham, and he’s the exact opposite. He was an absolute machine: No responsibility, no friends, absolutely mechanical. That’s fun to watch as well, but I just wanted to do something that was the antithesis of that. Somebody who’s not at the peak of his game, who’s not got all his faculties that he used to have, and doesn’t like that he’s growing older.
The two hitmen characters look at being a hitman as two different things. One of them sees it as an art form, and the other sees it as taking out the trash. A little more mechanical. Do you feel, as a filmmaker, like you have to find the real answer as something in between? Like it has to be violent, but it also has to be interesting and compelling to watch?
I don’t know. I mean, I’m always a little bit dubious about relishing that part of it. I think I focus on the intelligent part of it. How are they going to get it done? And then the emotional part of it. How do they do this and live with it?
Cooper’s character appears to have no emotion about it. He’s had a horrendous childhood. And Christoph’s character, I think, has a moral compass. He wouldn’t, and he doesn’t in the movie, he chooses not to shoot certain people. He would only do it because he thinks these people, in some way, deserve it. If I did another film that was about someone new without any morals, that would be sort of interesting to analyze as well.
In this case, it’s not really about his job. It’s not about what he does. It’s about the fact that he can’t do it anymore. The fact that the other guy sees it as his only reason for living and as an art form, it’s because he has nothing else in his life. Christoph’s character has so much more in his life, so the hitman part is a small part. He’s actually more interested in living life to the fullest. That’s why it’s like it’s a 9 to 5 job, even though it’s two days a month.
For Cooper’s character, it’s like, this is all I’ve got in my whole world, I’m gonna consider it the zenith of what I do. That’s how I approach it in a film. I want to be true to each character’s motivation. Really, it has nothing to do with me. I mean, I don’t think people should be hitmen (laughs). I think it’s a bad thing to do. But being confronted with two people like this, it’s my job to present the two arguments of why and how they do it. Open up the discussion.
Speaking of the two dual worlds, you have Christoph’s character in very classic, traditional hitman-esque clothes. Then Cooper’s got the pearl necklace and the nail polish. Can you talk a little bit about creating those dual identities that have to exist in the same world, and the conversations you had with the costume or production designers?
Costumes and props are really important. To me, Christoph’s character was stuck in the ’90s. That’s why he’s still behaving the way he did when he was in the ’90s, when he was at his peak. We’ve all seen people dress in a certain way when they get to a certain age and you go, oh, I know what decade you were at your peak because you still love that haircut, you still love that way of dressing. That’s what I did with him, even down to his car. He’s still driving the car he drove in the ’90s and doesn’t understand a Tesla or anything like that. He’s still wearing the same leather jacket and has the same haircut.
Cooper’s character is a total Gen Z kid. He’s like, I don’t want to identify with any particular group. He doesn’t want to be any particular gender, but he’s part of the same sort of tribe as Christoph’s character. Who knows, in 30 years time, maybe he would still be wearing that stuff because that’s when he was at his peak, still painting his nails and wearing the orange Crocs.
That’s the fun part, you know? Let’s dress these two people to help identify who they are. It’s fun to have those two cultures clash.
My last question for you is very quick. What is something about your generation that you don’t understand, and something about the younger generation that you don’t understand?
Oh, God, that’s a huge question. I could write a, you know, a doctoral thesis on that. Should have sent me that earlier so I could prepare (laughs). I’m sure there’s a million things I don’t understand about my generation.
I don’t know, I try to think that I’m completely open-minded to all generations and that there’s nothing I don’t understand. I think that’s where the smugness from other people comes from. I think I can understand everything, all generations, but I probably don’t (laughs). I’ll think of something brilliant when you’ve gone.
OLD GUY PREMIERES IN SELECT THEATERS AND ON DIGITAL: February 21, 2025
