‘I think it’s very unexpected’: Lucy Liu and director Simon West break down the hitman genre and the unlikely trio of ‘Old Guy’
From Netflix’s Glen Powell-led Hit Man to Keanu Reeves’s John Wick franchise, the “hitman genre” has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Now, a newcomer is in town: Old Guy, the latest from action-comedy veteran Simon West.
On the surface, Old Guy may sound like your run-of-the-mill heist flick. A contract killer finds himself the reluctant mentor of a much younger, bright-eyed protégé. Along the way, they develop an odd couple dynamic, defeat the bad guys, and boom—roll credits. But right off the bat, Old Guy is doing something a bit different.
The cast alone will have you doing a double-take, as Old Guy stars A-listers from the likes of Christoph Waltz, Lucy Liu, and Cooper Hoffman. In the film, Waltz plays Danny Dolinski, an assassin-for-hire inching towards retirement. His proverbial “last job” comes in the form of Wihlborg (Hoffman), a kind of laissez-faire Gen Z-er he’s tasked with training who, strangely enough, isn’t the type to reach for a gun. Meanwhile, Liu plays Anata, Danny’s old fling—who has a few secrets of her own.
Christoph Waltz, Lucy Liu, and Cooper Hoffman are three names you may never have expected to lead a movie together, and Old Guy was counting on it.
Simon West and Lucy Liu on Old Guy’s all-star trio
Speaking with The Mary Sue, Simon West and Lucy Liu talked all things action for the new movie and opened up about working with a somewhat unlikely trio of actors. “I think it’s very unexpected to see the three of us together,” Liu said of her castmates. “I think that’s what makes it sort of a little bit off-kilter, which I think makes it interesting.”
Considering that Liu comes from an action-centric, martial arts background, while Waltz and Hoffman often play more in the dramatic corner of the film/TV landscape (barring the obvious, Quentin Tarantino-shaped elephant in the room), “unexpected” is certainly the word I’d use to describe this triad.
“It’s what they do the rest of the time that’s sort of interesting”: Simon West on creating a hit man you want to root for
As for hitman movies as a whole, West spoke to the genre’s versatility, comparing our modern-day contract killers to the cowboys of Westerns past. “In the old days, it would be a cowboy, but what kind of cowboy would it be? Would it have been a gunslinging professional, or would it be a rancher who’s bringing up a family?” he said. “It’s a quick way to get into a world, but when you’re in that world, you’ve just got to turn it on its head and tell that character in a completely different way.”
So, why do audiences keep coming back to hitman movies? According to West, it’s not just because of the flashy car chase sequences and cool spy gear. Rather, it’s to see who these people really are when they’re off the clock and how they interact with the world around them.
Really, it’s what they do the rest of the time that’s sort of interesting. Shooting a gun accurately does not make a movie or an interesting story or character to be with. It’s really what they do the rest of the time when they visit that … do they have mothers, like in this one, our guy you know goes and has to clean the gutters out of his mother’s house. But he also goes and does a contract killing, so it’s what you do in that world that makes it different—not the fact that they’re a hitman.
Assassins having a life outside of the job isn’t something we think about when watching movies like Old Guy, as noted by Liu. She said of the film: “These are also human beings, and there’s a mundane part of their lives that is just like everybody else’s, and that’s what makes it funny and also quite dry. So it kind of isn’t too serious about itself, even though they’re living their lives quite seriously.”
Old Guy is currently available to watch at home and in select theaters nationwide.
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