Jeremy Renner on His Character in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford:” “I play a character, Wood Hite, who is Jesse James’ cousin. And there’s probably like five guys, six guys in the James gang. The James brothers, Dick Liddil and Wood Hite. And, yeah, I think he’s the moral backbone of the piece. Maybe not the most charismatic, he’s kind of like a grumpy old man. Even though he’s an outlaw, he has some moral fiber to him.”
On Working on His First Western Movie: Renner’s never appeared in a Western or a period piece, and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is definitely both. “You’re limited by kind of what you can say. The director, Andrew Dominik who did ‘Chopper,’ let us improv a bit. But he was really like on with the authenticity of the English language back in the 1800s,” explained Renner.
On Being Cast in “The Assassination of Jesse James:” “I knew that Brad [Pitt] was playing Jesse. I knew Dominik was [involved]. I loved his movie ‘Chopper’ so I wanted to work with him. I think every actor on it read for every role. It was this huge casting fiasco, really. It finally came together months and months later. They were pulling people off the street to try and find Bob Ford, you know, which is like one of the main characters in the movie. It was an epic sort of casting process. And then once everyone got locked in and signed on, it was fine. We can make this thing happen.”
How His Character is Involved in the Story: “He’s sort of a… It’s more of how he affects the story. It’s not so much who the character is; it’s how the character affects the story. There’s a lot of tension amongst Jesse’s gang. I get killed halfway through and Jesse comes looking because he’s his cousin. You know, it’s important. A lot of people in the gang are not related so having a family member go missing is [important]. He goes on a hunt to try to find him. But yeah, I die halfway through so it’s more about how he affects the story than when I’m there.”
The Potential Rating: “I know it’s really gritty, but that doesn’t mean we’re making an R film. There’s only a couple of bits that might make it an R. It’ll have the weight of an R film but it could be PG-13.”
Interview by About's Horror Guide Staci Wilson
