Michael Pena's recent roles have been in dramas with little or no action but he had no problem getting physical in Shooter, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg plays a former sniper called into service to help his country - or so he believes. Pena co-stars as Nick Memphis, an FBI Agent who hooks up with Wahlberg and together they uncover a conspiracy involving some high-ranking members of the government.
The Appeal of Shooter: “My agent sent [the script] to me and said that he really liked it. He said, 'I like it. You should give it a read.' I thought, 'Okay, cool.' It's an action movie, which is something that I've never quite done before and so I didn't know how to receive it, but the script was good. Jonathan Lemkin really did good by it because it was page turner. As I turned each page, I just really liked what I was reading. It was intriguing and it actually kept my attention and those are usually the kinds of scripts that I would do anyway, something that actually interests me. Something that I want to go see.”
The combination of action scenes with the more technical aspects of the film made it too intriguing to pass up. Pena explained why he had to be a part of Shooter. “Number one, I thought that it was really cool that the action sequences were actually justified, that you actually wanted them to do something. You were like, 'Please, do something.' As opposed to there being these action sequences and then blah, blah, blah and again like that, which seems to be some of the movies out there that I've seen - and that I try hopefully not to do. The other thing is it was a technical thing. It was this sniper guy a mile and a half away shooting a target and having the bullet travel for four or five seconds and then hit the target. You have to realize that I'm a guy that likes Chess and all of that. Calculus in high school, that kind of stuff I really enjoy.”
Discovering He’s an Action Guy After All: Pena’s character appears to slowly figure out he’s in an action movie over the first part of the film. “I think that was cool. I believe that was a really cool thing. In a comical way it's almost like the guy in Naked Gun when he's like, 'There's nothing to see here.' And there's all these explosions going on behind him. 'Don't worry. Everyone can go home.'”
Training to Star in Shooter: “[Mark Wahlberg] trained to be a sniper and I trained to be an FBI guy. So I went to the FBI office here in Los Angeles and in Philly. I met these guys and it was surprising, because you have a preconceived notion of what the FBI is like. They know everything about you (laughing), so that's one thing. And when you get there after watching like FBI Files and forensic shows, you don't want to touch anything. But you go there and they're just regular guys. It's interesting, but they're just regular guys who just happen to have a job that they have to do when they have to work, when they're talking to you or when they actually have to do the work.
I met this one guy who was a rookie and he's of German descent and what was really interesting is that he wanted to be a really good FBI guy. It's one thing reading it in stories and then seeing it in movies and then seeing the subtlety that lay behind that. He was just leaning forward and listening intently and really wanted to do good, writing down everything. I asked him what he had going, why he liked this so much and he said, 'These guys just have a wealth of information. It's just so much.' It's one thing to read it in a book and another thing to actually go and do it. It's like moving out of your house when you're 19. You think that you know everything and then a day later you're like, 'Why am I paying for gas? Do I really need to pay for gas?'”
Asked if he based his character on that agent, Pena replied, “I did a little bit, especially the beginning of it because I think that you needed a certain kind of innocence and you could tell the difference between him and the other guys. The other guys knew the beat already. They knew what was going on and this guy was more on a search. He was more on a search for what was going on, which was exactly right for Nick Memphis. And at times when you're nervous it can seem a little clumsy, which is another thing that I wanted to do. Shakespeare did it. All the guys that were playing all the fools at first ended up being the heroes at the end. I thought that was always an interesting tidbit to know.”
On the Set with Mark Wahlberg: They’re golfing buddies now but Pena says on the set Wahlberg didn't really goof around. “He's pretty intense. He's really a professional. I never talked to him about it, but I thought that he kind of stayed in character a lot. Definitely, he was like that.
The thing is that I've been trying to beat him at golf for a while now. He's good though. He brings that focus and that energy that he has in acting and it's hard because he can drive the ball like 300 yards and he putts well. So you're like, 'Great. Awesome.' So I have to be a tactical guy. I'm like, 'I have to do this and that.' And somehow I'll beat him on a hole, but by the end of the round… I have some time. I'll get some lessons.”
Page 2: Michael Pena on Working on a Glacier and Lions for Lambs
