Do you remember the first time you saw the original Road House?
Oh my God, yeah. I was maybe 10, and it might’ve been one of the first times I saw nudity on a film, and I was so obsessed. I was like, “Oh my God, this movie’s so cool. These guys are fighting, and stuff is blowing up, and there’s beautiful people in it.” I felt like such a bad boy, 10 years old watching Road House.
Did you rewatch it before filming this one?
Yeah, but just for fun honesty, because by that point I knew that we were going to do something different—more of an homage than an actual retelling. But dude, it still holds up. Sam Elliott’s hair alone is worth the watch. Just that flip, and he was so masculine and attractive, and so was Patrick Swayze. They were so cool. And watching Ben Gazzara again was really touching for me.
Jake Gyllenhaal has about 20 abs in the remake. What was your process for getting in Road House fighting shape?
Dude. People ask me if I was physically hurt at any point in the stunts, and I was like, “No, but my ego was.” I spent a month and a half, not starving myself, but just eating healthy and working out. I was feeling pretty good about it until we did our first scene with Jake, you see the man’s shirt ripping open, “Oh, I didn’t know there’s 17 abs. I thought there were only six.”
After that point you just give up. You’re like, “Fuck it, give me a snack, whatever.” We definitely all worked out, but it was so impressive watching how responsible, and almost monk-like, the regimen you have to look like Jake for an entire three, four month period. I can’t imagine it, dude, I honestly can’t. I did a month and a half, and after that I was dreaming of swimming in vats of Nutella.
Oh man. What was your favorite memory from filming?
There was this liquor store that doubled as a bar at night, that they just kind of put tables and a DJ out there. And we didn’t have any sort of bar near the little beach where we were shooting, and the whole crew would always go there on Fridays. And one day after a particularly long shoot, we rolled up. Merengue dancing with Doug Liman was one of the top hits of my entire time in the Dominican Republic.
Honestly, you’re shooting on this beautiful beach all the time, and so during your lunch break you’re just looking out into this calm, turquoise water. It was hard to complain about anything. I mean that very genuinely. Normally on set, you’re complaining about random dumb shit, because that’s the way to bond with people. This one, everybody just kept saying how lucky we were to be there.
There’s been some controversy about the movie not getting a theatrical release, and reports that Doug Liman even screened it on Jeff Bezos’s boat to try to convince him it shouldn’t go straight to streaming. What are your thoughts on all that?
