You would be forgiven for not immediately knowing that actor Lee Pace has a prominent role in director and co-writer Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Stephen King’s early novel, The Running Man (in theatres everywhere this weekend). His name is listed high up in the credits, but a quick scan of the poster and trailer could leave one scratching their heads, wondering where he could possibly be.
But he’s there, alright, in the role of McCone, a ruthlessly efficient, masked assassin who’s the star of one of the future’s hottest reality shows, The Running Man. In Wright’s latest film, everyman Ben Richards (Glen Powell) has just lost his job and is in desperate need of money to help get a doctor for his seriously ill daughter. Blacklisted from almost every other profession, Ben’s last hope is heading to the powerful, almighty Network with hopes of landing a spot on a game show for quick cash. His temper and drive lands him on the most widely watched and deadly show on the network’s roster, The Running Man, overseen by producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and hosted by the flamboyant Bobby Thompson (Colman Domingo). The concept of the show revolves around a trio of hapless contestants who have to survive 30 days without getting killed, either by viewers and audience members hungry for cash and prizes or by the network’s assembled team of hunters, which is precisely where Pace comes in as that squad’s ice cold leader. The prize for survival: one billion dollars, enough to catapult Richards’ family not only to stability in an economically depressed world, but into the top one percent.
On a phone call from Los Angeles, just before leaving to head to New York for the American premiere of the film, Pace recalled his joy at getting a call from one of his most admired filmmakers to be a part of their next project.
“It was about a year ago – around the end of September – Edgar pitched me on what he wanted to make,” Pace recalled about his first interactions with Wright. “He had loved the novel The Running Man for years and felt like he could bring it to the screen in a cool way. I read the script, and it was exactly what he said. And when I finally got a chance to see the movie last week, it was exactly like our original conversation. He made exactly the movie he set out to make, and I think that’s the genius of Edgar Wright. He understands the tone of something so clearly, and he always knows what he wants the audience to feel and experience while they’re sitting in a movie theatre. And on a technical level, he knows exactly how to pull it off.”
Most actors probably like to be seen on screen, but almost all of Pace’s menacing performance in The Running Man is done under a disguise, with really only his voice and frame allowing any remote indication who might behind McCone’s expression covering mask, omnipresent sunglasses, and flowing leather jacket. For an attractive performer that GQ recently said was “hotmaxxing” on the press tour for the film, Pace’s character in Wright’s film is relatively inconspicuous by design, something that drew him to playing McCone in the first place.
“I love masks and make-up. I highly recommend for actors in movies to advocate for wearing a mask,” he says with a chuckle. “Because it automatically gives the character you’re playing this mystery, right? It gives you this barrier. You don’t know what he’s feeling. You don’t know what he’s thinking. Sometimes you don’t even know which way he’s looking. It was such a building block of the character, and from that I found this cool, nonchalant, unbothered persona for McCone. He’s like a rabid dog, but also full of confidence. He just knows he’s gonna take out runner after runner after runner. Even when he’s hanging out of a helicopter with a giant rifle on his hip, he’s chillin’. It’s like he’s sitting on his couch.”
“The thing about McCone is that, yes, he’s a killer, but he’s also a showman. He’s the face of the most popular show in America. People are tuning in to watch him take out The Running Man week after week, with live updates everyday and all the time. There’s this constant expectation that whomever the show has designated as that week’s bad guy is gonna be ‘un-alived’ by McCone. He’s putting on a show. He’s all about making an entrance. I mean, the guy’s got a catch-phrase. (laughs) He knows what the mask evokes, and what the leather coat evokes. He wants to play it cool, and wants the audience to identify with him, as if he’s the good guy and the runners are the bad guys. It feels strong if the audience for the show identifies with the hunter and not the hunted. In the movie, we follow Ben Richards through the reality of what it means to be on the show, but it’s McCone who’s firmly living in the surreality of being the recurring star of a reality show.”
Being enigmatic on screen isn’t anything new for Pace, as he has played several characters audiences are either unsure of or are caught up in similarly heightened and outlandish situations, whether that’s the injured, storytelling stuntman in 2006’s cult favourite The Fall, a repeatedly cloned emperor in the Apple TV+ series Foundation, or a hapless and potentially deadly boyfriend in the raucousBodies Bodies Bodies. When asked if he’s drawn more to offbeat characters or offbeat situations, Pace suggests he’s often drawn to the former.
“With this movie, the biggest appeal was the opportunity to work with Edgar Wright, because I have been such a huge fan of his. I always have a good time with one of his movies, and always eager to go for that ride. So when he called and said ‘I’ve got a role for you,’ of course I’m in. I will bring everything I’ve got to that.”
“But, I don’t really know what comes first. I guess I look for a character that can turn, and another layer of the onion can be peeled back. I like surprises and secrets at the heart of a character. It’s interesting to play characters who change over the course of a particular situation. You want to see the change in a persona. You want to see a strong character become vulnerable. Sometimes that’s in the script, but absolutely that kind of shift is often in the hands of the actor.”
And after working on projects like Foundation, The Fall, Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Pace also isn’t a stranger to big budget, action and effects heavy filmmaking. So while the scope and ambition of The Running Man might be familiar to Pace, it’s Wright’s enthusiasm for cinema and attention to detail behind the camera that sets this project apart.
“Edgar is meticulous about planning the film before we get to the set and start to shoot. He knows exactly what he’s aiming for, even when he only has a limited amount of time. We started filming on Halloween of last year, so he has put together this massive movie in less than a year’s time. And the movie sometimes have to play across four different locations, because sometimes you’re following Ben Richards, and then you’re with Colman Domingo, who’s narrating the show for the live audience, and then you’re behind the scenes of everything with Josh Brolin, and sometimes you’re following the hunters. There’s so many different perspectives on the show itself, and the movie has to convey all of that. And can you imagine editing all of that and trying to keep the pacing up with that many balls in the air? And that’s what’s great about Edgar. He’s such a cinephile. To stand with him on set and just hear him talk about what he loves in certain movies, and how he thinks they achieved certain things in movies, it’s such an education. And that’s very much how he directs you as an actor. He’ll give you notes, but even if you just hear him talking about a specific movie, you get a sense of what he likes specifically about you in this role. He guides you in a direction, and then gives you the freedom to interpret, and you become inspired by what he’s aiming for.”
The Running Man – which was first and loosely adapted from King’s book into a memorable Arnold Schwarzenegger film in 1987 – takes place in a fictional vision of 2025, partially because the material (then attributed to retired pen-name Richard Bachman) was written decades earlier. Both adaptations and the book are set in a dystopian world where health care is unaffordable, the wealth gap is greater than ever, and human cruelty seems to be at an all time high. When taken into context amid the current global economic and cultural climate, the heightened pleasures and pains of Ben Richards don’t feel that far fetched, something that isn’t lost on Pace when asked about the timeliness and relevance of a film that some might dismiss as just another popcorn blockbuster.
“The pleasure of reading the book is different from the pleasure of watching the first film that was made from it, and both are different from the pleasure of watching the Edgar Wright film. They’re all different, but nothing cancels each other out. No one is interested in watching a rehash of the same thing or watching fan fiction. You want to watch an intelligent director bringing a story that they love to life. Stephen King published this over 45 years ago, and he’s speculating on a version of 2025 that’s shaped by hostility that he senses in his own time. And I think at the time, a lot of that comes from technology growing out of control, especially within the media sector. He’s speculating, and it’s satire, but we’re lucky that we haven’t slipped into an era where The Running Man is America’s most popular television show.”
“But if you love movies, then you’re well versed in sitting in the dark of a theatre and feeling the ideas that are being explored by the filmmaker and the material. You don’t have to think about it. You could just sit there and watch the action and have a good time watching the actors experiencing all of this. And through that process you can reflect on things in your own world and society around you within the safety and privacy of that theatre. I really hope that people go and have a good time with the film, but of course I hope they do reflect a bit on media’s role and impact on our psychology and our increasingly complacent attitude towards violence and hostility all around us.”
“On a personal level, I have no interest in becoming a contestant on The Running Man,” Pace closes with a good natured laugh. “You can keep your billion dollars. But I’m having a great time watching Glen Powell do it”
