Perhaps you remember Jai Courtney as John McClane’s equally bad-ass son in A Good Day To Die Hard or, better yet, as the cold blooded mercenary who battles Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher.
In the Australian drama Felony, Courtney is Jim Melic, a by the books police officer who witnesses a subtle form of corruption within his department. A highly respected fellow cop named Malcolm (Joel Edgerton, who penned the script) accidentally hits a child while driving home in a drunken stupor, and morally compromised Detective Carl Summer (Tom Wilkinson, doing his usual bang-up job) is there to pick up the pieces and shield Malcolm from any legal repercussions.
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Opening Friday in select theaters (as well as On Demand), Felony is a rich character study of three lawmen who are faced with compromising their own moral code when tragedy strikes. Concerned for the injured boy and his family, Jim Melic is determined to bring Malcolm and his own partner Summer to justice, even if it means threatening his own security within the force.
At today’s interviews for Felony, Joel Edgerton and Jai Courtney talked about acting opposite Tom Wilkinson, who carries the film’s most colorful and effective monologues.
Detective Carl Summer believes whatever his fellow detectives do in the line of work, their accomplishments and failures will all come out in the wash. Summer is resigned to the fate that all men and women must die, with their deeds and misdeeds erased with the passage of time.
I asked Edgerton and Courtney about the thrill of working with Wilkinson, a two-time Oscar nominee (In the Bedroom, Michael Clayton).
“I’m going to steal one of Joel’s favorite lines and say we both had a front row seat to the Tom Wilkinson show,” said Courtney, whose other credits include Divergent and I, Frankenstein. “It’s very, very true – he’s a very hard working actor (and) he was one of those guys who spent years and years in the theater before he crossed over to film and TV. (He) has that sense of traditional, classical training and that respect for the text and the work. And he maintains that.”
To hear Courtney give a pretty funny anecdote about working with Wilkinson (as well as hear Edgerton’s comments on working with the co-star), click on the media bar below:
At the end of the interview, Jai Courtney was asked about the highly anticipated 2015 feature Terminator: Genisys, which has him playing Kyle Reese. The picture also stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke.
It’s a short audio clip about Terminator: Genisys, with Courtney throwing a Kyle Reese pun into the mix (Edgerton is also heard in the clip):