Opening in theaters on October 9th is the new Western ‘Angel and the Badman‘, which was directed by Julio Quintana (‘Blue Miracle‘) and is a remake of the 1947 classic starring John Wayne.
The film stars Zachary Levi (‘Shazam!‘), Neal McDonough (‘Arrow‘), Meg Fraser (‘Bloody Hell‘), and Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones (‘The Fugitive‘).
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Zachary Levi, Neal McDonough, Meg Fraser and director Julio Quintana about their work on ‘Angel and the Badman’, remaking the classic movie, stepping into John Wayne’s shoes, why its fun making a Western, and working with the legendary Tommy Lee Jones.
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Moviefone: To begin with, Julio, can you talk about the challenges of directing a remake and how you updated it for a modern audience?
Julio Quintana: The main challenge is making sure that you don’t make everybody hate you by ruining the original. So we had to make sure that we kept all of the sincerity, the heart, and the aspirational aspects of the film that made it beloved. As far as updating it, the other stylistic things that we updated, obviously there’s just modern camera techniques, and modern lighting. The way they act, the acting has changed so much in the last 80 years, that automatically makes the movie feel more updated. But I think I wanted to hit home this idea of what the original story did well, which is that you have this young guy who’s completely untethered, he’s just chasing women and gold, and ultimately, a woman who is complex and virtuous tames him and gives his life meaning. I think in the original, the Penny character was a little two dimensional, and so I think getting an amazing actress like Meg, who then you can give her more layers, so there’s more of what you would expect in a modern romantic story where it’s harder to win her over. In the original, I think, Penny, as soon as he fell off his horse, she was just smitten with him. My wife has never been excited to see me fall off of anything. I don’t think that would work. So in this version, we made it so that Penny has more layers, is more dynamic, and she has a softness to her, but also a little bit of a bite to her wit and her dialogue. It makes it automatically feel more of our time. How do you not fall in love with a bloodied up Zachary Levi?
MF: Zachary, can you talk about your approach to playing this iconic character and was it daunting stepping into John Wayne’s role?
Zachary Levi: I mean, no, not really. As Julio was saying, obviously, you know that there’s gonna be some portion of the population or the audience that’s like, “What are they doing? Another remake?” And by the way, I’m one of them. I don’t like a whole bunch of remakes. I think there’s a lot of new stories we can tell, and also, there’s a lot of really classic stories that are worthy of being retold, particularly if they’re 80 years old, and in black and white, and a lot of newer audiences haven’t had the benefit of seeing that story, and probably won’t, because it’s so old. So, I think it’s worthy of us to take a look at those stories, as we did with ‘Angel and the Badman’, and to pay all the homage, but to really reimagine it in the way that we did. So it’s your own thing. It’s like, I love a good music song cover, right? But I want the cover to have its own identity. Then, they both live in their own beautiful way. It’s like listening to the Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’, and listening to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Love Me Do’. They are entirely different, and both awesome. I think that’s what we try to set out to do. I would hope every remake, or reimagining, would do that. I love Westerns and I wanted to just eat this character up, this redemption arc, and I think it’s applicable to everybody.
MF: Neal, director John Ford once said, “If they knew how much fun it was to make a Western, they wouldn’t let us do it.” Do you agree with that statement, and what are the challenges to making a good Western?
Neal McDonough: My wife, Ruvé (Robertson), and I have been blessed to produce and star in a bunch of Westerns in the last decade, which has just been something I’ve always aspired to, and I finally get the shot. Now we’re doing it over and over again, which is just awesome. But John Ford was right. You get to play on a horse. You get to play with six shooters. You get to play with cool hats and cool wardrobe. You get to fly around with massive vistas and chasing after bad guys or chasing after good guys, whatever the case is. But it just reminds you also of your childhood. When we were kids playing in the sandbox. You know, it’s like I’m back in the fifth grade at Centerville Elementary School, in Cape Cod, playing cops and robbers, and I get to do that for a profession, and I get to do that in Westerns. It’s just kind of astounds me, speaking for all of us, that we get the opportunity to tell Westerns, and we get to do it correctly, because Julio made sure that this was truly a Western. The wardrobes look perfect. Everything was right. The music is fantastic. It just feels like a great old school Western, and I’m so proud to be part of a film like this.
MF: Finally, Meg, can you talk about Penny and Quint’s relationship, what she sees in him, and creating that on screen with Zachary?
Meg Fraser: I mean, I think the relationship, meeting Zach, I feel like our shorthand developed pretty quickly. He’s a lovely person and despite what people might think, he is quite funny. There was an immediate sense of trust and humor, and it’s also just in the script. It was easy to do. It sounds blasphemous as an actor to say that my job felt easy, but it did.
MF: Finally, Zachary, what was it like sharing scenes with the great Tommy Lee Jones?
ZL: It was like bucket list, man. When you’re a kid and you’re growing up and watching all of his iconic roles, there’s all of these actors, and the pantheon of who I would be looking up to, and who I genuinely respected their craft and their talent. So, it was really cool to be able to say, I shared the screen with Tommy. We talked about life, we talked about horses, we talked about Texas, and movies and all that stuff. So I’m very grateful that he blessed us with his talent and his time.
What is the plot of ‘Angel and the Badman’?
A wounded outlaw (Zachary Levi) finds unexpected mercy in the care of a rancher’s daughter (Meg Fraser). The hope of love pulls him toward a different life until the law, and his violent past, close in on his new home. Now he must choose the kind of man he’ll become.
Who is in the cast of ‘Angel and the Badman’?
- Zachary Levi as Quint Evans
- Neal McDonough as Laredo
- Meg Fraser as Penny
- Tommy Lee Jones as the Sheriff
- Jean Louisa Kelly as Irene Worth
- Barrett Ellis Luca as Johnny Worth
