James Mangold is best known for his incredible filmography across drama, action, and western genres. Thanks to his exceptional work, the director has received multiple nominations and awards including Academy Award nominations. While Mangold has collaborated with various actors, there is one of his frequent collaborators that the director seems to rely on, especially when in need of an antagonist.
Boyd Holbrook is the one who Mangold seems to approach often when in need of a dire villain. Perhaps that is the reason that the illustrious director felt apprehensive when approaching Holbrook for the role of a villain henchman in the movie Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
James Mangold Felt Uneasy Offering Boyd Holbrook Another Villain Role
Boyd Holbrook is an amazing actor, known best perhaps for his ‘villainous’ roles, both on the big screen and on the small screen. One of his most memorable roles is of Donal Pierce in the James Mangold-directed Logan. Playing the antagonist, he plays a major adversary to the iconic mutant Wolverine as he launches a witchhunt for him.
Praised for his charismatic yet menacing performance, Holbrook made a return as an antagonist once again in James Mangold-directed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, playing an American henchman to a Nazi villain.
Despite reappearing as an antagonist in Mangold’s creation, he had no reservations. But the director himself was afraid to hurt his feelings by offering the same kind of roles to him again and again. In an interview with The Guardian, Holbrook stated when asked about how it feels to come back as a villain in the movie,
“Well, he definitely creates characters who don’t think they’re a piece of sh*t. In the early conversations [for Indiana Jones] we had, he said ‘I want to offer you this part, but I don’t want to offend you.’ I don’t know whether that was because I’d be playing a Nazi or because the role was small.”
And the actor once again nailed the role, showing his brilliant acting talent despite the movie being a box-office failure.
Boyd Holbrook Loved Working With James Mangold
Holbrook and Mangold have collaborated several times in the last few years. Although their most recent collaboration flopped at the box office, Holbrook loved working and reuniting with the Oscar-nominated director. In an interview with ComicBook, the Logan star remarked,
“Jim has an incredible way of making everything extremely intimate. And that’s why I think his movies are so good is because they’re rooted in a humanity of the characters and everyone’s got a relationship, my character between Shaunette, and of course with Mads’ character. Yeah, it’s not that different, but he has a great way of just making and tracking those relationships throughout, and yeah, he’s the master at that.”
While they haven’t announced any new projects, fans would certainly enjoy seeing the director-actor duo back together.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny can be rented on Amazon Video.
Source: The Guardian and ComicBook
