Taylor Sheridan is taking the world by storm thanks to his to his Yellowstone series and its prequels. However, the extremely talented director has many other projects under his belt including the 2021 action thriller Those Who Wish Me Dead starring Angelina Jolie. The film revolves around the story of Finn Little’s Connor who is on the run from assassins after witnessing his father’s death.
Connor then finds himself with Angelina Jolie’s Hannah, a wildland firefighter, who does all that she can to keep him safe. Needless to say, there are a ton of adrenaline-pumping action scenes in the film and while Angelina Jolie is no stranger to stunts, her young co-star sure was. Luckily, he had the perfect coach and the perfect co-star to help him through it all.
Angelina Jolie’s Advice for Her Young Co-Star
The stunts in Those Who Wish Me Dead were no child’s play and Finn Little was only around fifteen while filming. Both he and Angelina Jolie had to dodge bullets, take huge falls, and work with fire and water to make it seem all too realistic. Now, of course, Taylor Sheridan was not going to put the lives of his actors in danger but Jolie and Little had to make it believable. After all, making fiction seem like reality is part of an actor’s job description.
Thanks to films like Tomb Raider and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jolie knows her way around stunts which is why she proved to be a great help to Little. In an interview with CinemaBlend, Little revealed the short yet useful advice: Trust. The. Gear. Perhaps it was thanks to this concise advice that Little was able to put his complete faith in their stunt coordinator, Wade Allen.
Little stated,
“She sort of just said ‘Trust the gear.’ And I completely did. There were some pretty awesome stunts on set that were physically demanding, but I absolutely put faith in Wade Allen. He was my stunt coordinator.”
Little then talked about how Sheridan as a director creates the perfect environment for actors to work in which helps them completely embody their characters.
“Man, it was amazing to be in that actual forest that they built. They would light those trees up. But that’s the magic about Taylor Sheridan, the director. He really creates an environment for his actors to work in, to help them be in there and in that scene. It was just amazing to work on.”
Little and Sheridan have also worked together on Yellowstone where he played the role of Carter in seasons four and five.
Angelina Jolie was Unfazed by the Dangers of the Stunts
While it must have been a bit difficult for Little to navigate through the demanding stunts, it was a piece of cake for Jolie who is no longer fazed by a stunt’s complexities. Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment, Jolie stated,
“Either I don’t scare easy or when I’m working I’m in a different headspace. You’re so lucky as an actor. Even if you’re doing a big crazy stunt and you’re on top of a truck on a freeway doing your thing, you have your rig, it’s been tested, so you get to be pretty brave and have a lot of people looking after you.”
She then talked about how Those Who Wish Me Dead was different from other action thrillers.
“For me it’s always different times in your life you’re looking to express something different, or feel something hasn’t been seen before. And even though in some way this kind of thriller, we think we’ve seen before, there’s a lot that is different.”
Jolie also revealed that she was in awe of Sheridan’s work who has been creating projects with “robust storytelling” that made her want to jump straight into the film.
“And Taylor, the way he has been telling stories, especially about America through robust storytelling, it just felt like a world that I wanted to jump into and see if I could make it through.”
The film made around $19 million at the box office and was welcomed to mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, Those Who Wish Me Dead has a score of 63% on the Tomatometer and an audience score of 86%.
You can stream Those Who Wish Me Dead on HBO Max.
