- The last time, I think, we chatted in person
was with your cast at Comic Con, and it was a mad house.
Let's be honest.
Sometimes in a group setting,
I look to someone as like the voice of -
- Like your anchor?
- You were my anchor buddy.
You were -
- I was your anchor? Aw.
Josh, dude, I had no idea that we had this connection.
This was so one way, I'm so sorry.
- Rude.
- I thought I was -
[Laughs]
No, no, no, I'm used to, I feel like I'm the anchor
in those settings sometimes,
but I don't feel that anyone ever notices me.
So like, I'm just touched that I was seen.
- You were seen.
Do you feel like, generally on sets, are you the mature one?
Are you kind of like the guy
that like settles folks or?
- I try not to be. I try to be like,
the undercover mature one
because if you're just like the mature one, that's no fun.
Especially not in kind of chaos,
the movie that is 'Dungeons & Dragons.'
But I feel like we were fostering our chaos magic energy
as much as we could.
I think that you were the recipient of that
to which we can either say, I'm so sorry, or like,
hey, that was fun.
- I loved it.
- Somewhere between the two.
I feel like that's what we were trying
to channel for the movie.
So you kind of learn to lean into it
and know that you're in good hands
'cause anchors can either hold you down
or they can kind of pull the whole thing back.
You gotta have just the right level of weight.
- [Josh] And it's an amazing ensemble, and one on paper
you're like, how do these mesh together?
And yet somehow it works and it's so fun.
- The fact you don't have an answer,
that's why the movie works.
It's that unexpected piece of like,
these chemicals shouldn't go together,
and they explode in ways and produce colors
that you wouldn't have imagined beforehand,
and that's why it works.
- I have to say, look, it's tough to steal scenes
from the likes of Chris Pine and Hugh Grant.
You're great in this, man.
This is a really fun role.
You are, although I will say, look, you have to be
kind of the straight man.
It looks like you can't have fun,
like this character is not having fun.
- The character's not having fun.
- But you're having fun? - But the fun thing -
Yeah, I'm having, I'm having the time of my life, dude.
I mean, like I said, first and foremost,
you get to lean on Chris,
you get to lean on Michelle [Rodriguez],
you get to lean on folks who know what they're doing
and who are so freaking sharp
that you know that you will be caught if you're falling.
Or if they're not gonna catch you,
they'll kind of shove you down quicker to make it funnier.
But either way, someone knows what they're doing
as you're kind of going through this.
But also it's known that John [Francis Daley]
and Jonathan [Goldstein]
have been so smart with this
that it's almost a straight man inversion.
So like Xenk is the hero you expect
to find in this movie, a literal knight in shining armor.
But he's not the straight man.
He's so righteous that he's ridiculous.
And so he becomes the weird character,
and the straight man is Chris Pine,
and so Chris and I are kinda doing this little do-si-do
of who's playing the straight man at any given moment.
You know what I mean?
- I do worry, though, the ramifications
on the day-to-day life for you
because when you play a quote-unquote
kind of perfect human being, you're only going
to disappoint -
Look, you're a great dude.
You're charming, you're wonderful,
but you can only disappoint. - On a scale of one to 10,
how disappointed are you feeling right now, Josh?
What are you trying to tell me?
- Well, when you said said we weren't each other's anchor,
it went down to like a four.
We were at an eight and then you ruined it.
- I ruined it. I swiped it out from under your feet.
I mean, I think I was trying to protect myself
from those expectations, you know what I mean?
- I get it.
- You were my anchor in that room.
- Tell me this. On a set like this,
what's the ratio of feeling cool to feeling like an idiot?
Because you have this amazing wardrobe, you have the sword,
and yet you also have this like probably
very cumbersome wardrobe and this very heavy sword,
and this probably tennis balls at times.
So like, gimme a ratio,
like are you feeling like this is awesome?
Or like, oh my god, this is insane make believe
and I feel like a dork right now.
- I think it's a false premise.
All is one.
You have to kind of let go of feeling cool,
and knowing that the idiocy is what's cool about it.
You know what I mean?
You kinda have to release into, there is no cool in this.
It's about embracing how goofy this is,
about embracing the fact that you are doing
a sword fight in a cape, and it's gonna fly over your head
for half of these takes.
But also that's kinda half the fun of what we're doing.
Mostly, it was less feeling cool
and just feeling very, very sweaty.
That's what the armor does to you.
It's knowing that you're going through
take after take after take
of these pretty intense fight sequences
but in armor that was not made to keep you.
This is not like a Nike base layer.
This is just like, knights are sweaty.
- Generally speaking, how are you,
like what's your action cred?
Like, how well do you take to action scenes
on like a scale of me to Keanu Reeves's John Wick,
where are you in terms of your action skills?
- I mean, I don't know where you're at
with your action skills.
I don't know where this scale lies.
I'm assuming you're basically Batman.
This is a very, very small scale.
- Now you're overcompensating on our relationship.
I'm zero, John Wick's 10. - I like to assume high.
- So where are you at?
- You look very comfortable in your skin.
I'm assuming this dude's got skill somewhere.
I don't know where I'd fall in that scale.
I think that's something that you'd have to answer for me
'cause you've seen the action scenes.
But in terms of how much I enjoy them,
like, this is my happy place.
I spend three to four hours in the stunt tent
every day that I wasn't shooting,
and that was kind of where I got to just kinda get it out.
Sometimes I'm like a dog that needs to be taken for a walk.
I need to just kind of run through
all the energy that I've got on set,
especially when I'm being the stick in the mud
where I have to be the straight man in these scenes.
And I had the time of my life,
like I was happiest when I was swinging that sword around,
when I was kind of doing these action sequences,
when I was doing my best to keep my stunt man
off the set 'cause I wanted to do
as much of this as possible.
How successful I was?
I don't know, it's probably a secret
that John and Jonathan will take to their graves,
but I can see a fair amount of me in there.
- We can't say this is your fantasy genre debut.
I mean, can we say you're a 'Harry Potter' veteran?
Are we allowed to say that? - I mean, again, I gotta kinda
let the people decide on that one.
I was present.
It's not like I did much there.
I walked around for a month at a wedding.
It's - yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go with that.
Fantasy veteran. I like it. I like the ring of it.
- So for context, you were in 'Deathly Hallows,'
and a very early role, needless to say.
Did you -
like, how exciting a moment was that for you, though,
as a young actor? - Role is pushing it.
It was background work on 'Harry Potter.'
- Hey, it's a credit.
- It was immensely helpful.
Like, in my head, that comes under training
rather than credits because I was -
The joy of being a background actor
is that no one pays attention to you.
You're basically scenery,
which means that it's the perfect position to spy from.
And so I was just watching how the actors were working.
I was watching how the directors interacted with the actors.
I was watching where Emma Watson held,
hid her phone between takes.
You know, it was just like seeing
all the little tricks of the trade,
watching how people processed direction between takes.
Some folks like needed to be talking the whole time
to keep their machine running.
Other folks had ways of finding their own little space.
Other folks were just on their phones the whole time,
and it was just seeing how that worked.
Like, knowing what the rhythm of the day is,
seeing how exhausting it could be,
and seeing what a set of this size and magnitude is like.
And so I just took all of those lessons
and kinda banked them away
for the moment when I'd be making this movie.
- How surreal is it that, look, I mean, that it's a ways ago
but it's not decades ago?
I mean, it's like, this is still
a relatively young career that like, now where you sit,
you're fan casted in all this stuff.
Like, in all, like in Marvel, and Bond, and all of it,
and it's like, that's an amazing position
for any actor to be in.
It must be very surreal and humbling to see
like the fans and the excitement about you
in all of these like kind of major properties, potentially.
- Kinda. It's a little overwhelming to be honest.
I'm a very, very simple creature,
which is why I became an actor, is that
you say other people's words for a living.
And the way that I keep that manageable
is that I don't see a lot of that.
I kind of try and focus on what's happening on set.
Like on that side, not much changes.
You turn up, you do the work, you say the words,
you do your job.
If all of that kind of noise and fireworks
around the outside results in the scenery on set changing -
- The actual work.
- And getting to do bigger movies or different movies
or more fantastical movies, then that's great.
But otherwise, it's a bit of a distraction
and I'm glad people are enjoying it,
but I can kind of only hold so much in my head
and I try to make that the script that I'm working on.
- I think this is the healthier attitude.
If you buy into it too much and if you focus on it too much,
like it's just gonna, you're not gonna be able
to survive like mentally. - Yeah, pretty much.
Exactly that.
And so I just kind of focus on what we're doing on set
and then how folks are receiving it.
Like, the treat that you get at the end of the job
is getting to sit into a screening
where people are enjoying the work that you did.
And if folks are having a good time, then you know that,
oh, this wasn't just us. This wasn't just us
who are having a lot of fun on set. This was worth doing.
- Look, it feels like you were shot out of a cannon
a few years back obviously, and the celebrity kind of like
went from zero to 60.
Looking back in these last couple few short years,
were you able to handle it well?
Did you kind of like know what the coping mechanisms are?
Are you still kind of feeling it out
in terms of like finding your own space?
- I definitely didn't know them in advance.
It's been a bit of a learning experience.
Again, I think the trick to most things is keep it simple.
Like, if people are enjoying what you're doing,
be grateful for that, have grace with that,
and then try and give them more of that.
Like, if people want to enjoy what we're doing,
then create things for them to enjoy.
Create the environment in which
you can keep making things for people to enjoy,
and what that means for me is kinda holding my space
and focusing on what hasn't changed.
What has changed is that there's a desire
to see the work I'm doing, which is kind of, you know,
what every actor wants.
And what hasn't changed is that I go to set and I do that.
- Is it true that your one criteria
for taking on roles now
is just to run through the Chrisses?
You did [Chris] Evans, obviously on 'The Gray Man.'
Pine on this. - Pretty much.
It's just, I'm collecting Chrisses.
I mean, I think [Ryan] Gosling's no slouch.
It was nice to kind of study at the altar of Ryan Gosling.
There's an element of kind of doing my internship here
where I think it's cool to work with people
that you aspire to.
You know, working with folks like Chris, who knows -
he's such a good team leader on this movie.
He knows films so freaking well,
but he's done so many that watching how he steers
both the cast and the narrative of the film,
a real privilege to be around.
And then doing that both with Evans and Gosling,
and Ana de Armas is no slouch by the way,
whilst also being directed by the Russo brothers.
Like, it's just learning, it's learning how to
kind of navigate these huge, huge waters.
How to steer these massive ships
from the folks who are experts at it.
And then you can kind of keep stepping up,
and taking up more and more space in these places,
but I don't think it's any bad thing to study
at the altar of the masters.
- Yeah, surround yourself with the best.
Last thing for you, we talked kind of like
about the idea of being focusing on the work.
That's gonna keep, that's your rudder,
that's the way to do it, right?
At the same time, you got these kind of
fun, silly experiences, like I think
you were at the 'Vanity Fair' party the other day
where it's like every cool person on the planet
is in one room.
Is that still mind-blowing?
Like, did you run into anyone that just blew your mind?
Are you able to kinda keep your inner fanboy contained?
- Generally, I can keep the fanboy contained
and then Jay-Z just kind of saunters past,
and you're like, OK, that didn't happen.
That's not a real thing.
No, it's cool.
It's empowering more than it is mind-blowing.
It's kind of being among your peers and going,
oh man, I'm among my peers,
and kind of having conversations with people
that you admire and them kind of talking about
having seen stuff that you've done.
You're like, why?
Why are you spending your time watching my stuff?
But that's super cool, and kind of
exchanging knowledge and experience.
It's just kind of taking that experience in
and taking it for what it is, and enjoying it
is what stops it from being overwhelming.
- Right. - You know?