Baltasar Kormakur has become one of the world’s most prolific filmmakers, working both in Europe and the United States. The director of the action-comedy 2 Guns has a lot to say about making movies.
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It's been a rough few years for Iceland, what with that nasty economic collapse and all, but at least the North Atlantic nation can proudly list Baltasar Kormakur as one of its prime exports.
At 47, Kormakuar has become one of the busiest and most in-demand directors in Hollywood, no small feat considering big names like Spike Lee are turning to Kickstarter to fund their projects. Initially an actor who graduated from Iceland's top drama school, Kormakur has directed a total of 10 films in the 13 years since his debut, 101 Reykjavík, wowed the Toronto Film Festival in 2000. Known for gritty action dramas in both English and Icelandic, he had a huge year in 2012, as director of Contraband and The Deep; the first made $91 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, while the second earned unanimous praise and was shortlisted for Best Foreign Picture at the Academy Awards.
Irreverent and always smiling, Kormakur re-teamed with Mark Wahlberg, his Contraband star, on the new action comedy 2 Guns, out this weekend. Wahlberg plays an uber-cocky Navy intelligence officer who partners up with a DEA agent played by Denzel Washington, the pair in pursuit of a major drug cartel in Mexico. The issue here — and it's a big one — is that neither of them realize that the other one is undercover. Hijinks and murders ensue, with Bill Paxton, Edward James Olmos, and James Marsden providing their main adversaries.
After this film, Kormakur will move on to filming Everest, a movie about a disastrous trip up Mount Everest starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, and John Hawkes.
BuzzFeed sat down with Kormakur and one of his producers, Adam Siegel, to discuss the movie, his career, and how he convinced Wahlberg and Washington to hang upside down while a bull tried to tear out their guts.
Via: Universal
This is the second movie that you've done with Mark Wahlberg and I'm wondering how you met.
Baltasar Kormakur: Well, I pursued him for Contraband, because I had the remake rights to that movie. I played the lead in the Icelandic version of it, and I thought, who's better suited for the role than I am? And Mark came up in my mind. There's something very street about Mark [that], for that role, was perfect. And then we just got along great and we became friends. And we'll probably do something more with him in the future.
Is his life like the TV show Entourage?
BK: It is, pretty much. Randy Emmett used to carry his bags and now he's financing his movies. It is pretty much, with the entourage he has with him. It's crazy guys out there. A lot of his old friends, he brings on set. But he makes them work. He's a tough boss.
I imagine the budget for this movie was much higher than when you work in Iceland. Does it feel different, working with so much more money?
BK: Yeah, it is quite different, but at the end of the day it's the same thing, and that's the interesting part.
Adam Siegel: There's enough time and never enough money.
In a way, is it harder with more money because there's more pressure and less creative control?
BK: It is. It is harder, there is more expectations and more pressure. But at the same time, there are more complications just shooting in America instead of Iceland. There are insurance issues. Locations are more difficult, the traveling is more difficult.
AS: Well, let me tell a story. We wanted to get this great shot of the guys walking across the street with the trains in the background of the time, and on that day, it was kind of like making a movie in your backyard. Because when is the train coming? You don't know, you don't have a schedule, Balt needed to get the two biggest movie stars in the world to run across the street and just try to catch it.
BK: I couldn't wait and I asked, "Are you ready to do this for me?" I had no idea. And I had them running, putting a mask on, they went three times as a fucking train was coming. So, if you approach people like that, you do it in a nice way. The stars become exactly like an Icelandic actor, just wants to do it. They get excited about it. When you see that there is still that guy, who was making his first film, wherever, in New York 30 years ago, and how it was. He's still there; you just have to find it.
This movie was filed with practical effects, while movies this summer are so filled with CGI. Is that important to you?
BK: Absolutely. I'll do as much as they'll possibly allow me. Like The Deep, I was practically swimming in the ocean. Because I do think there's gravity to it that these big CGI movies start losing. I remember when I saw Lord of the Rings, there were monsters spewing fire and all that, but when there was horses — and I'm a horse-person so maybe I'm biased — there were horses running with hoof nails, and my chest started pumping, and I just realized it's the gravity of it. And I also think that if images and ideas are too removed from our own lives — horror movies really breathe on the things you're afraid of as a child, things under your bed, outside the window. And these movies are the same way; you've got to connect with peoples' experiences, and if it's just a monster, it's just ridiculous. It's very hard. It can be very fascinating but it can be very hard to get a real gravity into it. I think if you start with the idea of always trying to get the out of what you're shooting, then visual effects are just a tool to help you. If you start relying on visual effects, you get too far removed from what I'm interested in for filmmaking.
