As Butch Hayden, a U.S. marshal on the trail of a bank-robbing couple in “Day of Reckoning,” Billy Zane plays a classic Western movie anti-hero, the lawman who’ll break the law to serve justice as he sees it, in a modern-day setting.
Hayden seemingly doesn’t have long to live as the new crime movie “Day of Reckoning” begins. But before he goes, he’s determined to finish off Emily and Kyle Rusk, played by Cara Jade Myers and Scott Adkins, whose gang has killed five of Hayden’s marshals.
Only one thing – or maybe a few more – stand between Hayden and his goal after he and a posse catch Emily at the couple’s isolated Georgia farmhouse. But it’s complicated: Kyle has gone for bad-guy backup, and do-gooder Sheriff John Dorsey, played by Zach Roerig, is determined to bring Emily and Kyle in alive.
“You know, Butch Hayden is a really interesting and complex character,” Zane says. “When we find him, he’s dangerous because it seems that he’s got nothing to lose.
“He seems quite terminally ill while hell-bent on bringing this Bonnie-and-Clyde, infuriating couple to justice,” he says. “And he’s seemingly willing to break the law in order to do it.”
On a recent video call, Zane was joined by costars Myers, known for her role as the murdered Anna Brown in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and Roerig, who starred on the CW series “The Vampire Diaries,” to talk about the film, which opens in theaters on Friday, March 28.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, they talked about the mythology of Western movies, what it’s like to act in scenes where bullets are flying nonstop, and how the film included country stars and Southern rappers such as Trace Adkins, Yelawolf, and Struggle Jennings in its cast and soundtrack.
Q: What did you see in the screenplay that made you each want to take these roles?
Cara Jade Myers: Honestly, she’s just a character I haven’t seen before, and I haven’t had the chance to play. Because she does have a big heart, but she can also kick your butt if you cross a line. I loved playing this complicated character that has a lot of dissatisfaction with the life she lives while trying to change it. But the past keeps catching up to her, so I love that, and just how much of a badass she is.
Q: She’s definitely a badass when she kills that guy with a broken dinner plate. What got you onboard, Billy?
Billy Zane: Cara. Just wanted to see her be a badass. [Both laugh] The concert of influences is really perilous, just great movie stuff to see come to a boil, with really interesting arcs for all of these characters. Supported by exciting action and really cool music that you wouldn’t normally assign to a modern Western. It just makes for great entertainment.
Zach Roerig: Yeah, a little bit of the same to what Billy’s saying. When I found out that Billy and Cara were going to be involved, at that point I wouldn’t have needed to read the script again. I just knew that would be a fun thing to play with no matter what the script was. That’s a testament to them.
But also the script itself. I grew up always wanting to play cops and robbers, to catch the bad guy, to play a cowboy. I grew up watching John Wayne in all these things. I knew that we could make a good picture.
Q: Let me focus a little bit on each of your characters. For you, Cara, you mentioned that she’s got a big heart, but she can also be scary. Yet we also have empathy for Emily’s situation.
CJM: Emily has been part of that community for a while. John knows her as April [Emily’s alias]. So she knows the people. She talks about, ‘Oh, I know who your wife is’ and ‘I talked to this person who I sell produce to.’ She has a very domestic life that I think she really wants.
I was joking around when I was auditioning for the role. I’m like, ‘I’m old, I’m tired, like me personally, I don’t want to do anything. So I’m assuming Emily at this point in her life is just tired of Kyle’s baloney. She’s like, ‘Can we just settle?’ But she’s had to work such a rough life that when she has to survive, she absolutely knows how, and will show no mercy doing it.
Q: Billy, were there things you added to Hayden’s character that weren’t on the page?
BZ: The illness. We felt that vengeance was enough to get there: He killed my men, so I’m going to cross that line. But there needed to be, I think, just one more layer of danger. You know, nothing to lose. I said, ‘Can I make him sick? Can he be dying?’ They went, ‘Oooh,’ and everyone loved it.
I was like, ‘From what?’ They said, ‘I don’t know, something bad like cancer, you name it.’ So he’s not doing too well and is just hell-bent on bringing these kids in – or not, as the case may be – and breaking the law to do it.
Q: Zach, unlike Hayden, who’s morally flexible, your character is a straight arrow. How do you keep that kind of guy interesting?
ZR: I think oftentimes the hero is gifted glory, and that’s not what John’s after. So you just get a guy doing the right thing. It doesn’t always mean following the law. You see him adapt and change throughout the film. But his moral compass is always on point. And I think that’s just to see someone doing something and not expecting to be rewarded for it afterwards.
I mean, we open up seeing that he’s sleeping on the couch [the trouble in his marriage comes into the plot]. His wife is waking him up and sending him outside. John basically is like Eeyore with a Bowie knife.
BZ: That’s a great description. And he does such a good job. He’s such the American hero. Zach brings this quality to it that is completely vulnerable, completely capable, totally studly, and you’re just like, ‘Yeah, I’m with this guy.’ If you don’t have a vulnerable hero, you’re not going to invest, and we’re really invested in him, and this relationship that they [John and Emily] have in this chaos is really beautiful and genuine.
Q: Cara, you’re essentially the only woman in most of the movie. What was it like being surrounded by all that testosterone on set with guys who are constantly on the verge of shooting you?
CJM: I thought it was amazing. Luckily, there’s a lot of crew that are women so I got to have my girl time. But it definitely heightens the experience as Emily, because being the only female, it’s kind of like she really is alone in this movie, and it adds more to the isolation. She’s surrounded by all these big, strong, violent men, and she’s wearing a sundress. It’s very much part of the dichotomy we wanted to play. She’s this sweet girl in this sundress, gardening, and then she’s stabbing people with plates.
Q: Let’s talk about Westerns. All of you watched them growing up and there are archetypes we all recognize. But they’ve also included things that aren’t so great, such as the way Native peoples are depicted. [Myers is an enrolled citizen of the Wichita and affiliated tribes.]
CJM: So yeah, we’ve always been portrayed as these villains who just attack for no reason. So I think Westerns and Natives have an interesting history. But I love the fact that I’m able to play this character, so I can put a spin on the narrative where it’s not that Natives are always the bad guys. We can do bad things, of course, everyone can. But ultimately we’re just people trying to live and survive.
So that was always kind of a conflict for me with Westerns before, as much as I love the action and I love the horses and cowboys and everything. It’s always when it comes to who the bad guys are I’m like, ‘Hmm.’
BZ: I’m a huge fan of Western films. I don’t know about the West. The West looked pretty harrowing. Modern [historic] Westerns, in their press for accuracy, look like terribly violent, cruel places. I’m a fan more of the 1950s than the 1850s. I like the agreement that this is artifice, from back projection and studio shots, everything – a cowboy in John Ford movies and women who have impossible hair and makeup. And no blood.
It’s a pageantry, but it’s our mythology. It’s a dream ballet. And while it is absolutely flawed in context and timeline, when it comes to equality of many levels, the broad strokes of the narratives of good and evil, white-hat heroism and moral compass and stirring score, they are one of our greatest exports.
Q: The shootouts on screen are chaotic, fast-paced, bullets flying, dishes breaking. I’m sure it’s different on set than what we see. What’s it like to act those?
BZ: It’s a perfected science and that’s what makes it exciting. Also, it makes going behind the scenes and seeing ‘the making of’ is that meticulous building of it. You think we’re maybe in the same frame as the most dangerous moment, but some of those are composites. Some are the gift of editing as well, which creates that tension and links certain elements in proximity.
Q: How about for Cara? I’m not sure you’ve had many roles with this much gunfire.
CJM: No, I haven’t, but I had so much fun. Like Billy was saying, our armorer was so on top of it that I felt completely safe. Everyone felt so safe that you can just play and have fun, and it’s not something you’re constantly worried about. So you’re able to go in there and roll around on the floor and shoot things and have things exploding over you. You can just play, and I really did enjoy that a lot.
Q: Billy, you mentioned the soundtrack. A lot of those musicians are also acting in this. What was it like working with people like Yelawolf, Trace Adkins and so on.
BZ: The fact that you have musicians who are also actors not only entice a particular audience but really support the narrative and plays to its kind of gangster heart. You know, it’s a bit punk rock, it’s a big rock and roll, and legitimately so in some of these characters. It wasn’t as much of a stretch for some. It just brought a level of authenticity and made it rocking and modern and cool.