ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Silent Night star Joel Kinnaman about the John Woo-directed action movie. The actor discussed his character’s tragic nature and his experience of working with Woo. Silent Night is now playing in theaters.
“From legendary director John Woo and the producer of John Wick comes the gritty revenge tale of a tormented father (Joel Kinnaman) who witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve,” the official synopsis for the film reads. “While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, Kinnaman makes vengeance his life’s mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son’s death.”
Tyler Treese: The action sequences in Silent Night are incredible, as one would expect from John Woo, but what really stood out was that the quiet scenes and the character moments resonate just as well. What really stood out about working with John Woo?
Joel Kinnaman: It was a great honor for many of us who love film. I was a big John Woo fan, and I know the impact that he’s had for many, many years. So to get this opportunity of working — especially in this kind of role where the story is really your character’s journey — the relationship with the director becomes very intimate. Every moment is important, and you’re always in these conversations. Both John and I … we’re very focused on getting the emotional weight of the film, to really get it to an emotional depth and an emotional honesty so that you really, get the audience with you on board when the killing spree begins.
We’re really fortunate to have an actor like Catalina Moreno playing the wife, you know? We have a lot of those tough scenes together. To have someone that has the ability to really go down there to those frequencies — it’s crucial. It means everything. I re-watched part of the film yesterday at the screening, [and] I I thought her performance was just … it’s just off the chain.
It was a great collaboration with John. It was so cool to see how he used the opportunity that this film gives because there’s no dialogue. Shooting coverage — the one person talking, one person listening — you don’t need any of that. So he could just tell the story of the scene by designing one beautiful shot, and to see how he told the story with the camera … he was so focused on capturing the emotion and his sensibilities of telling the emotional story … it was very cool. He would tell me something — he doesn’t talk that much so he uses his words sparsely, but he communicates very clearly what he wants.
He would also give a lot of freedom. He would give an idea of what he wanted out of the scene, then he would let me take that and do that. Then he would either design the shot around what I did, or he would come in with an idea of what the camera did, and then I would perform within those boundaries. It was a lot of back and forth, in that way.
Everybody deals with grief differently. Your character has a singular focus on seeking revenge. Do you view that as a form of strength, a weakness, or a combination of both?
I think it’s a tragedy. I think the way to heal is by forgiveness. I think that’s the only way that you can sort of reconnect with your humanity and your love. That’s what Godluck isn’t able to do here. He just loses the light of his life in his son. He’s never felt love like that before, and when losing him, he just completely loses hope that he is ever going to feel that again and just loses his connection with love. That’s how I see it. Then it leads him down this path that ultimately makes him a monster.
