ComingSoon spoke to Kevin Dillon, the star of Lionsgate’s upcoming thriller Hot Seat, which is out July 1 in select theaters, on digital, and on demand. Dillon spoke about his role, the quick filming schedule, working with Mel Gibson, and if his future includes an Entourage reboot.
“Oscar-winner Mel Gibson brings this explosive cyber-thriller to life. The action begins as IT expert Friar (Kevin Dillon) finds a hair-trigger bomb strapped to his desk chair,” says the synopsis. “An unseen hacker orders him to steal digital funds online—or have his daughter abducted. As a fearless bomb expert (Gibson) arrives on the scene, the hacker frames Friar as the bomber. The tension mounts as Friar races to clear his name and expose the real terrorist—without getting himself blown to smithereens.”
Tyler Treese: So, what I really liked about Hot Seat, there are a lot of great serious moments later on when the stakes are ratcheted, but it’s also not afraid to kind of lean into the absurdity of the whole situation. You have this really fun tech call with this granny early on having router issues. So how was it being able to kind of add some humor and levity to a very serious script?
Yeah, it was good. I tried to add it where I could. One thing I noticed, I just saw it last night for the first time too, and I was really happy with the way it turned out. I mean, we shot that movie in seven days, and it was a really tough shoot, but I think it really worked out great. Mel [Gibson], who was great in it, he added a lot of humor. I felt. I thought Mel was really funny in this movie.
Yeah, he really was.
Yeah. I think you got to always try and find that humor wherever you can because real life has humorous moments.
You’re kind of separated from Mel from most of the film, but you eventually have some great moments with him on screen. What was your biggest takeaway from working with him?
Well, this is the second time I worked with him. I worked on something called On the Line. We shot it in Paris, France, and it was great working with him on that one. So, whenever I could work with Mel, I’ll say, yes. I love it. He’s just got so many great stories, and he’s a total pro. He’s always on point and ready to do his thing, and he’s just a really great guy. Love him.
This kind of seemed like an interesting challenge for you as an actor since almost all of your scenes are filmed in one room. You’re sitting in an office chair, you can’t really express yourself physically. So how was it having to really go off of just your face and being tied to that location?
Well, you’re totally right about that. It was very tricky because I’m not acting with another person. I have someone, a script person, just reading the lines off-screen, which makes it really tough. I don’t really even have an eye line because it’s coming in through the speaker. So I’m kind of reacting to a speaker and a camera and it made it very tough. And also physically, I was kind of trapped in this small perimeter, so I couldn’t move around. I couldn’t get up, and I like to use my physicality whenever I can, when I’m active, but you couldn’t do it in this situation. So it was tricky for sure. I was happy the way it came out. I mean, it was like I said, we had some really big dialogue days, and I’m talking 24 pages of dialogue, which the average is three to four pages, and it felt like we delivered in a tough situation. I’m proud of the way it turned out. I think James [Cullen Bressack], our director, did a great job and yeah, it was good.
Speak to me about just that very tight turnaround of filming this in just one week and what impressed you about James being able to put this all together and make it work?
I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t think it could be done. I mean, I looked at the script, I said, this is impossible. We’re not going to be able to do this. So I mean, I’m really blown away by what he did and how much he got. It was, it was tricky. I also guess they hired me kind of late, so I had a lot of studying do. I came a couple of days early, and I just had to just work my butt off, because like I said, those big dialogue days were tricky, but I don’t think you could have done this movie if so much of it didn’t take place with me on the seat where there wasn’t a lot of moving around in that way, but it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time as well. So yeah, I mean, James did a great job. He really did.
Your character is kind of like this hacker. He has a lot of technological background. What kind of prep did you do? I know you said you were hired pretty late into it.
I was hired late, so I didn’t really do any prep. As far as the hacking stuff. It was already kind of written into the script, and there was an I.T. person on the set, and I was able to ask her about stuff. And yeah, I mean, I’m still terrible with computers. I do my cell phone.
You’ve had a great career, and you’ve been able to bounce around genres a lot. A few years ago you were in this comedy with Josh Duhamel, Buddy Games. The WWE Superstar Sheamus was in the film. I saw a post on Instagram of you two hanging out then, how was that? It’s always interesting seeing these larger-than-life wrestlers transition to film.
I didn’t really know who he was beforehand, but what a great guy, so fun, great Irish man, he’s just got a lot of great stories to tell.
By the way, we’re doing a Buddy Games 2. I leave on July 5th for Vancouver to start Buddy Games 2, and the script is great. So, Josh Duhamel, he wrote it with another guy and it really looks good. It looks really good.
I told this to Josh last time I talked to him, but it was kind of interesting that the film was kind of derided critically, but so many people enjoyed it. What’s it like when you kind of see a big difference there, such a gap between just fan enjoyment and then critically?
You know what? I don’t listen to critics. If the fans are liking it, then that’s what really matters. I guess Entourage, in the beginning, the critics didn’t like it too much and I guess maybe they started liking it more later on, but the fans loved it right away. So that to me is most important. There are so few of them. I don’t know how many critics are even in the country. Maybe a hundred?
Yeah. The fans are definitely more important.
I believe the millions over the hundred.
Speaking of Entourage, there’s been so much buzz around a reboot or a revival down the line. Is that something you would like to do?
I would love to do it, and I’m pretty sure everyone in the cast would love to do it and I’d push it all the time. I’m right now at Action Park, I do a podcast called Victory The Podcast with Kevin Connolly, Doug Ellin, they’re both in the other room right now. Not a day goes by when I don’t say something about a reboot. So I would love to see it. At the same time, we did a pilot together. So me, Kevin Connolly, Doug Ellin, and Charlie Sheen did a pilot called Ramble On, which if it gets picked up, could be really cool. So we’ll see what happens with that.
Awesome. You’ve got so much exciting stuff coming up, including Reagan. You’ve done some amazing work in the past playing historical figures, John Densmore, Sean Flynn. So how does your approach change when you’re playing a real person, as opposed to a character you can kind of just make up?
Yeah. That’s a whole different ball game. You really want to get their likeness down for sure if there’s someone that people know. You’d have to want to get their physicality, the way they walk, the way they talk. Jack Warner, back in the day, he was a very well-known figure, but they didn’t know about [his physicality]. I’ve never seen any real footage of him to try and copy, but I got his look down and his toughness and that was really cool. But yeah, I mean, John Densmore was different. You’re playing the drums. I want to get the style down and all that. It’s definitely more challenging for sure.
