ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with John Wick: Chapter 4 star Scott Adkins about the intense action movie sequel (watch and read more interviews). John Wick: Chapter 4 is out on digital now and on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD.
“With the price on his head ever increasing, legendary hit man John Wick takes his fight against the High Table global as he seeks out the most powerful players in the underworld, from New York to Paris to Japan to Berlin,” reads the movie‘s synopsis.
Tyler Treese: I’m a fan of your work, so I knew you were in this movie and I loved the film. When I left the theaters, I was like, “Where was Scott?” And then I looked up who your character was, and I was like, “Oh my God.” How wild is it to be a major part of this movie, but you don’t look like yourself?
Scott Adkins: Well, initially that was like, “Oh damn, I’m going to get to be in John Wick 4 and they’re not going to notice me.” So I had that little sting at the beginning, but no, I enjoyed being able to create a character. It’s a showy part — a lot of people responded well to the part, and it couldn’t have gone better for me. I enjoyed it. Look, I get to show that I can act and am not just about all the kicking and the punching — I’m more than that. I can play Killa Harkan! [Laugh].
To your point, we get some great character work from you in this movie. The whole scene where you’re playing cards is fantastic. How great was it that you were there for more than just a fight scene?
Yeah, that was the biggest appeal, because obviously, I’ve done all that. I’ve done all that. I’ve made a lot of action films, [I’m] well-known for martial arts movies and everything. This was a great opportunity to really show what I can do, you know? And create a character. I think Chad [Stahelski] saw in me that I’ve done character work in the past and that I am able to disappear into a role and that that’s what he wanted. So, yeah, it was a good opportunity.
Tell me a bit about the prosthetics for this, because it’s a total transformation. How was it like getting all that on you?
Took about three-and-a-half hours every day. The makeup team was great because they were big fans of Hong Kong movies, so we would watch Hong Kong movies while they were doing that. They were a lot of fun, Lou [Elsey] and Dave [Elsey]. So yeah, we would just get ready, get made up, and I would have a bucket with a load of ice water and I would have this pipe that would come out of the back of the suit and I’d stick it into the ice bucket and it would feed all this ice water around me and cool the suit. So that helped, because overheating was the biggest issue, to be honest — especially when you started running around doing the action, you get really hot in there.
I was curious about the technical limitations there, because you show incredible movement and range despite having all this on. So how was doing the normal type of choreography, but with so much on you?
Well, I’ve worn the bat suit, and I can tell you that the Killa suit is much more easy to fight in than the bat suit [laugh]. Sorry, it wasn’t that bad actually. It was flexible. You can move.
The fight itself is fantastic. There’s a great mix of action and there’s some humor thrown in. That series is just known for such amazing fights. To have yours be one of the highlights, what did it mean for you to get such a positive reception from fans?
Yeah, I thought the fight would be longer, to be honest. [Laugh]. The whole sequence is really cool and stylized, the way it goes down to the bottom of the club. All the water’s coming down and the dancers and the music is amazing, isn’t it? The music, the cinematography in that moment with the fans and the shadows going through the rain and then there’s these walls of water … it was a really interesting and just really stylized action sequence. I was great to be part of.
The nightclub atmosphere is just such a cool place to have the fights because you two are duking it out and everybody’s like, “Well, we’re still going to party.” How wild is it to look to your left and see people are dancing while you’re having this life or death fight going on?
The wildest part was to keep the dancers safe in these action sequences. If I was off or if somebody came too close to me and I threw a spinning kick, I’d kick somebody in the face, right? So they’d populate the dancers and the extras with real stunt men. So you got these stunt performers there with these glitzy clothes on trying to dance [laugh] and they were terrible dancers. So that was pretty amusing, to be honest.
Chad and Keanu are so experienced at this point. How was working out the scene when you’re going up against an actor as well-versed as Keanu? And then Chad just knows action in and out. How much easier does it make it?
Yeah, I mean, it’s never easier. If you’re doing action right, it’s normally difficult, but you get through it quicker. You don’t have to do a load of takes because Keanu’s that good that you’ll get it done, like one take, two take, three take, done. Got it. Because everyone knows what they’re doing. They’re on point, they know how to fight for the camera.
It makes it difficult when you’re fighting with someone who doesn’t understand how to fight for camera. You have to do so many more takes and that is what takes up time. You only see the one take. You don’t see how many takes it took to get that take. If you’re doing 20-30, it’s going to be a long day.
The last time we spoke, you talked about Keanu being up there with the likes of Jackie Chan as one of our greatest action stars. What impressed you the most about just how he approaches his scenes in these movies?
He loves the action genre. He’s a very hard-working guy. He does as much as he can himself. He’s the first to say he doesn’t do his own stunts, but he does his own action — as much of it as he can — because he wants the audience to see the character John Wick doing as much as he can on his own. So he puts a lot of hard work and effort into it and I really appreciate him for that.
After the film came out, you released this great video of you dancing in character that went viral. How fun was it getting to see everybody’s reaction to showing off your comedy side, which you’ve shown in Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday and stuff like that. How fun was that?
I’ve got a few more videos like that — I should keep pumping them out there, though. But yeah, I’ve always had a good sense of humor. I took a bit of creative control of a lot of my projects in recent times and that humor comes through in those. I couldn’t help but put humor into this guy. I mean, you’re walking around looking like that. It’s a lot of fun. You’ve got to enjoy it and I’m glad that Chad, the director, let me put some humor into it as well, which certainly comes across.
You starred in Day Shift, which also had some amazing action scenes that was done by J.J. Perry, who also has a history with the John Wick movies. That movie was wild — it had vampires and was so over the top, but how would you compare J.J.’s direction and how he approaches fights to Chad?
They’re from the same team and they’re good friends, so it’s all the similar sort of stuff. J.J. … I mean, he didn’t have a lot of time on that film, to be honest. It wasn’t a lot of shooting days, so it was fast moving — fast, fast, fast. It was amazing. The amount of setups that he was able to get in in one day was incredible. That was a blast. But they’re stunt guys. They’ve been doing this stuff.
They’ve been previsualizing action scenes for films and a lot of the time, the action would be shot or edited the wrong way and now they get to do it themselves. They get to put it on the screen the way it’s supposed to be done. I mean, forever, I was seeing the previses of the action sequences for films and the previs was always better than what was in the end result. But now with these guys, that’s not the case. The end result is as good as the previs because they’re the guys that get final say.
This movie also reunites you with Donnie Yen and you two had some awesome fights in Ip Man 4. Can you speak to him as a martial artist and actor? His character in this is so fun, being blind and he steals so many scenes. What impresses you the most about Donnie and how he approaches these scenes?
He’s just one of the best to ever do it. He’s been doing it since the 80s. He’s an incredible martial artist on a level that you can’t even comprehend. He’s brilliant and then he’s an accomplished action director himself. He’s an accomplished director. He understands cinema completely. So you’re dealing with a guy who’s at the top of his game. So for me, it’s just like, “Respect, sir.” I’m all ears. I want find out more about his way of thinking and how he shoots action. Yeah, he’s amazing.
We’ve seen you work with so many great actors, so many superstars. Is there anybody that really sticks out as somebody you’d like to work with in the future?
I’d like to work with Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, come on! Let’s go!
