In The Voices, Ryan Reynolds plays Jerry Hickfang, an optimistic but shy bathtub-factory worker who one day musters the courage to ask out his workplace crush Fiona (Gemma Arterton). When she stands him up to go out with her friends, Jerry ends up killing her and putting her head in the fridge, much to the joy of his cat who insists he should become a serial killer, and to the disappointment of his dog, who suggests there is good in him. Directed by Marjane Satrapi, The Voices is a very dark comedy anchored by a wondrous, charming performance by Reynolds, who even voices the animals in the film. Co-starring Arterton, Anna Kendrick and Jacki Weaver, The Voices opens in theaters on February 6. We caught up with Reynolds and Satrapi during a recent visit they made to New York City.
On doing all the voices of the animals in the film.
Marjane: he came up with all those voices. I made some animatics for the film and in my mind the cat was always Joe Pesci, but then Ryan made something on his iPhone and he sent it to me, and it was this Scottish accent, so right away it made me think of all the Scottish men that I know with red hair, who are very thin and a little bit nasty, and I was like “yes, that’s it!”
On the topic of mental illness.
Marjane: Ryan said one time that if he wanted to make a film about schizophrenia and we made this one, we’d be very irresponsible people.
Ryan: We didn’t want to make a documentary. What I thought was interesting is that whenever we read about a murder, we try to fill in the spaces ourselves, so when I read this wonderful screenplay that took us on a journey with someone who is the nicest, kindest serial killer you’d ever met, and forces us to question where we place our empathy.
On playing a “villainous” character.
Ryan: I’ve always had strong opinions on villains and I never get to play them, and I’d love to play more of them, because villains don’t think they’re evil, nobody gets up in the morning saying “I’m gonna go hurt everyone today”. I think you have opposing convictions and series of moral principles that you govern yourself with, so it’s interesting when you see villains played out for the sake of pure villainy, it just doesn’t work for me.
Ryan Reynolds on working with Marjane Satrapi.
Ryan: Honestly I did this movie only to work with Marjane. I’ve had a career with major ups and enormous lows and ups and downs, and I notice that the ups usually coincide with working with a director that I admire or who is truly gifted. Filmmaking is a directors’ medium, theatre is an actors’ medium and that’s just the way it is, they’re the architects. I didn’t really care if I was playing “office worker number 5”.
Marjane Satrapi on working with Ryan Reynolds.
Marjane: My biggest luck was to meet Ryan Reynolds, because the moment that I met him I knew it was him. You can have the best director in the world and the best actor in the world, but if each of them want to make a separate movie, you don’t have a very good movie. You want to have to make the same movie, so we had the same point of view about this. Ryan was more advanced than me, he knew the character, so there were moments where I had doubts, but Ryan knew everything about him. Also I hate to rehearse, he hates to rehearse, so we just needed to talk about the film and trust each other. Before I met Ryan I saw many of his films, I saw Buried which is a great film, but what struck me is that he’s really, really good in The Green Lantern because the movie is really bad and he knows it, but he’s really good in it. In a bad movie like that to do what he does, you have to be a fucking genius.
Marjane Satrapi on directing her first film not based on a screenplay she wrote.
Marjane: My world is only my world, so it’s limited to myself. It’s a very comfortable place because I know each corner of it, but at the same time I can not expand forever because it’s me. Every once in a while you have a script that comes to you and you can not put it down, and you start seeing images, normally I read things and don’t see anything. I would never make a film I wouldn’t want to go out and watch myself. Something like Maleficent for example, for me is really boring, I wouldn’t spend three years of my life making this. This one was really interesting for me, I wondered if I had seen any movies like it, and it turns out I didn’t have any movies for reference. Usually we have things like Bonnie and Clyde in Norway...it’s the same thing over and over.
The Voices opens in theaters and will be available on demand on February 6.
