Will Arnett Promises a Dark, Serious Jonah Hex

http://www.superherohype.com/news.php?id=8974

Source:Silas Lesnick
January 11, 2010

Speaking exclusively with SuperHeroHype, Will Arnett confirmed that Jonah Hex will be taking his acting career in a decidedly less comedic direction.

"[My character] is much more serious," says the When in Rome star, "I hope. Otherwise I've failed miserably at my job."

The film, set for release on June 18th, adapts the classic DC Comics Western character, recently made popular in a 2005 ongoing series by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti.

"I play a guy who's in the Union army right after the Civil War," explains Arnett, "I enlist Jonah Hex, played by Josh Brolin, to do our bidding for us and to track down John Malkovich."

Malkovich plays Quentin Turnbull, a former Confederate officer who, in the original comics (and most likely in the film as well) harbors a vendetta against Hex for the death of his son during the war.

"'Jonah Hex' is a very kind of heavy movie," says Arnett of the film's tone, "It's dark and actioney... [A] real fun, dark, sweaty movie."

In related news, Heat Vision is reporting that Warner Bros. will be doing additional shooting for the film. The studio is assembling Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox and Michael Fassbender for a roughly 10-day shoot in the Los Angeles area for the movie, beginning at month's end.

The trade reports that the studio has decided to work on story and action during the shoots, working in 12 pages of additional script mixed in with some re-shoots.

Director Jimmy Hayward will be joined by I Am Legend helmer Francis Lawrence, who was brought in last month to act as a consultant.

http://www.411mania.com/movies/news/138973

[Movies] Will Arnett Discusses Working On Jonah Hex
Posted by Larry Csonka on 05.13.2010

Discusses working with Josh Brolin, more…

- Will Arnett recently spoke about his work in Jonah Hex, here are the highlights….

On laying A Non-Comedic Role: The character I play, if there's any kind of corporate figure, it would be him. He represents the new U.S. government, the Union, the winning side in the Civil War. He's really kind of an outsider in this environment, and he's been sent from Washington with very clear orders to take care of this job and to get Hex to do some stuff for him. So he's a pretty humorless guy. If there is any humor, it comes out of the fact that he's pretty humorless.

On Working With Josh Brolin : Oh, it's great. To be able to work with such an awesome, really intense, great dramatic actor, one of the best actors alive today. It's a real treat for me to be able to do something like this. As you guys maybe or maybe don't know, I'm used to doing a lot of really goofy, not necessarily always very good, stuff. So to be able to do something like this is interesting, and super-rewarding.

Is It Hard To Turn off Comedic Timing And Ad Libbing?: I think there are probably moments. Even moments like today where Jimmy has to say "All right, let's just really straighten it out, I want it straighter, I want it harder." But there ARE moments with my character where he's kind of absurd in a lot of ways. We find the humor in different ways. Of course, I'm always thinking "What's the joke in this?" but there's no room for that. But you know, this particular scene starts with my character being shaved by a guy. Originally these guys come into camp and they're just looking at maps. And I thought well, if this guy's kind of an absurd guy, it would be kind of funny if everyone's so dirty and down, and even at a camp, he has a [barber], and he would. Guys like this would, and it's kind of absurd, and you come in, and here's dirty Jonah Hex and these guys, and here's this one [character] who's kind of ding!

On The Physicality Of The Role: You know, the only physical aspect of it is the horseback riding. I hadn't done that before in a movie. But that's about it. I've done stuff before that had to be a little bit physical, but the horseback riding was a little bit challenging. The first scene that we shot a few weeks ago, John Gallagher and I had to ride into town on horseback, and you just want to try and make it look authentic. You don't want to look like some Yankee coming in, kind of stumbling around, so we worked pretty hard in trying to do that. It was pretty cool to do. It's the coolest entrance I've ever had in a movie, that's for sure.