OFF THE GRID stars Josh Duhamel (Transformers franchise, Safe Haven), Greg Kinnear (As Good as It Gets, You’ve Got Mail), Peter Stormare (Fargo, The Brothers Grimm) and María Elisa Camargo (“Until You Burn,” “Warrior”). The film is directed by Johnny Martin (Hangman, Alone) and written by James Agnew (The Capture, Rage).
In Off the Grid a morally-bankrupt company tries to weaponize a brilliant scientist’s revolutionary technology, so he goes off the grid to safeguard humanity. When the company sends a strike force to find him, they make their biggest mistake of all – they weaponize the man they are trying to catch. Armed with unrivaled brains and brawn, the wild genius turns Guerilla warfare into a deadly science.
Director Johnny Martin stopped by to chat about helming the film.
Today we’re going to be talking about Off The Grid, starring Josh Duhamel. What was it that appealed to you?
Well, really, we designed this script. I mean, I wanted to do an action movie that wasn’t like your typical action movie, where the hero kills 200 people and shoots 150 people and has the ability to do that with just himself. I wanted to find something that is different than every other action movie. That’s why I’ve been holding off doing an action movie. And this movie was important that the brains and the intelligence of being able to figure out how to get out of these problems, instead of using a gun. You won’t see Josh carrying a gun in this movie and it was so important to figure out how we could entertain the audience with not just that, but also build contraptions that the trailer doesn’t show you. I was at Home Depot every day building stuff and going home and testing to see if it would really work. So, all the contraptions that you see in the final act are really things that really could do the damage that they’re saying that they are. And I think Josh and I were both excited about creating these together. That’s what really made this character possible. Plus the emotion that Josh brings to a character and to be able to show his intelligence, I think is a great balance for him.
I was actually going to ask about all the traps for Guy’s house, particularly whenever that’s first introduced. Aside from going to Home Depot, did you go online or anything to do any like particular research?
Yeah, I decided to go to Home Depot. I went probably eight times for a few hours and I’d go up and down the aisles and I just grabbed stuff and put it in my car and think, how can I relate? OK, there’s a fire extinguisher and there’s a plumbing pipe. And “what if I carve some bamboo?” I went at home and I tried in my garage door and boom, it fired and pretty much it would do it and then I tried the propane tank. “What if I put a hose bib on this thing and I popped out the seal? Could I actually get propane?” And I actually tried it and it worked and so constantly we’re trying. And believe me, I had a lot of fails, too. A lot of things just didn’t work. And Josh and I would send it to Josh. After I’d do it, I’d film myself doing it and I’d send it to him and then we he would test it. He would bring in his ideas. That’s kind of how we had over I think 80 different ideas, but we condensed it down to what’s in the movie now.
One of the standouts was Ricky Russert as Marcus. While watching I was getting major Anton Chigurh vibes from No Country for Old Men whenever he walks into that store. Was that the case?
You nailed it. Ricky is a guy that when I was watching, I watched tons of movies and I wanted to find the right villain. And when I saw I Am Tonya, I said, that’s the guy. So, I didn’t want to go through agents. I need to talk to this man. So, I went through Instagram, Facebook, and I got a hold of him and he called me and I said, “I want you to read for this role, but I don’t want you to say a word. I want you to read the lines, but I want you to do it with facial reactions and your emotion and if you could pull that off and tell me that information that way” and he goes, “well, what kind of character?” And I said, “you ever see Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men?” I said “he was stronger when he didn’t talk than when he talked”. And Ricky gave me this performance that without a doubt, the casting director said “we have guys we want to read”. I’m like, “nope, I got my guy. This is 100 percent”. I only read one guy and Ricky was the guy.
I can’t picture anyone else in the role, just from the body language, the shoulders up and head down.
I also told him, I said, “if we can make your head feel 20 pounds heavier, that’s what I really want. I want your head to be ahead of your shoulders to where you lead with your head everywhere”. And he could do that the best, I’ll tell you.
One of the other revelations was Greg Kinnear, who I can’t think of too many times I’ve seen him as a villain before. What was he like to work with and crafting his character?
Well, it was really when we were writing him, it was really important, Greg was who I really wanted. I wanted a villain that you didn’t expect to be a villain. But yet I didn’t want to lose his charisma of what everyone loved about him either. So, the comedy edge was very important for his role. The balance of still liking him and hating him at the same time was so important. And then you get a guy like Greg Kinnear, who every day would come to the set and say, “Johnny, I think there’s something that’s not answered”. He would dig the script so deep and find things that needed to be said. And he wrote the scene that you see with him in the café and he goes eye to eye with her. I’ll be 100% honest with you. That was Greg Kinnear that said, “I think it’s time for Ranish to show the people who he is down deep” and that was all Greg. Greg came with the script, everything else, the notes. I wish I could take credit for that role at that scene, but I give it to all to the genius of Greg Kinnear.
He’s ruined brooms forever for me thanks to that scene (laughs).
(laughs) oh totally.
I also loved the choice of music, which wasn’t overused in terms of the score. How did you work with the composer in creating the right musical sound for the film?
Yeah. Freddie Wyman’s been my guy for all my movies. I’m very loyal to him because I mean, we changed everything about this movie. He did the whole movie and it was great and I sat back and there was just something wrong. And I called Freddie up and he came over and I said, “it’s not right. We’re telling the wrong story. This is the movie. It needs to be quieter and eerier and everything else”. And then I said, “let’s make the music not stand out now. Let’s make it to where it’s an undertone to the characters and let them not hear it as much”. And he readjusted the whole movie from beginning to end and just nailed it. I mean, he’s my genius in my pocket.
Absolutely. The movie wastes no time in getting going. It starts off with the fight between Marcus and Guy, but you don’t know who they are at this stage. Can you talk about putting that together and the training the guys had to go through for that?
Yeah. I got two of the best stunt bike riders in the business, Jimmy Roberts, who’s doubled Tom Cruise and everything else. And I said, “Josh, I need you to get on a bike. I need you to learn how to slide it. I need you to learn how to ride it”. If you see in the bike scene, Josh is on that bike 99% of the time. I made sure that those cars slid around him. I had two of the best drivers and Josh was scared to death. Don’t get me wrong, but he stuck it out, man. And he really drove that bike. And as far as fights, I always look at fights. Give me five great moments. I don’t need fist, fist, punch, punch, but I want the audience to understand the fights and I don’t want to lose traction of the facial feelings of it. When a guy gets hit, you should see the pain. When a guy has an idea to throw a punch, you should see that idea coming from him. And that’s why if you see the fight in my movie, there’s only five moves. It’s not over overbuilt because I don’t want you to lose track of what these characters are feeling and Josh was the same way. It had to be brutal though, in order to take away that action, you have to add action. That is brutal where you have what I call the ouch moment. You need people to go, “Oh God, that must’ve hurt”. And if I have that now, it drives that character even more.
Whenever I speak to stunt coordinators and fight coordinators, they regularly say that an action scene or a fight scene should be telling a story in itself. It’s the beginning, middle, and the end. Would you say that’s true?
Yeah. Well, it really is. It’s not so much the story. It’s what the character is. I mean, it’s okay to make your hero, not be a hero during a fight scene to me. The balance, you’ve got to be careful because in most fight scenes, you’ll see an actor lose, lose, lose, lose, and then finally win and it’s okay to have a win and have them have weak moments. So, the balance, you just need to know what character he is. I mean, like Josh, wasn’t a fighter, he wasn’t supposed to be an action star in this character. And so that’s why the moves, the punches, they’re not fist punches they’re more elbows. They’re more throwing around because that’s how a guy who doesn’t know how to fight would fight.
What would you like audiences to take from the film?
Well, I just would love someday that the audience could understand that we’re not fortunate like the big streamer movies or studio movies, where we have a lot of the restrictions, like Tom Cruise movies get 120 days of shooting. We get 19 to try to squeeze a movie in 19 days and understand that we’re out there on weekends. We’re out there and when we wrap, we’re still grabbing the camera and going out with the actor and saying, “look, I know that we only got three of us, but let’s just finish this movie to try to do whatever we can to deliver more so we have something to really cut with”. For 18 day shooting and a 19 day shoot, it’s a struggle and we’re doing the best that we can. So, please know that we’re not the fortunate ones. We’re the ones that are trying to deliver you something that’s so entertaining. This movie, we shot it, we got it in the editing room and it wasn’t right. I adjusted scenes. I put some scenes in the beginning and the end and it wasn’t scripted the way we ended up cutting this movie. And it was because that’s what you have to do when you only have a limited amount of footage. You have to redesign movies and remake the movie almost when you’re in the editing room.
Were there any scenes or ideas that had to be cut from the final film that you regretted or exactly as you wanted?
Yeah. You know what? There are a few moments because what I do is that like with Peter Stormare, Peter is Peter and he’s just a genius and I just said, “Peter, I’m rolling camera” so you just do what you got to do. So, there was so much more footage of Peter Stormare. I got so engulfed in his character that I had to remember, hey, Johnny, this is a movie. Start reducing it down, cut down. It’s about Greg and his relationship and the less is more in this theory. And so, there’s so many more moments with Greg who is just so fun. I had this great scene with him and Ricky Russert and the kid and all that that I really loved. It was such a beautiful shot. I’m like, forget beauty. It’s about the story. Those are the scenes I kind of missed, but I would never put them in because I think the movie is fine. Perfect the way it is right now.
Would you ever be interested in returning to these characters in the future?
Well, we just finished Off the Grid 2. We wrote it now. If our audience out there will want to see it, but we’re ready to go. And it’s going to be a little bit crazier. I mean, I’ve already started to work on the rigs and the little trick maneuvers that Josh is going to do. I hope the audience really appreciate this movie.
Well, thank you so much for taking time to chat with me and all the best to the film.
Thank you, sir. Very much.