Gianni Capaldi stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel in Damaged, a new action thriller about a Chicago detective (Samuel L. Jackson) who travels to Scotland to link up with Scottish Det. Boyd (Capaldi), following the resurgence of a serial killer who’s crimes match an unsolved case that he looked into 5 years previous in Chicago.
Gianni Stopped by to chat with me about the project.
Today we’re talking about your new movie Damaged, which is sort of a Scottish Seven. I believe you were one of the co-writers; where did the whole idea come from initially?
Well, I’m a huge fan of the genre. I’ve always loved movies like Seven so, I drew inspiration from Seven, Bone Collector and Zodiac. The issue I had was a lot of the new serial killer movies that have come out recently without naming them – the cast is phenomenal, but they haven’t ticked the boxes story wise. I think that the one good thing about the UK right now is that they have such great crime, gritty dramas. If you can capture the UK crime grittiness and insert that into a serial killer movie with surroundings, dialogue, the mannerisms, then you have something a lot different from the rest of the pack. With Damaged I had an idea because I always thought well, this does not quite tick the boxes; what would make it good? So, you just play with it and play with it until it is ideal.
I collaborated with a writer and then we got stripped back and I’m not really a writer at all, but I had just had these ideas. So, yeah, it was a fun process; it took a bit of time in the end because you’re always constantly changing anything. If that happens, it’s a lot better. It’s a whodunit, a crime thriller; you always want to keep people guessing, and once they get comfortable, you want to kind of shift it away from them so they don’t feel comfortable, and they’re always on the edge of their seats.
You got to work with Samuel L. Jackson on this movie. What was that like?
I mean, Sam’s an absolute legend. He’s probably one of the most charismatic actors I’ve ever worked with. He came and Sam is Sam, and he did his thing. He was there for the full duration of the shoot practically, so he was really committed to the cause. The inspiration was Seven, so we had to have really good chemistry; him and I going through the crime scene to crime scene to crime scene. It was a trust, and it was like mentoring. If you remember, Morgan Freeman was kind of mentoring Brad, so Sam is mentoring Glen in a way. Going through grief, how to deal with the grief, what you must do, how you’ve got to focus, so that was really important for us to develop that kind of chemistry on screen. It was great to work with him. Heart of a lion the guy; he’s brilliant.
Did you get to play golf with him? I know he’s a big fan.
He had a sore back at the time, so we never got to (laughs). I’m not a big golf player anyway, but we didn’t play golf.
Is he a Celtic man?
He was introduced to Celtic. Yeah! It was fantastic that we actually managed to get the scene at the dinner table. The director’s like, “What are you into? What team do you like?” And I was like, “Celtic”, and he’s like, “right, can someone get me a scarf?” And I was like, “what is it you want?” He said “Well, I need to bring the conversation back to you two personally”. He said, “I just want a scarf there and he’s gonna say, what’s your team?” And that was all improvised by the director. So, it was interesting to even get the mention of Celtic in the movie.
That’s funny, I thought that was going to be your suggestion as you’re a big fan…
Yeah, yeah, not at all, not at all. I texted the CEO of Celtic going “Hey, the director wants to mention Celtic in the movie; is that alright?” he said “absolutely, no problem’. So, we got that all sorted.
How was working with director Terry McDonough? Had you met him before?
I never met him before but met him on the movie; he was very professional. He’s a really good high quality TV director with a really good caliber behind him. He’s done some great episodes of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and Killing Eve. He has a great noir vision for the movie, and it was very gritty, I think. He managed to merge the UK side of it with that commercial, serial killer movie very well. He really let Sam and I just do our thing, because if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. We’d be doing our thing and if there were any adjustments that you really needed, he would approach. Very rarely, he would mention subtly and come up with some ideas.
All the murders are happening off screen like Seven where you don’t see the gore, because it’s pretty gruesome stuff and it would have been, Rated X. Was that important to make sure everything was happening off screen?
Yeah. Well, I mean, the movie’s not about gore. It’s really about people trying to find their way and overcoming vulnerability. Even Sam’s character was vulnerable, Boyd lost a child and Vincent was facing the past that he ran away from, so there was a lot of vulnerability there. But, yeah, thankfully, we didn’t show any gore that way.
Your character is going through his own sort of circle of Hell with grief and loss. What’s the most challenging part of immersing yourself in that kind of character? And how do you handle the emotionally taxing scenes?
Yeah, well, to be honest with you, we did the shoot in March 2023. My grandmother passed February 7th, 2023. So, I was on set under a month since she passed. I was raised by my Gran, so I was engulfed in grief. But it was very useful, as an actor, because Cillian Murphy recently said, it takes a long time because you have to have the life experiences to be able to use them for on screen. Obviously, I had no choice because sometimes it’s hard to really hide so much, but it was definitely something that I kept inside. That and also the challenge of losing a kid and the other grief that he faced. It’s part the job, I guess.
You also got to work with a Scottish legend Elaine C. Smith; how was she?
(laughs) She was fine; she likes to talk about her pantomimes. She’s a lovely girl. It’s such an eclectic cast. When you think about it, I think everyone brought something to the table, whether it was John Hannah, or whether it’s Laura Haddock and Kate Dickie as well. Even Brian McCardie. I don’t know if you know Brian as an actor, but Brian, he was the first suspect, and we go to his house. But he was brilliant, the collectiveness of all the characters. It’s like a color palette with Vincent’s coolness and he’s suave and just always on it. It was a good ensemble.
Were there any scenes cut from the final picture that you regretted?
There weren’t any scenes cut per se because some elements always don’t make it to the final cut, and you can kind of breeze past it. But yeah, there’s a lot more footage if they ever wanted to do an added scene. I think every scene made the movie. It all seems kind of interconnected.
There wasn’t a single scene that I would cut from the film; it was very tightly paced so every scene was necessary for moving the story along. I loved that it wasn’t two and a half hours long because every movie these days is like that.
It’s funny, because if you look at this genre I kind of did a comparison about lengths. Most of these movies are an hour and 50, an hour 45, 2 hours long. If you look at all the recent ones as well and they’re actually done longer because I don’t think they fit in the old 85-minute equation. You can see that wee bit extra because the pace of these movies has more twists and turns, so it doesn’t really work with three arcs; but yeah, the editor kept it down to the usual 90 minutes formula and it goes pretty fast.
My favorite location in the film was that house your character was living in; how did you find that?
I don’t know actually. It was a lovely house with lovely skylights and whatnot. It was just outside Edinburgh. The locations were lovely even like down the streets, running up and down the cobbled streets and whatnot. It’s a different set than the Alabama’s of the world, so it was good to be able to do something back there.
It was nice to see the homeland again. Then seeing you and Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel in so many familiar places.
Well, yeah, I remember shooting a scene when I gave chase with Brian McCardie over the cars. Me and Sam drive up and it was in a wee village near Bathgate somewhere. The streets were just lined with people. They’ve never seen movies being made before. Honestly, there must have been 300 people just lined up the streets just watching at night. It’s raining, it’s teeming with rain as well. It’s not like it’s a nice sunny night to bring a picnic (laughs). But everything’s like a glimpse of what’s happened in our neighborhood.
A wee bit of Hollywood glamour for them…
(laughs) Yeah, something different; probably towns that are not really safe to go at like 11 o’clock at night, you know?
What would you say was the most rewarding part of working on the film for you?
I mean, I really do believe in the movie. I’m very proud of the movie. I think it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. As soon as they get comfortable, it kind of shifts. I just love the genre. So, I think that just seeing the final product, and seeing all these amazingly talented people come together and bring it to life. Because whatever is on the paper is there and it’s up to you put the layers on it and bring it on. Everyone just did a phenomenal job and there was such good camaraderie on it as well. It was one of those movies that you go into, and you come out and say, “that was a lot of fun”. Working with legends like Sam and Vincent was obviously a pleasure.
How would you like the film to resonate with audiences?
So, the initial critics have come back and said that it reminds them of movies like Seven and you can see where the inspiration came from. I don’t think there has been a movie set in Scotland in that kind of category like that with the Sam Jacksons of the world. If it can be as memorable that they mention Reptile and Damaged in the same sentence, then we as actors have set our goals in managing to evoke emotions for an audience. Hopefully you all enjoy it.
Mission accomplished. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat.
Thank you!