Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Hard Kill’s Matt Eskandari

Matt Eskandari’s mission as a director is to welcome audiences into the world he’s creating and offer them the opportunity to escape. And his latest, Hard Kill, is a high-octane joy ride that will have you on the edge of your seat. Pop Culturalist caught up with Matt to learn more about Hard Kill and teaming up with Bruce Willis for the third time!

PC: Tell us about Hard Kill and what attracted you to this script.
Matt: This is the third time that I’ve worked with Bruce Willis. This film is very much a throwback to late ’80s, early ’90s smash-and-grab straight-up action flick, which I thought was fun. Being able to tell that story and do some cool action pieces, shoot-outs, and fights was a lot of fun. I feel like a lot of times, as a filmmaker, you want to entertain the audience and tell a fun story. That’s what drew me into this one.

PC: How beneficial was it to have that prior relationship with Bruce when heading into this project?
Matt: It was hugely beneficial. Being able to have built that relationship with Bruce, I know the type of scenes that he likes doing. I know the type of dialogue and character-driven stuff he enjoys. Like when I read the script, I was like, “There needs to be a scene between the father and the daughter. There’s no emotional scene between them.”

In the middle of the film, we need to have some sort of beat where Bruce and his daughter stop and catch their breath and resolve their relationship. Having worked with Bruce a couple of times, I know that he likes doing those kinds of scenes. I was adamant to make sure that we added that into the script.

PC: You’ve said this is the most action-packed film that you’ve done so far. How challenging was it to balance all that in a ten-day shoot?
Matt: This is definitely the most action-packed film I’ve done for sure. The last film I did had a car chase, a couple of little shoot-outs in a trauma center. But this has full-blown action sequences and shoot-outs between groups, soldiers, and a full-blown showdown between the Partner and Miller. He’s taking out soldiers. There was a lot of complicated action sequences that needed to be shot within an incredibly tight schedule. I don’t know any other action thriller that shoots this quickly. Even in the ’90s, they would get thirty days to shoot these movies.

It was tough. With action, you have to be safe. You can’t just jump in there and have your actor start beating the crap out of the stunt guy. You have to choreograph it and make sure it’s safe. Obviously we know what happened in the ’90s with The Crow and Brandon Lee. You never want something like that to happen. Every gun has to be checked. Every blank has to be double-checked. All that has to be thoroughly rehearsed. All those safety precautions have to still be taken into consideration, but at the same time, you still want to get all this action. It’s definitely a challenging aspect.

PC: With everything that you accomplished, what was the biggest takeaway from this experience?
Matt: That’s a great question. I feel like this one, it was just being able to wrap out this third film with Bruce and getting a chance to make so many films. Within a two-year period, I’ve shot three features, and this is the most prolific I’ve been ever in my career.

It was really a process of getting down to the fundamentals of filmmaking, being able to trust my own voice as a director, trusting my instincts as a storyteller and my ability to work with others, create and elevate content, and knowing the stories that I want to tell.

For me, a movie or a story is about escapism. It’s about entertainment. It’s about letting an audience shut off for a couple of hours and enter another world. It’s a timeless story where they can step away and not necessarily get beaten over the head with some kind of theme. But more just something subtextual there where they can take what they want and interpret it their own way and we’re not cramming it down their throat. That’s one thing that I’ve learned over the last few films and how important that is.

To keep up with Matt, follow him on Instagram. Catch Hard Kill on Digital today.

Photo Credit: Vertical Entertainment