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William Fichtner talks Drive Angry 3D

By Anne Brodie Feb 22, 2011, 15:57 GMT

The story centers on a vengeful father who goes after the men who killed his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter. ...more

Drive Angry 3D is a graphically violent and often funny 70’s style road film about a couple of messengers from Hell sent to earth to settle a score. 

Nic Cage is Milton, desperate to get his granddaughter back from crazed backwoods devil worshippers, already lost his daughter to them.  The Accountant, played by William Fichtner is a shadowy, gentlemanly figure with intense supernatural fighting skills is also on a mission but it’s hard to know just what that mission is – and that’s intriguing and frightening.

William Fichtner, a gifted character actor with extensive credits on TV and film says making Drive Angry was one of the best work experiences he’s ever had and that he couldn’t get the script, by director Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer, out of his mind. He was obsessed with the otherworldly operative.

“The great thing is the script” says Fichtner, “which is REALLY good.  It’s a tight read, the characters are fascinating and it unfolds in a way that is like “What’s going on, who’s this Milton guy and where’d he come from?”  The Accountant starts to put it together and figure out who he is. I loved everything about it.”

Fichtner says he started from zero to create The Accountant. “Where is the reference point for an Accountant, a guy who works in hell? It’s such a clear black slate.  I thought “Well, he hasn’t been (on earth) in quite a while.  He sees a woman, and wonders what that’s like.  And he hasn’t seen a car. He works in hell and he’s coming back.”

The Accountant may be a mystery, but it’s clear his mission involves Milton and he’s hard on his trail.  We also learn that The Accountant is a fearsome opponent.  There’s an astonishing fight sequence in which he battles the thug Frank, played by co-writer Todd Farmer.  It’s is eye-poppingly violent but funny, especially considering The Accountant has only his hands, and Frank has a weapon. 

“Todd said he practiced for weeks with a real baseball bat”, says Fichtner. “We got to set that day, he pulled that real bat out and he doing this (swings it).  I said, “Excuse me can I see that for a second?” and I took that bat and said “You’re not swinging that bat”.  And he says “What are you talking about?” “I said you go get that rubber bat, a balsa wood bat or something. You are NOT swinging that bat at me.”“And he’s like “But I worked with that one.” And I said “Well work with the other one. You got a few minutes”.”

He says it was challenging combining the choreography of the fight with the acting beats needed to further define The Accountant.

“It was real technical to do that scene. What I did know was that I wanted the physicality to have a gracefulness. I did this lean back thing and Patrick said “Yeah that’s really good” and he played with that. It has that kind of supernatural phhhh and he comes into it and goes out of it. I wanted it to be real flowing I thought my own thing out and I won out over his bat.  One of my favourite things is a little thing, I know it, no one else knows it or thinks about it, but he jacks Frank up against the wall, and takes him and whoosh, and he goes “Ugghh!” (a self-satisfied grunt). It’s like “I still got it”. Don’t mess with me.”

The excessive gore and violence of Drive Angry has many precedents, from the original grindhouse films, to Quentin Tarantino’s re-ups, the Grant Giugnol theatre tradition of 100 years ago, graphic cave drawings and passages in the Bible.  Fichtner has an idea why pop culture nearly overflows with violent images.

“It’s an accident, its rubber necking, you want everybody to be okay but at the same time it stops everything. It’s the atmosphere that happens in the accident scene.  It doesn’t happen, it is not real but it changes everything.  You’re walking, you turn the corner and there is an accident there’s an atmosphere in the air, it changes the human behavior, and everything is different. That happens sometimes in movies.  Sometimes there are no new things but there are new ways of telling things.  Drive Angry had that powerful atmosphere.”

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