THE LONE RANGER directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, with Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner and James Badge Dale. A Disney release. 149 minutes. Some subtitles. Now playing. For venues and times, see listings.
James Badge Dale didn’t set out to be in every movie this summer. It just kind of worked out that way.
Weeks after he faced off against Robert Downey Jr. as a glowing heavy in Iron Man 3, Dale popped up in last month’s World War Z as an American soldier who escorts Brad Pitt around a South Korean military base. Now he’s in The Lone Ranger as Dan Reid, the lawman brother of Armie Hammer’s unlikely hero, John Reid.
Dale brings a convincing swagger to the role of the more manful brother not only is Dan a respected Texas Ranger, but he married John’s childhood sweetheart, Rebecca (Ruth Wilson), when John went away to law school.
And then, well, spoiler alert: Dan does not make it to the end of The Lone Ranger.
“Someone said to me the other day, ‘Why do you want to do this film? I think you’re gone on page 27,'” Dale laughs in an interview suite at the Park Hyatt.
“I was like, ‘No, man. He lives throughout the entire movie. Every character in that film has to have a presence every character in that film has to stand for something.'”
He’s not wrong. Dan Reid’s presence is felt through the movie in a number of ways, a dynamic fostered by Verbinski in the rehearsal process.
“Gore actually sat me, Armie and Ruth down and had us go through things together,” Dale says. “What he wanted to do was create this kind of little family unit that almost existed in a separate film – to have this tone [between us], and then use it to just bring more to other things.”
The other things he’s talking about are The Lone Ranger’s elaborate action sequences, which required the actors to attend cowboy boot camp.
“I spent six weeks in Albuquerque going to the ranch every day, not stepping in front of a camera,” Dale says. “That becomes a rehearsal process in itself. We’re trying to discover something and capture something that’s real – that has this spontaneity. This film actually had that feeling, because it was so big and felt so new to everybody – the whole crew’s sitting there going, ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ every day. That’s hard to sustain over six, seven, eight months.”
The Lone Ranger is a huge production, but Dale insists it’s more than a generic blockbuster wannabe.
“I’ve been on jobs that are just machines. Those are hard to be on,” he says. “This was a living, breathing, organic machine, with Gore Verbinski at the head of it. Or you could say it’s got three heads, in Jerry [Bruckheimer], Gore and Johnny [Depp]. And when it’s alive, it’s alive for everybody. There was a lot of excitement to show up to work every day. No matter how hard it got, or how hot I’d get, or all this other stuff, you’re still out there kind of making a movie you believe in, and you’re doing things that people haven’t done in a long time.”
Interview Clips
James Badge Dale on making himself memorable in small roles, like his one-scene appearance in Flight:
Dale on his appearance in World War Z:
Dale on what he was willing to do to make a brief appearance in The Grey:
normw@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision
