I wasn't sure about any of the actors who had auditoned for Ellis, but I wanted to see how the better ones would bounce off of our other actors as they might surprise us.
Mackenzie was kind enough to attend these auditions.
- Ellis tries to see Sonny as just a target.
- Can’t help but see his humanity bleeding through
- He’s just a young man; he’s not much older than a kid.
- Maybe he reminds you of yourself
- Throughout the scene, particularly over the course of his story, you feel very uncomfortable.
- Lots of avoiding eye contact
Character of Ellis is:
- Weary. Tired. Broken.
- Worn away to nothing
- Hates what he does
- Quiet desperation
- Tortured by quilt
- At the same time, he is a killer. There is a rough side to him, he’s just not remorseless.
- He understands what he does is wrong, but he tries to suppress that because it’s too painful. In many ways, that’s the issue here in this scene. He tries to see each target as just a target, but here he is forced to sit down and talk to his target face to face; he’s forced to see him as a real human being.
- He’s distant and numb
- I always imagined Ellis, and I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this, but as being aware of everything that he’s doing and is happening around him, but it’s like it’s not quite happening to him. When he kills someone, it’s not really him; it’s like he is merely observing as this stranger does these things.
- PTSD?
“What? Like God? Heaven and hell?”
It’s not a threat and it’s not mocking.
You look up to see whether he’s being serious or not. When you see that he is, respond sincerely.
Purgatory
What do you think it means?
I don’t want to reveal in too much detail exactly what all of that means right now, but basically since the film is from Ellis’ perspective, it’s a representation of his mental state.
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