Did you do this movie during hiatus?Kevin McKidd: "Funnily enough, I did this just after - this is how long ago we did this movie - I did this movie just after we wrapped Journeyman. This was two and a half years ago. It was pre-Grey’s Anatomy. In fact, I got the phone call about Grey’s Anatomy while we were in Bucharest and I asked Guy, 'What do you think?' I was asking all these guys whether I should do it or not. So that’s when it dates from."
How much time did you have to train?
Kevin McKidd: "I would say I started pre-training because I had to learn not only the martial arts side of it. A lot of my stuff is to do with manipulating the cane and the sword that my character uses. So I had to learn a lot of cane work and that kind of martial arts cane work, but also Guy had the idea of Killer #2 of being this kind of Fred Astaire, almost this dancer who can sort of tap dance his way through killing people. So I had to take dance class for a month before we even went to Bucharest, just to kind of make myself less flat footed than I actually am. Then once we got there, we probably had another two or three weeks and then during the filming, when we weren’t actually on the stages doing scenes, we had time off, the stunt crew would just grab us and strong-arm us into a rehearsal hall where we’d be drilling fights for the next sequence and the next. So it wasn’t like we had months and months to train. We had to actually do it as we were going."
It doesn’t sound like an indie movie.
Kevin McKidd: "It was like one of the highest end indie movies I’ve ever been a part of. I don't know what the budget was but, absolutely, it felt like a studio film with an independent sensibility, which is very cool."
How did it feel to wear the costume?
Kevin McKidd: "Me and Guy kind of sat down, we said we wanted this guy to be like Fred Astaire and that kind of stuff but we want him to be deconstructed instead of angular, so we came up with this weird waistcoat and stuff. It was good because we came to the vision of what he looked like together, little pink glasses with no stems and stuff. Actually, I decided that my character should have fully manicured nails at all times so I had to go to the nail salon once every two weeks to get new acrylic nails attached so I had these perfect acrylic nails that women have normally. I had to maintain that during the whole shooting because he wanted this feel of this guy who’s a perfectly coifed killing machine. It was actually tough to wear those nails, man." [Fred Topel via Kevin McKidd Online]
