PopHorror Let's Get Scared
God is a Bullet, the new film by writer and director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook 2004) and based on the novel by Boston Teran, is pretty fantastic. Clocking in at just over two and a half hours, it’s gory and super violent. It’s nothing like Cassavetes’ previous work, but it’s everything we want and need from him.
Taking matters into his own hands, Detective Bob Hightower tries to infiltrate an evil cult to save his kidnapped daughter and avenge the murder of his wife.
Being a huge One Tree Hill fan, I jumped on the chance to speak with actor Paul Johansson, one of the stars of the film, about how he became involved with the project, how he prepares for his roles, what’s up next, and more!
Paul Johansson: The first movie I ever really got scared and terrified of was The Exorcist. Do you remember the first time you ever saw that?
PopHorror: I do! I was 13.
Paul Johansson: Me too!
PopHorror: And you know what? I’m 42 now and it still scares me.
Paul Johansson: Still scares me too. Great movie if you think about it.
PopHorror: It is! Thank you so much for your time, Paul. I am a huge fan so this is a real treat.
Paul Johansson: Aw, thank you.
PopHorror: God is a Bullet… Man, that was intense. I watched it this morning at like 7am and that was brutal, and I loved it.
Paul Johansson: You loved it, right?
PopHorror: I did.
Paul Johansson: Yeah, yeah. I think it takes real aficionados to get it. I’m a single dad. I raised a 12-year-old boy. I mean, I can’t imagine anything worse than something like that happening to my family, you know what I mean?
PopHorror: No, I can’t either. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t have kids, but I can’t imagine. You not only starred in the film, but you also were a producer. What intrigued you about the script and made you want to be a part of the project?
Paul Johansson: Nick (writer/director Cassavetes) and I had been friends since I moved to America in 1987, and Nick’s father was still alive back then. We became friends through basketball and mutual friends, a bunch of mutual friends who were actors, so we just became really good buddies. We did a bunch of movies together. I wrote and directed a movie with his mom (Gena Rowlands) as my star for Showtime, and I became very close to her too. Nick had finished The Other Woman and he was really struggling with what to do next, but he said, “If I had to make one more film before I die, I want to make God is a Bullet.” And I said, “I want to read it,” and he gave me the script and I read it. Then he gave me the book by Boston Teran and I read it. I thought Nick’s script was a really, really great adaptation and very close to the original. I said, “What’s the problem?” He’s like, “Well, it’s tough to get made because it’s so violent.” Nick had a really good vision on why and without, I guess, trying to coddle people. He wanted to tell the story, not a version that he thought people could digest. He wanted to tell the story in as much honesty as he could close to the book. I said, “Can I take a run at it? Let me see if I can help you put it together.” We went and spoke to Don Allen who represented the author, Boston Teran, and made an agreement there. Spoke to Sidney Kimmel’s company who had paid for Nick to do an original draft a few years earlier, so we had an agreement there. And then we found our producing partner, Michael Mendelsohn, who came on board and really made this thing happen. Patriot Pictures took care of Nick and made sure the movie was made the way he wanted it to be made. It took about four years for me to get it to Michael Mendelsohn and once Michael was on board, it was fast tracked. He just said, “I’m making this movie with you, Nick.” That deal got made and we moved forward. I was kind of the connecting piece of ligament that pulled everyone together that made it happen. I’m really blessed to be able to do that for somebody who I really admire, Nick, who is a great filmmaker and I think maybe one of the best writers – an overlooked writer in the business. He wrote Blow, he’s written a lot of great movies. He’s a terrific writer.
PopHorror: When you go from The Notebook to this, that really shows his range as a filmmaker.
Paul Johansson: Right?! In between there, what did he do? He did Alpha Dog, My Sister’s Keeper, The Other Woman… He meandered a bit before he got to this.
PopHorror: I know, but still… Even My Sister’s Keeper is at the total end of the spectrum.
Paul Johansson: Right, exactly. Well, he’s got a huge heart and people know him from The Notebook, which means he’s a great ability to make us feel. There’s a lot of ways to feel, you know?
PopHorror: Absolutely. Paul, you’re very good at playing a villain. I spent 11 years watching you as the biggest jerk in the world on One Tree Hill.
Paul Johansson: Was I really the biggest jerk in the world? Come on!
PopHorror: I watch One Tree Hill in its entirety about twice a year, and I was telling someone that Dan Scott started out as the biggest asshole in the series that you love to hate, but at the end you’re crying because he dies. That was the best evolution of the villain in one of my favorite TV series so you’re really good at playing that villain. And your character John Lee in God is a Bullet, is no exception. He’s just not a good dude. What do you draw upon to bring your characters to life? How do you prepare for your roles?
Paul Johansson: I’m a reader. I spent five years at the University of British Columbia, and I love the literary world. My son’s book list this summer – he’s 12 – I’ve given him a 10-book list to get him through the summer. He’s halfway through the first book, thank goodness. We started with that. It’s really getting the understanding of the story and what your part of the story is. For me, and just going back to One Tree Hill really quickly, approaching that character… My hidden secret, and if you rewatch the series, just watch my character. The way that I approached it was that I would do anything for my son. Every scene in my head is, I will do anything for my son. And so that means I will kill him. I’ll die for him. I’ll hurt people. I’ll lie, I’ll cheat. I’ll do whatever it takes to give my son the tool that he needs to survive in a cruel world that I know is much crueler than he knows. So my understanding of parenting, and for that character, not for me – I raised my son much differently.
PopHorror: I hope so!
Paul Johansson: But for that character, in order for him to make an exceptional impact, he has to make exceptional choices. So the choices that I made every day when I read the script was, how far would I go? What would I do in this scene? How far will I manipulate? How far will I be cruel? How far will I hurt to give my son an edge? That’s how I approach it. I base it on love, which sounds odd for what people call an evil character, but because I love my son – I’m particularly talking about the Nathan character so much here because I approached it differently for Lucas – and how much I loved Nathan, I will do anything to give him an edge. As you can see, everything that I did was based on trying to create or burn a path through something for him to get through. Making just a big enough hole for him to squeeze through it. I approached it differently for some of the other characters I was involved with, but ultimately that character’s background is he knows how ugly and awful the world is, so he wants to prepare his son for that ugly and awful world by doing ugly and awful things. That’s how I approach it so it made it interesting for me, but when it became a redemption beat in that storyline, people often forget how wonderful some of the writers can be in this industry. I was blessed with people who had full respect to set up my character so that the redemption journey was a critical journey for the show, to give it another level and a deeper value. I’m blessed. I’m a writer freak. I want to give the writers all the credit, even when I come up with something brilliant, because I wouldn’t have gotten there without the writers.
PopHorror: I completely agree. With the character of John Lee, was there anything that you were adamant about bringing to him?
Paul Johansson: Well, there’s stuff that I didn’t like. Nick is an actor’s director. If you don’t butt heads with your director on some things, it means you haven’t delved deep enough into your work. I had a lot of time to ride around with the sheriffs and to go back and look at the book and talk to the people involved in the book, and really try to understand what John Lee was about. I know it’s a long movie but there’s a lot that didn’t make it in the movie, which substantiates the behavior of my character, but ultimately – I don’t want to give away too much of the story – but I will say John Lee is a deeply flawed guy, but again he’s trying to build something for his family and his wife, played by January Jones beautifully. Little do I know that everyone is as flawed as I am. Her behavior kind of sets off a lot of my behavior in the movie and that’s as much as I can give on that story. Now that you’ve seen it, you understand that. I really do have profound personal issues with the violence that I had to do in the movie, but also working with the director and understanding the book and understanding the background of the character, it’s relevant. It plays as it plays, but it was very hard for me. It was very hard to have to go through some of that stuff because of my childhood, but I think that’s part of the reason I became an actor. To help me understand those things, not to justify them but to understand them.
PopHorror: I can imagine that this is going to be a hard watch for some people because there is a lot of violence against women.
Paul Johansson: I would say both ways. I think that our lead actress, this is one of the most profound performances of an actress I’ve seen in 10 years. She is spectacular in this movie. She gives even more than she gets. That’s what I love about it. Nick’s not letting it happen. He’s letting her be in charge of it. She’s really the heroine, I think.
PopHorror: Are you talking about Maika Monroe?
Paul Johansson: Yeah.
PopHorror: I love strong female characters.
Paul Johansson: Me too.
PopHorror: She definitely kicked as much as she took. The violence against women in this was a lot so I can see why it could be hard to be a character that adds to that.
Paul Johansson: Yeah, but I think the violence against anyone was a lot. The children, there’s a snake. But that’s part of the world. We don’t make movies in the real world. We make movies in the world that the author of the script creates for those things to take place. And in this world, it’s almost got a little bit of the Mad Max value to it. Everything is high valued. Everything is extreme, and that’s the world that the filmmaker made for us to work within, so the things that actually feel like they’re at place in that world.
PopHorror: What is up next for you?
Paul Johansson: Well, I’ve got eight films in the can this year coming up. It was a big year the last couple years. We have a film coming out called Bad Hombres. I co-starred with Luke Hemsworth and just a great cast. Wonderful director, John Stalberg Jr. It won the Mammoth Film Festival, so we’re excited about that one coming out. Marked Men’s coming out, that Nick directed. We shot in Bulgaria. A terrific film. I’ve got a couple of little films – Topper’s coming out, The Death that Awaits, Incarcerated… A bunch of films coming out this summer that I’m really excited about. This is the Nick Cassavetes show right now. He’s back and I think he’s making an impact. And we’re really, really grateful for everybody. XYZ is putting this film out there with us and Prodigy’s helping us, and Patriot Pictures is doing it. I didn’t know if this film would ever get made.
Thank you so much to Paul for taking the time to speak with us. God is a Bullet is currently in theaters.
