Scott Adkins Talks Criminal, Likes the Secrecy Around Doctor Strange

If you watched Criminal, it’s pretty likely that at some point in the film you wondered to yourself, “how many comic book movie actors are in this thing?”

Starring Kevin Costner (Man of Steel), Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight), Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Gal Gadot (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), Antje Traue (Man of Steel) and more, the film was up to its ears in superfolk.

But if you watched Criminal, and you blinked, you may have missed action star Scott Adkins, who played CIA Agent Pete Greensleeves and who hasn’t yet appeared in a superhero film, but soon will (November’s Doctor Strange).

Greensleeves spent most of the movie locked away in a small room with other CIA analysts including Oldman and Star Trek Into Darkness‘s Alice Eve, while field agents like Reynolds and terrorists like Traue soaked up the spotlight.

So what made Adkins want to board director Ariel Vromen’s spy thriller?

Adkins joined ComicBook.com to discuss the film, which is currently available to stream and comes to Blu-ray and DVD on July 26.

You’re a person who is recognizable and very well-liked. What attracted you to this script, where your character didn’t get a whole lot to do?

Yeah, well the script was good, but the part was not necessarily that great.

Of course it was the opportunity to work with a stellar cast with obviously Kevin Costner and Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones and Ryan Reynolds. It was a great cast so I just thought “Well, this is a great thing to be a part of.”

I enjoyed the script, I liked the director, his previous film The Iceman, and I have a relationship with the producers. I’ve done a lot of work with those guys before and they were shooting in London which I live in the UK. Nothing else going on at the time, you know, like something to do.

I mean, you’re an actor, you get paid to act. Sometimes you don’t have the luxury of picking … Like it’s not up to me to say “Right, I want to do this. I’ll play James Bond now. Okay, step over.” It doesn’t work like that, does it? You’re at the mercy of the films that you are offered. You can only choose what’s on the table at that point. That’s how I put food on the table for my family and I work as an actor so that was what made sense at the time.

It seemed to me that a lot of what you ended up doing was working kind of in close quarters with Alice Eve and Gary Oldman in this little trailer. It was the Operations Center or whatever it was. Was that one of those great opportunities where you got to sit there for a work day and bounce off of Gary Oldman and kind of watch how he works?

Well exactly, the main reason I took this film belongs to him too, because I consider Gary Oldman to be the greatest actor living on this planet at this moment.

I’ve always been a huge fan of his work and when they said “This is the part, you’re playing next to Gary Oldman,” that was all I needed to hear really. I would’ve done it if the script was terrible, which it isn’t, or if the director was bad. The chance to work with Gary so closely was a phenomenal experience for me. I think he is an incredible talent that is well over-due an Oscar.

You know, the trailers for this movie were all recycling bits of footage from the first ten minutes or so. It’s almost the JJ Abrams kind of philosophy now. You see this with Doctor Strange. We literally don’t know who you are because the only way to keep security is to keep the tightest, heaviest lid you possibly can on these big budget movies and basically say “We’re not going to give you anything.”

Yeah.

It’s interesting to see how these big features have developed in that way. I don’t know if that’s something that you’re aware of being on the production end.

Yeah, I think it’s better for it, a bit of secrecy, because that’s the way it used to be in the old days anyway before the internet. It creates more hype. The less you know, the more people want to know. If you know everything that probably takes a bit of that hype away. I think it’s better to stay tight-lipped, as much as you can.

This one was surprising because the trailers were basically, “Ryan Reynolds is Jason Bourne.” When his character dies 8 minutes in the movie, you’re just like “Holy cow! That was a bust!”

Yeah, well I guess that’s a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, you want people to be surprised and you want to show them one hand and pull something out from beneath your sleeve, but on the other hand you want to get those people into the cinema as well. It’s the marketing guys that create the trailers and try to pull the public in. Sometimes that’s not intended with what the actual movie is all about. The director would’ve done it, but yeah, it’s a bit of a double-edged sword I suppose.

One thing that I thought was interesting about your character in this thing is you were there barking orders and analyzing data and you as an actor, you are often the heavy. You’re an action star. You’re a guy who kicks ass and gets stuff done. Is it actually a little refreshing to take a part where you can primarily use your brain?

Yeah, absolutely. Listen I love making action films. I’m very passionate about that side of things and I recognize that I have a talent for that and that people expect me to do that quite a lot of the time, but it’s nice for me as an actor to dip in and out of different parts.

The role in Criminal was very expositional in the way that a lot of what I say is further in the story and giving information to other characters and you’ve just got to make a way to make that reel and stay in the moment with that.

People look at my film CV and they think that this is something new, but since the very beginning, I’ve played ricks of people, normal characters, British TV shows, and things like that. For me, it’s nothing new. For me, it’s the way it always has been. People seem so surprised when I’m not playing a villain or being the hero of an action movie, but for me, that’s the way it’s always been.

I will say that I think that having the intensity that you had on screen in this movie really helped to sell it because I felt like you’re in this dark room and it’s very quiet and oftentimes very bad shit is happening outside. You are the one guy, well really you and Oldman, but you are the two who often convey the gravity of what was going on.

Well yeah, I appreciate you saying that. Obviously the stakes are very high in our story. That’s actually one of the reasons why I absolutely love Gary Oldman. I think when you idolize someone, when you appreciate someone’s work, some of that can bleed over into your own.

Not trying to say that I’m anywhere close to Gary Oldman’s quality of performance, but what I love about Gary is he really commits to the parts. He can be quite intense in his performances, and even though he seemingly can go quite far over the top, it’s never not believable. Do you know what I mean?

It’s always believable. For me, that’s the skill of somebody like Gary Oldman and why I enjoy to watch an actor like him so much. He can go big, but it’s always very, very truthful and true to the character. That intensity can cross onto screen and it’s very good for the cinema.

If there was one thing that you would kind of want to communicate to the audience about this film and what makes this film special and what made this something that you’re happy to have on your filmography, what would it be?

Well I think this film is a high concept idea. It was pulled off very well by the director, but around this high concept idea, the characters are very nuanced and there’s a lot more going on than just what the plot is telling you, the character relationship between Kevin Costner and Gal Gadot’s character is something special, the way that they’ve mixed the memories of Ryan in there, and it’s something that there seems to be a little bit different, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.