Cleaner Star Talks About Playing a “Psycho” Villain and Working With Martin Campbell

Audiences may recognize actor Taz Skylar as the charming Sanji on Netflix’s One Piece adaptation, but he shows a completely different side of his range in the new action movie Cleaner. In the film, Skylar portrays Noah, a member of an eco-terrorist group that crashes a corrupt energy company’s special gala event. While the group’s leader, Marcus (Clive Owen) is more reserved and does not want to resort to violence, Noah can be unhinged and unpredictable, making him an even greater threat. Skylar found it a fun role to portray, and in some ways, it was even a cathartic experience for him.

“[T]here’s so many elements of Noah’s rhetoric that are grounded in logic and that have a very profound point to make, that it felt like I suddenly had the license to say a lot of them and say them in a very visceral, very loud, very forward way,” Skylar said in an interview with ComicBook when asked how playing Noah impacted him.

Skylar also touched on the differences between Noah and Owen’s Marcus, explaining his approach to filming his scenes.

“I would play this game with myself during filming, where every time I came into a scene thinking I knew what I wanted to do, I would make it a point within myself to do something completely different,” Skylar said. “And [director Martin Campbell] was so amazing at facilitating that and giving that the space because he really encouraged stuff like that. So as much as he’d tell me if he didn’t like the version of things that I came up with, he was very much encouraging of me trying stuff.”

The actor continued, “[Noah’s] power is that he won’t do the thing that you expect. Because I can’t. I can’t really aspire to be bigger than Clive. You know, he’s not only got like a magnitude and a presence to [him] … and he really does in real life, too. So there’s no way that I can really compete with that. So my only way to come up against it is to do something completely different.”

[RELATED – Daisy Ridley Swallowed Her Nerves (and Thought of Tom Cruise) For Cleaner]

Cleaner is described as, “Set in present-day London, a group of radical activists take over an energy company’s annual gala, seizing 300 hostages in order to expose the corruption of the hosts. Their just cause is hijacked by an extremist within their ranks, who is ready to murder everyone in the building to send his anarchic message to the world. It falls to an ex-soldier turned window cleaner, played by Ridley, suspended 50 stories up on the outside of the building, to save those trapped inside, including her younger brother.”

Working on Cleaner was a memorable experience for Skylar because he got to work with action veteran Martin Campbell, who has helmed some of the best action movies ever made. Skylar grew up watching Campbell’s earlier works and was constantly in awe of the elder filmmaker while on set.

“His primary export is iconicism. Like the stuff that he does is just iconic,” Skylar said. “And I grew up watching them. And there was no other more articulate version of me wanting to work with him other than, ‘Dude, if once in my lifetime I can make a movie like the ones that I still watch because I watch them on repeat, I’ll die a happy man.’”

He continued, “Martin is one of those people that I always wanted to work with. And then when I worked with him on this, I truly understood why. The things that he makes are so iconic. And it’s because he is relentless, uncompromising, and as an 80-year-old man, has more energy than all the 20- and 30-year-olds in the room combined. He is a force of nature, and he’s also a little teddy bear. He’s just the most wonderful, caring man I’ve ever met.”

Cleaner opens in theaters on February 21st.

Are you excited to see Cleaner? Who are some of your favorite action movie villains? Let us know in the comments!