Most Marvel fans will immediately recognizeDanny HustonasX-Men Origins: Wolverine’s(2009) tyrannical William Stryker, who was utterly obsessed with collecting Mutant powers and applying them to his “uncanny” version of Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). Today, Huston is coming off gripping performances in back-to-back Westerns, appearing in Viggo Mortensen’sThe Dead Don’t HurtandKevin Costner’s“fat novel” of a film,Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1.And during an exclusive interview with MovieWeb, Huston differentiated working on the two genre pieces by saying:
“I guess let’s start from a script from a point of view.Viggo’s is a tight script.It’s like the skin of a drum.But his was told out of chronology and there’s a whole lot I haven’t really seen in a Western. It’s not linear.Where Kevin Costner’s is a saga. It’s like a fat novel.It goes through time.
It has many characters. It’s incredibly ambitious.It’s a dream of his that he’s had for so many years.He takes us through this long period of time. It starts at this Apache river crossing. You see how everything in that particular place starts to change.Characters come and go.”
Horizon centers around fictional characters and takes place in pre- and post-Civil War America, and details the exploration of the American West. Depicting a twelve-year span, the movies feature an ensemble cast portraying various characters and their experiences pioneering into new territory from their homes.
Huston, who won the Satellite Award (Best Supporting Actor in a Drama) for his work inThe Constant Gardenerand has been nominated for both a Screen Actors Guild Award (Outstanding Performance by a Movie Cast in theAviator) and a Golden Globe (Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television inMagic City), continued to contrastHorizonandThe Dead Don’t Hurtby saying:
“Where in Viggo’s film, you stay with the characters,basically. It’s within this one place where we’re in.In Kevin’s story, you may leave and never return again.It’s like a novel.It’s like a rich, gorgeous novelthat you just want to lap up and continue watching.For me, it’s an extraordinary, majestic work that I celebrate.”
Danny Huston’s Delicious and Diabolical Villains
The Dead Don’t HurtandHorizon’sDanny Huston is one of those actors who has successfully crossed over and appeared in both the big-screen worlds of Marvel and DC Comics. Years after portraying Stryker inX-Men Origins: Wolverine,Huston slipped into the skin of the heartless Erich Ludendorff in one ofthe DCEU’s best movies,which is Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot’s creative cinematic collaboration,Wonder Woman(2017).
A very fine character actor, Huston seems to weave in and out of villainous roles with an incredible ease thanks to his mastery of the acting craft. And while discussing one of the two Westerns he recently participated in, Viggo Mortensen’sThe Dead Don’t Hurt,Huston revealed to MovieWeb that he read that particular script “with relish.” Huston said during his sit-down:
“I read it with relish.I knew that Viggo was involved.I loved the way the script was written out of chronology,out of order,it created a sort of suspense.I was delighted to come across the mayor, Mayor Schiller.And in a way, he does fit the archetypes of a Western.
He’s greedy. He represents capitalism,but in order to exploit. He also has to keep a certain calm.You don’t really want things to get too violent.Especially if they’re going to ruin the opportunities that he’s trying to create for himself.”
Viggo Mortensen & Vicky Krieps on Their Realistic Western Romance in the The Dead Don’t Hurt
Viggo Mortensen and Vicky Krieps discuss the different fates of unlikely lovers separated during the Civil War.
Some ofDanny Huston’s best performancesinclude the aforementionedX-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Constant Gardenerand his recent appearances on the seriesSuccession —not to mention his stint onYellowstone.Fans of Huston can watch the actor work his magic in Mortensen’sThe Dead Don’t Hurt,which is now playing in theaters.Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1begins its theatrical run onJune 28.
Check out more of MovieWeb’s exclusive interview with Danny Huston below:
