Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Adam Sigal, Chariot, exclusive, interview, john malkovich, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, rosa salazar, Thomas Mann

Chariot Star Thomas Mann on His Character's Dark Journey & Co-Stars

For Thomas Mann, playing a grounded character with such restraint in the dark film as Chariot provided its own set of challenges. The star plays Harrison Hardy, a man who experiences mysterious recurring dreams and turns to Dr. Karn (John Malkovich), an odd, eccentric specialist who guides unknowing patients through the reincarnation transition. When Harrison reveals his encounter with a woman (Rosa Salazar), he loved in a previous life as the doctor has to deal with a glitch in the system before it irreparably derails his future. I spoke to Mann about working with writer-director Adam Sigal and how Malkovich and Salazar's performances guide Harrison's journey.

How Thomas Mann's Harrison Hardy Fits into Chariot

"After I read the script I was, I had to read it again because I was like, 'I don't know. I feel like I missed something.' There's so much happening," Mann recalled. "It is the kind of thing that keeps you wanting to ask more questions and dig deeper into the characters. There's a lot to unpack in this story, and it was just a really unique read. I knew that I wanted to try it and see the world brought to life." The attention to detail to how haggard Harrison looked was in the details. "Adam and I got along really well because he was very collaborative and wanted me to just feel like I had agency over who Harrison was," he explained. "We agreed on a lot of things, and we both thought like, 'He should look tired all the time. He should have bags under his eyes. He is not like an outwardly or showy person.' It's all very insular, and where we meet him, he's just kind of a lost individual. He's been dealing with these dreams, and he's not sleeping because of that, and it's affecting his relationships and his ability to hold down a job. We meet him at a really low point in his life where he knows he has to do something significant or else he's going to go crazy. That's when he meets Malkovich's character Dr. Karn to try and figure out what's going on."

When it came to work with his much more seasoned co-star in Malkovich, Mann found himself a little star-struck at first. "I was a little bit intimidated to meet him. He's an iconic actor, and it was really a dream to meet him and work with him that intimately," he admitted. "But by the end, he's just a really playful actor, and we're just trying to make each other laugh. He has this notebook, and you see your writing or doodling things and then showing it to me. It was really a lot less intimidating than I was expecting it to be. I'm just really grateful to have that experience now."

Mann got to channel his personal experiences as an actor into Harrison. "Like doing or going to a new play, a new city, shooting a movie and meeting all these new people at once and working with people that maybe make you nervous is not that unlike what Harrison is going through, where he is just thrown into this new world, and there are all these eccentric characters that he meets in the apartment building," he said. "It's a lot of like things are happening to you and Harrison, and he's just sort of being pulled through this gauntlet trying to figure out what is going on and trying to get to the other side. In a way, movies are like that. I'm just sort of trying to get through it and navigate it. If I come across confused and lost that, I just sort of feed that backs into the character because it actually kind of works for him."

The actor revealed that it's actually his second time working with Salazar, as they previously starred in the upcoming A24 film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. "It was cool to get to work with her on it like a greater capacity this time," he said of the Alita: Battle Angel star. "She makes such strong choices, and there's a scene where she has this monologue, and I was just never been so floored by the consistency with which she could emote. She's just a world-class actress, like the real deal, and I love what she was able to do with Maria because it's a lot of fun to act with someone who has just giving you that much to work with. With John, it's just the same thing where I just wanted to do a good job for him so that I wasn't the weak link, and I didn't want to mess him up." Saban Films' Chariot, which also stars Scout Taylor Compton, Vernon Davis, Chris Mullnax, and Shane West, is currently in theaters, on-demand, and digital. Check out our interview with Sigal here.

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