With
The Lone Ranger already in theaters, collider met up with actor James Badge
Dale, who plays Dan Reid for an interview. Here is an excerpt:
“Collider:
How cool is it to be in three of the biggest blockbusters this summer, with Iron Man 3, World War Z and The Lone Ranger?
JAMES BADGE DALE: How the heck did it
work out this way?! I don’t know. It’s two years of work that’s
book-ending right here, within two months. I’m fine with it. Let’s
just open ‘em all up, right now. It’s an odd thing to do a film. We
collaborate and work so hard, and then we put it away while other people are
working on it in a dark room. They create the film, and then we have this
moment where we let everyone watch it. It’s like you’re watching a child
go into the world. You’re going, “I hope you do okay.”
…
When
you do a big Western like this, did it feel like you were living out a
childhood fantasy?
DALE: It was so cool! I don’t know
why I just remembered this, and I haven’t told anybody this, but we were
shooting in Canyon de Chelly and we were so far up the canyon. Once we
were up there, we were up there. There was no going back to your
trailers. Speaking of childhood fantasy, we were doing a Western, but we
were also just hanging out. You work, and you ride and ride and ride, and
then, for the next two hours, you look for a place to kick out, in this amazing
canyon with so much heritage and so much history. I found a
treehouse. I found this weird tree, out in a field, and someone had put a
piece of a fence, way up in a tree. I just went up there and went to
sleep for a few hours, in full cowboy regalia. And someone did take a
photo. I have a photo of it, somewhere. It brought me back to when
I was 12 years old, sitting in a treehouse and imagining that I was in a Western
somewhere. You spend all this time, as a child, coming up with these
fantasy stories, and here I am, sleeping in a treehouse, in the middle of
Canyon de Chelly, shooting a Western. That’s a bit of a
once-in-a-lifetime experience.
…
Did
you get along with your horse?
DALE: I had a horse named Duke, and I
fought for Duke. They didn’t want me to ride Duke because Duke was scared
of gunfire and we were doing a Western. But, I loved Duke. Duke is
a 21-year-old horse. He’s been around for a long time and done a lot of
stunt work. They were like, “This horse is a little younger,” but I just
didn’t get along with the other horses. Me and Duke had a little bit of
an understanding. And then, Duke heard some gunfire and ran off, with me
on top, and I had to switch horses, after that. We had to keep Duke away
from the rifles. Duke stood on me, one day. That was one of the top
five pains I’ve ever had, in my life. I was saddling him up, and I felt
something on my left foot. I had this pain in my foot and I was like, “I
think that’s a horse hoof.” I could feel the horseshoe. And then,
Duke just shifted all his weight onto that foot. You know when you have
one of those dreams where you’re trying to scream and nothing comes out?
That can happen in real life, too. And Duke just stood there. He
wasn’t moving. Finally, I just pushed him, as hard as I could. I
was looking at the wrangler, and the wrangler was like, “That just happened?,”
and I was like, “Yeah. What do you do for a broken foot?” He said,
“Six pack. You’ll be fine.”
…
Were
there any stunts that you found most challenging?
DALE: It was dangerous stuff. We
were running on top of moving trains. We got to do amazing things.
I like doing stuff like that. I enjoy it. But believe me, there
were things that were so dangerous that I wasn’t touching them. These
stunt guys are good at what they do and they’re professional. A smart
actor will step back and say, “I’m going to let the professionals do
this.” Hats off to those guys, man. When you see the credits
scroll, look at all those stunt guys and remember all those names ‘cause they
earned their money on this.
How
was the experience of cowboy boot camp? Did you go in thinking you could
do it, and then realize just how difficult it was?
DALE: Exactly! I walked in like,
“I’ve got this. I’ll figure out how to ride a horse. Give me a
week, I’ll figure it out.” I had no idea. It was six weeks, for me,
on the horse. It just got me good enough where I could not hurt myself or
other people, when I showed up to work. A six-week cowboy boot camp is
also a good time. Hanging out with a bunch of other actors, trying to
learn how to ride horses was a funny sight. The first day of cowboy boot
camp was a funny sight of a lot of stiff actors, trying to trot around on a
horse.”
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