Ed Harris and Liam Neeson say they never even met before they were cast in the drama-thriller Run All Night.
But the veteran actors insist they had no trouble finding a rhythm to their screen relationship, which devolves from lifelong friendship to bloodthirsty vengeance over the course of one harrowing evening.
"I think it was pretty natural," Harris told UPI in New York this week about his chemistry with Neeson. "We had never even met before, you know? Certainly, hadn't worked together, but I think we felt really comfortable with each other and respected each other's work. You're not dealing with an unpeeled banana, you know what I mean? We're both just there, so it just happens. And the script was strong and we had good stuff to work with."
"We had a little rehearsal, read through the scenes. We might have made a little change here and there, but nothing to the structure of the piece," noted Neeson, who was sitting beside his co-star.
"We didn't really sit down and talk about it very much," Harris continued. "We just kind of showed up and did it."
In the film, Neeson plays Jimmy "The Gravedigger" Conlon, an alcoholic, former hitman for the Irish-American mob, haunted by the many people he has killed while in service to Harris' boss Shawn Maguire. Both men have trouble with their adult sons -- Shawn's boy Danny [played by Boyd Holbrook] is trying to drag Shawn's organization back into drug dealing, as Jimmy's only child Mike [played by Joel Kinnaman] works hard as a livery driver to support his pregnant wife and two little daughters, but wants nothing to do with his estranged father.
When Mike unexpectedly witnesses Danny murder rival gangsters, Danny and his associates set out to kill Mike, as well. Jimmy shows up in time to save Mike, shooting Danny and immediately pitting both Jimmy and Mike against Shawn.
Asked if he and Harris understood at what point in their characters' lives the balance of power shifted, so Shawn had the upper hand in their relationship, Neeson replied: "I was Lenny in Of Mice and Men to his George. But we always watched each other's backs as kids and in the Viet Nam War and that's only just hinted at."
"It's more of a brains-brawn kind of deal," Harris added.
Speaking of brawn, Run All Night features some particularly intense fight scenes throughout the seedier streets, pubs and subways of New York City.
"Mark Vanselow was the fight coordinator -- my pal -- we've done 16 films together. We just wanted to make it rough and dirty," Neeson recalled.
"It wasn't too bad. [Director] Jaume [Collet-Serra], he is wonderful at keeping this thread, this symphony going throughout the whole film of pace and stuff... So, I am always aware he knows the arc he is looking for. I really trust him. This is the third time we've worked together [after Unknown and Non-Stop,]" he explained. "I'm 62 years of age and this [character] is supposed to be like 55. That's to assuage my ego, by the way. But I am not trying to be 30 in these films. I'm not trying to get a six pack and do all that stuff. I'm not interested in that. That's boring anyway. We see kids do it all the time and they're fantastic at it. So, I'm not trying to compete with that. I want it to be a mature man, has to run after someone and gets winded or gets hurt or whatever."
Rapper-actor Common plays Andrew Price, the killing machine Shawn sends to finish off Jimmy and Mike.
Pressed to describe what it was like building a character who speaks very little on-screen, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning "Glory" wordsmith told UPI in a separate interview: "Until it was mentioned to me, when I watched the movie, I didn't realize he didn't have a lot of dialogue, which is funny, because that means his presence was still felt.
"I think, as an actor, I started off in movies, some movies where I only had a couple of lines," he said. "So, it's like, how do you convey who this person is without the words? You've got to just be alive in those scenes. You've got to be present in those scenes and create this character, so that character is alive and breathing, and people get to know him, regardless. We know who Price is. ... I don't mind things that don't have a lot of dialogue because so much can be said through a person's actions, through their eyes. Sometimes you just feel things coming off of people in a scene."
Co-starring Genesis Rodriguez and Vincent D'Onofrio, Run All Night is in theaters now.