As Lou Diamond Phillips will tell you, there are many moments from his career that are similar to his new film Et Tu. Sure, he is not a murderous and paranoid play director, eager to kill any actor who stands in his way of a perfect production, but the veteran actor has worked with plenty of egos and watched many a painful rehearsal.
“I’ve given those notes and I’ve taken those notes,” he laughs. “I know this guy and I can be this guy. As that character continues to twist and escalate, it just got more fun and more fun and more fun.”
Phillips is no stranger to the theater or to directing, which is why he is so mesmerizing to watch in Et Tu, Max Tzannes’ bonkers new film about a bloody production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In it his character Brent is driven to madness with the help of a mysterious janitor, played by Malcolm McDowell. The two worked together before on the 2013 horror film Sanitarium, although the two never shared a set before.
“When I showed up on location in San Antonio, Malcolm had already been done, and they had to put me together with him via greenscreen and over-the-shoulder body doubles,” he told me. “So I appeared with him but did not act with him.”
Cut to twelve years later to another low-budget set with a small number of takes, and the two iconic actors made the most of their first scene together. “Malcolm and I didn’t have weeks of rehearsal to develop a bond. What you see is what you get. We hit it off literally from the first rehearsal.”
We also talked about the Shakespeare role he would most like to play, a prop mishap on the set of Young Guns II, and he even broke out a brilliant Jack Nicholson impression.
Watch my interview below and check out Et Tu on streaming.
