After speaking with Kellan Lutz, star of the newly released actioner Java Heat, one thing becomes clear: he’s having a lot of fun. Yet, he isn’t afraid of the hard work, even going so far as saying that everyone who works on a movie should be given an award for the arduous task. A few months ago I had the chance to talk with Lutz about his career to this point, what he looks for in films, his favorite type of stunt work, being top billing, working in Indonesia for Java Heat, and why he’s proud of everything he’s done. Check out our conversation below
The Film Stage: You’re still a fairly young actor. But you’ve got quite a few films under your belt already. Do you feel any particular drive to defend films you are in that are negatively criticized?
Kellan Lutz: You know, we all do collectively the best we can. Like, working on Java Heat, I love action movies. That’s my forte. It’s the genre that I choose. I love being active. With doing a movie, someone is always going to find something that’s wrong with it. We aren’t here to be judged. We are creating passion projects and if you don’t understand it, like amazing art, some people just don’t understand what they did. If you really want to grade everyone, you have to have a curve to it. Everyone’s not the same person. Everyone can’t be the same actor. You can’t have the same actors in every movie so it’s your own vision. And I wish people were just more supportive in general. In certain parts of the world, they’re just quick to bash someone down. But it takes a lot of hard work. And not every movie is trying to win an Oscar. We’re trying to tell a story. Someone’s dream and vision. I think everyone should get an award for just making a movie. They don’t realize how much time and dedication the productions are. How much work it is. It’s not easy. People think being an actor is easy. It’s a lot of hard work. So, am I quick to defend…? I can only speak personally, my performance. I know some days I’m like, “Ah, yeah, I could have done that better.” Or, due to moments of life… someone passing or a pet passing or just hardships of life where I just didn’t connect the way I wanted to and due to day shortages, you can’t get another day to redo a scene. So, you aren’t perfect 100 percent of the time. But I know that I’m proud of everything that I do.
This film, you’re the draw. You’re the headliner. It’s got you and Mickey Rourke, but beyond that it doesn’t have a lot of known actors for an American audience. Do you feel a lot of that pressure? You’re top of the poster here.
I know. I know. I think Mickey had that in his contract that he could choose.
[Laughs]
I really appreciate it. I worked my butt off on this. I was doing second unit and first unit. I think also, because I fell into acting, I was never obsessed with anyone. I didn’t know who Brad Pitt was growing up. I just never watched movies. So there’s not really anyone that I’d be intimidated by. I just respect them. I think it would be awesome to work with them. So I’m still going to be me and do my stuff. But having Mickey there was great. I saw one of the last scenes, with me spitting in his face, he’s totally cool. But I was just being me, in character. It’s just an honor to work with him. I didn’t really realize that I was pretty much the only American there because he’s playing French. That never really connected. I just saw the characters as they were but after seeing the movie it’s pretty cool.
You said you’re into the action genre. So, what’s your thing? Gun fights? Hand to hand? Chases? And how much of that is actually you versus a stunt double?
Most of this is me. We had some great stunt guys. Even the building fire. That was the first time I had gel plastered all on me just in case.
That’s awesome.
Yeah! You never get to do that in big studio movies. They don’t even let you run on rocks because you might twist your ankle. So action stuff… I just love doing action. I love shooting. But I love fighting. Probably fighting, mainly. That just shows more physicality. But in this one, I got to ride a motorcycle. I got to blow stuff up. Got to shoot guns. Got to fight people. Jump from buildings. Crash through windows. A plethora of different things. That’s what I like.
It’s a lot of things you probably didn’t do in a lot of the other films.
No, but in real life I did. Like, growing up, I’d do all these things. That’s why it’s great to do them in a movie. But other films, yeah, you never really get to do much yourself. That’s why I love independent movies.
You shot this on location, right?
Yeah.
I know most of your days are probably 14 hour or 15 hour work days. You come in, you work, you work, you go to bed. Did y’all have any time to run around the city?
Well, the great thing about shooting there… I’m very active when choosing projects. Looking at how much action they have and where do they shoot? I’m big on traveling. So being here and talking to [director Conor Allyn], I think we had 32 different locations.
Wow.
So you’re seeing the country while you’re working. In between takes they’d have like an hour to setup a new shop. I’m just sniffing around! I’m checking stuff out. We shot at Borobudur temple; I was going up and down that thing. It’s like a free pass because there are no tourists on it because we’re shooting. So it’s the best of both worlds. I’m learning Bahasa (Indonesian for ‘language’) from the locals and the crew. Working with them and chatting in their language. Learning about the food. We were shooting in a meat market and then another animal market and I was learning about how they sell all these animals. A lot of different things that just opened your eyes and you become worldlier with it. It’s a great experience to travel and shoot on location. You really feel it. You really feel like you are experiencing this stuff for the first time versus green screen. Like Tarzan was a bit of green screen and I had to act like there was an alligator there! It’s different when there’s a real alligator there.
Definitely. You can tell when an actor has to act against something like a tennis ball.
And some actors are really good. They’re able to pull it off.
Java Heat is now in limited release and hits VOD on Monday, May 13th.