BWW Interviews: Jeremy Irvine Chats New Drama BEYOND THE REACH, Out Today

As BEYOND THE REACH opens at theaters nationwide today, April 17, correspondent Larry Murray spoke with actor Jeremy Irvine about the film which also stars Michael Douglas, and his experience filming it.

Trained in theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Irvine has appeared in stage productions including the Royal Shakespeare Company's DUNSINANE, an update to MACBETH but has found his niche in film.

Early on in his career, Jeremy Irvine was out there, auditioning and getting rejected almost daily. Finally landing a small role on stage with the RSC, the teenager found time to create his own promotional reel and somehow a copy got into the hands of Steven Spielberg. The rest is motion picture history.

At 18 years of age, Jeremy Irvine was the human lead in WAR HORSE, and found that while the theatre people couldn't care less, in the world of motion pictures he was very much in demand.

He's now 24, and he hasn't stopped working since. At this point he has eight films "in the can" with his latest project BEYOND THE REACH opening this weekend at theaters nationwide. In this cat and mouse adventure he and Michael Douglas are adversaries, as a recreational hunting trip becomes a fight for survival in the desert heat.

Nobody knows a new film better than one of its stars, and Jeremy Irvine describes BEYOND THE REACH as an "edge of your seat thriller, with an OLD FASHIONED feel to it. But also it is a bit tongue in cheek, you know, it makes fun of itself in places. To me it's a very exciting way to spend an hour and a half looking at Michael Douglas do what Michael Douglas does best, which is to play this wonderful archetypal villain.

"And then I get to go through a great deal of torment. In fact it is a brutal movie in places," Irvine noted. The film is a lean and rather mean cat-and-mouse thriller, as Douglas' character, a high-rolling corporate shark and his young tracking guide (Irvine) play a terrifying survival game during a hunting trip in the Mojave Desert. It is in the tradition of Steven Spielberg's DUEL and Robert Harmon's THE HITCHER.

"I liked this role because since WAR HORSE I had never really done an action film sort of thing, and since that first film I have been sort of cautious about what came next," he observed. Indeed his roster of films seem to include a diversity of types that are designed more to stretch his acting muscles than make him a celebrity. His role of Pip in GREAT EXPECTATIONS directed by Mike Newell showed how deftly he could handle Dickens while NOW IS GOOD had him snogging with Dakota Fanning in a romance film. He played an Appalachian backwoods anti-hero in THE WORLD MADE STRAIGHT and a prisoner of war in THE RAILWAY MAN. He also got to work with bad boy Robert Duval in A DAY IN OLD MEXICO.

Irvine recently wrapped production on FALLEN directed by Scott Hicks and starring Addison Timlin and Joely Richardson. The film follows a young girl who finds herself in a reform school after therapy and finds herself drawn to a fellow student who is actually an angel who has loved her for thousands of years.

He has also completed filming STONEWALL directed by Roland Emmerich in which he plays Danny, a young man swept into the famous 1969 demonstrations which began the gay rights movement when the LGBT victims stood up to the police harassment and corruption that kept them in the closet.

"I've needed to do this to prove to myself that it wasn't just a fluke that Steven Spielberg cast me in WAR HORSE. And yes, I have turned down some bigger roles in favor of smaller, more challenging movies. It's my hope that this will give me some sort of basis for longevity in this very fickle and fast paced business," he explained.

Perhaps because Jeremy Irvine was denied entry to the military due to his Type 1 diabetes, he has become fearless in his quest for authenticity in his roles. "I am always looking for a challenge," he says, "and there was nothing more exciting than working with Michael, it's sort of flying without a net, and very exciting. It's scary too, but that's why I used to love to do improvised comedy when I was at drama school. It's a similar kind of feeling of sink or swim, and you have no choice but to swim."

In BEYOND THE REACH Irvine was constantly in the long range scope of Michael Douglas' rifle as he clambered over, around and into the rock formations of the desolate Mojave Desert. Though actually filmed in New Mexico, the landscape was hot, barren and easily hit 110 degrees during THE DAY while becoming cold and hostile at night.

To prepare for the role, which came shortly after finishing THE RAILWAY MAN where he had lost about 35 pounds to play a skin and bones POW, he had to beef himself up to fit the role of a typical buff outdoor American. "The role called for me to be quite big, very much an outdoors person. You know I'm British and I am not at all used to that, I'm supposed to fit into a more tweed jackets and library mold. People like Channing Tatum have kind of ruined it for British actors; now we have to go to the gym and stuff, so building back up for this role was really tough.

"Once you've lost all that weight and muscle, it's incredibly difficult to put it back on. It took me a year after RAILWAY MAN to really get back to normal," he said.

"I did it because I knew the real man from THE RAILWAY MAN whose story it was, and spent time with him and his family, and felt a real responsibility to that role."

Bringing our conversation back to BEYOND THE REACH, we talked about making the film itself which Jeremy Irvine remembered as "An incredibly physically tough shoot. The terrain we roamed was a lot more challenging than most, and I think Michael Douglas would say the same."

It was a difficult project, ISOLATED and a long way from anything that resembled modern conveniences. The days were hot and long. But the crew assembled was one of the hardest working crews Douglas said he had worked with in career of over 40 years of filmmaking. And the results ultimately show on the screen.

Jeremy Irvine notes that "There was a lot of prosthetic makeup I had to wear - like the latex skin that covered my face when he was being filmed under the broiling sun. It's challenging not only because it's hot, but also it itches and it's just plain grim." But the New Mexico desert is not quite as bad as the actual Mojave, I quipped. "Yeah, but coming from England, it was just ferocious.

"Still, the landscapes and environment are simply stunning. Sitting on the top of a cliff with Michael Douglas, overlooking an incredible vista and watching the sun go down was really cool. Although it couldn't have been more alien to me, it's the moment I remember best."

BEYOND THE REACH was developed for Michael Douglas' Furthur Films from the popular young adult novel DEATHWATCH by Robb White. White was a successful novelist in the 1950s and 60s, and also wrote the screenplays to genre classics HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and THIRTEEN GHOSTS.

BEYOND THE REACH Directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti, Starring Michael Douglas and Jeremy Irvine, Running Time 91 minutes.

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