Exclusive: Lee Pace and The Running Man Duel on Edgar Wright
Lee Pace praised director Edgar Wright for crafting a predatory, “unbothered” and masked McCone in the dystopian film The Running Man. Pace highlighted the film’s dual storyline, where his character is the network’s hero despite committing “grotesque” violence.
Actor Lee Pace has moved between genres effortlessly. From superhero tentpoles, fantasy epics, character dramas to psychological thrillers, he has done it all. But his latest film, Edgar Wright’s ‘The Running Man’, pushes him into new territory where a stylish survival thriller meets spectacle, violence and reality-TV commentary.
In an exclusive conversation with India Today, the actor talks about playing McCone, a masked hunter in a dystopian game show where “entertainment” and morality are constantly in conflict. Speaking to India Today, he said, “The reason I do a film is to work with a director.” Paes says what attracted him to the project was the chance to work with Edgar Wright, whom he has admired for years.
lee pace on edgar wright
“I mean, the reason for me to do a movie is to work with a director, and Edgar Wright is someone I’ve been a big fan of for years. I love his movies, and so when they called me up and asked me to be a part of it, I jumped at the chance,” he joked, “even after they said I’d be in a mask the whole time.”
Elaborating on it, he shared, “I really thought that was one of the fun things about the character because it gave me a different kind of challenge to approach the character with a puzzle. Like how am I going to articulate the character, what choices am I going to make physically to justify the choice of the mask.”
He further stated that Wright worked closely with McCone to craft his shaky peace. The actor mentions, “We had a great time working with him to find his character and McCone’s effortless recklessness. He’s not too bothered by all the violence he’s doing to the American public. I found it fun to create these spectacular murders. I thought there was a sense of humor to it.”
On the conflict of ‘The Running Man’
Paes highlighted a key difference in the way he viewed the role. “I mean, not only is he a badass, but he’s also playing a badass. I think, they’re two different things, you know what I mean? Like lethal guys don’t show you their guns.”
This performative violence becomes even more complex in the film’s broader commentary on narrative manipulation and public perception. “The show is rigged and the runners are going to die,” Pace says, explaining the troubling dichotomy in ‘The Running Man.’
This dual narrative structure is one of the elements that attracted him. “One of the interesting things about the movie is that you follow him in reality. And then you see the weird, distorted, surrealism of the ‘Running Man’ reality TV show. You’re watching Ben Richards and he’s the hero of that story. But the hero of the ‘Running Man’ TV show, as presented by the network, is McCone and the Hunters,” the actor says.
Pace found McCone’s exaggerated image to be both amusing and disturbing. He shares, “I think he’s presenting something entertaining and quirky as a frontman.”
At the end of the conversation, Pace is hypothetically asked if he would prefer to be a runner or a hunter if he were forced into such a dystopian world. He laughs at the impossibility of choice. “Oh my God, how impossible is this, you also have to answer this question,” he says. But he soon comes to accept the moral trap that exists in both roles.
The actor adds, “I don’t want to die either, so runners die all the time but you don’t want to kill people. I mean, this is the situation McKeon finds himself in, right? He doesn’t want to do what he’s doing, but he has no choice, right?”
‘The Running Man’ is now in Indian theatres. It also stars Glen Powell in the lead role.