Jai
Courtney stars in action thriller Jack Reacher.
Picture: Supplied Source: National Features
Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports
Long before he was trading punches with Tom Cruise and wisecracks with Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney was just another high school graduate with a dead-end job.
"I didn't see the point of going to uni to study something I wasn't really interested in," says the Sydneysider, 26.
"Although I didn't feel incredibly lost at the time, I just didn't really know what I'd do. It wasn't important ... it was all about going out with your mates. I've got friends who that is still their No.1 priority!"
Courtney's priorities changed when, a year out of high school, he was accepted into the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
"When I first arrived there I thought I'd made a huge mistake, I felt out of my depth. But I grew to love it."
After that, he says, came a "pretty natural evolution to want to succeed" in acting.
"I was always realistic about the fact I wanted to be involved with big films ... "
But work didn't come easily. He recalls auditioning for TV roles and ads in Sydney "that I had no shot of getting - I had mates who were more suited to the 'intellectual' type".
When the brief for US TV series Spartacus - shot in NZ - came to his agent, Courtney finally felt he was the right type: "Cool, a job that's actually looking for guys who are bigger and burly."
Courtney got the gig ... and fans still bemoan the fact his character, Varro, was killed off after only 10 episodes. Yet it gave him the opportunity to go to LA, where bigger, burlier Aussies - think Worthington, Hemsworth, Edgerton - are in demand.
"I didn't think, 'My inner action hero will blossom in LA given the opportunity'," says Courtney. "It was just it felt like a natural progression."
It took a couple of years of flying back and forth to LA for auditions before Courtney put a crack in the dam wall.
"At times you lose sight of that whole process and start to think it's impossible to actually get a gig through doing that," he says.
By the time the action thriller Jack Reacher came his way, he was just as relieved as he was excited: "It had been so long between drinks ... "
There is no big story to how Courtney got the job of No.1 bad guy in the movie, about an ex-army cop (Cruise) called in to investigate a seemingly random sniper shooting. He just put an audition on tape.
Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (writer of The Usual Suspects) was in Pittsburgh prepping the film when his casting director sent a link to Courtney's audition.
"I watched Jai do a cold reading," the director recalls. "What's so interesting is how well he embodies such a despicable villain for somebody who has such a good soul. I mean, Jai is a truly unaffected person."
McQuarrie sent the audition to Cruise, who was a producer.
"Five minutes later Tom emailed back and just said 'Cast him'. It was so evident that we'd struck gold with this guy, there was no question."
Next thing he knew, Courtney was on set with Cruise pointing a gun at him.
While he admits "the little boy within was pumped" to play an action baddie, his reaction to being in Cruise's presence is far more reserved.
"When you're working with people you've seen in hundreds of films ... it's a bit crazy to step outside yourself for a minute and think, 'This is surreal.' But I try not to get too bogged down in that.
"Look, these people are colleagues, it's about getting down to business. I don't get too worried about the celebrity thing."
Courtney's first appearance as Charlie in Jack Reacher is bad-ass cool, but soon turns chilling as he aims his rifle at five innocent citizens.
"Everyone says, 'This guy's so nasty, he's ice cold.' " Courtney laughs. "I like to think that at the core of it there's some softness there. Maybe. Probably not."
The film builds inevitably towards a confrontation between Charlie and Reacher. They first lock eyes during a high-speed car chase.
"There's one particular part where we're slamming cars into each other and that's actually Tom and I (doing the driving)," Courtney enthuses. "It's always a little crazy when someone hands you the keys and you get to do things that you weren't supposed to do with your dad's car."
Then the pair face-off in the pouring rain. And that is when Courtney did worry, just a little, about his leading man.
"You don't want to throw a punch and land it on his chin, that's for sure," he laughs. "But, fortunately, nothing like that happened. We had a ball."
Shot in late 2011, Jack Reacher set Courtney on a roll. From Pittsburgh he returned home to shoot I, Frankenstein with Stuart Beattie. As soon as he wrapped in Melbourne he was on a plane to Eastern Europe to start blowing things up with Bruce Willis in A Good Day to Die Hard.
Courtney plays Jack, son to Willis's iconic cop John McClane, in the fifth Die Hard movie. Murmurs of "handing over the franchise" to the younger McClane (Willis is now 57) weren't just internet gossip, Courtney admits: "There was talk around that through the casting process ... We'll see what happens."
The "we'll see" approach is all Courtney will commit to at the moment. While he's now put his physicality to good use in three big films (as well as shooting Felony with Joel Edgerton in Sydney just before Christmas), he isn't convinced action is his niche.
"Look, some of that will be up to me and some of that will be up to the industry. Of course I want to shake it up a bit. But if there are particular strengths you play to, well, you've gotta honour that."
Besides, Courtney adds, this roll he's on could slow once people actually see the films he's been making. A Good Day to Die Hard releases in March; I, Frankenstein in September.
"Maybe I'll suck in everything and it's actually the end of my career," he says.
"We shall see."
-- SEE Jack Reacher opens today
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