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Timothy Olyphant Introduces Us to Agent 47
By Fred Topel | Image property of 20th Century Fox.
Hitman
Fans of the Hitman video game know all about Agent 47, but those of us who haven't picked up a controller since the Coleco days may need some more info. Actor Timothy Olyphant caught viewers up on his character in the new movie.
Meet the Agent 47
"He’s essentially this guy who was born and bread for the purpose of killing," said Olyphant. "The story is essentially is about this guy; he was hired to do this job and he does it, seemingly as well as he’s done any other. And then he’s told by the people he works for there was a witness and he’s got to clean that up. Something’s not right when he sees her. It’s a woman played by Olga Kurylenko, who’s just fantastic. She did a really lovely job, and there appears to be no recognition when she sees him, which obviously means something’s not right. And the next thing we know is someone is trying to kill me. The guy who I thought I killed is on television and nothing makes sense anymore. This guy’s world is being turned upside down."
For an actor, there is not much to go on, but Olyphant learned to let Agent 47 just be. "I think the angle I take is, you trust that sort of takes care of itself. You kill a bunch of guys in an elevator and you walk out the only guy without a scratch on you, that defines who you are. So you trust that, and you can leave that alone. You can say, ‘I don’t really need to try to convince everyone I’m a badass, because I just walked into that situation and I’m the one who comes out without a scratch.’ So you kind of put that aside, and what else you try and do is say, ‘What else is there?’ How many other angles can you look at this and where is the humanity in it all?"
The life of a hitman became full of little details for acting. "You start with a guy who goes from job to job to job, and it sounds sort of a cliché, it’s sort of a lonely existence, a traveling salesman. I thought for a second, I thought it was kind of interesting to try and look at his job prior to the events that start to happen. It’s kind of mundane, job to job, you’re really good at what you do. It’s probably pretty easy and you’re not really engaging with too many people, and there’s probably some kind of detachment from it all to go out and do it. That starts to get kind of interesting, when you look at something that’s special, and you try and figure out what’s pedestrian about it. And the second thing that starts to happen is you realize who this guy is and you start to turn it upside down. What happens when that guy’s world just turns completely upside down?"
Perhaps the age old story of the hitman rejecting his life of crime has never been put so succinctly. "You have this sense of a soldier, who essentially his job is: you point, and I shoot. That’s basically the assassin, because the assassin isn’t choosing who dies and who doesn’t die. Someone gives him a target and he goes and takes it out. What happens when there’s no trust and there’s no boss? The boss isn’t to be trusted, the target isn’t being given to you, and who do you take out and who do you not take out. What starts to happen is it starts to have him examine in some sort of unconscious way, what else is there. If I’m not that guy, than do I have any other job skills? You start looking at it that way, and those are very human experiences and everyone can relate to that. Everyone can relate to the carpet being pulled out from under you, and everyone can relate to the idea of asking yourself, ‘Is this who I am, or am I capable of being someone else?’ Not necessarily something better, but something else, and is that just pre-determined. Those are interesting things to try and explain."
Hitman opens to theaters on November 21st.
For the trailers, poster, stills and more movie info, go to the Hitman
Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of 20th Century Fox.
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