Most Wanted, the latest film by Daniel Roby, is a hell of a ride. Based on a true story of Canadian police corruption, the film has great performances all around by Antoine Olivier Pilon, Stephen McHattie, J.C. MacKenzie, Amanda Crew, Jim Gaffigan, and one of my favorite actors, Josh Hartnett. Hartnett plays legendary Canadian journalist Victor Malarek, who has previously been portrayed by Elias Koteas in the film Malarek. We talked about the real Malarek, how it was working on Most Wanted, and more. Read On!
I really liked this movie. I thought it was amazing. It has so many moving parts. It’s really cool that it’s based on a true story. Going with that, did you get to spend any time with the real Victor Malarek? Were there any other people involved with the actual events that you got to meet?
Josh Hartnett: I did. Yeah. I was able to meet Victor at the very beginning when I was first sent the script. The director, Daniel Roby, is a super, passionate guy. He had been working on this script for eight years. He’s been working on trying to get this film made for eight years before he sent me the script and asked me to play Victor. When I spoke to him, he was incredibly informative because he’d spent so much time researching it. Then, he just kept saying, “You have to meet Victor. You have to meet Victor. You have to meet Victor.” That was like a shorthand for him, that he thought, once I meet Victor I’m really going to want to do the film. I’d already really wanted to do the film because I loved the story. I felt like Daniel’s passion was so evident, and I love working with passionate filmmakers.
“We just went to the Globe and Mail and met his old colleagues, who had really interesting stories to tell about him.”
He invited me out to Toronto, anyway, and we met with Victor. We spent the day with him. I was living in New York at the time, so I just hopped a quick flight in the morning. We just went to the Globe and Mail and met his old colleagues, who had really interesting stories to tell about him. We went to the old TV studio where he used to work. We went to his favorite sandwich shop. He knew the owner, and I was able to talk to the owner about him. He took me to his house. We spent the day together, and I really felt like I got a sense of who he was. Then, we spoke on the phone quite a bit. Then, an important investor dropped out. This was a couple of months later when we were about to get rolling. It took two-and-a-half more years for the film to come together.
At that time, Victor and I spoke a couple of times, but we really started to speak again just before we started to actually film the film two years ago. Then, once we started filming, he didn’t talk to me at all. That was, I think, one of the nicest things he could have done because it would be very difficult. It’s very difficult to try to be honest about a character if someone is whispering in your ear, their idealized version of themselves.
