An Interview with Clive Owen on the film Shoot 'Em Up

It's no surprise to see Clive Owen hefting a gun around in a movie. Heck, he was first recognized by moviegoers as an assassin aiming a rifle at Jason Bourne in the first installment of the Bourne series. The shocker is seeing him play a shoot 'em up, knock 'em down, drag out gun-slinging, carrot-eating hero of all things. Okay, so in Children of Men he was responsible for saving a newborn, and in Sin City he was a hero with a gun, too.

Aside from the minute references to those other films, Shoot 'Em Up is a whole new era for 42-year-old Owen. If the box office boasts well on the first, it could become his very own 'Bond' series, though Owen doesn't see it that way.

The writer and director Michael Davis, being a Bond fan since he was a kid, does see it as an homage to Bond and action flicks as a whole. He sold the movie to a trio of producers by constructing an animated video of scenes he had in his head. The transformation to film barrels on screen with an enraged Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti) and his heavies chasing down the baby safeguarded by the mysterious, gun-slinging Mr. Smith, who is even angrier. It's not the usual shoot 'em up flick. It has a lactating hooker named DQ (Monica Belucci), a spoof on Dairy Queen, her and Smith get it on in the middle of bullet flying, and a gun fight ensues in mid air after jumping out of a helicopter.

Q: When you figured out how to eat a carrot did you have the character nailed?

A: The challenge of the movie was to try and make carrots cool. It was a quirk I never understood. It's part of Michael Davis and how insane he is. I had to try and make carrots a cool vegetable. At least it's healthy, organic.

Q: Did you come up with any new imaginative ways to use carrots?

A: Easy tiger, easy tiger.

Q: This is a send up of Clive Owen on certain levels. Did you feel that was the case? Did you enjoy it?

A: Oh yeah. But the whole film is a crazy send up to everything. That's why I wanted to do the movie. It was how funny it was. I thought it was fresh and crazy and funny. Even the action is funny, it's physically funny. The twists and turns, it had wit to it, and this big physical character. It's a gag. That's why I wanted to do the film.