Hollywood studios busy with films on comics: Mark Boone Junior

Abu Dhabi: American actor Mark Boone Junior, best known for his role in TV series `Sons of Anarchy`, says big Hollywood film studios are so busy dishing out movies based on superheroes that he’d rather be a part of independent films which connect with humans and relationships.

“I don’t connect with the stories that the studios are making. They are doing action films on comic books. I didn’t read comic books and I feel these movies are about superheroes, people with superpowers. They don’t deal with people or human relationships,” Boone said here during a panel discussion. Having played roles in big screen entertainers like “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “Die Hard 2”, the actor said he stopped doing studio pictures due to “terrible experiences”. “I have done a bunch of studio films. I think movies are made by comedy in the studio system, where the director may not have so much power. It’s messed up. When the director is away for lunch, the producer calls in the editors and asks to edit out portions without letting the director know…I wasn’t interested in spending so much time on such projects,” said Boone. The actor’s latest Hollywood outing “Life Of Crime”, directed by Daniel Schechter was the opening film at the ongoing Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF). The director prefers to call it an independent movie as he didn’t have the backing of a big studio. He sought funding from multiple investors, including India-born Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, Yasiin Bey, Isla Fisher, Will Forte and John Hawkes, the movie is an entertaining crime comedy about two fresh-out-of-the-jail thieves and their next caper. Boone said the experience of working on the movie was wonderful as he got the freedom to improvise on his character, and none of the co-actors made their stardom evident on the set. “Jennifer never came on the set with the ‘Oh, I’m a big movie star’ attitude. Everyone came with the same attitude, and it was wonderful,” said the actor, who essays the role of a furry neo-Nazi survivalist in the movie. Working with Schechter was heartening because he never asked the actor to do anything “dramatically different” from what he interpreted of his role. “Actors don’t like to be told…. ‘Do this’ or ‘Don’t do this. Daniel never did it,” he said. Boone now wants to put his energy into amalgamating a music record. “I’d like to focus on music. I also wrote a film script six years ago… let’s see,” he added.