Magic Mike star Matt Bomer put his gear back on for his best movie yet, Walking Out

WE KNOW him best for getting his gear off in the Magic Mike movies, but Matt Bomer has made his best film yet by rugging up to trek through the snowy wilds of Montana.

WE KNOW him best for getting his gear off in the Magic Mike movies, but Matt Bomer felt far more at home rugging up to trek through the snowy wilds of Montana in his new independent drama, Walking Out.

“My father was an outdoorsman and I’d grown up hunting and fishing and all those things,” says the Texas-reared actor. “We didn’t have trailers, we didn’t have cast chairs, we just stood in the snow between takes then walked to wherever the next scene was going to take place then stood around there in the cold.

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We know him best as a stripper from Magic Mike or the slick con artist from White Collar. But Matt Bomer goes back to his outdoorsy roots in his acclaimed new independent movie Walking Out. Picture: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images

“If it were supposed to be summer and we were that cold,” he adds, “I would not have enjoyed it. But the fact it was so similar to what the characters were experiencing was quite fortuitous for us as actors, because it’s one less thing you have to fake.”

Bomer describes Walking Outas “sort of like that Greek story — where the father becomes the son and the son becomes the father”.

The film follows 14-year-old David (Josh Wiggins) to rural Montana, where he’s to spend time with his off-the-grid father, Cal (Bomer). Cal’s idea of bonding with his son is to take the boy out on his first hunting trip; his similar relationship with his own father (Bill Pullman) is seen in flashbacks.

A hunting trip goes horribly wrong for David (Josh Wiggins) and his dad Cal (Bomer) in Walking Out. Picture: Icon Films

But Cal and David fail to connect until a terrifying run-in with a grizzly bear forces them to rely on each other to survive.

“Cal is entrenched in these ideals of the past that were instilled in him by his father and he’s really intent on passing those along to David in the limited amount of time they have with each other — often at the expense of their relationship,” says Bomer.

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“Growing up in the American South, you experiences fathers like that, who are quite strict or disciplinarian, whose idea of male bonding may be going out in the great outdoors and just sharing space together, as opposed to having a conversation.”

Bomer himself is father to sons Kit, 13, and twins Walker and Henry, 10, with his publicist husband Simon Halls.

Bomer with husband Simon Halls and two of their sons at a charity walk in LA last October. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Bomer (at the back) gets his gear off with Channing Tatum in Magic Mike. They reteamed in the sequel Magic Mike XXL. Picture: Roadshow

“I am a very different parent myself, I probably err on the other side,” he laughs. “So I had to stave off those instincts.”

At one moment in the film, Cal, unable to move, is approached by a curious deer. Bomer, 40, says filming the scene was “a pretty esoteric moment in my life”. A local farmer had told the filmmakers of a wild doe that often wandered through his yard. So the crew set Bomer up — “We put some sugar on my face, leant me up against a tree, camouflaged the cameraman” — then waited.

“There were zero guarantees that the deer would be there, zero guarantees that the she would come up to me, and I knew we only had one take, which was kind of wild. So we’re all kind of gambling out there,” Bomer recalls.

Bomer, who has worked on a number of projects with TV hitmaker Ryan Murphy, was asked to direct an episode in Murphy’s latest miniseries, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. The series has yet to confirm an Australian air-date. Picture: FS/MPI/Capital Pictures / MEGA

“Thankfully she was very curious, she came up and licked my face. Moments like that, you don’t have to do a ton of acting, it all just kind of happens.”

Walking Out premiered at SXSW last year, with Bomer’s family in attendance. “My grandmother walked her first red carpet at the premiere,” he recalls fondly. But given he considers the movie his “love letter” to his father, former Dallas Cowboys footballer John, it was Dad’s reaction the actor was really waiting for.

“He called me after seeing it and goes, ‘Man, that was weird, I saw a lot of myself up there. But I really love the movie’,” Bomer says.

Wiggins and Bomer in Walking Out — the film was shot on location in the mountain ranges of Montana. Picture: Icon Films

“What else can we draw from as actors other than the primacy of what we know? So the fact that he was able to recognise that without us even talking about it and the fact he was able to see the love in it was really great.”

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