Jai Courtney on Liam Neeson, upping the Aussie factor in Suicide Squad and his Oz film future
Suicide Squad star Jai Courtney reveals why Australian content is up there with the world’s best and why he wanted to up the Aussie factor as Captain Boomerang.
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Like many Aussie expats, Jai Courtney briefly flirted with the idea of coming home when the coronavirus first turned the world upside down this year.
The knockabout Sydney-born star has called Los Angeles home since 2012, the same year he made his Hollywood movie breakthrough going toe-to-toe against Tom Cruise as a hired goon in the action thriller Jack Reacher.
Since then he’s split his career juggling huge franchise films including Divergent, A Good Day To Die Hard, Terminator: Genisys and Suicide Squad in the US with smaller, more dramatic, fare such as Felony, Storm Boy and this year’s acclaimed ABC refugee drama Stateless in his homeland.
But as the movie business went into shutdown around him, Courtney decided to stay put with his Aussie partner Mecki Dent. Not only did he hope that the crisis would pass sooner rather than later, there was also the matter of their new pit bull puppy Velvet.
“She’s been keeping us busy for sure,” Courtney says with a laugh from his LA home.
“She’s been great, though, it’s been good to have an injection of puppy energy into the house over this period.”
That’s not to say he hasn’t been thinking of his homeland in these trying times. Despite his regular trips back and the ability to stay in touch digitally, there are a bunch of simple pleasures he still misses dearly.
“Our beer is better than anywhere else in the world in my opinion,” he says matter-of- factly. “I have a great community here and some really wonderful friends – but my tightest mates in the world are still the boys I grew up with, so I do miss that. Any homesickness I have is attached to seeing the fam and hanging with the boys. It’s pretty simple.”
He’s also always on the lookout for the chance to fly the flag overseas. His pride in the fact that Stateless — which he calls “the most fulfilling artistic endeavour that I have had the opportunity to work on” — has reached a wider audience and garnered international praise after being snapped up by Netflix (it’s available on ABC iview here) is palpable.
And then there’s his ongoing efforts to up the Aussie factor for his roguish Captain Boomerang in Suicide Squad.
The first film cracked the billion-dollar mark at the box office in 2016, giving rise to an even bigger sequel due next year.
“Usually I am trying to give it a bit more than what’s on the page because we’ve never had an Aussie write the script, so it’s always a bit of fun to be able to inject a bit more in,” he says of Captain Boomerang.
“I have never had a cutback note, so to speak, for putting in too much Aussie.”
With the eagerly-anticipated superhero extravaganza not released until mid next year, Courtney was able to scratch his action itch with the Liam Neeson thriller The Honest Thief, which releases in most Australian cinemas this week.
Since his late-career reinvention as an action hero in Taken, the Oscar-nominated Neeson has almost become a genre unto himself, something Courtney admired and happily accepted when he signed on to play his nemesis – a greedy and corrupt FBI agent who foils Neeson’s bank-robber character’s attempts to go straight for love, while taking off with his stash of cash.
“I was super down for doing some heavy action work and blowing a bit of stuff up,” says Courtney with a laugh.
“I hadn’t done much action stuff in a minute and it just felt like a good fun ride to go on. Playing villains is always one of those things that I think you have to find a balance with but I always have so much fun with them.
“Particularly in today’s climate, you don’t have to look too far to see what law enforcement or government officials or political figures are capable of – how corrupt and ridiculous things can get unbeknown to the public.”
Courtney says he’s had nothing but positive feedback since Stateless – which examined the plight of refugees in Australia from multiple viewpoints, including his conflicted detention centre guard – hit international screens. He hopes it will continue to drive the conversation about the thorny global issue both here and overseas. He also believes the future is bright for Australian content, thanks to quality products reaching audiences worldwide through streaming services and the country being viewed as a safe and viable destination in the COVID era.
“There are some incredible foreign series that are getting a lot of attention on US networks and I feel like we tell as good a story as anyone in the world and the more we can continue to push that stuff and keep our writers generating great Aussie things then I think the future is bright,” he says.
“And I think we are going to see a lot of production down there. This year in particular has really rattled the film and TV industry and it’s good to see Oz in a place where things have been handled with a little more confidence, so that’s encouraging too. I think there are going to be some great international productions coming down onto Aussie shores in the near future, which is awesome for us, awesome for the economy and awesome for the arts.”
He’s also predicting big things for Suicide Squad when it finally arrives on the big screen. While the first film was a box office hit, it was less well received by critics, but Courtney says that Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has brought a sense of energy and fun that make for “a big, big movie and audiences are going to love it”.
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“It has all the spirit of the Suicide Squad that we know, but brings in some really cool new people, some great new actors and some amazing new characters from the canon of comic books,” he says. “I think fans of the franchise are going to love that and I think it’s going to introduce it to a lot of a people who weren’t necessarily fans before now. It’s going to be a lot of fun and it’s going to hit hard and will hopefully be a huge success.”
The Honest Thief opens on Thursday (excl. Melbourne); Stateless is streaming now on ABC iview.
Originally published as Jai Courtney on Liam Neeson, upping the Aussie factor in Suicide Squad and his Oz film future