The action thriller Cleaner sees Daisy Ridley as a former elite soldier who is now working as a high-rise window cleaner following a dishonourable discharge. While scrubbing away one day, she comes across a hostage situation. She uses her skills and position to intervene. We caught up with actor Taz Skylar to find out what it was like playing a baddie alongside Clive Owens and much more…
STARBURST: When people see the advertisements for these movies, a lot of cinephiles are going to immediately have their own ideas of what it’s going to be. They’re going to have flashbacks to Die Hard. What do you think sets Cleaner apart from the action movies that have come before it that makes it different?
Taz Skylar: That’s such a good question, and I think what it does so well is unapologetically lean into what it’s trying to do, which is that when you talk about the Die Hard reference, it’s a film that exists so well in its own right it doesn’t need an imitation, right? But at the same time, it’s been so long since then. I used to watch those when I was a kid, and I can’t remember the last time as an adult that I got to watch a film that I wanted to re-watch as many times as Die Hard. I think it leans into that reputation and it leans into all the tropes that make you want to watch Die Hard time after time, it tries to withhold. And then it just puts a cast of people that wouldn’t usually be in those roles, whether it be Daisy, whether it be me, whether it be Clive, because Clive’s role isn’t also what you’d expect. And I think it puts people that you wouldn’t expect in roles that go in a way that you wouldn’t expect and turns everything that you think is going to happen into something else.
It’s good that you brought up Clive Owen because he’s playing your typical hard case villain, and you get to be the second in command. You get to be the crazy one. Do you find a lot of freedom in being able to embrace that kind of role where you get to be a little bit more fun on the edge?
Yeah. It was a really cool sudden one eighty for me, and especially with where it goes, I just bit it. I just wrapped my teeth around it, and I tried to dig as deep and as hard as I possibly could just to keep up. Just to keep up. When you got Martin [Campbell, director] behind the monitor and when you got Clive in front of you and you got three stories of a building that they’ve built for this purpose, and then suddenly, someone says, “Action,” you really hope that what you’re about to say isn’t stupid. And especially when Clive then answers the line back at you, there’s an element of like, wow, okay, well, let me just get my grips a second. Okay. Say your line, dummy!
Do you often have a problem being starstruck as you’re going into these films? It’s like you’re working with these big talents and you’re suddenly like… am I doing the right thing?
Not necessarily. I think starstruck is a different thing. I think the thing that happens to me a little bit more is that I go, first, I hope that we can have a great working relationship because you don’t necessarily know when you’re meeting someone if you are going to have a great working relationship. So much of acting is like anticlimactic. In the room, it could be quite clinical. So it’s more about trying to feel out what that relationship actually is, what that cadence is, and what that unspoken language is between the two. And doing one’s best to get that in sync. And when people do actually turn out to be as good as you thought they were going to be, then it’s just about making sure that you don’t get any imposter syndrome and you focus all your energy on doing the best job that you can.
When you’re reading the script, you’re playing the bad guy who has all this ideology. How much are you having to grapple with that, this idea of the lower classes being taken over by the upper classes, and how much do you have to bring your own spin on that to the character?
Well, I think that he has a point. I think that was the first thing that I latched onto, is that the things that he’s saying outside of the context of what he does to get his point across, things that he’s saying aren’t illogical. And Bodhi was a really big character reference for me from Point Break because I just remember how I was watching that movie and going, “Huh. Yeah, I love Keanu, but Bodhi’s cool and Bodhi has a point.” Bodhi’s side actually makes a lot more sense. And there’s that relationship with him throughout the whole film. And I think for me, it was very much about trying to find the things that grounded him in that. What makes him believable, what makes him somebody who has a point? What makes him someone that you actually find yourself liking a little bit in some ways? Even though that may be a very fleeting moment, and then he pulls it away from you with something else that he does. But I guess what I was trying to do more so than lean into the crazier sides of him.
How much of what we see in Cleaner can be attributed to the screenplay and your performance as opposed to the editor and Martin Campbell and all these other people who work along the production line?
Simon Uttley, who wrote the script, truly wrote a phenomenal script. So, I’d be taking on due credit away from him if I said that I was in any way me because he came up with phenomenal words and phenomenal fictional people to say those words, and I think he just did such an amazing job in crafting something that’s contained, but also making it feel like it never stops, which is a very difficult thing to do in such a small environment with not that many people because the cost isn’t that big. So you essentially have four or five people that really drive the story pinned by two of them, and that’s it. Simon did an amazing job, and then, where I also think it’s a product of Martin is that Martin would not accept anything but excellence. What he deemed to be excellence. He wouldn’t accept anything but that on even the smallest of scenes. And if it wasn’t what he thought it needed to be, we were going to do it again and again, and we were going to do it until he was happy with it. Which also gave, I think, as actors, it gives you such a sense of trust, because if you know that there’s no way that we’re moving on no matter what, unless he thinks it’s epic, then you’re like, all right, cool. Then when we moved on, I can be happy about it because he wouldn’t have moved on, if not.
You’re playing this villain, and like you said, you’ve got your director who’s bringing you in. You’ve got this amazing script that you’re working with. However, we assume you’re trying to expand your film career, right? You’re trying to make sure that you are going to be able to get more future roles. How do you navigate playing a villainous role without falling into ideas of archetype or typecasting?
Well, you know what? Honestly, I think I’m a little bit of a weirdo in some ways where I never rule out the possibility of never doing this again. And if anything, I’ve done that throughout my life a little bit, because I came to this job, as in acting, by accident and late in my life. It’s only been the last six, seven years that I’ve been acting. And I wanted to be a writer, more so than an actor. And I find myself in this position right now. Every time I do a new thing, I’m always looking at it like I’m really bad at playing the game, and I’m really bad at caring or giving any semblance of a fuck about the game. So, I just do it knowing, and in some way thinking that it could be the last one that I ever do and that that’s okay. And there’s something very freeing about that because it means that I’m not trying to calculate it. I’m just trying to do something I could be proud of and look back at and tell my kids one day like, “Hey, your pop did that once and it was cool. Right?” So yeah, I don’t know. Take that for what you will, but I don’t know where my train is going, and I’m glad I don’t know because if I knew, it’d be boring.
CLEANER is out now in the US and available in the UK on SKY Cinema.
