Reilly saddles up as killer for hire in ‘Sisters Brothers’
VENICE, Italy — John C. Reilly can spot a great role. That’s why he optioned the rights to produce and star in Friday’s violent yet comedic “The Sisters Brothers.”
Reilly, 53, and Joaquin Phoenix are the Sisters siblings, Oregon killers for hire during the 1851 Gold Rush.
Phoenix’s Charlie is the viciously malicious sibling who drinks too much. Reilly’s Eli dreams of a wife and a quiet life.
France’s Jacques Audiard (“Dheepan”) credits happenstance for this, his English language debut.
“Long ago in Toronto I was contacted about this book by Patrick DeWitt. I never would have thought of adapting it,” he said, “but there it was, from an American friend.”
It was 2011 when Reilly and his producer wife, Ali son Dickey, read DeWitt’s manuscript before it was published and got the film rights. “The character of Eli Sisters was just someone who jumped off the page for me and who I related to a lot. The way I kind of move through life.
“And then once we got Jacques and his team involved, it suddenly became a very compelling idea to make a movie out of this book.”
If Eli is less scary and more courteous than his maniacal brother, he’s just as efficient a killing machine.
Yet there’s a comical moment when he “discovers” a new invention: a toothbrush and toothpaste. He also cries if his horse is put down.
Does “The Sisters Brothers” aim to reinvent the Western?
“I’m not a great connoisseur. I like Westerns of the ’70s, ‘Little Big Man’ and so on. But these inventions were given to us by Patrick DeWitt the author. That’s why the book was irresistible.”
For Audiard, one American classic influenced this movie: 1955’s “The Night of the Hunter,” in which Robert Mitchum’s murderer has LOVE tattooed on his right four fingers and HATE on the left.
“I don’t know if ‘Night of the Hunter’ is,” Audiard said, “really a Western. Perhaps it’s more of a fairy tale. I don’t have many Western references.”
A sleeping Eli has an unforgettable encounter with what looks like a tarantula. Slowly, deliberately, it crawls up his chest toward his open mouth.
“I’ve learned to stay very still when spiders are around,” Reilly said, adding, “No spiders were harmed in the making of this film.”
But was it real or digital? “Next question!”