Alex Pettyfer On Echo Boomers: “I Am Grateful To Be Free To Create Movies And Honored To Work With Such Stellar Professionals”
With all of the difficulties we are confronted with during this global health pandemic, it is nice to escape into a cinematic thrill ride.
This is certainly the case with Echo Boomers, an exciting new crime drama with an A-list cast that will keep us on the edge of our couches.
The movie from Saban Films, and directed by Seth Savoy, is about Lance (Patrick Schwarzenegger)a recent college graduate who leaves school deeply in debt, and realizes that everything he had worked toward was built on a lie.
Soon he is pulled into the criminal underground operation led by tough-guy Ellis (Alex Pettyfer) and involving another tough guy and fence, Mel (Oscar and Tony-Award-nominee Michael Shannon) who finds his peers that are fighting the system by stealing from the rich and giving to…themselves.
With nothing to lose, they leave behind a trail of destruction while the cops are closing in. As tensions mount, Lance and his edgy team discover they are over their heads with no way out.
The 30-year-old Pettyfer has accomplished a great deal in his career to date. The British actor and model first appeared in school plays before being cast as Alex Rider, the main character in Operation Storm Rider, the 2006 film version of Stormbreaker. He was nominated for a Young Artist Award and an Empire Award for this role.
Pettyfer’s additional credits include Elvis & Nixon, with Michael Shannon; In Time (with Justin Timberlake), and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. He has also starred in the first two episodes of the Netflix series The I-Land, and indie films, including The Strange Ones and The Collection, of which he is also the executive producer.
Recently, Pettyfer was eager to talk to Medium’s Authority Magazine about his movies, new production company, his love for his man’s best friend, and working with pros.
So, Alex, this is an extremely dramatic movie that had me almost biting my nails.
Alex Pettyfer: It’s an entertaining ride.
Yes, definitely. Why did you pick it?
I did the movie, Elvis & Nixon, with Knives Out star Michael Shannon in 2016. I had an incredible experience with Michael making that film, as any young actor would. My brother, James Ireland, and I started a production company two years ago, called Dark Dreams Entertainment. And the first script that was sent to us was Echo Boomers.
Please tell me more.
In the development with this other production company, the director, Seth Savoy, had managed to get Michael Shannon to attach himself to the project. I think their mutual relationship with Chicago was a huge factor in that.
For me, before I even read the script, I wanted my company to sign on to work with Michael, because to be given the opportunity to work with him a second time, and for my company to have the first film that we produce feature Michael in it was just an honor. I was very happy to jump on board. Then I read the script and was even happier that I was making a movie that I really liked.
How did you get into the head of your character Ellis?
How did I get into Ellis’s headspace? I think I could understand the reason why they had created this narrative for Ellis and the other characters in which they were justifying their actions because of a corrupt system, but also a system that’s so unfair with the educational system that is implementing student debt which you can’t get rid of and not have a grant structure. It’s just a challenging situation that hasn’t quite developed or evolved yet so that I could understand it from that point of view.
What else was involved?
Well, then I had to understand the reason why this character was creating such anarchy between the other characters. What I came to terms with is that when he initially decided to do this I say wrongful action because I don’t think it’s a rightful action, a wrongful action in paying off his student loan, I think after he had achieved this there was such an element of greed and egotism in the sense that he found a routine behind this action, the activity, that he didn’t stop. I think with any human being when you are doing a wrongful action, and you’re caught up in that, you get lost in this illusion, and these lies and this ego where ultimately everything implodes.
For him, or for Ellis, you meet him right when his life is starting to implode with everything that’s going on. I could justify and understand those actions of why he went into doing what he was doing, and I could understand how he got caught up in those.
Do you have to admire or like or identify with a character?
Do I identify? I mean, I don’t identify with what he does. What I think we can all identify with initially fighting for what we believe in; yeah. But, no, I think what was interesting is when the character was initially written he was more written as a kind of mirage or a mirror image to what Michael’s character was.
What I really wanted to create for the narrative of the story was a character that was separate from Michael that was creating this anarchy inside the group of young millennials. That’s where the relation of that came about. It wasn’t necessarily that it was on the page initially, it was something that was more created for the narrative and I think that’s where it came from.
Did you shoot in Chicago?
No. We filmed it in Utah. I think Patrick and Gilles filmed parts of the film in Chicago, but all the scenes that I did were filmed in Utah.
How long of a shoot was it?
I think about four weeks.
How has it been like during COVID-19? Have you been able to work or not?
No. I think the restrictions over here in Europe and Germany specifically have been quite bureaucratic in the way that we’ve been dealing with things. My work starts at the beginning of next year, around mid-January. I’ve been happy to just stay at home (in Berlin, Germany) and create and kind of develop projects. Our company is going to be hopefully free to be able to film next year.
What are your work plans for January?
I’m doing two movies in January.
Which ones?
I can’t say yet.
Okay, I had a feeling you would say that. If I had met you when you were a teenager and I said this is what your career was going to look like, would you have been surprised?
Yeah, of course. I think making movies is a blessing. It’s a very hard process to get a movie made. It takes a lot of people, a lot of creatives, to come together. I’m always very grateful when I’m on a movie set, so to be able to have worked with people like Michael [Shannon] and to have worked with great actors and directors, I feel very blessed, very grateful, to have been given those experiences. I think, yeah, I just feel very grateful.
Was there much research going on on your part or to get the movie done on anything? Breaking into houses and getting into safes. I don’t know, it was kind of a big puzzle of a lot of things going on.
Yes, I mean the research that I did was more in the way of finding out about how student loans work and student debt, and more coming from the psychology of trying to understand why the reason these characters decided to want to pursue this type of endeavor. And I think that we as a generation, as the new generation, have entered this point where we’re in this place where a lot of entrepreneurial businesses are developing.
Please tell me more.
It starts to create a thin line for the educational system because a lot of people that are coming out with degrees and coming out of college with the academia isn’t necessarily getting the jobs because the companies that are hiring that they would specifically like to be a part of, unless they’re on a specific degree like becoming a doctor or lawyer, a lot of these entrepreneurial companies are choosing more what fits inside the company from a personal standpoint and less from statistics of what degrees you have. So, jobs become harder for people, and especially for a younger generation.
Okay, I am following you.
What I found interesting is that when things are evolving and change is in need, these millennials are coming together and creating these wonderful companies. Tech is booming, there are more young entrepreneurial businesses being set up by young individuals. More than in the last 20 years.
And so, it’s kind of inspiring, but I think what’s great about our film is to see how the individuals didn’t decide to go to that point of equality and banding together and creating that union of strength, and more coming from the individual standpoint. Unfortunately, through their decisions and actions, they make the wrong decisions and actions that ultimately lead them into a place of misfortune or personal misfortune.
How would you say you were changed by this movie?
Wow, that’s a good question. I think it was more from the company’s point of view, from my company working with my brother and the change of us creating this very brand-new production company and being given the opportunity to work on this film and have a collaborative, creative experience with other producers.
And to work with Michael Shannon. I think that was a change for us because from that we’ve gone on to make two other films that we completed, that will come out next year. And then we’re going into production to film three films next year. Hopefully, the fourth film soon.
What did you think of the life lessons in the movie? Did you agree with them? Do you have your own kind of life lessons you would want to pass onto the next generation?
I think that the movie is a very quick, 90-minute, entertaining film with some underlying messages that inevitably wrongful action leads you to a wrongful end. I think these characters are led down the wrong path in what they do and ultimately pay the price for that. I think that’s just natural selection in the way that everything is cause and effect.
Do you get home to the UK? What do you do when you get there?
It’s a little difficult in COVID-19 times, but when I go home, I’m just with my family and get to spend time and go walking with my dog, a Rottweiler, and my mom and my dad and sister. A very nice and peaceful environment. They live out in Berkshire, so it’s in the countryside. It’s a beautiful part of the world.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me, Debra. I really appreciate it.
My pleasure. Good luck with your future film projects and take good care.
Echo Boomers, from Saban Films, is now in theaters, on-demand, and digital.
