Check out our exclusive interview with John Magaro, who plays Tibbet in the new upcoming film “Overlord” out this Friday.
Poster for the upcoming film “Overlord”
Photo Credit:IMDb
We got a chance to speak with John Magaro from the upcoming film Overlord. The movie follows American Paratroopers in WWII who are dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day. Upon nearing their target on the ground, they realize that a Nazi-occupied village is more than just a military operation. As they investigate, they find themselves fighting against the supernatural abominations from the terrifying Nazi experiments. Here, John talks about preparing for the role, his thoughts on the movie, and his experiences filming.
The Knockturnal: You’ve mentioned how physically taxing some of the scenes in the film were while shooting – how do you feel like it stretched you as an actor?
John Magaro: Anytime you’re doing something physical it stretches you in the sense that you had to have the stamina to keep up with it. Luckily before we got into this we did a boot camp with a great drill sergeant, a guy named Sergeant Freddie Joe Farnsworth, and we did about five days of that, which kind of whipped us into shape and got us functioning as a military unit and as a team. It allowed everyone to find their character in a very natural way, actually. But it also conditioned us so we were ready for that first day when we were on the plane carrying forty-fifty pounds of gear for fifteen hours a day without complaints. So that was instilled in us in that boot camp. But having those there and having that base and then also having that executed while you are filmed sort of takes off the acting component and you just get to live the situation, which is nice.
The Knockturnal: You’ve mentioned a miniature boot camp you and your co-actors had to endure before beginning the film – can you tell us more about that experience?
John Magaro: Yeah, so we showed up in London, and we were basically thrown into a van right away with five guys- and none of us had met each other before, none of us knew each other. There were two sergeants in charge and we drove out into the countryside outside of London. We drove in silence most of the time because we had no idea what we were getting into. We get to this spot in the woods and the sergeant says “build your tent!” So we start to put up an actual military issue tent from that time period where we all slept on cots and had kind of a dry place. Then we started gathering firewood and building a fire and then right away the drills started. These drills were physical training, waking up at the crack of dawn and running and doing push-ups and tearing the wall up and crazy things like that. And then throughout the day, we would do humps, which were basically long hikes where we went for miles at a time and you don’t really know where you are going, and yet you have to keep up while you’re carrying all of this gear and weapons with you. And then you get to that point and you have to execute some sort of mission, whether it’s finding landmines or storming the hill. And that was important for us because it instilled this idea that, even after you go through the hike or the trek to get to where you’re going, you still have to have enough energy and awareness to execute the mission. And then after that, you would do a night patrol, and then we would do a fire watch where you had to stay up all night and basically tend to the fire and make sure we weren’t attacked by someone. So it was very rigid, but it tried to give us that experience of what it would be like out on the front lines while you still had to execute missions under stressful circumstances. But it was also just wonderful to have a chance to sit around with these strangers around the campfire and share a meal, and get to know each other, and share stories, and start to joke and start to form a rhythm with each other . Because, when we showed up on day 1, we had that base that set off on a much easier journey, and I think those relationships were really highlighted in the film and you can see that camaraderie amongst us.
The Knockturnal: How was your relationship with this specific time in history – specifically WWII? Has that changed throughout this whole process?
John Magaro: Well, this isn’t really a war movie, so I don’t think it would be right or fair to talk about the horrors of that time in history and what was really going on and say that this film is anything close to that. This operates in a parallel universe where similar events are happening, but these are extraordinary science fiction circumstances that are surrounding it. With that being said, we still tried to honor what troops go through, we still wanted to respect them and not make them look, in any way, less than what they are, because obviously everyone is super thankful for what they have given us; especially the greatest generation who served during World War II-we’re enormously indebted to them. So, I think, going through an American education you would have an awareness of World War II and watching films about World War II growing up, you know what happened, and it’s good to keep that memory alive because you never want to repeat that mistake. But this movie operates in a very different world than the actual circumstances.
The Knockturnal: What was the most difficult thing about filming this movie?
John Magaro: Probably just the physical toll, you know, it’s a very physical movie. It was still a lot of fun, I’ve been through much more physically stressful experiences filming, and also just more difficult shoots in general. Luckily, we had such a great group around us that most of the time I think we were having a good time and we were having fun with each other. It’s such an off-the-wall crazy ride of a movie that when you’re shooting those scenes with these insane components and these special effects, that, as a kid, that’s what you want to be doing, you want to be a part of something like that. Those are the movies you grow up watching, so it was really just a lot of fun, what we were doing. And besides carrying the gear and getting tired and sweating and all of that stuff, it was really a fun time.
The Knockturnal: As an actor, how do you keep the heightened stakes of a film like this?
John Magaro: I don’t think- and I think with any good script- it’s not really on the actor to do that, that’s more in the storytelling and the writing. If you have a good script and a good story, you can just be a person. You can be a real person who goes into this situation, and because the situation is so intense and so alien to them, that informs the behavior and that makes it heightened and makes it interesting. So my approach was to go into it as a guy from the 40’s who is in the war- very much like my grandfather was and his brothers were- and you’re thrown into this situation, and it’s a life or death situation. It’s D-Day, you’re dropped in behind enemy lines and you just so happen to stumble across these crazy experiments that are going on, and you have to deal with it, you have to execute the mission. And luckily we had great writers like Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith, who painted that world and that picture for us, that we could just take those words and those situations and go on the ride.
The Knockturnal: What was it like working with Julius Avery?
John Magaro: So, Julius- they would say a is young director, he’s a little older than I am- but he hasn’t done a lot of feature films before. He’s done one major feature film before, a film called Son of a Gun that came out a few years ago, an Australian film that was a really action-packed story that they made with a small budget and it came out really well. I think J.J. Abrams really trusts him, that’s why he brought him on, and they continue to collaborate to this day. But Julius has such an appreciation for these kinds of films. He would talk about some of his favorite films, Escape from New York, Aliens, and a lot of these old classic action films that have a sci-fi or a genre twist to them; directors like Spielberg and Carpenter and Ridley Scott clearly influence him. And because of that base of knowledge and that appreciation for that kind of cinema, I think he came into our film with a real passion and a real desire to tell this in the most exciting but most honest way possible. I feel like, unlike a lot of other genre films, or even action films, it never operates in a way where we have to telegraph anything to the audience, or we think the audience is dumb or needs to be guided along. It trusts the audience to go along the journey with them, and Julius is a filmmaker who is extraordinarily brave to tell a story that way, with a trust in the audience. And I think it’s being proven, with the earlier screenings we had, the audience has really seemed to be responding to it, which has been wonderful to see. And that’s a testament to Julius.
The Knockturnal: What’s up next for you?
John Magaro: Well, I’m going off to shoot another film, I can’t really talk about that, and then in February, a Netflix series that I worked on called The Umbrella Academy is going to be out, that’s another fun one. It’s based on a graphic novel by Gerard Way, he used to be the front-man for the band My Chemical Romance and the Illustrator is Gabriel Bá. It’s a really abstract graphic novel that’s very interesting about a family of adopted children who all have superpowers or super abilities that are raised by this eccentric millionaire who grooms them to be superheroes. The way we tell it is kind of like Royal Tenenbaums with superheroes, but it’s a really fun and interesting journey to take with them, and hopefully, there will be more season to come of it.
Check out Overlord coming out in theaters November 8th!
Caroline Cassidy contributed reporting.
