Through the Knockturnal, I had the opportunity to talk to Cory Hardrict about his upcoming film ‘211’.
Inspired by one of the longest and bloodiest, real-life events in police history, ‘211’ tells the story of how Officer Mike Chandler (Nicolas Cage) and a young civilian passenger find themselves under-prepared and outgunned when fate puts them squarely in the crosshairs of a daring bank heist-in-progress by a fearless team of highly trained and heavily armed men.
The Knockturnal: In the movie, you play Hanson who is a cop, was there any outside research you had to do in order to prepare to play the role of a police officer?
Cory Hardrict: Well, there wasn’t any research that I had to do, but I did do some. I usually like get into watching a lot of different officer training clips on youtube, so I did that. Um, I watched some films, I watched some cop films. Like I watched ‘In the Watch’ and I watched like ‘Training Day’ you know, I watched them just to get me in that space of just being an officer. And, you know, I played an officer and I played soldiers in like 7 or 8 films where I’m familiar with holding a gun. So, I kind of just put that all together and read the script and said “Hey! Let me go play a cop!” *laughs* Just used my imagination and had some fun. So that made playing Hanson—
The Knockturnal: The film touches a lot on how social media is instrumental in exposing police brutality presenting it from the perspective of cops and their issues with it, so what are your thoughts on how the film portrayed this issue?
Cory Hardrict: My thing is this, cops are all like, well most of them now are required to wear like a body camera, so it’s like my thing is this, if you’re a cop, you know you should have nothing to hide. You should always be here to protect and serve and do the right thing. So, it’s kind of like, you know, that is also protecting the people more now which I think that’s great because you don’t know how many times people haven’t seen like a police scene where there, you know, committing some crime of police brutality like everyone doesn’t have a phone or camera so a lot of stuff gets missing. Like you don’t see a lot of the stuff that actually happens so what you do see is probably half of the stuff that is recorded with someone with the phone. So in this way, in order to keep the community safer, I believe it’s very important to have these devices—you know all cops should have these. I would if I was a cop in real life I would make sure that I would always want to have on me my camera to show that I am one of the good cops.
The Knockturnal: What drew you to a film like this?
Cory Hardrict: Well, um, first of all, I love being in films where there’s a lot of shooting. *laughs* You know, guns, weapons, a little violence here and there, but it also has to have a good story to it as well which this movie does. You know, and at the end of the day, you know, I’m one of the good guys and I get to try to save people and fight the bad guys. It’s really really a simple premise that I chose where I’m like “Hey! I wanna be a good cop here and try to save people and do the right thing,” and that’s where it was for me. Yeah, it was just that simple. You know, I’m so used to seeing cops glorified in a bad light, you know, and I wanted to be a good cop and protect and serve and help. And, that was the main thing. And, then it was with Nick Cage. I mean, how can you beat working with Nick Cage? I mean he’s an Oscar award winner. You know, Nick Cage is great, man. So I was like, “Alright! Sign me up! Let’s do it!”
The Knockturnal: What was it like working with the director, York Shackleton?
Cory Hardrict: York was cool. He’s very laid back, he knows what he wants, he knows the shots he wants and everything. He has a good scope of what he’s trying to get out of his actors and he lets you just go and find it and be yourself and find the character. He’s not one of these overbearing directors who like smother you and tell you how to do things, he just lets you find it. And yeah, York is great. He has great energy. I’ve know York for over ten years now, you know, we were supposed to together on a film a while ago and it didn’t happen so just to come back around, it was great to see him and see that he’s doing well. And yeah, man, it was a fun set. He created a great environment for everybody to be in. You know, a great working environment. He made it easy for the actors, so yeah York is great.
The Knockturnal: The film is based on a real-life event that is regarded as one of the longest and bloodiest events in police history, therefore the film was very action heavy, what were some of the difficulties in making such an intense film like this?
Cory Hardrict: There was a stand-off shooting scene where I remember we were shooting and the officer next to me, we were so close to each other, and we were shooting off all these rounds and I remember one of the bullets popped over. And, you can’t see where all the shells are going but one of the cases went in my shirt. And, it was so hot, you know, so it popped up and fell in my shirt, so I’m moving around still trying to shoot and I’m like this damn bullet is burning my skin right now. *laughs* So, that’s the type of stuff that happens, you know in these combat movies where you’re all firing close to each other, so that was a memorable scene right there and it was pretty high intense. Then after that, we had to like, you know, we were just doing a lot of running and shooting at the same time, you know, and ducking under police cars. Uh, yeah, I would say that was pretty intense.
The Knockturnal: Are there any other upcoming projects you’d like to highlight?
Cory Hardrict: Yeah, I start back my second series of my hit show called ‘The Oath’ which I’m one of the stars on. We shoot in Puerto Rico and it comes on Sony Crackle. You can catch all ten episodes now for free. And, yeah, I’m in a film called ‘City of Lies’ it comes out September 7 witch Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker. And, then I start a film this Fall called ’The Outpost’ with Scott Eastwood and Orlando Bloom. And, you know, check out ‘211’ now, coming up soon, June 8! Don’t want to miss it!
Check out the trailer for ‘211’ below! ‘211’ will be in theaters, VOD, and Digital HD on June 8th!
