Wyatt Russell

Hockey is a major part of your life and passion, how did it start? 

When I was 3 years old my dad took me to a skating rink outdoors in Toronto to kill time and I fell in love with it.

Was it your childhood dream to be a pro-hockey player?

Yes.

Any first-time experiences that you can remember or share with us?

So many to choose from. I would say the first time I played hockey, or not even played hockey but the first time I put on skates is my first memory. I was 3 ½ years old. I skated from bench to bench on double bladed gray size 10 skates, and I didn’t want to take them off. My dad left the skate shop kid 40 bucks and took them. Milestone memories would be winning the world championship in Quebec when I was 13 and then winning the British Columbia regional championship when I was playing junior hockey. Also playing my first professional game in Germany and playing my last game of hockey ever. That was the last time I ever put on pads and I never played again, so those would be my pivotal memories. 

How did you feel about transitioning from hockey to acting?

They’re similar. They’re both team sports where everyone is trying to work together to achieve a common goal. I like that part of it. You’re all working towards that goal and on the good teams and in the good movies it feels important. The greater goal which was winning a championship, the greater good was more important than what you were doing singularly. They have a lot of commonality that way. You want to play with the best people on the best teams, you want to do movies with the best people and the best crews. The act of auditioning was similar and better because in my opinion there’s no real competition in acting. Everyone’s kind of working together more so than hockey where there was an actual tactile competition. Other people literally wanted you to lose. Very rarely when you’re doing a movie does anybody want you to fail.

Any memorable advice from your parents when you began your acting career?

Be on time, know your lines, and don’t be an asshole. 

Can you tell us about one of your earlier films and major breakout role in We Are What We Are, directed by Jim Mickle. Did the learning process working with Jim Mickle play a major part in your future roles?

Yes, massive. Jim and Linda, his partner and producing partner, allowed me to be a part of the process in a way that made me realize why acting and film in general was a great business to be a part of. They let me exercise some of my creativity, they listened, and they made the overall experience an abundantly, fulfilling experience. I could go on and on about them but that’s the core of what they gave me. I didn’t want to act anymore; I was kind of done. It wasn’t fun. I was doing okay but I didn’t know why I loved it and they introduced me to a world in which their way of indie filmmaking where everybody was very involved, everybody was totally there for the experience, no one was making a killing, and it was filmmaking for the love of it and the promise of what it can be. They introduced me to why that was important to carry on into the future no matter what you’re doing.

We heard that auditioning wasn’t your favorite part of the process back in those days, have you changed your approach now?

No, I still hate the process. I get why you have to do it; I totally understand. Every director that I’ve ever worked with that got the best out of their actors, all had their own very specific audition process that was not standard. They all had a specific process that actually infused meaning and some aspects of creativity into it and made it more of an exercise. They were able to provide that so they were getting the best performances possible, thereby being able to make the most informed decision on who they best thought would fulfill the roles. The normal audition process is a fucking disaster. I hate it. You get 2 tries at a test (if you’re lucky) to do a predetermined version of a scene that is totally out of context and you know nothing about, and has only ever really lived in your head while you read with someone who usually doesn’t look up from their lines and is wondering what traffic is going to be like when they get in their car. It’s totally antithetical to creativity and discovery of anything. But, that’s the way it has to be!

You starred in Black Mirror in 2016, did you ever imagined that we will be living through real “Black Mirror” life events in the past year and still going these days?

Yes, I did imagine it because that’s why Black Mirror was so good. You could extrapolate back then to what the future might be and what made it so great was that it didn’t seem so crazy. Although we may not be full-fledged Black Mirror world, we’re probably pretty close and I think that people also like to live by script, and we sort of take ourselves there voluntarily, so no I’m not surprised.

In recent times, you were in a number of acclaimed projects from AMC’s Lodge 49 to Showtime’s limited series, The Good Lord Bird alongside Ethan Hawke, Joshua Johnson-Lionel, and Daveed Diggs. Do you have a favorite type of character that you like to portray?

Any character that comes with good writing. Good writing and good directing, I’m in. 

Your next major premier is the Marvel series on Disney+, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, alongside Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, and Emily VanCamp in the role of the US CIA Agent ‘John Walker.’ How did you prepare for the role

Worked out a lot and had a strict diet.

What can you tell us about Falcon and the Winter Soldier? What kind of a story should we expect?

I don’t know that I can tell you anything. It’s a story that revolves around identity and superheroes searching for their identity and what the greater good means to each one of them personally. 

Any notable moments during filming?

Yeah, there was a global pandemic and filming shut down. That’s the biggest one, that’s the biggest notable moment. I’ll never forget it. 

Were you a graphic-novel fan growing up?

No. I played sports so I was into that. My superheroes were athletes. 

Following up after Falcon and the Winter Soldier, we can see your star opposite Amy Adams in Joe Wright’s nod to Alfred Hitchcock, The Woman in the Window. Can you tell us more about your character David in the film?

David lives in Anna’s basement and you don’t know what kind of person he is. He could be a killer, he might not be. He helps her out when she needs stuff to be done and he’s part and parcel in her witnessing the murder. 

Such a diverse change between your two upcoming releases, do you enjoy challenges?  

Yes. That’s what makes acting fun is trying to do things that are challenging or that other people think might be challenging for you and pushing the boundaries of what you can do. Challenges in life is what makes live worth living moment to moment. 

We are all living through difficult times during this pandemic, how do you stay motivated and keep in touch with your family and friends?

One foot in front of the other. I’ve lived by this motto since I was pretty young from playing hockey: it’s never as bad as you think it is and it’s never as good as you think it is. Live by the rules, be as safe as you can, don’t get too stressed out about what could happen. You have to realize you can change certain things and with other things, you can’t control what you can’t control. When you feel yourself getting stressed out just take a couple deep breaths and realize that life goes on and hopefully with one foot in front of the other you don’t extrapolate too far into the future.

If you could go back to any point in your life, would you change anything or advise your younger self?

I would say don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Don’t put too much pressure, just a good amount of pressure. Putting too much pressure on myself didn’t allow me to be my best, it was what you’d call gripping the stick too tight. I learned later on that things are going to go good and they’re going to go bad, and when things go bad try to figure out how to fix it, don’t dwell on it. I would say don’t get so stressed out about the small things.