Drew Goddard, who wrote and directed “Bad Times at the El Royale” for Fox, fulfilled one dream when Jeff Bridges agreed to take the role of Father Daniel Flynn, but it’s Chris Hemsworth, who plays charismatic and (of course) incredibly fit cult leader Billy Lee, with whom Goddard wants to work with for the rest of his life.
“[Chris Hemsworth] is such an extraordinary talent and an extraordinary person. He really is someone I could mix all the other actors around him he’s so conscious of everyone else, both cast and crew,” Goddard told TheWrap during a phone interview. “He’s just — he’s one of the radiant talents of our time… I hope he’s in everything I do for the rest of my life.”
This marks Goddard and Hemsworth’s second film together, the first being “The Cabin in the Woods” in 2012 — also the last time Goddard directed a feature film.
“Bad Times at the El Royale,” which hits theaters this weekend, follows seven strangers, each with a secret to bury, who meet at Lake Tahoe’s El Royale, a rundown hotel with a dark past. Over the course of one fateful night, everyone is presented with one last shot at redemption — before everything goes to hell.
Along with Hemsworth andBridges, “Bad Times at the El Royale” stars Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Nick Offerman, Lewis Pullman and Cailee Spaeny.
Hemsworth’s character plays a vital role in bringing the cast of characters together on the fateful night, and on his character is where one of the film’s major themes lies.
“So much of this film is about toxic masculinity and how men use that toxic masculinity to achieve power,” Goddard said. “We see it with cults even today, these cults are still thriving and you see the same characteristics in these cults; they’re all, almost exclusively led by men and a singular man who is very charismatic and very dangerous in his charisma and I felt like exploring that darkness was sort of key to the understanding of this film and understanding what the women of this film were going through and what they had to deal with and so it started there.
“Chris sunk his teeth into that very quickly. He understood the darkness that came from the charisma of a character like Billy Lee and how seducing people, and the audience, makes them complicit in the darkness and so with Chris, he very much embodied that.”