In Almost Paradise Christian Kane plays Alex Walker, a former DEA Agent who opens a gift shop in the Philippines in order to find a bit of peace and tranquility. His meditative dreams are put on hold after he aids two police detectives (Samantha Richelle, Arthur Acuña) in their daily crime solving quests. During our chat Kane talked about his love for the movies The Outlaw Josey Wales, Léon: The Professional, and True Romance.
My interview with Christian Kane is posted on Deepest Dream, but I wanted to save the “favorite movie” related stuff for this blog. Although the goal was to add the Kane discussion to my latest Flick City podcast, the audio was a bit muffled. Thus, I’m leaving his exact quote in this post. Here is what Kane had to say about those three films and I’ll also chime in with my own recollections after his quote.
What are some of your favorite movies. Right off the top of your head, can you name one of your favorite films?
I’ll give you three. One of my all time favorite movies is Léon, but you guys probably know it as The Professional. I thought Jean Reno played an unbelievable character. I thought it was really well written. It was Natalie Portman’s first movie and I thought she was absolutely brilliant. When I watched her in that I thought she was going to be a star and nobody even knows it yet. Of course, she’s Natalie Portman now and I just love the music, I love the way it was filmed. I just loved Gary Oldman’s performance in that – it was unbelievable.
I also loved The Outlaw Josey Wales. Those kind of characters and those complexities. To most people, Clint Eastwood’s character in that is going to be so simple, but it’s not. There’s a whole bunch of layers. I kind of stole his voice for Eliot Spencer (Leverage).
Those are two off the top of the bat, and I also love True Romance. I’m a Quentin Tarantino fan so there you go.
I did the press junket for The Professional (the movie was released with that moniker in the United States but internationally it was known as Léon) and felt the same way about Natalie Portman. During that interview I automatically thought she was the next Jodie Foster (in terms of finding success as a child and ultimately as an adult). Late actor Danny Aiello was also at that junket, and he praised director Luc Besson’s visual prowess with the camera (Aiello was a great interview, and I wish I had that audio!!).
It has been 15 years since I’ve seen The Outlaw Josey Wales, and all I remember was that it was a different type of Western than I had ever seen from Eastwood, rivaling even Unforgiven. I definitely need to check out that film again (the ensemble acting, if I recall, was also excellent in the feature).
It was interesting that Kane mentioned he is a fan of Quentin Tarantino, because True Romance is also one of my all time favorite films mainly because of Tarantino’s dialogue. A lot of people don’t see it as a Tarantino film since he penned the screenplay (Tony Scott directed). I also attended the press junket for True Romance, and I was really intimidated by Christopher Walken during that interview. Walken was totally cool during the exchange, but I relay my neurosis during this Matt And Greg Used To Interview Movie Stars episode on True Romance (the pod features the unedited radio roundtable interviews from the film):
Are you a fan of Christian Kane’s work in The Librarians, Leverage, and now Almost Paradise? What do you think of his favorite movie choices? Feel free to comment and share your thoughts!
Almost Paradise, produced by Dean Devlin, airs Monday evenings on WGN America (10/9c) and is also available for download via Amazon.
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