“Cold Comes the Night,” a character-driven crime thriller with unexpected twists, stars Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) as Topo, a thick-accented Polish career criminal who has been hired to transport a suitcase full of cash. After 22 hours on the road, Topo’s exhausted driver Quincy (Robin Taylor) spots a hooker (Sarah Sokolovic) on a highway pitstop and convinces Topo to let him stop at a nearby motel for some “rest.”
Alice Eve (“Star Trek Into Darkness“) plays the central character, Chloe, a hotel manager who is struggling to support her daughter, Sophia (Ursula Parker). Social services has threatened to take Sophia in two weeks if Chloe doesn’t find them a more appropriate place to live than the sleazy motel filled with hookers and transients. When Topo loses his driver and the suitcase full of money, he kidnaps Chloe and forces her to help him get the missing money from the sleazy cop who stole it, played by Logan Marshall-Green (“As I Lay Dying,” “Prometheus“). Chloe has no choice but to help Topo, as he uses her daughter’s life as leverage.
“Cold Comes the Night” was co-written and directed by Tze Chun, whose debut feature film, “Children of Invention,” premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, was screened at over 50 film festivals and won 17 festival awards. This is Chun’s second feature film. Oz Perkins (Anthony Perkins’s son) and Nick Simon co-wrote the script.
During an exclusive interview with TheBlot, Chun said, “Bryan was very involved with things in the script. He made a lot of notes, picked out clothes, glasses, and figured out his hair and facial hair. It was interesting to see an actor of that caliber break down a character, not only the motivation but also the minute details to his appearance to show the audience who that person was.”
Chun has nothing but praise for Cranston. “He is the hardest working person in show business,” Chun said. “He was doing months of press for ‘Argo,’ then left after midnight, took a train to upstate New York, got fitted for his character and woke up at 4 a.m. to get his hair cut and was shooting by 6 a.m. We shot for 17 days with two one-day breaks. Then he flew out to go shoot the final episode of ‘Breaking Bad.’ You can tell he just loves to work.”
Every time I asked about Cranston, Chun lit up. “Bryan is the funniest person I’ve ever met. In between takes he was always joking around, doing funny voices and faces. That goes a long way when you’re filming such an intensely dark movie.”
When I asked if Cranston could go in and out of character like a light switch, Chun said, “Yes. It’s the kind of acting you can only develop by working at it for a long time — like doing a five-year show like ‘Breaking Bad.’ The first time I talked to Bryan he wanted to do a phone call after he had shot a whole day of ‘Breaking Bad.’ I talked to him while he was in his trailer. I would’ve assumed that he’d be emotionally exhausted after shooting an intense show like that. You’d have to be the kind of person who could switch it on or off.”
Cranston and Chun are not the only reasons to see this thriller though. Alice Eve gives a powerful performance as a desperate yet doggedly determined woman.
Chun said, “Alice wanted to go darker with her character. We talked about how poverty changes a person. She’s sociopathologically opportunistic, which is a natural development from the way Chloe grew up. She’d been on her own since she was 15. Alice is British and hadn’t spent a lot of time in rural America. She came to set two weeks before shooting to do research. She visited motels where there were drug addicts and transients. She found those types and talked to them. She interviewed people at one motel where a body had actually been pulled out.”
When I asked about Logan Marshall-Green, Chun said, “He was very intense on set and would stay that way for a few hours. Alice goes back to being Alice as soon as the camera stops. Alice and Logan are both smart and very personable. I felt lucky to work with them.”
I was curious if the actors spent time together after filming wrapped each day. Chun told me, “They’d do a scene and then hang out with the crew that night. Everyone was staying in the same hotel and taking the same vans to work, so there wasn’t much separation. We never had our own trailers. We ate together, did everything together, and it was a fantastic team.”
“Cold Comes the Night” will open in limited theater release and be available On Demand on Friday, Jan. 10. Crime thriller with some gory violence. Rated R. 90 minutes.
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