I Interviewed Taz Skylar and Discovered the Real Story Behind Cleaner

Well thank you for taking the time to speak with me, I appreciate it. Thank you, likewise. Okay so I wanted to get started asking about how you became involved in Cleaner, what was it about your character and the overall script that you really enjoyed and really attracted you to the story of the film? The main thing about Noah that I remember connecting to or feeling so viscerally excited about was just the fact that he had a very extreme way of seeing the world but that in some ways actually made sense or that actually there was a lot of logic to him as a character and a lot of logic to his arguments and although the way he tries to bring what he wants into reality is a very questionable way, the thing that he wants isn't actually obscene. As in like his hope, his grievances with the world and the way he feels about the way we've treated the world. I could see a point in there that if anything kind of represented, represents I think a lot of the grievances of my generation and there's a complexity to how he hypocrisises himself and the things that he says and it just felt like a character that I could have a lot of fun with and really make my own. And speaking about really making the character your own while you were reading the script and preparing to play Noah, what was that process like of really connecting with him and really understanding his points and how did you really prepare for the role? I read the bible, I cover to cover, which I hadn't done before. I read Nietzsche, I read a lot about anti-humanism and the way that humankind has affected the ecosystems that we have around us. I read a lot about extreme activism and how that, I read a lot of manifestos from different groups that had done similar things, albeit on a lower scale, but similar things to Noah in different parts of the world. Even certain terrorist groups, I'd kind of read a lot into what their manifestos were and how it was that they were justifying their point because there's an element to Noah that is very performative and is very grandiose. So I wanted to make sure I didn't make him a satire. I wanted everybody watching it to be able to understand him as a character and really feel like what he was saying or what he was doing was true and had a logic behind it. Because I think it's integral to the whole film if you don't fully feel that threat from him coming from a grounded place that the whole thing kind of falls apart. And then in terms of the physical side, I just did a lot of boxing, a lot of jiu-jitsu. I'd train before I went to work, I would train after the 16-hour day in the evenings before I went to bed. I'd skip and train during lunch and if I had breaks in filming and I'd train all weekend. Because I didn't really have much time to prep for this, so I really just had to bite the bullet and go in as hard as I could and hope for the best. Also speaking about the physicality in particular in the stunt work and like you mentioned not having too much time to prepare for that as well, but overall what was that experience like and really figuring out how you wanted to approach the physicality and really showcase the stunt work? Well the physicality of it, I remember thinking especially when acting with people like Clive. Clive is such a large presence and a quite literal large figure. He is so tall that I remember thinking, if my attempt is going to be to impose my physicality upon him in a literal way, I'm always going to lose. So my only hope of being convincing as a presence next to him and in front of him is going to be to have it internally and let that sit in a way that permeates larger than the fear of someone's size or the fear of someone's strength. So I just worked a lot on trying to figure out what were the, in terms of like when I'm, little things of when he's walking and how he would carry his shoulders and I tried to mimic it on people who, I know it sounds really weird, but people who trek and camp a lot wear a lot of backpacks. They move a lot of heavy things but they don't do it in a way that's kind of like in the gym where they just lift linearly. They are strong to their core by virtue of doing hard arduous things every day and that gives them a kind of density and strength that shines further past just kind of how agile or large they are. So I tried my best to incorporate that kind of physicality and that way of carrying myself and then in terms of the stunt work, the stunt team was really cool and talented and full of young, excited, enthusiastic stunt coordinators and performers and because I came in hot as a bullet just saying I wanted to do every single thing myself and I wanted to and I wanted to take the slaps and I wanted to take the falls and I wanted to take the hits and I wanted to, I didn't want to get doubled, I wanted to do the wire work. There was definitely a process of getting to know each other whereby I think every young blue-eyed actor probably comes in saying I want to do my own stunts but then the gap between that and actually being able to do it is a very large one. So there was a process of getting to know each other and proving that I had the ability to do everything on a meritocratic basis as well if not better as the stunt performer that I was paired with and then we'd just treat every single stunt like that and every single stunt was a competition where even if they didn't want to give me a try at it because maybe it was a big fall or maybe there was a ledge that we were narrowly missing and they were like no it's too dangerous, your stunt double has to do it. I would pepper them, I would pepper them like the most annoying person they've ever met just making sure that they at least gave me one shot at it to prove that I could do it and then if I couldn't do it then it was fine then I'd shut up and I'd go sit in the corner but they helped, they always had to give me one shot just to prove that I couldn't do it as well as the stunt performer and thankfully I'd done a lot of stunts, I'd kind of made the same point on the show that I did before the film and did all my stunts bar one and so this film didn't actually feel as complicated as I thought it was going to be because I'd come off of nine months of doing it on something else. And when you were doing and working on the stunt work for the film and the location and being in the studio I saw that you filmed a lot of the sequences in a studio in the UK, in London, what was that experience like being on set in the studio and figuring out how to use the location to your advantage when you were doing like the physicality? To be honest we didn't have to work too hard and imagine it even though it was in a studio because they built sections of the building so we had like three floors in one studio, we had another few floors in another studio, we also shot on location some days in London at the building that it was based on so and then when we were filming in the studios we even had the screens behind us that showed the entire view, the entire panoramic view of London from that perspective so you know bar a camera that was maybe in our peripheral vision and some crew members trying very hard to kind of not affect the way that the scene felt by making their presence too known, there wasn't too much we had to imagine we kind of just had to know our lines and sit in the scene and just try and make the relationships work which I think is what the film lives or dies on and hopefully in this case lives on. And then lastly to wrap up I also wanted to ask about working with the film's director Morton Campbell and what was your collaboration like together I love Morton I will say it like that with my hands raised every single time I say it because I love that man with all my heart I think he's so incredibly awesome and relentless and challenging and stubborn but in the most beautiful of ways because every single time that he has such a particular vision of how he wants to achieve things and even though that can be that can be a difficult thing to mediate sometimes you know that at the core of it the thing he's striving for is always the best version of what can possibly be done on that given day and he just provides the most inspiring space for you to do your best work and not only provides that space expects you to and when people expect you to do great work usually you'll do a good job I think and I think it's a testament to why so many great actors have worked with him and and said yes to dedicate in such a large portion of their life to a film with him is because they really just don't make him like him anymore and I'm so blessed that I got to work with him I'm so blessed that I got to learn from him hear all the stories every single time we're doing a scene he'd come out with some story about Jackie Chan or he'd come out with some story about I'm not saying names to spare but just great action stars that I and I would just sit there kind of like a child listening to the story of how that scene came to be and and I just couldn't believe how lucky I was to be there I love you Martin if you ever see this well thank you again for taking the time to speak with me I appreciate it you you have a great day