Dead Man's Wire - Flicks (2026)

This loan company's done me wrong. They set me up and schemed to ruin my life. I'm not a rich man, I'm a poor man, and that never bothered me. I'm a man that's fighting for everything that he owns, sir. Dead Man's Wire stars Bill Skarsgård. He plays a real-life character with an incident from 1977. A man who took a mortgage executive hostage because he felt he was cheated out of a lifetime of investment and hard work. I asked Bill how he felt about that character. I do not need to like the character I'm playing, but I do need to understand him. I need to relate to him in a way, or be able to relate, or maybe more importantly, empathize, like feel what that guy is feeling. So understand him, empathize with him, but certainly, you know, I've played characters that I absolutely despise. That wasn't the case for me with Tony. Like, I think that Tony is very much a victim of his own making. He's a victim as well, so there's a fragility to him, but also the surrounding and how he came up and what he, you know, what he lived through and what shaped him. You can empathize with him, and you can feel sorry for him, and that's okay. And anything that he does in this story is justifiable. You also, the period is almost another character, isn't it? Because you had to look at things from this character's point of view during that particular period of time. To what extent did that influence your performance? It influenced it a lot in terms of trying to understand where he came from and what he grew up in. See if I get the dates, like, okay, so he was born in the 30s. His parents were Greek immigrants. He was one out of six children, I think, five or six children, and had to work and help provide for the family at age five, six, you know? Now, that's a very different life than, you know, I would say most Westerners today, but he feels like he's someone that has worked and worked and worked and worked. And, you know, he has been sold this pipe dream of if you just work hard and dedicate yourself, there is sort of a pot of gold at the end of that. And that is not necessarily true, and especially not true for someone like Tony, where there is a system that might not be made to support someone that is coming from where he's coming from. I appreciate your going there. It's fascinating how all of this can develop. Thank you for your time, Bill. Thank you very much. Take care.