According to director Josh Trank, he employed a professional weapons wrangler to handle the gun on the movie set when it's not being used for filming or rehearsal.
- May 17, 2020
AceShowbiz - Director Josh Trank was so intent on having a real 1920s Tommy gun in his new movie "Capone" a weapons wrangler had to be on set at all times.
The gun was a real, functioning automatic weapon that would have been lethal if loaded.
"That was pretty much what everyone wanted to take from the set," Trank tells WENN. "It was a real gun that they made."
"Because it's a functioning automatic weapon, which is illegal for a civilian to own, we had to have a professional gun wrangler, who was the only person allowed to handle it unless Tom Hardy was carrying it for the scene or to rehearse with it."
"The gun wrangler would stand from a safe distance and just observe. At one point I was allowed to hold it for a picture, which is on my Instagram. It's a great picture."
The gun helped Hardy get into character as ruthless gangster Al Capone as did the contact lenses and makeup created by Audrey Doyle, who won a BAFTA award for her work with Hardy on the series "Taboo".
"We spent a good year and a half throwing ideas back and forth about every aspect of his (Capone) physicality, and the voice and the wardrobe," Trank explains. "We played around with the different phases of the syphilitic scarring. What I did notice as we got into a more refined place with the look of Tom in the film, for me in an observational way it was undeniable how Brando-like he looks. In addition to a prosthetic make-up look that we had formed, there were a series of contact lenses specifically designed for the various stages of his physical decline throughout the film."
"I believe there were about four different contact lenses, starting out with a little bit of red in the eyes, then more darkness to the red and by the very last scene in the movie they were fully inflamed (bloodshot). They don't seem to be comfortable from what I could tell. In some way that lack of comfort contributed to the performance in a lot of ways."
"Then he had five hours of prosthetics caked onto his face where there's a certain amount of brain sensation that comes with the kind of chemicals (for the adhesive) they need to get it on him. I'm certain all of that led him to portray somebody who's in a physically degenerative state."
"Capone" is now available as an on-demand release in the U.S.
