Collection, in theaters on September 17, tells the story of a grieving father grappling with the seedy world of high stakes debt collection. Alex Pettyfer plays the father, Brandon, a man who must grapple with his past and the decisions that he's made. The film is directed by Marianna Palka with a script by Todd Friedman.
Screen Rant spoke with Pettyfer about what drew him to the role, working with co-star Mike Vogel, and his future and a producer. Plus, he takes a look back at some of his most iconic roles.
Screen Rant: I feel like you haven't really tackled sequels. If you had to revisit any character you've ever played, who would you want to revisit?
Alex Pettyfer: I know which one I would revisit. I begged [Steven] Soderbergh all the time. I would love to do The Kid from Magic Mike. The narrative of a lot of people ... because I didn't do Magic Mike triple XL, oh, why was that? And obviously, people always dive into the gossip and it's not really anything to do with the gossip. It's me, and the narrative was that we weren't bringing back Cody Horn. And the split at the end of Magic Mike, of me, carrying on and Channing wanting to have a different vehicle towards his life choices, but what basically happened was, and this was the narrative of Soderbergh, is that me and Matthew ended up moving to Australia and we started our own kind of Chip and Dale's down there.
I always wanted The Kid to come to England or somewhere and kind of have an American gigolo kind of story, obviously Richard Gere. Come and have maybe a little bit of a political element where he gets caught up in something like that. I would revisit that. I loved playing that character and I always loved character pieces like that.
That'd be great. Is that a possibility? That'd be awesome.
Alex Pettyfer: No, I don't think it's a possibility.
Collection, out September 17th, starring the lovely Alex Pettyfer, and you play Brandon. I'll let you describe who he is because he's in this seedy world of debt collection. How would you describe him?
Alex Pettyfer: He is a gentleman that is dealing with some trauma. Unfortunately, has had some tragedy in his life. He's created this company, this debt collecting company. It has become a very tumultuous environment for him, but he's numb to it, kind of is in this pattern or behavior of just wake, work, sleep. And then he falls in love.
And falling in love, his complete psyche changes and the way he views the world. There's almost this fresh start for him or this fresh new opportunity for a different life, but unfortunately, he realizes that the environment that he's created that's a very poisonous one, is a lot harder to escape that than he imagined. That duality throughout the film and the choices he has to make are pretty interesting.
And you're paired along with Mike Vogel, which I don't know if you dive into the comments of the trailers, but people are very excited about you two being in a movie together. How was that match on set? What did you guys do on your downtime?
Alex Pettyfer: Mike is a gentleman and a family man and just so inspiring to work with as far as a creative. He is so invested [in] the work.
And someone asked me earlier, they said, how do you create this brotherhood feeling with someone or this history with someone that you first meet? It really is a luck of the draw. Sometimes you meet people that you work with that you don't a hundred percent have a synergy with, and sometimes you meet people that you do. Mike was definitely someone that I met that I have synergy with, and I was so grateful to work with him. He has this veteran feel, not because he's an old man, he's young and handsome and very talented, but just from the way he carries himself on set, it's very inspiring. And for me, I love to learn from people that I work with, and watching how he conducts himself on set and just how he invests in the work was, as I said, very inspiring. We got on great. I'm very happy that people are happy that we were in the movie together. I was very happy that he came on board.
And you're talking about how you kind of learn something from every job and I feel like as we grow, we kind of look for different things within jobs. What do you look for in roles nowadays and what was present in the role of Brandon that kind of caught your attention?
Alex Pettyfer: I think that what was present for me on the page in the script was the duality of the character of coming to terms with the environment that he's created. I think self-reckoning, self-recognition, and understanding that we're responsible for our cause and effect. Some people, even myself at some point in time and probably still will in the future, don't always take responsibility for the environment that is created around us. What we have to realize is we truly are the master of navigating those things and understanding how the things we've done in the past can come to fruition in the future. I found that interesting with [this] man that had created this environment, this poisonous environment, is awakened and realizes this. That was a really interesting thing for me to go on an arc with that character.
I don't know if you know this, but it's a pretty landmark year for you in terms of anniversaries, because it's the 10th anniversary of I Am Number Four!
Alex Pettyfer: Is it? Wow.
Does feel like it's been 10 years?
Alex Pettyfer: Wow. Yeah. I mean, wow, 10 years. That is long.
There was such a love of that and such a fan drive for more of those movies, a sequel.
Alex Pettyfer: I know. I wish we could have made a sequel to I Am Number Four. I really loved making that movie. You had Steven Spielberg as the producer, you had Michael Bay as a producer, DJ Caruso, but I think they tried something on that movie, and I'm being very honest, where the book, which was written by Pittacus Lore, which was James Frey basically, they tried some really interesting, creative publicity where the film and the book are released at the same time.
I think that at the time, DreamWorks had War Horse, they had Hugh Jackman did that robot movie, and there was one other film. And I think just as a collective slate, maybe the movies didn't perform as well as they should have. And so the slate was kind of wiped clean for DreamWorks to start again with a new slate relationship with funding.
I really loved I Am Number Four and I loved working with DJ and I loved that concept and that kind of alienation of an outsider, people not accepting you for who you are. I know that movie or that franchise would have gone into a much mature ... and the evolution of that would, I definitely know that because DJ was showing me, but we can dream, should we say.
I wanted to ask you because you posted a picture, I think the other day, with John Cena. And you were like, hashtag Peacemaker. And I was like, if you're in that show, I'm going to scream. What was that about? Are you two working together? What's happening? What is that?
Alex Pettyfer: No, we're not working together, no. I am a huge fan of John and he is a gentleman, and he is so talented. I thought in Suicide Squad, maybe this is sacrilegious to say, but I thought he was the best thing in it. And then I watched Vacation Friends. I mean, his comic timing is genius. Yeah, and I know he had only a few scenes in Trainwreck, but then I was like, okay, he's just ... Yeah, lovely man, gentleman. I was very honored to meet him.
Okay. I love that. I was like, is he in Peacemaker? I love that. I'd love to see it.
Alex Pettyfer: I would love to work with him. Don't get me wrong.
As we wrap up, I saw you've been writing, you have a lot of producing jobs coming up, you made your directorial debut, I think a few years back. What do you see as your next chapter? What does that look like?
Alex Pettyfer: I just love making movies. I started a company three years ago called Dark Dreams Entertainment with my producing partner. My team is slowly growing. We've made five movies and we have a lot of movies in development that we've sold and partnering on with other incredible companies like Braun Entertainment and HBO. And we made, obviously, Echo Boomers with Michael Shannon, and now Collection. We just made a movie with a big studio, which I can't say, but with Guy Pearce. I'm just about to start, and that movie's called Inferno Machine, which is a really, really interesting film. My company's doing this movie called Chelsea Cowboy, which is, I think a really interesting film set in the seventies that is taking a certain kind of genre, which is the gangster genre, and kind of like, not flipping it on its head in a visual way, but just changing how we see these films being made.
The core of it is a love story, but it's about class, about the difference between lower class and upper class in that era of time. It's funny that we're 2000, and I'm not getting into any political conversations because I'm the last person to ever be in this conversation, but we would be dealing with a lot of issues in the sixties and seventies, and what is the evolution that we've had since then in today. A little bit thought-provoking as well. I'm very, very grateful. I've got a great partner, business partner and we're just really focusing on trying to make good content.
Collection premieres in theaters on September 17.
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