Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The Stranger!

Summary

• DeHaan's return to villainy in The Stranger is a terrifying cat-and-mouse chase film in Los Angeles.
• DeHaan's portrayal of Carl E. as a pure evil villain offered a refreshing departure from his previous roles in which he played people with tragic backstories.
• DeHaan found unique ways to embody Carl E., from costume choices to online research on his co-star for added realism.

Dane DeHaan returns to his villainous ways in The Stranger. DeHaan quickly became a breakout star in 2012 with his roles in the superhero twist, Chronicle, the crime drama Lawless, and the epic crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines. The decade since has seen him take on everything from more protagonistic parts in the horror-comedy Life After Beth and the titular hero in Luc Besson's adaptation of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets to such villains as Harry Osborne/Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

In The Stranger, DeHaan plays Carl E., a mysterious stranger picked up by fresh-to-LA rideshare driver Clare one night. It's quickly revealed that Carl E. is actually a terrifying serial killer, relishing in terrorizing the protagonist. This results in a cat-and-mouse chase throughout the streets of Los Angeles over the course of one night, with DeHaan's villain seemingly always finding a way to catch up with her, keeping the stakes high.

Alongside DeHaan, the Stranger cast includes It Follows star Maika Monroe, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City's Avan Jogia, and Roxana Brusso. Originally released as a Quibi TV show, writer/director Veena Sud, best known for her work as the developer of AMC's The Killing, reacquired the rights to the project and re-cut it into a movie format, with Hulu picking up the film for release on the platform.

In honor of the re-cut movie's release, Screen Rant interviewed Dane DeHaan to discuss The Stranger, the happy surprise of Sud getting back the rights to the title for its new release, the joys of playing his completely unhinged character, and his honest thoughts on the possibility of returning to the world of Spider-Man.

DeHaan Is "Really Happy" About The Stranger's New Release

Since Quibi's shuttering, only a handful of titles released on the platform have found new life elsewhere, including RENO 911! on The Roku Channel and Paramount+ and the second seasons of Most Dangerous Game and Die Hart on the former. With Sud getting the rights to The Stranger back, DeHaan recalled hearing the news of her re-cutting it into a movie to be "surprising", but also thrilled for the writer/director:

Dane DeHaan: Surprising. [Laughs] I'm really happy for Veena and that hopefully more people will get to see what we made, but I never expected that, for sure. We made all these Quibis, and then they kind of disappeared, so I know that Veena's kept it going. She's taken it to some festivals, maybe it was on Tubi — it was on something else at one point, too. So, I guess much like my character in The Stranger, it just keeps coming back to life.

Carl E. Was A Very Different Villain For DeHaan (& He Loved It)

Unlike many villains of his past, and onscreen in general, The Stranger's Carl E. is a unique antagonist in that much of his motivations and backstory are left a mystery, instead being driven by a pure evil streak. For DeHaan, he found this to be an interesting new angle to connecting with a character, recalling how Sud was partially inspired by the toxic masculinity that was prominent during Donald Trump's presidency:

Dane DeHaan: Yeah, so when we made it, which was four or five years ago, I think it was still during Trump's presidency and all that. I'd played bad guys, obviously, before, but a lot of times, from the perspective of these are good people that have been misled, or raised incorrectly, or something like that. Carl E. is one of the first bad guys I played with the idea that some people are just really bad people, that evil does exist in this world. It's not like we're all born with great intentions.

I think there's a nature in some people that is just not good, and evil. That was kind of my entry into the character, not being like, "Oh, he was a good guy, and then something bad happened to him." But like, "No, this is a f---ed-up guy that is just not good, and evil, and using technology and his sense of privilege to wreak havoc on individuals. It was fun.

I think the movie itself is a lot of fun. It's a horror movie, but there's an awareness to it. I'm not saying it's campy, but it's a fun, entertaining watch. This is something that is meant to scare, but it's also meant to make you laugh. I think it'd be a good movie to watch with some popcorn. So, I tried to approach it with that evil, but having fun being able to indulge in it.

DeHaan Had A Unique Method To Getting Into Carl E.'s Mind & Torment Maika Monroe

With no major backstory to work off of, DeHaan found other means for getting into the mindset of his villainous character in The Stranger. One of the biggest keys he leaned on was working with the wardrobe department to craft Carl E.'s look, which he felt helped him embody the character and his physicality:

Dane DeHaan: You know, I never spent much time, honestly, trying to develop a certain physicality. I kind of believe that if I go from the inside out, the physicality will manifest itself. So, for me, it's just all about, "What drives the character forward? What's happening on the inside that's motivating what they're doing?" And I think if those motivations are correct, then my body physically changes with those motivations.

It's that and it's the costumes. I always have a lot of fun and creativity with the costume designers in trying to find something that feels right for the character. And I think clothes can really change the way you move. So I never really spend much time thinking about how I'm moving, I let other choices inform it, and let it go from there.

Another interesting route the star took was in how he approached his collaboration with Maika Monroe going into production. Rather than having a general "bonding process" on set, DeHaan actually took after his character and "found out as much as I could about her online" to feel like he was a step ahead of her when making conversation:

Dane DeHaan: Maika had a huge responsibility in this movie, she's in basically every frame of it. I don't feel like there was like a bonding process, per se, where we got to know each other, or anything. We were getting to know each other in real time while we were working. I feel like a lot of my relationships with people that I'm working with are informed by the relationships they have on screen.

So, one thing I did with Maika — which I never told her while we were filming — was I just found out as much as I could about her online, which I feel like is kind of what Carl E. would do. And then I didn't tell her that I knew all this stuff about her, so I would ask her questions that I already knew the answer to. [Laughs] In an effort to make conversation and make it seem like I was getting to know her, but really, I already knew the answers to all these questions, because I was reading interviews and stuff she had given in the past.

Filming Carl E.'s Death Was "A Ton Of Fun" For DeHaan (& Could Be Game For Sud's Zombie Idea)

After putting Clare through the wringer for the entire night, Carl E. finally gets his comeuppance at the end of The Stranger as she overpowers him and leaves him to be torn apart by coyotes in the LA River. DeHaan found this ending to be "a ton of fun" and even found "something funny" about the death:

Dane DeHaan: That day was a ton of fun. At this point, I think it was one of the last things I shot anyway, so the tone of the show, and my comfortability on set, was greater than when I had begun. Veena and I had developed our shorthand, and it was just a lot of fun. And I think, again, this is a scene that is a serious scene, but there's something funny about it to me, also. [Chuckles]

That's what it was all about. Making this movie, to me, was about kind of letting loose and having fun and indulging in the extreme circumstances of it. The evilness of this character, and then his completely, in many ways, over-the-top demise. I just tried to relish and have fun. And that day was really fun. I remember being really, really hot, and I was in a sweater and a jacket, which was not fun. But other than that, we had a great time.

Despite his death, Sud previously teased her ideas about how to continue the world of The Stranger in either an anthological element or with a zombie plot device that could see Carl E. resurrected. While DeHaan is unsure whether he would return for a follow-up, he does recognize it as something that he "could indulge and have even more fun with":

Dane DeHaan: Oh, wow. I have no idea. I had a lot of fun making it. What I'll say is, I think it's awesome the movie is getting a second or third life, but I also think this is a time in our business, especially, when we need new content, and we need to be making new content. And if that means continuing this story, or just creating other new stories, I think that's the point we're at in the business is it's time to make new stuff.

It's time to understand that people are ready for consuming new ideas, new stories and that kind of stuff. And if that means Carl E. coming back as a zombie, my first impression of that, I guess, is that sounds like something that I could indulge and have even more fun with. But I'm all about new stories, and I think that this is a time in our business where we need to show the world that what they want is something new.

DeHaan Is Thrilled About His New Netflix Western (But Doesn't See A Spider-Man Return In His Future)

Heading into the future, DeHaan recently wrapped production on American Primeval, a Western epic TV show at Netflix helmed by Peter Berg. Coming amid the recent genre boom with the Yellowstone franchise and Kevin Costner's Horizon movies, DeHaan teases that the show will be "incredibly intense" and "violent", and feels it to be "maybe the most extreme journey that I've ever gone on":

Dane DeHaan: So, the only thing I have in the can right now is this Netflix series that Pete Berg directed called American Primeval. It's going to be kind of a manifest destiny, Oregon Trail kind of story that takes place in the 1800s. It's going to be just incredibly intense, and violent, and the journey I go on is maybe the most extreme journey that I've ever gone on as a character, which is really saying a lot. I haven't seen anything of it, but we ended up finishing it just after the strike. That'll be coming out, I think, this year, but I honestly don't know.

In looking back on his time in The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, DeHaan recalled his feelings of confusion when being presented with questions about his potential return in Spider-Man: No Way Home when rumors were running rampant about Andrew Garfield's role in the movie. Though DeHaan will "never say never" at the chance of reprising Harry Osborne in the future, he does find it unlikely due to having no real contact with the producers of the franchise "in, like, 10 years":

Dane DeHaan: I mean, never say never, but honestly, I haven't spoken to anyone that has to do with the producer side of Spider-Man in, like, 10 years. So I would be shocked to get that phone call. [Chuckles] I have no idea what's going on over there. When Andrew was making the latest Spider-Man, I didn't know it was happening, and people kept asking me like, "Are you in the Spider-Man movie?" I was like, "What the f--k are you talking about? Like, why are you asking that question? That was so long ago." [Chuckles]

I mean, look, I love playing like comic book characters, superheroes, that kind of thing. I would be very interested in returning to that world in some way. But for it to be Spider-Man related, I would just be absolutely shocked, because, again, I haven't gotten a phone call, an email, anything from those people in 10 years.

About The Stranger

From Veena Sud, acclaimed creator of THE KILLING comes an edge-of-your-seat ride through one life-changing night. New to Los Angeles, rideshare driver Clare (Maika Monroe, star of It Follows and Neon’s upcoming Longlegs) picks up Carl (Dane DeHaan, recently seen in Oppenheimer and star of HBO’s The Staircase) from a home deep in the Hollywood Hills. What begins as a routine ride turns into Clare’s worst nightmare: a twelve-hour fight for survival through the city’s seedy underbelly. Carl is not the passenger Clare thought he was, and Clare is not easy prey...Avan Jogia (Victorious, Now Apocalypse) also stars in this thriller, coming soon to Hulu as a new feature-length film.

Check out our other The Stranger interview with writer/director Veena Sud!

The Stranger is now streaming on Hulu.

Source: Screen Rant Plus