One father's quest to rescue his daughter becomes a descent into hell with God is a Bullet. The crime thriller centers on a vice detective whose ex-wife is murdered along with her new husband by a satanic cult, who take his daughter, and he desperately turns to a woman who escaped the group for help in tracking them down.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Maika Monroe lead the ensemble cast of God is a Bullet alongside Karl Glusman, Paul Johansson, Ethan Suplee, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Dice Clay, Brendan Sexton III, Garrett Wareing, and Jamie Foxx. Based on the novel of the same name, the movie is a haunting, brutal, and expansive modern noir thriller.
Ahead of the movie's release, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with star Ethan Suplee to discuss God is a Bullet, the haunting nature of his villain, why he prefers playing villains nowadays, his thoughts on a My Name is Earl revival and more.
Ethan Suplee Talks God is a Bullet
Screen Rant: I've been a fan of your work for a long time, so it's an honor, and God is a Bullet is really quite a heavy-hitting movie. What about the script really sparked your interest?
Ethan Suplee: Well, initially, I didn't know anything about it other than Nick Cassavetes was making it, and I love him. I was in before even reading the script, I was going to do anything Nick wanted me to do, so then when I read it, I thought the interesting thing was I haven't played a lot of like bad guys, but in the few that I've played, I definitely — you know, who knows if I actually successfully pull this off — but my intention would be to make them human beings.
Because, like, the best example of this is the character I played in American History X, where I share no values that that character shares. But, if I'm trying to accurately play him, he's a human being who's not walking around thinking he's wrong, he's walking around thinking he's right. So if I, as an actor, am trying to prepare that character from the perspective that he's wrong, I think I do it a disservice, it could become too cartoonish. Now, he's a pretty cartoonish character, he's a ridiculous, awful guy, right? But, I still wanted there to be some humanity in him.
The difference with this is I think that Gutter in God is a Bullet, his intention is to be wrong, his intention is to be evil. He is either a sociopath lacking empathy, or intentionally trying to emulate a sociopath. He's somehow deified the status of sociopathy, and wants to achieve that, so it was interesting to try to remove any humanity from him than I could, that seemed like a challenge.
Gutter is really a haunting character to watch throughout the film. Since you mentioned American History X, what is that like having to separate yourself when wrap comes for the day, and you have to go home and get out of that mindset, just as much as you had to get into it?
Ethan Suplee: Yeah, you know, even when the cameras aren't rolling, it's not real hard, because that's not a headspace I wanted to spend too much time in. I will say the hardest thing to shoot for me — I have daughters, and the hardest thing to shoot for me was a scene where I had to get physical with Chloe, who's a young girl, and we shot so much of that simply because Nick would come up to me after the first handful of takes and say, "I can see you being easy with her, we can't see that, you have to do it." You know, he didn't want me to hurt her.
Then I had her turning around going, "Yeah, I'm tough, you can be much harder," and I'm like, that was actually truly hard for me to do. Everything else, where it's just posturing and talking, that was not hard, but actually being physical with a young lady like that was difficult for me.
You are no slouch when it comes to your filmography, but this movie really has a star-studded cast. Was there any name or names, in particular, when you heard that they were attached that you were really excited that you were going to get to work alongside them?
Ethan Suplee: Well, Brendan Sexton and I had done a movie together in the mid-90s, so it was so cool to get to work with him again, I hadn't worked with him in decades, over 20 years, so that was really awesome. Then, I was so excited to meet and work with Jonathan Tucker, because I'm a huge Jonathan Tucker fan, going all the way back to Sneakers, and then kingdom. I just think Jonathan Tucker is so bada--, and we became really good friends, so it was nice to work with him. And Karl I loved, and everyone was really wonderful. But I think going into it, I was most excited, aside from Brendan, for Jonathan Tucker.
Tucker first came onto my radar with Revolution, and I've loved seeing everything else that he's done outside of that.
Ethan Suplee: He's so good, because he really is, like, a leading man who does deep character work, which is not so typical.
The look of Gutter is really a striking visual. How much input did you have on his visual appearance, and how much of it came from Nick and the costume department?
Ethan Suplee: You know, I want to say I had a lot of input, but really, like, I had no idea what Gutter was going to look like. Then, everything Nick presented to me felt so right. There was some stuff with the tattoos where Nick was like, "You can have anything you want, and here's what I want you to have." So, everything he wanted me to have was all perfect, and then there were a few things where I was like, "What about this? What about this?" So, we filled in some of the spots that he just hadn't picked yet, but really, it all came out of Nick's mind.
His mind is really an interesting palace of ideas, terrifying and intriguing at the same time. So we mentioned before how you haven't played many bad guys before, and now that you have a few under your belt, what would you say you like playing better? Would you say you prefer, or would you say you enjoy the light-hearted characters such as Randy from My Name Is Earl?
Ethan Suplee: Honestly, I think at this stage of my career, I think that playing the bad guy is a little bit more of a challenge, so I would have to say that. Because I've done nice, sweet-hearted quite a bit, and I feel like there is probably some innate connection I have with that, where the darker stuff actually takes a little bit more work, so it becomes almost more interesting in that way.
You always want to be challenged in creative fields, so I can appreciate that. I did want to ask real quickly, I was a big My Name is Earl fan growing up as a kid it did end far too early. Do you ever still chat with Jason in the hopes of getting the gang back together for one final go?
Ethan Suplee: Man, I think it would be awesome, and I think everybody involved has said they would do it. Greg Garcia went and pitched it to a number of studios, and nobody bit. I think when you see shows that are coming back for revivals, like I think they did with Will & Grace and Full House, those were just much larger shows than My Name Is Earl. My Name Is Earl did very well, but I just don't think it was ever as big as Will & Grace.
I think we would all do it, and we've talked about doing it, and Greg Garcia has explained what the last episode would have been had he been given notice, like, "This is it," and it and it's so good. It would be really the cherry on top of My Name is Earl, so I would love for it to happen, but I don't have a lot of hope that it will happen.
It is unfortunate that the TV sphere is what it is, but with some things like Community having cult followings and coming back, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for you guys that you'll get that at some point.
Ethan Suplee: I hope so, it'd be nice.
Coming back to God is a Bullet, we've talked a lot about American History X comparisons, and sometimes actors don't like comparing works, they want their work to stand apart from one another. How do you feel about that, with I'm sure many people having come to you talking about American History X versus this?
Ethan Suplee: Well, I think it's fair, simply because if I do a peripheral scan of my career, the only other really, really bad guy I've played was Seth in American History X. I played a character in a TV show called Chance, who was not nice, not a super effusive guy, but he wasn't bad. I guess there's some moral ambiguity to him, so he might have been bad to some people.
But that kind of subjective thinking could stand up to everyone, there could be a person who's like, "Randy for My Name Is Earl was evil," and I go like, "Okay, well, I don't know what your values are, but as far as mine go, he was a sweetheart." I think the real difference is with Seth, though my values are so different than Seth, I don't agree with that character at all, he still was a person who I think thought of himself as being right. I think he just had whatever bad circumstances he was born into, and then was poorly educated and a p---k, he's also a p----k, but I think he believed he was right.
And the difference with Gutter is I think Gutter is intentionally being evil. I think Gutter wants to do as much harm as possible, and so, I think Gutter is either a sociopath or an aspiring sociopath, and so it was actually a challenge to remove humanity from him. Whereas with Seth, I always had to remind myself to try to make him bad, and all of that, but also still a human being, and I think gutter was closer to a demon than a human being, if that makes sense.
About God is a Bullet
GOD IS A BULLET follows vice detective Bob Hightower (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as he searches for his kidnapped daughter. Hightower finds his ex-wife murdered by a satanic cult and his daughter kidnapped by those same cultists. Hightower eventually gets fed up with the official investigation and quits the force. In order to track them down, he joins forces with their only female escapee, Case Hardin (Maika Monroe). The two go undercover in a world of violence and high stakes for their own reasons: Hightower needs to find his daughter, and Hardin needs to get closure on her time as the cult's captive.
God is a Bullet is now in select theaters.