In Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) is sick of being taken advantage of by his mortgage broker and takes his son Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery) hostage, wiring a shotgun to the back of his head as he communicates his demands and looks ahead to wiping his slate clean.
Awards Buzz spoke with cast members Montgomery, Myha’la, and Cary Elwes about their experiences making the film and relating to their characters.
Montgomery addressing the stressful physical demands of portraying Hall:
“It was really challenging but rewarding because it actually made the experience far more immersive than it would otherwise been. Being in a real wire around your neck, handcuffs on, someone standing behind you with a gun, a big tall Swedish guy standing over you, boring into the back of your neck with this gun for the whole shoot really helped because it helped with all of the fatigue and everything that my character Richard Hall would have been feeling. It was ultimately rewarding. I get super in my head when I get a role, and Bill and Gus were really good at getting me out of my head. A big reason why I couldn’t get too much in my head is that usually when I work I step away and just step into the room for the scene, and this I couldn’t really leave.”
Myha’la, who portrays a young Black female reporter looking to use this situation to her advantage, wasn’t about to say no to this opportunity:
“I got a call that said this offer is being made to you, would you like to do it? I said, who in their right mind would say no to a Gus Van Sant film? I hadn’t even read it before I said, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yes. There’s no version of this that I don’t work with him. And then I read the script and I was like, what a cool story. Whatever the role entails, I’m interested in being part of this story. I also didn’t know when I read this script that this really happened. I had no idea. So that was a nice surprise. And then in my first meeting with Gus, he was like, on the page, Linda was not in the film as much and her wants, needs, desires, her storyline was not as strong, and he was like, I’m really interested in beefing up this character and I want you to bring yourself to it. Also, she’s the only woman that you really hear speak.”
Elwes plays a real person – Detective Michael Grable – and reached out to his family to build an authentic portrait of the late law enforcement officer:
“Because Mike was such a larger-than-life character, what little I had learned of him before if l flew to Indianapolis made me realize there was a lot there to work with. I was fortunate enough, I hooked up with his two sons in Indianapolis, because Mike had passed away nine years ago, and I met his boys, Mike Jr. and Jason. They couldn’t have been more sweet. They opened up their archives, everything. They gave me audio files of him talking to them. They gave me video footage of him, both home movies and documentaries that had outtakes they had never used. They gave me photograph albums. They gave me letters. They gave me bits of his diary. So I had a lot of material to work with, and I brought all of that back to Louisville with me and showed up to present Gus with what I thought was enough to play with. Gus was fabulous, he really was happy with what I did. He fine-tuned it, like a conductor.”
Dead Man’s Wire will open in select theaters January 9, 2026, and wide January 16, 2026, with an awards qualifying run December 12, 2025.
