Following last year’s Aftermath, Dylan Sprouse and Mason Gooding reunited for a new action comedy called Under Fire. Directed by Steven C. Miller, the action film is out now in theaters and digital from Vertical. The duo discussed filming the movie and their friendship, while Dylan spoke about the trickiness of doing Big Daddy 2, and Mason gushed about working with Scream 7 director Kevin Williamson.
“Two undercover agents (Sprouse, Gooding) for the FBI and DEA suddenly reveal their true identities during a cartel deal, each unaware the other was working the same case. Their surprise is short-lived when a hail of sniper bullets leaves them pinned down and outgunned. Forced to rely on each other, the two agents must navigate a deadly cat-and-mouse game with an unseen sniper whose motives are as mysterious as his aim is deadly,” says the synopsis.
Dylan, this is an action comedy. Griff doesn’t always look the coolest while doing the big action scenes early on. You’re making some pretty funny faces. You look like a total badass at the very end though. So you show your full potential. But how is it leaning into that aspect of putting the character first for those action scenes early on?
Dylan Sprouse: It’s funny that you mentioned that because I think the big talk around town is always the kind of mythology behind Tom Cruise doing his own stunts. First off, he’s unique in his own right, but I think that part of the reason it’s really important for a lot of action sequences and actors to do is for exactly what you mentioned, which is that like the background and the backstory of the individual character that you have is gonna react physically differently in any given circumstance.
That’s sometimes pretty hard to convey to stunt men, and that’s largely the responsibility to know your stunt man. Communicate with them how this character would act, and then you kind of play around in that space with ’em. So immediately, like going in to Under Fire, it’s just a very different movie from Aftermath.
Griff is not necessarily a badass. And so trying to kind of physically portray a guy that seems way in over his head virtually immediately was something that was important to do as he kind of breaks down halfway through the movie.
So it’s a fun experience to do because now, especially, even Mason and I have done fight scenes together where we’re going full badass. So to play something kind of opposite of that was and stretch my legs in that regard definitely pushed me physically, which I liked.
Mason, your character Abbott he has more common sense of the two characters. What’s the biggest challenge in playing more of the straight man in an action comedy?
Mason Gooding: It’s funny because I feel like denoting that the straight man implies like a level of consistency throughout that I think Alex kind of goes against in that Griff certainly has more optimistic take on things or more fly by the seat of his pants approach. What I find compelling about Alex is his ability to remain pragmatic and practical under pressure.
If you look at, if it were like a graph, and Griff has a tendency to arc upwards into the more positive notion of things, or to make light of you know, the gravity of situations as an actor, it make made sense to me to balance out with a level of gravity so that the audience could fall somewhere in the middle so that things don’t feel devoid of tension. But also, as a credit to Dylan, it doesn’t feel like we’re taking the circumstances too seriously because you have to believe that these characters are under duress, but also capable of overcoming it by the skin of their teeth.
And I think that gray area of whether or not they will or will not make it out alive is born between the respective arcs of competency that both of them sort of embody. If you see Alex break, or if he were to have a moment of desperation, he requires Griff to lift him out of it, and vice versa for different reasons. And I feel like that makes it more human, makes it a more earned story, and that these two would be the reason they both were able to survive because they worked together, I guess. But maybe that’s just my read on it.
Dylan, you both were in Aftermath together as enemies. This time around, you are allies, although there is that tension because you both didn’t know each other were undercover. What did you like most about just building that chemistry over two films in a short time period, and how did that help your performance?
Sprouse: I think what you obviously don’t see is that Mason and I had known each other before Aftermath, and then we’re friends after that too, and you know, so we’ve hung out a lot both in between those movies before the movie and then after even this movie. So, I think that certainly helps, obviously, like the closer you are as actual human beings, it makes it a lot easier for any sort of deliverable performance.
You’re gonna get better drama, you’re gonna get better comedy, you’re gonna get better fear, hatred in this case. And I think for that reason, it was kind of like an obvious sign on for me, like seeing Mason and then theorizing like a buddy cop duo between the two of us was just clear as day.
And furthermore, like when we made Aftermath, Mason wasn’t actually there for a lot of the shooting of it. He had a pretty tight schedule. I believe you were shooting something else, and you had a week-long window or something. So, I was actually very happy to work with him, but disappointed we didn’t get to work more, spend more time together.
So knowing that we were gonna jump into Under Fire too and finally get to play around on set in a way that was like both comedic and more playful… this movie’s definitely more playful than Aftermath was. And so I knew that was just gonna be a great time. So for all of those reasons, I think the chemistry just came super easy
Gooding: And a lot of that too, Steven Miller, who directed it had such a clever way of whether it was scheduling or directing us through rhetoric and through choices to find sequences in which we could kind of let our characters incite the like rhetorical dynamic that we could. Whether it’s improv or just trying something, saying something or doing something in a very off the wall way that I feel like we were able to find something that, you know, you can try to write, but if you don’t cast two people that get along as well as we do, it might not come across as compelling.
Mason, I really enjoyed you in Heart Eyes earlier this year, which was such a fun mix of romance and horror.
Sprouse: I haven’t actually seen it yet, so please don’t spoil because I will watch it. I promise!
Gooding: You should know he never watched any work of mine that he isn’t in, which is actually a considerable amount of my work.
Sprouse: Dude, you know me, all I do is play video games and paint Warhammer figurines. Like, I don’t really,
Gooding: Same except not Warhammer. But video games. And I still find time to watch all of your work.
Sprouse: You are a consummate professional. I’m a silly goose.
Gooding: You’re right. I can’t get mad.
Can’t get mad at a silly goose.
Mason, you’ve done a wide range of genre work lately. You’re obviously like a horror mainstay as well, but are there any genres that you are really looking to do in the future that you haven’t yet?
Mason Gooding: Yeah, I really wanna do – and maybe this is because I’m currently playing Mafia: The Old Country right now – I really wanna do a period piece of romance or drama or crime threat, anything in there. But as long as they get to wear suspenders and smoke cigarettes like that, I’m happy. I would love to do one of those. I think I might be next year, which is really exciting, but you never know.
Dylan, my favorite line in the whole film was you going, “So you’re a dick shooter now, huh?” That was just such a funny laugh.
Gooding: Improvised if you can’t believe it.
Yeah, I was gonna ask if that was in the original script. There’s even a callback later on. So, that was all improvised?
Dylan Sprouse: There was a lot of improv in this movie. There was a lot of fun improv in this. Steven was really cool to let me kind of spread my wings in that way and really go to town. Griff has like a lot of little he’s saying constantly. He’s a chatterbox, he’s quite annoying. Which is very fun for me. But yeah, that was a fun line. And then Steven and the writers loved it so much they wanted to add it at the end and do a callback to it. It’s a clippable line, let’s put it that way.
Mason, I know you can’t talk much about Scream 7, but fans are so excited for that. What stood out about working with Kevin Williamso? Because he crafted those original movies. That has to be really cool for you after working with Radio Silence to work with the OG there.
Gooding: Well, maybe it goes without saying, but Kevin Williamson starting the franchise and kind of having it be his brainchild offers a level of insight into world-building and intent and creative ethos that only he could provide. It meant that the Scream fan in me could ask questions that otherwise just don’t really have answers, and he’ll come up with them or have them accessible in a way that’s just incredibly fascinating and satiating as a fan of the franchise.
I feel like a lot of times you go on a project and you just kind of do your part, you play your character, and then you leave and hopefully watch the movie, and all it kind of coalesces into something wonderful. But I feel that way even in wrapping 7. I feel like I know exactly what the movie is, and it’s one I’m very happy with and cannot wait for people to see what Kevin’s been cooking up.
Dylan, after Happy Gilmore 2, everybody’s talking about Adam Sandler sequels. If a Big Daddy 2 were to happen, there’s a tricky situation. Would you and Cole decide who has the rights to Julian? Would you have to alternate for the first time since you were kids? How would that go?
Dylan Sprouse: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I guess we’d have to cross that bridge once we get to it.
Mason Gooding: What do you mean? That’s the sweetest set. You keep the same hours, you both work like eight hours a piece, and you both play the same character.
Sprouse: Yeah. That’s the best case scenario. Or actually, absolutely. My thing is I would love to have a scenario where I switched off roles with my brother. Now it’s just better hours.
The only part that would get us now is I’m infinitely more handsome than him, so that would be kind of tough. So we’d have to do something about that. Maybe get him a little trip to Korea before we shot something.
They can do a lot with CGI today these days.
Sprouse: He can play my body double.
Thanks to Dylan Sprouse and Mason Gooding for taking the time to talk about Under Fire and their careers.
