This weekend, Stephen Lang’s iconic Norman Nordstrom (aka The Blind Man) makes his long-awaited return to theaters in Rodo Sayagues’ Don’t Breathe 2. What’s interesting about this sequel is that the new director (who shared co-writing duties with the original director Fede Alvarez) swapped up the genres in many ways. While still gory as hell, with some blood-curdling kills, Nordstrom is pitted against home invaders that might be even worse than he is this time out. Now, he also has someone he cares about to protect, Madelyn Grace’s Phoenix, who’s become his surrogate daughter.
I was lucky enough to get the chance to speak with the legendary Lang recently. I’ve long been a fan of his as a character actor, going back to a movie I loved as a kid called Band of the Hand. I started the interview with a call-back to his role on Michael Mann’s iconic TV series Crime Story, where he played attorney David Abrams. He seemed to get a big kick out of me mentioning the show, and from there, we discussed tackling a more action-driven genre with Don’t Breathe 2 instead of the original’s straight-up horror. Lang also addressed the challenge of “humanizing” what some audiences may deem a monster and the insanity of shooting intense fight choreography while pretending to be blind. Overall, this was a super fun interview, and Lang seems to get a major kick out of playing the character.
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