Oldboy actor James Ransone talks about the remake and Brolin’s transformation

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Horror movie audiences recently got acquainted with actor James Ransone in Scott Derrickson’s SINISTER, which he brought some much-needed levity to. (Might be going too far to call it “comic relief.”) Now the actor is in New Orleans filming Spike Lee’s remake of OLDBOY, a film we’re keeping a very watchful eye on. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ransone talks the “sacrilege” of remaking the cult classic, Josh Brolin’s insane transformation and who he plays in the film.

On his character and Lee being “antagonistic”: “I’m playing a doctor who works with Elizabeth Olsen’s character at this medical clinic. The only thing I really will reveal is that I’m a nice person in the movie, which is nice for me. I can usually play polarizing characters. … They’ve taken more from the comic book than they did from the original movie, in the script. The real issue is the expectation that it’s going to be a really watered down version. People should remember that Spike’s polemic, an antagonistic director.”

On remaking a masterpiece: “I have seen the original. It was after I got the part, to see what it was. There was so much build-up about it. People built it up to be a masterpiece. I didn’t think it was sacrilege we’re remaking it. I had a different feeling about Let The Right One In, the original Swedish version, before it was hyped up. I’m such a hater, and will hate on anything. I went to see Let Me In [the American remake], and it was fine, a well executed answer to a foreign film.”

On Josh Brolin’s intensity and appearance: “Josh, no matter what people’s expectation of the movie is, is really intense. He’s been living with this. He knew he was going to do this for a long time. His A-game is really intense. In the remake, the captivity scenes are longer than in the original. In the remake, they get more in-depth. What Josh did to his body, I’ve never seen an actor do before. He showed up pretty lean, pretty cut, and they shot the scene pretty much in sequence. In the course of nine days, he was ripped, he was fat, and then he was ripped again. He gained 35 pounds in one week, and then he dropped 19 pounds. I think Josh is so talented at what he does, I think there’s no way it’s going to be that bad. I met him for the first time last week. I’ve never worked with him before.”

To read a little more with Ransone, head over to EW. OLDBOY comes out in October of 2013.

OLDBOY’s Elisabeth Olsen