Thomas Jane talks about The Lycan, getting fired from Headshot, and his western

June 28th 2011, 6:09pm

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

What I love about Tom Jane is how utterly f*cking random he is. During Comic-Con panels he sits barefooted, indian style on the table, loves comics, and dressed up as The Rocketeer to a 20th anniversary event. He never apologizes for his behavior and is rather blunt when speaking candidly. He’s fun.

Collider got the lowdown on a few subjects including THE LYCAN, why he was fired from HEADSHOT, and gives details on a western he’s written.

Let’s begin with his newest project, THE LYCAN. Obviously it’s a werewolf movie and Jane really digs it, “I’m doing a werewolf movie called, The Lycan, which is a gothic werewolf romance set in the late 1700s. it’s f*ckin’ cool. It’s basically Alien, set in a castle, with werewolves.”

The deets on the HEADSHOT situation:

JANE: Well, Wayne Kramer brought me into the project and when Wayne left the project I suggested Walter Hill to Stallone and the next week they hired Walter Hill and I was very happy about that because I’ve always wanted to work with him.

Collider: But then did the studio sort of…

JANE: Well, Joel Silver came onboard the project and said that he has a quote-unquote ‘formula’ for these quote-unquote ‘buddy movies’ and it has to be a white guy and a quote-unquote ‘ethnic guy.’ And they relieved me of duty and basically paid me off, which I was really upset about, you know? I didn’t get a call from Stallone. I was a little upset about that. Maybe they didn’t want anybody on the movie with a bigger dick than him.

Collider: Wayne Kramer was sort of abruptly fired from that film too. Was it over him being too violent? Because I’ve been told that it’s still an R-rated movie and Stallone’s comment was that [Kramer had] made a [script] that was too violent and that they were doing something that was a little less extreme.

JANE: Well, Wayne Kramer is very dark, very extreme, which I personally like. But I know that Stallone is a bit more of a traditionalist. That doesn’t make it worse it just makes it different. Walter Hill for my money was the man to fulfill both. He can do great with character and he’s great with action. So he is the man…I hope they can still make a great film without me.

Collider: Is there any chance they could find another role in the film for you?

JANE: I doubt it. I’m kinda like the spurned lover…let ‘em go shoot themselves.

Collider: In the head?

JANE: No, I mean…shoot the film themselves. (laughter).

Jane’s Western:

“I’ve got a dream to do a big anamorphic, old John Ford style western. Everybody wants to do a deconstruction of a western. After Sergio Leone broke open the mold, that kind of became the mold, you know? So now the spaghetti western became the mold of the western. So, the question is, where do you go from there? I want to go back to the roots of the western and try to reconstruct a traditional western in a modern context, in a modern way. To bring all the values of what makes a western great into the modern world, which I haven’t seen yet. True Grit is a modern movie, but it’s not a new kind of western. This movie called Blueberry with Vincent Cassel, they tried to do a kind of surreal western which I thought was a really strong attempt at breaking…break open the western genre. I want to do something different. I want to go back to John Ford, back to anamorphic widescreen, monument valley, that western.”