Chris Pine and Ben Foster weren’t actually looking for a follow-up to their critically acclaimed film Hell or High Water (2016), but when The Contractor came Pine’s way, he knew that Foster could elevate an integral supporting role. In Tarik Saleh’s action thriller, Pine plays James Harper, a Special Forces Medical Sergeant, who’s been honorably discharged without benefits. So he has to “go private” to support his family, and Foster plays Mike, the best friend and former superior of Harper, who introduces him to the world of private contracting. And even though Foster was tied up at the time, Pine refused to take no for an answer.
“[Hell or High Water] was such a special experience, and I don’t think any of us wanted to tamper with it,” Pine tells The Hollywood Reporter. “For me, at least, I’d be very proud of my filmography if [Hell or High Water] was it for me as an actor. So it didn’t look like [The Contractor] was going to work out, but I basically pleaded with Ben to make it work. And for what is on the page — which is probably not as expansive or interesting a part as what he played in Hell or High Water — Ben was able to … expand it and unpack it so it becomes something really thriving and three-dimensional.”
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Two-plus years ago, Quentin Tarantino appeared on The Ringer‘s The Rewatchables podcast in celebration of Tony Scott’s final film, Unstoppable, starring Pine and Denzel Washington. During the 90-minute episode, Tarantino proclaimed himself to be Pine’s biggest fan, but as it turns out, Tarantino’s appreciation for Pine goes back a couple of generations.
“Of course, I’m extremely flattered. Just on a personal level, I used to take my mom [Gwynne Gilford] to the Academy Awards, and we’d always go to the Vanity Fair party, where we’d run into Quentin,” Pine recalls. “And every time we ran into Quentin, he was so lovely with my mother and spoke with her about her mom [Anne Gwynne], who was an actress. And he, of course, knew everything about my grandmother. And then in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he had one of my grandmother’s B movies [1958’s Teenage Monster] on the television screen that [the Manson family is watching] in Bruce Dern’s scene. So he’s a gem, man. I’m very, very grateful and kind of blown away that he thinks so highly of me. It feels nice.”
In a recent conversation with THR, Pine also discusses the important issues that The Contractor raises regarding the mental health and reintegration of American service members. Then he expresses his desire to keep working with Foster after three films together.
Your character is a career soldier who’s been chewed up and spit out, so he has to become a private contractor to make ends meet. Are there more James Harpers than we might realize? Is this story far more common than it should be?
I’d be remiss if I started speaking about stuff that I don’t really know enough about, but from the statistics and the investigations or the conversations I’ve had, there’s some figure that there are more self-inflicted gunshot wounds than there are deaths in theater [warfare] — at least there was at the time when we were shooting — which I think says a lot about the state of mental health with our service members. [According to Thomas Suitt in June 2021, as part of Brown University’s Cost of War Project, an estimated 7,057 service members have died during military operations since 9/11, while suicides have quadrupled (30,177) among active-duty personnel and veterans of those actions.] There’s a wonderful book by Karl Marlantes called What It is Like to Go to War. Karl is a Vietnam veteran, and he speaks so eloquently about death and violence and killing and being shot at. He also speaks eloquently about this idea that up until the “Jet Age,” World War II maybe being the last, these warriors, after they had gone and battled, were put on a ship back home, which took a long time to get back home. It’d take a month. That’s a month with your comrades to decompress and process what you’d been through. But [now], there doesn’t seem to be much communal psychosocial activity to reintegrate people — people who have been taught to kill, maim and be violent — back into a society which absolutely abhors that and does not allow that. So I think that is something that should be looked at.
Hell or High Water is a stone-cold masterpiece, and it was actually the second time that you and Ben Foster have worked together. [2016’s The Finest Hours was their first collaboration.] Once Hell or High Water received near-universal acclaim, how quickly did the two of you start looking for what would become this project?
I don’t think we actively looked, but we’re always in our peripherals if there’s something that pops up. [Hell or High Water] was such a special experience, and I don’t think any of us wanted to tamper with it. We just wanted to let it lay. For me, at least, I’d be very proud of my filmography if [Hell or High Water] was it for me as an actor. But this situation [The Contractor] came up, and we didn’t have much time or money. Ben was also busy. So it didn’t look like it was going to work out, but I basically pleaded with Ben to make it work. And for what is on the page — which is probably not as expansive or interesting a part as what he played in Hell or High Water — Ben was able to get in there and interrogate it and investigate it and pick it apart and expand it and unpack it so it becomes something really thriving and three-dimensional.
Do you think you’ll keep your Newman/Redford, Lemon/Matthau-type partnership going?
(Laughs.) Yeah, I would love to! I mean, we always talk about it. I’m here for him and I hope he’s here for me. In this business, you hold these relationships that you can forge close to your heart, whether it’s myself and Patty [Jenkins] or me and Gal [Gadot] or me and Ben, or any time you find a connection that deep. You want to nurture it, so I certainly hope so.
A couple years ago, Quentin Tarantino reminded us all of how awesome Tony Scott’s Unstoppable is, and during this podcast appearance, he made it clear that he’s your biggest fan. So to ask the obvious, has his support been as surreal as one might expect?
(Laughs.) Reading that was pretty wonderful. Of course, I’m extremely flattered. Just on a personal level, I used to take my mom [Gwynne Gilford] to the Academy Awards, and we’d always go to the Vanity Fair party, where we’d run into Quentin. And every time we ran into Quentin, he was so lovely with my mother and spoke with her about her mom [Anne Gwynne], who was an actress. And he, of course, knew everything about my grandmother. And then in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he had one of my grandmother’s B movies [1958’s Teenage Monster] on the television screen that [the Manson family is watching] in Bruce Dern’s scene. So he’s a gem, man. I’m very, very grateful and kind of blown away that he thinks so highly of me. It feels nice.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Contractor opens April 1 in theaters, on digital and on demand.
