Theo James had previously worked with Osgood Perkins on a horror series that didn’t achieve liftoff, but their collaboration ended up bearing fruit anyway in the form of The Monkey.
James plays the dual twin role of Hal and Bill Shelburn in Perkins’ follow-up to Longlegs, and when he first received the writer-director’s adaptation of Stephen King’s homonymous short story, he found himself laughing to a point where he was unsure if The Monkey’s tone was intentional or not. After all, he knew Perkins’ body of work from their previous go-round together, and comedy wasn’t at the forefront of his films despite a well regarded sense of humor in real life.
“I got sent the script, and I loved it. But it was really funny, and I was slightly confused. I wasn’t ready for that because the bank of [Perkins’] work hadn’t been as such,” James tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of The Monkey’s Feb. 21 theatrical release. “So I called him and said, ‘It’s great, man, but it’s really funny. Am I getting it in that sense?’ And he said, ‘Yes, of course. If you’re going to do a story about a toy monkey, you’ve got to have a bit of levity to it.’”
Beginning in 1999, Perkins’ The Monkey establishes young actor Christian Convery’s adolescent take on the identical twins, Hal and Bill, as they discover a toy monkey that their absent father had left behind in a closet. A wave of death soon follows within their inner circle, leading them to ditch the deadly toy in a well. After a 25-year time jump, James’ incarnation of the twins enters into the story, reintroducing Hal as a lonely clerk who’s essentially given up custody of his son out of fear that his family’s monkey-related curse will come for him as well.
Meanwhile, he and Bill are estranged, as the latter has basically become a one-man cult for the long-lost monkey that destroyed his family’s life. James is now opening up about some additional details that didn’t make the cut in Bill’s case.
“Originally, there was more in the script of Bill’s odyssey. You saw that he was dishonorably discharged from the Army, and then he took this Taxi Driver deep dive into his own loneliness in a way,” James recalls. “You didn’t see it all in the film, but he fashions this kind of supervillain suit. There’s also a gender fluidity to him. There were scenes where he was wearing halter stockings and belly tops.”
James has admirably reinvented himself the last five years to where he’s no longer described, first and foremost, as the co-lead of the unfinished Divergent film franchise. Instead, he’s now the Emmy-nominated star of The White Lotus season two, as well as the lead of Guy Ritchie’s Emmy-winning The Gentlemen TV series. James believes that his career upswing is a byproduct of not only making more character-driven stories, but also the confidence he’s gained from the likes of Ritchie, Perkins and White Lotus creator Mike White.
“When I started as a young actor, I fell into things. Some of them were good opportunities, and some were not so good,” James says in retrospect. “I wasn’t particularly fulfilled by, and maybe not particularly good at, large green-screen material where I wasn’t sure of an A and a B in terms of a character’s journey. And, in some of those films, you can get a little bit lost.”
As for The Gentlemen, the hit Netflix series begins filming season two in the spring, but James makes it clear that he and Ritchie aren’t resting on their laurels.
“We start season two of The Gentlemen [in the spring], which is bigger and darker than season one. I really wanted to — and so did Brian Davids Guy [Ritchie] — make sure that we evolve the show, and that is the intention,” James says. “As fun as the first season was, if you do the exact same thing again, it may not be as fun, essentially.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, James also addresses his theory about whether the toy monkey actually exists or not in The Monkey, before sharing his excitement for The White Lotus season three.
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Before The Monkey, you had a brush with Oz Perkins for a series that didn’t go?
Yeah, during lockdown, a producer friend and I were putting together this great piece of IP that was actually based on a true story. It was a kind of horror story set in the north of England. And we loved Oz’s work. I’d watched a bunch of his stuff. I loved The Blackcoat’s Daughter. So we had a nice coffee and flirted with each other and kissed each other’s cheeks. Then, we started working together, and we pitched this thing. It didn’t come to full fruition, but it was a great beginning of a relationship.
I then heard that he was doing a Stephen King short story, “The Monkey,” and I thought it was a total no-brainer. Oz is not only a funny, nice guy, and we have a connection in that way, but he’s also a really interesting storyteller. So I got sent the script, and I loved it. But it was really funny, and I was slightly confused. I wasn’t ready for that because the bank of his work hadn’t been as such. So I called him and said, “It’s great, man, but it’s really funny. Am I getting it in that sense?” And he said, “Yes, of course. If you’re going to do a story about a toy monkey, you’ve got to have a bit of levity to it.” And it went from there.
Oz read King’s short story just once during this process and never returned to it. Did you also read it once before prioritizing Oz’s script above all?
Yes, in truth, I read Oz’s script, and then I read the short story once and didn’t read it again. They’re quite different. I’d obviously known Stephen King’s work. He’s completely seminal, and I’ve read many, many of his books and watched many of the adaptations that have happened over time. But what was useful for me, mainly in his short story, was tone. Stephen King is a master [of tone-setting]. In terms of “The Monkey,” he sets a tone — one of nostalgia, one of melancholy and one of intergenerational trauma — about a broken relationship between a family, to sound portentous about it. And beyond that, there’s a kind of simmering dread, but it still has a slight lightness of touch.
Then, when Oz and I started talking about it, he started referencing what he wanted the touchpoints for the movie to be, and they have remained that throughout the film. They are Zemeckis [Death Becomes Her] and Gremlins. We also referenced ‘80s Tom Hanks for Hal, the kind of beleaguered everyman, but with a sardonic wit. And the great thing about working with someone who’s confident in the tone that they’re portraying is that it gives you confidence. As an actor, you can embrace the world and try to take big swings and also not be too precious about what you’re doing.
Stephen King has raved about the film. Forgive the pun, but was that a big monkey off your back considering his famous reaction to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining?
Yeah, and he’s had a few reactions like [The Shining], which I understand. A lot of his material is getting adapted, so it’s not like he can physically be a part of every one. But it’s great to hear, as Oz and I are such fans of his work. Oz was telling me that he met Stephen King the other day, and Stephen King seemed to be a big fan of his and a big fan of the movie. So that was just a big joy and revelation for him. But in terms of that kind of pressure, I didn’t feel it myself because I felt that Oz had such a handle on the material and a very specific angle, a very Perkins-y angle to it.
Hal is faced with quite the conundrum. If he is present in his son’s life, he puts him in harm’s way due to the Shelburn family curse. But by being absent, he’s also inflicting immense damage on him. So were you more forgiving of him when compared to a typical absent father?
Yes, he’s inherently a sympathetic person. You try to find elements of him, and even with Bill, that you empathize with and understand. You try to look for kernels of yourself within each character. Also, as a young father of young kids … (James decides to walk back and mock his description of himself as a “young father.”) “I’m so young and nubile!” But having young kids, you are constantly concerned about the imprint that you are going to accidentally put on your children and how parental guidance guides the evolution of everyone. As much as we like to think that we’re strong and independent, a lot of it comes from what happens to us as children and how that evolves and shapes you as an adult.
But I certainly found Hal sympathetic because he’s, in a way, the moral center of the film. He’s someone who has sacrificed himself and the love for his child. He has no friends. He’s completely isolated from society. He doesn’t want to bring trauma to them, and that’s both literal and figurative. When Oz and I had our first proper chat during pre-production in Vancouver, he was talking about the esoteric monkey on the back. This sounds a bit pretentious because it’s still a fun comedy, but behind it, you have to have a backbone. So the idea was that a piece of history or a piece of trauma follows you through life, and Hal represents someone trying to deal with that in a moral way. But Bill represents someone who’s completely scared of death and his past, and he’s looking for immortality through this maniacal toy monkey.
Hal was always bullied by his slightly older twin brother, Bill. You have four older siblings yourself, so did you channel plenty of your own childhood torment into Hal?
(Laughs.) You draw on your own history, certainly. I have brothers, I have sisters. One of my sisters actually has identical twin girls who are 10 now. I’m very close to them. I’ve watched them grow up since they were babies, so that was a great touchpoint for me. They are totally identical, and while I’ve seen them evolve and change into very different people, they are connected in a fundamental way, which, perhaps, normal siblings are not. There’s a synchronicity there, which is fascinating.
So, in trying to play two twin brothers who are so opposed, there’s still some semblance of love beneath it all. With Bill, I always saw it as a kind of Oedipal thing. He came out of the womb first, and he doesn’t want to share the love of his mother with anyone. So he begrudges his brother for existing, and as a result, he’s filled with insecurity and this feeling that he didn’t get enough love or should have more love. That translates into fear. A prevalent thing in society now is a child is trapped in a man’s body. A man-boy. It’s someone who isn’t able to evolve into a fully fledged adult because they’re stuck. They’re being pulled by some piece of history in their past.
How committed are you to this theory that there is no actual monkey and that it’s just a shared delusion among the Shelburn family?
I like it as a conceit. It’s an interesting concept to touch on, but the reality is that we’ve made a fun movie. It’s supposed to be enjoyed with your friends or in an audience, so you can laugh and be shocked by it. And to completely buy into that concept, it becomes a little too existential, perhaps. The fun of [the monkey] is that it’s representative. Oz says it well. He wanted to create a totem, an icon that is Buddha-like and sits there for you to impress all your judgments or fears upon it. That’s why horror movies often have these inanimate emblems that are so terrifying. There’s total stillness and blankness there, and it’s human nature to project everything onto them only to have it projected back on ourselves. So we animate the inanimate object in a way, and that’s a fascinating human conundrum.
What was the conversation around Bill’s mullet or whatever we’re calling that cut?
I always liked the idea that he had a mullet. There’s something a bit slimy and a bit dirty about a kind of rat’s tail. Originally, there was more in the script of Bill’s odyssey. We had this period in the movie where you saw a bit of his backstory. You saw that he was dishonorably discharged from the Army, and then he took this Taxi Driver deep dive into his own loneliness in a way. So that didn’t survive, but the rat’s tail is emblematic of that.
He’s an interesting one, and the costume design was really great. Again, because of the way the cookie crumbles, you didn’t see it all in the film, but he fashions this kind of supervillain suit. There’s also a gender fluidity to him. There were scenes where he was wearing halter stockings and belly tops. There’s a weird reverence and lust/worship that he has for this monkey, and the idea that it ties in with a weird psychosexual thing was always interesting to me.
Overall, it seems like the best work of your career has come in the last handful of years. Archive, to me, was the start of it all.
Thanks, man.
What do you attribute this larger pattern to?
It’s hard to judge your own self in a way. When I started as a young actor, I fell into things. Some of them were good opportunities, and some were not so good. I wasn’t particularly fulfilled by, and maybe not particularly good at, large green-screen material where I wasn’t sure of an A and a B in terms of a character’s journey. I feel like I need to have that. It’s been said, “The key is to know where you’re coming from and where you’re going.” And, in some of those films, you can get a little bit lost.
Coupled with the fact that with age — and the peaks and troughs that will continue to happen in one’s career, because that is the nature of the business — you start to care a little bit less. You start to be a little less precious, and with that comes the ability to take more risks. When you work with people like Oz, Mike White and Gavin [Rothery] on Archive, you feel confident to take bigger swings. Some of it doesn’t work, but in the ability to care less and let go a bit more, you find more interesting work, hopefully.
Some actors resist watching things that connect to their previous work. For example, quite a few Game of Thrones actors are abstaining from watching House of the Dragon. So are you going to watch The White Lotus season three?
A hundred percent. I will definitely be watching that. I’m excited by it. Mike [White] is honestly a seminal director and writer in that space, and I have no doubt that it will be as excellent, if not better [than season two]. And I revel in that idea. I love seeing people create excellent work, and we should all celebrate that he’s able to do that, because, as we know, the industry is contracting. It’s harder to have big hits. It’s harder to have things that connect with audiences, so we should celebrate and support each other. It’s the nature of the business that there’s some element of competitivity, but when there’s good work, you need to embrace it and celebrate it.
Is The Gentlemen season two off and running yet?
We are starting that in the spring. I’m going to Korea now to work with a really interesting director called Kim Jee-woon on an adaptation of a Korean novel [The Hole], which I’m really excited about. Then, we start season two of The Gentlemen, which is bigger and darker than season one. I really wanted to — and so did Brian Davids Guy [Ritchie] — make sure that we evolve the show, and that is the intention. As fun as the first season was, if you do the exact same thing again, it may not be as fun, essentially. (Laughs.) You want to be able to dive a little bit deeper in terms of character. It’s still a comedy and it’s still fun, but you need to layer it with more depth.
That approach is not unlike The Monkey.
That’s also what I love about The Monkey. It’s bombastic and wild, with shocking deaths and a lot of blood, but when I was first reading the script on the set of The Gentlemen’s first season, what I loved originally was beneath it. There are some really interesting philosophical themes, and while it again sounds portentous, Oz is good at that. He’s a thoughtful person who’s had a complex life, and those people are often the ones who can contribute most.
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The Monkey is now playing in movie theaters.
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