Satisfying ‘Detour’ with Tye Sheridan and Emory Cohen

dorriolds — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:31:36 +0000

One of Tribeca Film Festival’s highlights this year was “Detour,” a suspenseful neo-noir thriller deliciously saturated in drugs and alcohol. The central character, Harper (heartthrob Tye Sheridan) is stepson to alcoholic no-goodnik Vincent, played by Stephen Moyer of “True Blood.”

Harper blames the lying, cheating Vincent for putting his mom in a coma. While she lies in a hospital bed fighting for her life, Harper drowns his pain in alcohol. Wasted, he shoots his mouth off to the wrong dude: tattooed sociopath Johnny Ray, played by Emory Cohen (co-star of the Best Picture Oscar-winner, “Brooklyn”). Johnny Ray offers to whack Vincent for $20,000 dollars. In his drunken haze, Harper says yes to the violent thuggery. In the hungover and sobering light of day, Harper decides to back out. The problem is Johnny Ray won’t let Harper renege on their financial agreement and vows to go through with the murder.

Kudos to British writer and director Christopher Smith who gave us “Black Death, starring Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne. In “Detour,” Smith uses split-screen to go back and forth in time and it works. No easy feat. Smith also wrote the film’s screenplay and deserves much credit for his spot-on casting. In addition to Sheridan and Cohen, Smith cast Bel Powley (“Diary of a Teenager Girl”) as the femme fatale. She rocks it in this clever and engaging tale.

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Candid Interview with Rising Star Tye Sheridan

dorriolds — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 11:47:43 +0000

During Tribeca Film Festival, 2016, I interviewed “Detour” lead actor, Tye Sheridan. The 19-year-old heartthrob is a meteoric rising-star whose next role is the main character in Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One.”
Sheridan landed his first big break as Steve, the son to Brad Pitt’s character in Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life.” In 2012’s “Mud,” Sheridan starred as a neglected boy opposite Matthew McConaughey. In 2013, he played the son of an alcoholic in “Joe,” co-starring with Nicolas Cage.
In “Detour,” Sheridan plays young law student Harper, whose mom is in a coma. Grief stricken and furious with his step-father, Harper gets blotto drunk and shoots his mouth off to tough-guy Johnny Ray (Emory Cohen). Big mistake!

Dorri Olds: In “Detour,” “Joe” and “Mud,” you played troubled characters so convincingly. What do you draw on to summon up that kind of anguish?
Tye Sheridan: For the most part, in these films I’ve been working on, their material is right on the page. So you just read it and get into it. You just start to live and breathe it so it all just becomes and feels natural.
DO: So much appears in your eyes. Are you accessing your own emotion?
TS: Yeah, thank you.
DO: You’ve always seemed wise beyond your years. Have you had any obstacles in life?
TS: Obstacles? You mean roadblocks? Yeah, I couldn’t get into college so I had to have this film career. Now here I am, a fucking loser. [Grins]
DO: A lot of creative people are driven by pain or questions…
TS: I think [for me] it was criticism. I think it was people telling me my whole life that I couldn’t do something. I used that as fuel to propel me forward. I guess I just pursued my goals and I met the right people and they helped me get there. I’m still not there but I’m gradually taking steps in that direction.
DO: How old were you when you started acting?
TS: I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Texas. I don’t know if acting was ever something that crossed my mind so early. When I first started I was only 10- or 11-years-old so I hadn’t really had time to think about what it was I wanted to do for a career. But then it all kind of fell into my lap and I quickly, over the next few years, I really fell in love with it—the art of filmmaking. My passion started to grow rapidly and now it’s to a point where I have a deep respect for the industry and for the arts.
There is a sweetness about Sheridan and his dedication to the craft of acting came through in Tribeca Film Festival’s neo-noir thriller, “Detour.”

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Satisfying ‘Detour’ with Tye Sheridan and Emory Cohen

Candid Interview with Rising Star Tye Sheridan