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Ultraviolent and wacky was the plan from the start for Boy Kills World, as cast tells us

Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Sharlto Copley chat acting within the realms of a weird world with Boy Kills World

Cropped poster for Boy Kills World — Image credit: Lionsgate

Features by Tiffany Babb, Contributing writer

Published on Fri Apr 12 2024

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Boy Kills World is a new stylized hyperviolent action movie coming from director Moritz Mohr and producer Sam Raimi. If you've seen the trailer, you'll get that this isn't your typical grounded, realistic action picture. But how do all the parts - costume, set design, music, and acting - come together to make one unified film? We can't speak for the movie's design or writing, but we did get the chance to talk to some of the actors from the film about how they adjusted their performances to fit the wacky world of Boy Kills World.

Brett Gelman, best known for his roles in Stranger Things and Fleabag, plays Gideon van der Koy in the film. He told Popverse, "I think for me it's a big world and just the reality of it was sort of cartoonish, so it definitely created a more theatricalized performance than I would do in certain other things. It's always a matter of... you're coming from the same point of truth, but then externally what do you do to live in the world that the directors are creating."

Isaiah Mustafa, the star of the classic 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' Old Spice commercials had a different approach to his role, especially considering how his character fits into the overall script. Mustafa said, "I think with my character there was a joke that was already embedded in there, so I just had to play it as straight as possible and then let the joke be the joke without trying to nail it." Since the joke is a bit of a spoiler, I asked him if it was difficult to promote the film without being able to talk about the central aspect of his character. Mustafa joked "It's been a rough day."

As for Sharlto Copley, who plays Glen van der Koy, there wasn't much adjusting to the movie's tone at all. Copley told us, "I'm very much in the wheelhouse of this kind of tone with other stuff that I've done. I think that's why they came to me. Moritz had seen some of the stuff that I had done before, ad he's like - 'Kind of like what you did in Hardcore Henry' which is a similar kind of tone. It's a very comfortable space for me to be in."

Boy Kills World hits theaters April 26. Buy tickets on Fandango or Atom Tickets.

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