The one character John C Reilly would “scratch the eyes out of anyone” to play
There are some actors that you can’t really imagine in certain scenarios. Jason Statham doing a live-action Disney musical, for instance. Or Hugh Grant being in space in a movie for whatever reason. Another is John C Reilly doing anything involving serious violence, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got it in him.
Thanks to his work with Will Ferrell in the still ridiculously funny Step Brothers (Boats ‘n’ Hoes!), the still ridiculously funny Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and the absolute car crash that is Holmes and Watson, Reilly is basically a staple of a certain kind of comedy movie, a kind of squishy-faced-dog actor with a strange voice that specialises in films that 90% of the time will make you laugh.
But to give him his due, that hasn’t actually always been the case. Because, as a Broadway-trained stage actor, he can indeed do more ‘serious’ stuff, and in terms of a track record working with directors, there actually aren’t too many to match him. Has he worked with Martin Scorsese?
Yep, on Gangs of New York and The Aviator. Paul Thomas Anderson? Again, yes, on four movies, including Boogie Nights and Magnolia. You’ll also find Brian De Palma on Reilly’s CV, plus Terrence Malick and Yorgos Lanthimos, too. It’s a resumé that most ‘proper’ actors would kill for.
And, as we mentioned earlier, he has worked with Britain’s own Guy Ritchie too, on that 2018 Sherlock Holmes ‘comedy’ that was a bad idea in principle and somehow even worse in practice, with Ferrell and Reilly conspiring to make one of the worst films of all time, a movie that countless people walked out of and that actually did considerable damage to the reputation of both the lead actors, even if Ritchie escaped relatively unscathed.
It could be argued that Ferrell hasn’t really recovered since his whole brand of comedy now seems incredibly tired, and the trailer for his upcoming Netflix golf comedy is almost unwatchable. Reilly at least has a few more strings to his bow, one of which is music, and that has also been a theme throughout his career. Aside from starring in several videos for artists like Fiona Apple and the Beastie Boys and recording songs with Jack White, Reilly also made an appearance in the Oscar-winning musical Chicago in 2002 opposite Richard Gere.
And in 2007, he played the lead in the spot-on Johnny Cash parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which is well worth another watch, especially given the amount of cookie-cutter music biopics we’ve been forced to sit through recently. But one role Reilly did miss out on was a mooted movie version of the musical Guys and Dolls, which back in 2010 was in the works with Ritchie to direct.
One character in particular from the show about New York gangsters and gamblers, which premiered on Broadway back in 1950, stands out for Reilly, who said quite threateningly at the time, “I will scratch the eyes out of anyone who tries to get between me and Nathan Detroit, I swear to God! That movie is like the holy grail. I would love to do it… I guess the rights are somewhat complicated, from what I heard, but, boy, that would be a great one to do.”
Indeed, that proved to be the case, because Ritchie passed on the project, and the 1955 original movie starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra remains the most recent big-screen adaptation. Reilly has plenty to keep him busy, though. He has two thrillers on the way in the next year, including How to Rob a Bank with Nicholas Hoult and Pete Davidson, about a group of bank robbers posting their heists on social media.
