childhood, bad memories, good memories, telling
him things,” says Rapace, who loved it. “It works
really well with the way I work. I always try to
face myself and use myself. Even in a character
like Leilah, who has a lot of darkness and
violence in her, I can still find myself in it. When
I was younger I had a lot of very explosive
energy in me. There have been moments where
I’ve been furious and angry, you just want to
destroy. When you feel misunderstood, and are
just like, ‘Raaaarrghhh! Kill everything that’s
against me!’ I had to go back into that place
when I just wanted to set the world on fire. David
really wanted us all to go in and dig deep.”
“It’s Stella Adler, Meisner, standard acting
technique,” says Ayer, downplaying it. “The
actor’s instrument is their soul and their
experience, so the more I understand of what’s
inside of them, the more I can help them with
their performance.” For Fry’s final audition Ayer
got her “to do an exorcism on Will Smith,” she
says. “Just to see how I responded and what
I could do. Will just went with it.”
Smith is used to it — he seems perfectly in
sync with Ayer. They got to know each other
well onSuicide Squad, and have a shorthand,
says Ayer. “I love David Ayer,” says Smith. “I’ve
worked with a lot of filmmakers and there are
a handful that really get me. Michael Mann
[Ali] just understands me. Gabriele Muccino
[Seven Pounds] really gets me. And David Ayer
is in that family of filmmakers for me where
you completely let go and trust somebody.
I love how David’s mind works. Or doesn’t
work, in some cases.” He laughs. “That
beautiful confusion.”“I HAVE LIVED A LIFE,” SAYS AYER, WHO
spent his teenage years in South Central LA.
“I’ve seen a lot of things that filmmakers in my
position haven’t seen, haven’t lived. I’ve been in
the military, I’ve seen the street-life, I’ve been in
that mix. It gives you perspective, and it gives you
guidance on how to make things real.”
For physical authenticity, Ayer told Netflix
he wanted to shootBright’s location work on
those LA streets. Producers Bryan Unkeless and
Eric Newman tellEmpirethat Ayer found the
most disgusting places he could, zeroing in on
the grime. “The dirtier and nastier the location,
the happier he is,” says Unkeless. “We’ve been
shooting in the basement of the Olympic hotel,
which is not a place that I recommend staying.”
“Unless you like heroin,” says Newman.
“It’s the faces, the people, the look,” Ayer
says of his decision to film here. “By being in the
mix, you feel Will as a cop on the street, and by
treating the world around the fantasy elements in
such a realistic manner, you believe very fast that
Joel is an orc.” If somebody had told him
a few years ago that he’d be making films about
orcs and elves, would he have been surprised?
“Yes,” he laughs. “Yeah, I really would have. But
there’s something so satisfying about creating
a world. Because this is a quote-unquotefantasyAlongside Smith is Edgerton, in full green
orc get-up. Lucy Fry, playing injured elf Tikka,
practically hangs off Edgerton’s shoulder as
they creep about, anticipating an attack. Fry
screams: “They’re coming! Shoot them!” Smith
blasts all hell out of a wall, the rat-a-tat-tat
even louder than before. “For the love of Christ,”
says the crew guy.
Ayer’s happy with the take, and Smith and
Edgerton join Empire for a sitdown. It’s surreal,
chewing the cud with an orc. Edgerton has an
itch on his face, but due to the make-up, can’t
quite scratch it; Smith helps him, which is exactly
as sweet as you can imagine. “I just love how
bizarre the film is,” says Smith of Bright. “It’s like
Training Day, a down-and-dirty, hardcore
rated-R cop drama, meets Lord Of The Rings.
We got some mean-ass elves in this movie.”
The pair talk about the dojo training Ayer
put them through. “I loved it,” says Edgerton.
“Well, he’s a frickin’ black belt,” says Smith.
Edgerton doesn’t take the bait, responding
modestly that, nevertheless, he hasn’t put his
skills to good use since making 2011 MMA
drama Warrior in 2011. “That stuff is all about
building a bit of trust and camaraderie,” he says
of the work. “Yeah, once you kick somebody in
their face you become buddies,” laughs Smith.
Ayer, the Navy veteran who today on set is
wearing a US Submarine Service baseball cap,
chimes in: “It’s just to harden them up. I’ve
always said, you wanna know what someone’s
made of, punch them in the face. You learn a lot
about their personality very fast.”
Before filming began, Ayer also sent Smith
and Edgerton out with the LAPD on nightly
ride-alongs, to soak up the ambience and
experience real tension on the streets. “It was
really interesting seeing white police officers in
central Los Angeles, watching them interacting
with African-Americans and Mexicans,” says
Smith. “It was a really powerful way to get my
head around this character, to be thinking
about it from the LAPD side.”
Edgerton remembers a particularly tense
moment. “One night we pulled up to a gated
apartment complex and a handful of guys in
a gang were standing around. The moment the
cop car breached the gate, one of these guys
went running. The cops chased him, and Will
and I were just sitting alone in the back of the
black-and-white, with 12 gang members standing
around wondering who we were. It suddenly felt
really surreal and vulnerable.”
The object of these ride-alongs was
authenticity. All of the actors have stories of how
far Ayer went to pull things out of them, to find
reality. In the weeks before the cameras rolled,
he’d sit down with them all, psychologically
probing them, getting them to open up as
a fast-track to building mutual trust but also,
says Fry, so that he could later use the
information as “triggers” on set.
The first time Noomi Rapace met Fry was at
these sessions. “We were sitting together and
she was opening up about her whole life, her
In Bright’s classist
society, orcs are
at the bottom
of the ladder.LAPD blue.