The Emotional Actioner: Leon Chills and Joe Carnahan Talk ‘Shadow Force’

Action films have evolved over time and now not only showcase the latest technological advancements in special effects but also include more diverse casts. With Shadow Force, Leon Chills and Joe Carnahan have crafted an entertaining actioner with very attractive leads in Kerry Washington as Kyrah Owens and Omar Sy as Isaac Sarr. Leon says about writing Kyrah, “I didn't start out to write a ‘strong Black lead’ or a 'strong Black woman’. I just go off of what I’ve known my whole life. My mother, my big sister, my wife.” Writer/director Joe Carnahan says Omar Sy’s international appeal cannot be underestimated: “My daughters and I were at this famous restaurant in Paris and I told my girls, ‘Watch what happens when Omar comes in.’ This lovely waitress says, ‘Can I get you guys anything?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’m waiting for my friend. Oh, there he is.’ Omar walks in. She went from looking at me to looking at him, then looking back at me. She went, 'No!'” [laughs]

The action flicks of the 80s and 90s are the template for many that followed. Die Hard, Commando, Rambo. High-octane movies with signature leads. Who isn’t familiar with Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back”? These are the films that Leon and Joe were weaned on. They recently spoke with Script about working together on Shadow Force and their love for writing and film.

On Doing Shadow Force

Sonya Alexander: How did ‘Shadow Force’ come about?

Leon Chills: It was a script I wrote on spec. Seven years into my screenwriting journey. It was when I was just about to quit because nothing had happened yet. ‘Black Panther’ came out and restored all of my hope. I was feeling inspired that I could write something with Black leads and Black heroes, and that it could actually get made one day. Consciously, it was ‘write the movie you want to see,’ which is character-driven, emotional action with a love story as well. With a family component. After it sold to Lionsgate, Joe came in.

Sonya Alexander: When you’re writing something that has a child in it, how do you decide how much violence to incorporate?

Leon Chills: The funny thing is, I wrote it before I had any kids, and I feel like now that I have kids, I wouldn’t have been able to write it. I couldn’t write a script with a kid in danger. That was a part of the trick Joe did with directing it with that exact question in mind.

Joe Carnahan: Leon’s script was such a wonderful challenge for me because how do we do this? I’ve got four children of my own. The bank scene. That’s really hard to do, which is what made it so exciting. Where it worked…the little sleight of hand was no one ever thought we were being over the top. Leon’s scene in the bank directly influenced the way I shot that scene, which called for me to just stay with him the whole time.

Sonya Alexander: Wasn’t Sterling K. Brown originally supposed to star?

Joe Carnahan: He was indeed. And I think Sterling would have been dynamite, but Omar is perfect. He gives it an international flair.

Sonya Alexander: Joe, how do you decide what kind of angles and shots you’re going to use to keep your actioners inventive?

Joe Carnahan: It’s always tricky. Sometimes you take a subjective approach and you don’t show things. You deprive the audience of certain things. For me, watching the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan was a watershed moment. I think the opening sequence in Narc was directly influenced by that. It’s that old adage of giving the audience what they want in ways they least expect it. Anytime you can do that and subvert that a little bit, it’s always rewarding for an audience. You just have to give them a different way of looking at something.

Sonya Alexander: Guys, is there a difference in writing a female and a male protagonist in an actioner?

Leon Chills: Yeah, of course. We are not the same. (laughs) When I write a female or male character, I just let it be organic and not try to overthink it.

Sonya Alexander: How was this writing collaboration different from others you’ve had?

Joe Carnahan: For Leon and I, it was like we had these entities in between us. It’s not like we were jumping on the phone and talking. In the spirit of collaborative effort in this…Leon’s the author of this script. It’s like being the author of a book. It was like doing an adaptation of someone else’s work. I’m always of the mind, ‘I don’t want to let that guy down because that’s his original thoughts and notions.’ I look at it in the broader sense that you have to do distant collaborations like this. You want to make this guy happy.

Leon Chills: As a young screenwriter, I learned from reading what Joe did with the script because initially it was just like a two-hander and that was it. Joe added the Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Method Man characters. He characterized the villain more than I had. When you think about it practically, from a studio perspective, now they can go out to actors for those roles which help it get greenlit more than if it was just on the shoulders of two actors. I learned you can’t just focus on the heroes. You’ve got to give every single character that same kind of attention because you’re trying to attach actors who will help to get an actual greenlight.

Joe Carnahan: I actually wrote the Auntie part for Da’Vine specifically. I saw her in Craig Brewer’s film Dolemite Is My Name and I thought she was so incredible. Then you get her with Cliff, who was nervous. I was like, ‘Cliff, what are you nervous about? You’re Method Man!’ Like Leon said, there is a calculus to roles and that has to be satisfied.

On the Origins of Their Interest in Film

Sonya Alexander: How did both of you guys get interested in filmmaking and writing?

Leon Chills: When I was a kid, my parents divorced. The way I would spend time with my dad would be going to the movies. One hundred percent of the time, it would be to see action movies like these, with the Van Dammes and the Schwarzeneggers and the Stallones…in the 90s. That’s where my love for movies came from.

Joe Carnahan: Same thing for me. When I was a kid, I remember my mom taking me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think I was twelve. That was it for me. All I knew was, whatever that was, I wanted to do it.

Sonya Alexander: What was the last action film you guys saw that you enjoyed…that wasn’t your own?

Leon Chills: I was just watching this movie Kill. It’s on Hulu. I think it’s Bollywood. They’re on a train. It was really good.

Joe Carnahan: I gotta check that out, man. I haven’t seen anything recently. I think the best action film of the last ten years is Fury Road.

Leon Chills: Absolutely.

Joe Carnahan: I just thought Fury Road was so wildly inventive and great, so it always pops up for me as a recent one.

Sonya Alexander: What do you guys prefer to write? Heroes or villains?

Leon Chills: Heroes for me.

Joe Carnahan; Villains.

Sonya Alexander: Leon, you used to assist Reginald Hudlin. What did you learn from those experiences that inform you today?

Leon Chills: It was a crash course in Hollywood. I was only with him for two years but Reggie literally does everything. Writes, directs, produces movies. He produced Showtime at the Apollo. Scripted TV. NAACP Image Awards. All of that was within the two years that I was there. The biggest inspiration was working with a Black family in Hollywood that was normal…and loved each other. He’s been doing this for thirty years now and it inspired me. You always hear horror stories about people in Hollywood. It was nice to see firsthand that you can be a normal family and do what you love and everything can work out. I learned to hustle from him. Like I said, he’s been in the business for thirty years and he’d still wake up before I did.

Joe Carnahan: I think it’s that idea of being able to outwork the system around you. We're artists. We don’t age like athletes. We can keep going. There are wonderful creative opportunities. That hustle is its own motivation.

Leon Chills: Reggie never stops. Now I’m similar.

On Writing

Sonya Alexander: Joe, what attracts you to crime stories?

Joe Carnahan: I’m interested in the darker sides of human existence and psyche and why people do the things they do. I just did this movie RIP with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and we just tested it. It was great. It’s a very simple story. Five cops find $20 million in a wall in Miami and it’s like Crimson Tide…it might as well be in a submarine. It’s very contained. It’s based on a true story. I always find that stuff to be very fascinating. If you look at the movies we like, man, we love the bad guy. Scarface, Tony Soprano, The Godfather. But it’s the humanization of those people that gets us and lets us plug into a place that’s safe because we don’t have to do those things.

Sonya Alexander: Leon, you do comics, right?

Leon Chills: Yeah, all of the comics behind me I wrote with Reggie.

Sonya Alexander: How do you find the pacing of writing comics compared to writing screenplays?

Leon Chills: Comics are one of my favorite things to write. It is by far the least paying but the turnaround from writing it then seeing it come to life is so much faster than anything else. We write a script and send it to the artist, then maybe two to three weeks later you’re seeing pages…seeing your words actualized.

Sonya Alexander: What do you guys enjoy the most about writing?

Joe Carnahan: Go ahead Leon. You take that one.

Leon Chills: I think whether consciously or subconsciously, it allows you to work through stuff you’re going through in your life. I think that’s probably what I like most about it. It’s a form of therapy. Some people write in journals, but for us it’s scripts. Through these characters we’re working through something whether we know it or not. Hopefully, on the other end of it we’re able to move through our lives in a better way.

Joe Carnahan: I think I find it the same way. It's very meditative, very therapeutic. Writing is a lonely endeavor in the sense that you’re alone, but you’re mentally populated by all this great stuff. I’m not writing right now and I know how hard it is to get back into that zone. I wrote RIP in five weeks, the fastest I’ve ever written a screenplay. But when you step away from writing, it takes a process to get back in, and that process involves you really being by yourself with music you love. Even if I have to rent a place so I can have total quiet and wander around exploring…I adore that.

Lionsgate’s Shadow Force will be released in Theaters on May 9.