David Fincher wants “The Killer” to make you nervous — specifically, the next time you’re shopping at Home Depot.
Fincher spoke at length about the action thriller at its Venice Film Festival press conference on Sunday, going into detail about how he developed its lead character, a calm and calculated assassin played by Michael Fassbender.
“Sympathy was the last thing on my mind as it relates to this character,” Fincher said. “He didn’t need to be frightening. You know, the banality of evil. My hope is that someone will see this film and get very nervous about the person behind them in line at Home Depot.”
Viewers are invited inside the mind of Fassbender’s character, who goes by simply The Killer, in the film. He does yoga, eats McGriddles without the bun and listens to the Smiths as he prepares to shoot his targets.
On choosing the Smiths as the soundtrack for the Killer’s escapades, Fincher said: “I knew I wanted to use ‘How Soon Is Now’ and I loved the idea of that song specifically as a tool for assuaging his anxieties. I liked it as a meditation tape, I thought it was amusing and funny. And I don’t think there’s a library of music by a recording artist that has as much sardonic nature and wit simultaneously. We don’t get an awful lot of access to who this guy is, and I thought through his mixtape, it would be amusing that that would be our window into him.”
The “Fight Club” and “Gone Girl” director also gave his thoughts on the ongoing actors and writers strikes, saying that he “can understand both sides.”
“I don’t know what it says about the industry. I’m very sad, obviously I sit in the middle of both parties,” he said. “This movie was made during the pandemic and I never want to make a movie with a visor again, but having said that, [we] just got done with three years of having to set our brushes down and walk away — the idea of that continuing on, especially now, is very sad to me. I can understand both sides, and I think all we can do is encourage them to talk.”
