Frank Darabont discusses ‘Mob City’ and casting ‘Walking Dead’ star Jon Bernthal
Frank Darabont is back after being one of the key masterminds behind the launch of AMC’s The Walking Dead.
Joining the Shawshank Redemption director is TWD star Jon Bernthal and Darabont discussed the casting decision during a conference call with press.
“When I first started working with Jon some years ago, the first time I worked with him I had the thought in my head, ‘If I ever get to do a noir project I’m going to want him to play my noir hero; I’m going to want him to play my lead’ because he’s got that very period feel to me,” Darabont said.
More specifically Bernthal’s persona is what makes him appealing for this role.
“He doesn’t come off as a contemporary guy, plus he’s got this tremendously quiet masculinity; it’s not forced, it’s not showboat-y, but he’s got a very testosterone-y kind of masculinity that’s quiet and it’s genuine and it feels like a throwback to Robert Mitchum and John Garfield, an earlier era of men who came up in tougher circumstances during the Great Depression and fought in those wars and just had to go through life as best they could withoug making a big deal of it. It’s just such a throwback aspect–he so reminds me of those guys and those generations. For me, it was just a self-evident marriage of a certain kind of story I wanted to tell and this actor who would be so perfect to tell that story.”
Mob City centers on the real-life conflict between Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker and the criminal forces of gangster Mickey Cohen in the 1940s.
Bernthal plays Joe Teague, a Marine turned police officer caught in the conflict between Parker and Cohen.
Mob City arrives on December 4, 2013 airing on TNT.
