‘Novocaine’: Jack Quaid has his action hero moment with new movie
Jack Quaid stars as an action hero who can’t feel pain in the action comedy “Novocaine,” also starring Amber Midthunder.
Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid might have been his mom and dad, yet for Jack Quaid, Bruce Willis was the man.
Kid Quaid grew up a huge action-movie fan, renting “Die Hard” as well as other hard-hitting hits like “Lethal Weapon” at the local Blockbuster. It’s carried over into his adult life, where he had “a religious experience” watching “John Wick: Chapter 4” (“Keanu Reeves deserves an Academy Award for his stunt work,” he says emphatically) and routinely is in peril as a member of TV’s “The Boys.”
His latest movie “Novocaine” (in theaters Friday) gives Quaid, 32, a chance to put a signature spin on an archetype: a reluctant hero who can’t feel pain. When assistant bank manager Nathan Caine witnesses his crush Sherry (Amber Midthunder) get kidnapped during a robbery, the very unprepared Nate gets punched, kicked, fried, stabbed, shot and impaled trying to rescue his love.
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Because of Nate’s rare genetic condition, “he’s a balloon in a world of pins. He has to live this very safe, controlled life,” Quaid says. But the movie is ultimately about “a guy discovering the world for the first time.”
While “Novocaine” puts Quaid in the stratosphere of big-screen action star, he’s also got the fifth and final season of Amazon’s “Boys” in production and action comedy “Heads of State” coming later this year. (He calls it “a movie I would watch with my friends at a sleepover in middle school.”) Quaid talks with USA TODAY about bad pain, worse nicknames and why villainy sometimes suits him.
(Edited and condensed for clarity.)
Question: Why was “Novocaine” the best fit for your first big star vehicle?
Jack Quaid: I don’t think I’m someone that you would look at and be like, “Oh, that guy kicks so much ass. He could take me in a fight.” But it’s not about how much ass I can kick, it’s how much my ass can get kicked. And I just love that the movie, yes, is very gory and extreme and violent, but also has a lot of heart to it.
Was it tricky filming fight scenes but not showing pain?
When I first started doing fight scenes back in “The Hunger Games” days, they would tell me if you get hit, you really need to sell that pain because it makes the punch look way better. That was a really hard thing to unlearn.
The moment it really clicked for me was I started thinking about Buster Keaton. He was known as “The Great Stone Face,” and his whole schtick was there was so much insanity happening around him, and he would not react. The second I clued into, oh, I can use this for comedy, that really helped.
What’s the worst physical pain you’ve ever felt? Extra points if it was on a film set.
Well, I’m going to get those extra points! It was a freak accident. I had to run down one narrow hallway and make a sharp right turn, and then go down another narrow hallway. I had to grab onto this pillar to swing myself around. On the eighth time when I grabbed the pillar, it came off the wall. My momentum took me into the camera dolly, and I bruised a rib. Everyone was kind of nervously clapping, and I’m just holding my ribs. There’s no cast for a rib. You just have to wait that out. That was bad for weeks.
“Novocaine” utilizes romantic comedy and action. You’re a longtime action guy – what movie made you a romance fan?
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is like the entire spectrum of what romance can be. It’s a very sad movie, but also kind of uplifting, depending on how you look at it. It’s less rom-com and more just like hard rom.
“Novocaine” is Nate’s middle-school nickname. What was yours?
I wasn’t too proud of it. I was in eighth grade, so of course all the middle-school boys called me “Jackoff,” just to get under my skin. But I will say Karl Urban on “The Boys” gave me my favorite nickname I’ve ever had, which is “Quaido.” It just makes me sound like a smuggler in the “Star Wars” universe, and I’m all about it.
Have you wrapped your head emotionally around “The Boys” coming to an end?
I know I’m just going to cry like a baby when it’s all over. Before this, I had never been on a show that lasted more than one season, so a lot of firsts were on the show. I’m just eternally grateful to everything the show’s done for me.
Between Nate and Hughie (on “The Boys”), you’ve got good guys down. The recent horror movie “Companion,” plus “Hunger Games” and “Scream,” show you can be a good villain, too. Do you have a preference?
(Beware: This answer is a little spoilery!)
The fun in the villain is you’re unburdened by the idea of likability. You don’t have to get the audience on your side. I remember going to the premiere of “Companion” and people were cheering when I died. And I was like, “Yes!” I’ve never been happier to have an entire crowd cheer for my death because I knew that I was doing my job.
But there’s something so fun about being a hero, too. Especially someone like Nate, who is more complicated than your average nervous action hero. The movie’s so violent, I need to make him this sweetie pie. He can’t be dark or brooding or angry, really. He has to be a cupcake of a human.
