Shawn Ashmore Interview: The Free Fall

Shawn Ashmore is best-known for his superhero roles like Iceman in the X-Men films and Lamplighter on The Boys, but he's balanced those high-profile parts with turns in "smaller" movies and TV shows. His latest effort, The Free Fall, allows him to demonstrate his dramatic chops. The film is about a woman who must deal with her overbearing husband after she attempts suicide.

Screen Rant spoke with Ashmore about a variety of topics, including his Free Fall performance, getting his start with Animorphs, a possible return to X-Men, and more.

Screen Rant: I’ve been a fan of you since Animorphs!

Shawn Ashmore: The longevity of Animorphs is so crazy to me. You know, it was like two seasons when I was a teenager. But, I think at that time, there wasn't a lot of kind of mature sci-fi in mainstream media, as far as television and films. When I say mature, I just mean aimed towards kids, but not super goofy. Don't get me wrong, there was some goofy stuff about Animorphs, mostly the effects and the technology at the time. But, these kids were in peril and were fighting for their lives and fighting to save the world. It's had a really lasting effect. I'm always amazed when people are like, "I knew you from Animorphs." Wow. We were like in a bubble up in Toronto shooting the show and it kind of came and went. But it had an impact, which is cool.

I feel like that show is something that should be rebooted or revived at some–

Shawn Ashmore: 100 percent. There were rumors for a while, on Twitter, but it was from kind of reliable sources, people in the industry, that Universal was talking about rebooting it as a film series. I think it's ripe for a reboot, I think the technology is at a better place. And again, it walks that fine line for YA sci-fi, where it can be fun and it's young kids. With Stranger Things, Locke & Key, and all these kinds of shows on Netflix where you're putting these younger kids in these really intense situations, and it's doing well, like, why not?

Would you want to be a part of it?

Shawn Ashmore: 100 percent. 100 percent. Yeah. Again, I think it was about a year ago, there was this discussion on Twitter that I kind of checked out. And I started thinking, "Well, who would I want to play? Or what could the role be?" And it's either an older Jake, that's what I ideally would want to do is actually play Jake again, but an older version, whether it was a flashback or a prelude or prologue or something. And then there are people who were like, "Or you could play [Principal Chapman]." People had suggestions, but ideally, it would be cool to play– I was thinking like Stand By Me, the prologue where the character's talking about his past and then it goes into it. It would be cool to revisit that. I think some actors try to steer away from their past or the things that people recognize them from, I don't look at it like that. I'm thankful for all those things. They all helped give me a career and they're all characters that people still seem to like, are attached to, and have good memories about. So to me, I don't know. I think it'd be kind of fun.

Yeah, I love that you said that, because I have so many lingering questions for you over the years that I want to get to.

But let's jump into The Free Fall. I watched this movie last night and it was almost hard to write questions because I don't want to give anything away. But how do you kind of describe what this movie is about? In broad strokes.

Shawn Ashmore: The movie is about a character named Sara who, after attempting to take her own life, comes to in her home, with no recollection of her life in the past. But her husband, Nick is right there. This is a film that's a bit of a mystery. It's definitely a psychological thriller. But really, the story is told through Sara's perspective, trying to piece together her life after this tragic event. I'd say, if you'd like psychological thrillers and mysteries, this is a film for you. Nick, the character I play, is Sara's husband, who's just trying to get his wife back, from his perspective. He's trying to connect again, create the intimacy and communicate to her the great life that they had, the love that they had before this event. that's the film on the surface.

Underneath, there's much, much more. Again, I don't want to get into too many spoilers, but the thing that I loved about the script, and also this character, is that Nick has a dark side. I liked the ambiguity that the character requires. You're not really quite sure what his motivations are -- and also, the laying the breadcrumbs for the story and for the mystery, because that's really what it was. When I was reading it for the first time, I was like, "What is happening here?" On the surface, it's this one movie, but in the script, and I hope in the film, there's this undercurrent of something that's really potentially wrong, and you're not sure if Sara is so discombobulated from the tragic event that happened that she isn't seeing the world clearly, or if she is completely right and something's totally off. That's kind of the fun of the film is trying to discover what the truth is.

That's the thing too -- I really dug the movie by the way -- but you are the tension throughout the movie. You are that kind of role. What was that like for you just to tap, tap into that part?

Shawn Ashmore: Amazing. I read the script, and I sat down with Adam Stillwell, the director, and he also developed the script after its initial state, and I told him, "I need to play this character." And I never say that when I go into a meeting. I'm confident. I try and sell myself. But I was like, "I need to play this role. You need to cast me because I loved the character." And I loved again, the ambiguity. But also, I could so clearly see in my brain how I wanted to play this character. And, again, he may do things that aren't right, but his intentions, to me, were pure. And I don't mean pure, like good. But I mean, I knew exactly what he wanted. He's trying to win this woman back. He has a hole in himself that he's trying to fill and so when he professes his love and tells her that he needs her, he needs all of that. It's not necessarily in the way that maybe the audience suspects. He manipulates her, yes, to get something that he really needs, but he means it. When he breaks down and cries and says, "I can't lose you again. I need you." He means that. It's so pure and real. That's my thing. Besides whatever the reveal is, and whatever the mystery is, I know he's telling the truth to her in a way. That's the ambiguity. He's not lying to her most of the time, but he's withholding truth. Films like this, I like that when you watch it initially, you don't know what truth you're looking for, and so you miss the truth. But I hope on a second viewing, if people go back in, they're like, "Oh, there's this reveal." They'll see that the truth was there the whole time. They just didn't know what truth they were looking for. That was the goal for me and, I think for, Adam and Andrea, was to tell it truthfully, while still allowing the mystery to exist.

And there's kind of this element behind the scenes. I've watched you my whole life. Animorphs, like we mentioned, Cadet Kelly, In A Heartbeat. But I feel like I knew you. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm watching. Shawn Ashmore. He's this great guy." So it kind of has this unsettling thing where you're like, "This guy. I know him." I don't know if that makes sense.

Shawn Ashmore: No it does. That's, again, part of the manipulation and the fun and the expectation, right? That's why I don't tend to get to play characters like this, with a darker side, like you said. As an actor, you sort of establish a career, and like you said, "I see you as this. I see an actor playing this." But the fun of it is to break out of that. And again, I was like, "I know, I can play this character." I like doing this. Lamplighter from The Boys, which is another character I played a couple years ago, was also in that sort of vein where he's not a bad guy, but he's a more complex guy. There's more going on there. It's a little ambiguous what his motivations are, and he's not the leading man. He's making self selfish decisions. I think that's what Nick does, he makes selfish decisions. He's not thinking about anybody else. He's making decisions for himself. And in that way, I don't see him as a bad guy, or evil. I didn't play it like that. I was just like, "He's making decisions for himself." But I know what you're saying. You have an expectation of what kind of role I would play. So then when you see it, and it's different, you're like, "Whoa, this is bizarre. It's someone I know that is now..." It's almost more unsettling because you feel like you're comfortable in what this person is going to do, or how the character is going to go, and that goes somewhere else. You're like, "Well, this bizarre." So I get that. And that expectation was partly why I wanted to play a character like this, and certainly why I did The Boys. I was like, "Oh, yeah. I'm gonna play Pyro. I'm Iceman and everyone thinks I'm Iceman. But I'm gonna play Pyro. That's gonna throw everybody off." That expectation, and I think that's what The Boys does so well too, is play with that expectation. But that's fun for me. I like those characters. I like doing that for people.

Yeah, I'd love to ask you about Iceman since you brought him up. Normally I do an interview, and I'd probably be like, “So do you think you'd ever play Iceman again?” Knowing it's a bit of a clickbait question, right? But now… I don't know if you've been keeping up with current Marvel events. Anything as possible. It's a real question.

Shawn Ashmore: Yeah, I haven't seen the newest Spider-Man movie, but I know that -- I'm trying not to get spoiled -- but I know that everybody from everywhere comes. So look, after Days of Future Past, I had kind of accepted that was gonna be our last film, with this group of actors, anyway. Disney was taking over the rights. It felt like the end for our characters, the original trilogy cast, it felt kind of like the end of the story. And I've kind of accepted that. But obviously, anything's possible, and I have no idea what they're going to do. Are they going to cast completely new actors and start fresh? Are they going to pull actors from the Fox X-Men trilogy into the Marvel Universe? I don't know. If it happened, would I do it? 100 percent. No question. I grew up playing that character. I'm a comic book fan. It's things that I'm into. So, I would do it again in a second. But I've kind of accepted the fact that I got four movies, and that might be it. And I'm pretty happy with that.

Shawn Ashmore as Iceman in the Fox X-Men movies.

So it'd be a bonus if it were to come.

Shawn Ashmore: 100 percent. Yeah, it would be fantastic. But, I have no expectations.

Amazing. I didn't even get to In A Heartbeat. But I just want to say that I loved that show. The second episode, the tarantula episode, ruined my life. So scary.

Shawn Ashmore: Yeah, all these shows. I had quite a run, you know? Animorphs into In A Heartbeat into Cadet Kelly. I had a real Nickelodeon/Disney moment in my late teens, early 20s.

You look the same.

Shawn Ashmore: Almost. I'll be 43 in October, and, I mean, I don't think I look the same. But yeah, I put sunscreen on and I stay out of the sun. That's my thing. Got some wrinkles, my hair's going away. But basically, I'm the same person.

The funny thing is, when I was younger, I didn't even know you were a twin. So I was really like, "This man is in everything!"