Richard Brake continues his terrifying villainous reign on screen with The Last Stop in Yuma County. Since making his breakout turns in Batman Begins as Wayne family killer Joe Chill and the 2005 Doom movie adaptation as Portman, the Welsh actor has steadily built an impressive filmography, largely comprised of antagonistic characters. Some of his more notable include Rob Zombie’s 31, in which he starred as Doom-Head, Game of Thrones, in which he was the original Night King actor, and the breakout 2022 horror hit Barbarian.

In The Last Stop in Yuma County, Brake stars as Beau, a criminal on the run with his erratic brother, Travis, after the two robbed a bank of $750,000. Their efforts to escape the country are briefly hindered when they run out of gas at a station waiting to be refueled and 100 miles away from anything else, leaving them to wait in the neighboring diner. When the lone waitress and similarly stuck Knife Salesman realize the duo’s identity, all hell breaks loose as Beau and Travis engineer a quiet hostage situation until they can leave.

Alongside Brake, the ensemble The Last Stop in Yuma County cast includes The Beta Test‘s Jim Cummings, Doctor Sleep‘s Jocelin Donahue, Nicholas Logan, Faizon Love, Michael Abbott Jr., Gene Jones, Robin Bartlett, Sierra McCormick, Connor Paolo, Ryan Masson and Barbara Crampton. Written and directed by Francis Galluppi in his feature debut, the thriller is a tense and claustrophobic ride from start to finish.

In honor of the movie’s wide release, Screen Rant interviewed Richard Brake to discuss The Last Stop in Yuma County, the challenges of portraying his “underplayed” and “calculating” villain, his reunion with Jocelin Donahue and cinematographer Mac Fisken, and his thoughts on Brad Dourif’s recent retirement announcement.

The Last Stop In Yuma County‘s Script Stood Out To Brake For The Same Reason As Barbarian

With Brake having established himself as a celebrated character actor in the world of genre filmmaking, the star finds himself sent a lot of scripts that ultimately leave him “fairly uninspired“. When he was sent the script for The Last Stop in Yuma County, however, he not only found himself engrossed in it the same way he would a novel but also compared it to the twists and turns of 2022’s Barbarian:

Richard Brake: You know, I get sent a lot of scripts, particularly genre films. And a lot of them just don’t surprise me, or they just leave me fairly uninspired. And then Francis, he’s friends with a fella named James Claeys, who produced the film, and actually sold his house to make this film. I knew James through some other things, so James got Francis in touch with me, because I guess he had had me in mind for Beau and sent me the script, and a lovely letter. I read the script, and had the experience that I had when I read Barbarian, actually, another film I did a couple of years ago, where I just didn’t know what was gonna happen.

I’m reading it, and I’m reading it like I’m reading a novel, I can’t wait to get back and read the next page. I read it in one sitting, and I just thought, “This is brilliant.” This is a first-time feature film director, and he’s written this incredible script. It’s in one location, it’s being made for a low budget, but I definitely wanted to do it. And then I spoke to Francis, we had a phone call back before Zoom was the thing, so we were talking literally, I think, the month before COVID hit.

I was in Detroit doing something, and I remember calling him — I spend most of my life in hotel rooms, I was in a hotel room in Detroit. [Chuckles] And I spoke to Francis for a long time about film, about this film, and just thought, “This guy knows his stuff, and I think this is gonna be a good film.” And what I love is that you take those risks. And again, with Barbarian, it was the same. You don’t know, you read a script, it’s great, you feel a director is great, you shoot it, you have an amazing experience, you think this is great, and then it comes out, and maybe it doesn’t do very well or it isn’t quite as good as you think.

So, it’s wonderful when they upsell, when you read a script, it’s fantastic. You think it’s a great director, you have a great time shooting, it comes out, it gets 100% on Rotten Tomatoes like this film and wins awards, Sitges was a big one. It’s been getting a great reaction, and the film itself, I love it. I absolutely love it, and I’m very, very proud to be a part of it.

Brake Was Initially Worried He “Underplayed” His Villain Into Nothingness

Unlike many of his other villainous characters, who have very energized personalities, Brake and Galluppi found themselves agreeing that Beau needed a quieter, more “calculating” demeanor in order to play off of Nicholas Logan’s more erratic Travis. Though initially thrilled by the idea, which he himself planned to pitch to the writer/director, Brake admits he had some concerns this would make it so that “nobody would notice the character was there“:

Richard Brake: Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m over the top, what? [Chuckles] No, I’m teasing. That was a big part of my discussions with Francis. Initially, when I first booked it in Detroit and everything, we had felt the character was going to be very new to crime, like he had gotten into this almost because he had to do one crime. He was a man out of his depths, he wasn’t going to be an experienced crook or anything like that. And then, the more I looked at the script, the more I thought about it, worked on it, the more I realized Nicholas Logan’s strengths as an actor — he’s brilliant in his strengths period, he’s a great actor, but also the way he was kind of rewriting a lot of the little bit of dialogue.

I got the sense that his character was going to be the brilliant, crazy f—ing guy that he is in it. I thought I do have to be actually terrifying, Beau has to be terrifying for this to really kind of work. So, I had to call Francis about two weeks before production on a Zoom call and tell him this, and I thought he might not like this. We planned this meeting, and he had been rehearsing in LA, I was in Slovakia filming — once again, in a hotel room [chuckles] — and he wanted to speak. So we spoke, we both said, “I got something to tell you.” So, I said, “Okay, let me go.” I went first, I think, and said that I think Beau’s got to be terrifying, he’s got to be a professional, and he’s got to be very, very calculating.” He goes, “That’s what I was going to tell you, because, in rehearsals, I realized that we were wrong with what we thought.”

He was worried I was going to not want to do it, because I wanted to play it different. So in that moment, I knew we were going to be amazing, both having the same thing to tell each other. And for me, I wanted him to be incredibly calm, and just not, like you said, some of the other wilder characters I’ve played. Because Nick’s character is out there, so this man, you just had to be terrified he’d do anything. And I was worried with that. I was worried that it would be so underplayed that nobody would notice the character was there. [Laughs] But I kept saying to Francis, “Tell me if it’s too underplayed, if it’s not there.” And he was like, “I promise I’ll tell you,” and I trusted him.

I trusted him that it would work, and I didn’t believe it would work until I actually watched it. I finally got to see it, and I thought, “Yeah, I think it worked.” It was wonderful, really wonderful. To underplay to that degree, you really have to trust your director, because it can just vanish, it can just look like you’re doing nothing whatsoever. And to really just trust that it’s all there, and that it will be picked up in the camera, and that he will use the shots that work, you just got to trust the director. You have no control over that, other than just do the work and just let it be there, and hopefully it works. And it did.

Brake Was Thrilled To Reunite With Jocelin Donahue After Offseason

Prior to working with her on The Last Stop in Yuma County, Brake had worked with Jocelin Donahue in the Lovecraftian horror movie Offseason, in which they similarly found themselves on opposing sides. When he learned that she was set to be involved in the crime thriller, Brake jumped at the opportunity to reunite with her, hailing her as a “lovely human being” and a “great actor“, both of which are key for making an indie movie:

Richard Brake: I love Jocelin, and we had a great time doing Offseason. It was the same DP, actually, the great Mac Fisken, and she’s just a great actor, and just a lovely human being, which you need in independent films. Because you’re together all day, there’s no sitting around in trailers or any of that stuff. You got to muck in when you make a low budget indie, so everyone has to be cool, basically, and really get on it. And Jocelin is just such a lovely person, and such a great actor to work opposite, so it was good. That was another reason I wanted to do it, because he definitely had Jocelin in mind from day 1.

Francis said that he wanted Jocelin to be in it, he at least hoped that she would when we first spoke, so knowing she was doing it, I knew that we were going to have something great to work opposite. It was tough, I think on one of my very first days — I don’t want to give too much away — I had to do some pretty nasty stuff to her, and she’s just great to work opposite of. She just gets it in there and does it. There’s no surprise that she works as much as she does, especially in film.

Brad Dourif’s Retirement Announcement Brings An Emotional Response From Brake

Amid his past filmography, Brake has multiple collaborations with writer/director Rob Zombie, much like fellow genre vet Brad Dourif, who recently announced he would be retiring from live-action acting. Though the two didn’t share any screentime in Halloween II, Brake did recall his and Dourif’s time working together on the former’s first movie, Death Machine, and the friendship they’ve built in the years since, leaving him with an emotional feeling for Dourif’s retirement:

Richard Brake: I didn’t know that about Brad. I don’t know if you know that my very first film was called Death Machine, which I shot in London in ’93, and Brad is the star of that. He was the first well-known actor that I’d ever worked opposite, we had quite a few scenes together with quite a bit of stuff, and it was an incredible experience to be opposite Brad Dourif. I’m 20-something years old, it’s my first movie, and I learned a lot from him in that time. An incredible amount, actually, about professionalism, about the way he’s focused. He was incredible to work with on set.

And then, of course, I didn’t work with him on Rob’s stuff, but we met up again. I think we were shooting around the same time, and I see him occasionally at Comic Cons and things, but he’s just an incredible actor. So, he’ll be sadly missed in the genre films now that he’s retiring. I love doing lots of different work, I’m doing a TV series now in Pittsburgh. I love jumping around and doing many different kinds of characters. I’ll be British one time, Russian the next, American somewhere else. I love the fact that I can play so many different roles. That’s the great thing about being a character actor.

But with genre films, I just love them as a fan, so it’s great that I get to do so many. May they continue! I’ve got three kids I’ve got to pay for, so may they continue. [Laughs] I just love genre films. Because people make genre films and love those films. You know, working with Rob is, of course, my all-time favorite. I love working with Rob, because he adores making the films he makes. He has so much energy, so much passion for those films, for that genre, that you can’t help but just have a great time, and also just creatively vibe off of that. Same with Francis, he loves genre films, he loves all film, but it’s the vibe you get from working with people like that. Usually for very little money. [Chuckles] You do it for love.

About The Last Stop In Yuma County

While awaiting the next fuel truck at a middle-of-nowhere Arizona rest stop, a traveling young knife salesman is thrust into a high-stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two similarly stranded bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty — or cold, hard steel — to protect their bloodstained, ill-begotten fortune.

Stay tuned for our other Last Stop in Yuma County interviews with:

• Jim Cummings
• Jocelin Donahue

Source: Screen Rant Plus