PAUL GIAMATTI GUNS IT UP

Paul Giamatti plays a villain in Shoot ‘Em Up, working with guns for the first time.

Paul Giamatti leads a team of ruthless assassins who try to take down Clive Owen’s Mr. Smith, a blue collar James Bond protecting a very valuable infant in Shoot ‘Em Up.

It’s not often that Giamatti plays the bad guy and he created this villain in a very specific way. He might even be the first assassin with a comb over.

“Is that right? Probably in the 70s there was some bad guy with a comb over. But yeah maybe, that was the idea. The comb over was the whole thing, the whole character is the comb over. That was how I found him. Once they shaved my head and I had the whole swatch of hair there he was. Not the typical guy. I’ve got a paunch and I’m out of shape and that stuff but I’ve got a big brain and I know how to kill people so that was the idea. It was a kind of normal looking guy who this is his job.”

Giamatti goes out with guns blazing to kill Clive Owen’s Mr. Smith and it’s the first time in his career that he’s ever handled a weapon on screen.

“I would say that I was probably on camera good enough that I was convincing. Other than that I don’t think I’m too good with those things. There’s a lot of things sliding and they’re complicated. Yeah actually the big thing did have a lot of more of a recoil because it’s huge. It’s OK, I could handle it. The sniper rifle doesn’t have any kick at all. Put a blank in it and it’s great.”

Paul is getting in the early Christmas spirit shooting The Fred Claus about Santa Claus and his brother with Vince Vaughn.