Off the Grid director Johnny Martin didn’t want to do another action movie. Despite his history in the stunt world and an action-packed filmography featuring movies starring Al Pacino and Nicolas Cage, Martin admitted a hesitancy to step back into the genre. “I’m tired of seeing a guy fight 200 guys and kill 150 guys, and have the training to do that,” he said. “I’m like, ‘What if we grabbed a guy that was a scientist, and he doesn’t have the ability to do anything like this, but has to figure it out by using his brain?'”
From there, the characterisation of Guy, played by Josh Duhamel, started to form. “I didn’t want the lead actor to ever have a gun in his hand,” Martin said. “I always wanted him to figure out a way out of [danger], but not be so talented that it was the John Wick kind of a style. He needed to figure it out as he went along. In a fight, he didn’t know what punch he was going to throw. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of it. The only thing he knows is the booby traps and all the rigs.”
How Josh Duhamel and Greg Kinnear influenced Off the Grid
Martin explained how the character of Guy was written with Duhamel in mind, since the actor lives “off the grid” in Minnesota. When it came to fleshing out one of the antagonists, Ranish, Martin thought of Greg Kinnear, because “Greg Kinnear doesn’t play villains enough, and I need that in there.” The script, though, would continue to be rewritten over and over again, as Martin sought input from his performers to shape their characters and tell the best possible story. In fact, he credited his collaborators for what Off the Grid became in the end.
“I would say the worst thing and the best thing that happened to me was this movie got pushed months after months, and it gave Josh and I a chance to have a two-year relationship,'” Martin said. “And it became a friendship to a brotherhood. What happens when you have that is trust. Trust to be able to say, ‘You’re wrong.’ Trust to be able to say, ‘I have a better idea than you do.’ And to be able to do that together like brothers and understand and respect each other.
“Believe me, I’m not a director that thinks I’m the smartest guy on the set. To me, it’s a collaboration. When Greg speaks, I bring Josh in, and I say, ‘Okay, let’s talk about this, guys. This is our movie. We all have everything to lose from this. As a team, let’s talk about this.’ Most of the scenes in this movie? A lot of them are not scripted. I think every scene in this movie was changed on the day, sitting with the actors to make sure that we were telling every answer to every question. Greg would really come prepared. He was ready. He had script notes. He had everything going. Without these two actors and myself, this movie wouldn’t have been what it was. It really wouldn’t have.”
Why Johnny Martin chose the specific ending for the movie
Without going into spoiler territory, Off the Grid ends in a manner that teases the possibility of a sequel and returning characters. Discussing the choice to conclude the film in the manner he did, Martin said, “To me, you always have to leave it open. Look at a lot of my movies. I’ve always felt that an ending that left you feeling darker was good – and really, it’s not. You have to let the audience enjoy the moment and walk out of the theater still with a smile on their face. When you got an actor like Josh Duhamel, who’s got so much charisma and he’s such a movie star, you gotta leave the movie with the movie star. And when you have Greg Kinnear battling it out, there’s no way I was going to let Greg leave this movie.”
As it turns out, the ending of Off the Grid is also a tribute to a filmmaker whom Johnny Martin holds dear to his heart. “To me, that was my homage to Tony Scott,” Martin said. “Tony Scott trained me, told me how to be a true filmmaker, and told me all the yes and nos of this business. So that was my homage to Tony’s Enemy of the State, to say thank you to him. I told Greg, who is a big fan of the movie too.”
Off the Grid arrives in theaters, digital, and on demand on June 27.
