Vietnam War, with added dinosaurs: Jeremy Piven on the mad mix of his latest film
A scene from Primitive War, starring Jeremy Piven as a soldier whose tour in the Vietnam War takes an unexpected turn.
Playing a powerful agent in Hollywood in the award-winning has been one of his most-successful career moments. But actor Jeremy Piven has always loved to mix it up - and when the opportunity came to make a dinosaur film set during the Vietnam War in remote Australia, he jumped at the opportunity.
The result is a film that blends the dramatic horrors of conflict with the tension of a large-scale creature feature. Set in Vietnam in 1968, a unit named Vulture Squad is sent to an isolated jungle to uncover the fate of a missing Green Beret platoon, only to discover that they’re not alone, and fierce dinosaurs walk among them.
Piven already had hopes for Luke Sparke’s adaptation of what was a hugely popular sci-fi novel from Ethan Pettus. But even he has been surprised by the level of interest the film has generated ahead of its release in cinemas.
“I think Luke is one of these guys who loves both genres,” says Piven. “He's a massive fan of movies like and and I think he found a way to make it his own and to make it edgy, R-rated, pure escapism.
“Yet we had to play it truthfully, like we're in the midst of a platoon, that we're doing an Oliver Stone or a Stanley Kubrick war film, take it very seriously and and let the madness ensue so that we can earn all of that.”
The action scenes and monster mayhem onscreen are impressive when you consider that it’s an indie made for a fraction of a big studio dinosaur film - or “Jeff Goldblum’s burrito budget” as Piven jokes, crediting Australian filmmaker Sparke’s inventiveness.
“He almost feels more American in the way that he really believes anything is possible, and he's totally delusional. He made a huge studio dinosaur movie in his backyard - literally, these movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars. This movie costs eight million and that's the way to do it. You go and you do it under the radar, and you have a lot of fun, and you make the film you want to make and see what happens.”
As well as the colourful language used in the film, characters meet their maker in all sorts of imaginative ways at the hands of the dinosaurs. “That's one of the great things about being an actor: you throw yourself into these insane situations, and you play these characters so authentically that you know people believe that you are those characters, and that's a little bit of the blessing and the curse of our journey. With Luke, some of it's really tongue in cheek, and yet, you can't do a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. You've got to commit fully. And yeah, brontosauruses are just literally chomping up people, eating them, blood squirting.”
Born in New York, Piven was raised in Chicago and considers the city a big influence in his career. On hearing this interviewer’s accent, he talks about the city’s Irish heritage - and the Irish actors and filmmakers he befriended in the early days.
“I grew up in the theatre, and we were surrounded by, in Chicago, a massive Irish population. The first people that I met who were Irish were the Quinns - Aidan Quinn and Declan Quinn and Paul Quinn. Aidan went on to become a great, high-profile actor, and Declan is a beautiful DP [director of photography]. I felt like we had a lot in common in terms of just how close we are with our families and the love of poetry.”
Piven enjoyed his first visit to these shores recently, and is keen to return here to perform stand-up comedy after having to defer a show in Ireland last year due to filming commitments. “I need to get back to Ireland, do some stand-up, because I know you guys appreciate a good laugh, and you're a tough audience, and there's nothing better.”
Having won a Golden Globe and three Emmys for playing Ari Gold in Piven decided to return to a long-held passion for live comedy. He’d performed live in theatre from a young age before starring in films including and so it didn’t feel like a huge departure.
“I guess I'm not your typical actor in the way that I jumped up on stage at eight years old. I was butchering really great works of literature, like Chekhov, from an early age, and lucky to be introduced to such great pieces of literature, and I was also doing improv and sketch comedy at the same time my whole life. So when it came time for stand-up, I'd been writing on my feet my whole artistic life and even on sets, pitching jokes and ideas. And so that muscle was being developed, then basically stand-up is like having all that inform the performance itself. The act is solely you, and there's no one else to bounce off of or to write for you.”
It’s the ultimate challenge, he says, and his background led him to be able to attempt it. “Like anything else, it's all about the reps, the repetition. So I had to get up and do it and continue to do it and put myself in uncomfortable situations, tiny little pubs with a handful of people in there that are there to see the DJ. You're being heckled, and you've got to navigate it, and you're thrown into the fire, and it's kind of amazing.”
earned him plaudits and Piven would enjoy further small-screen success with Mr Selfridge, the story of the founder of Selfridge’s in the UK. It was there that he first got to know Anthony Byrne, the Irish director and producer who went on to work on shows including and
“It was early on in his career when he did but he went on to do and really contribute to that absolutely brilliant show. He was a really fun person to be around, but also a real artist. You can tell right away.”
How does he feel the nature of TV storytelling has changed over the course of his career? “Size doesn't matter, whether it's a big screen or a small screen. You're still creating and doing the best you possibly can.
“A lot of great writers have gone to television over the years. Doug Ellin wrote it and did a brilliant job. It was my job to make all of that language that he wrote feel improvisational when it was all written. Every once in a while, I would throw in a little something, just because I love the momentum of all of it, and they wouldn't yell cut, I would keep going. But for the most part, that was all scripted.”
- is in cinemas from Friday, November 28
