Uwe Boll Video Interview Part 1: ‘Assault On Wall Street,’ Dominic Purcell, Banker Greed

In the movie, you can show stuff that shouldn'€™t happen in real life so I don'€™t want people getting shot but the reality is that this is what movies are about, to have basically a fantasy about something and I feel that if some bankers after watching the movie feel a little more scared, that maybe they shouldn'€™t do that things that they are doing bad, then the movie helps. I felt I brought our protagonist, Jim, he loses everything and when his wife commits suicide, I think that there is nothing that holds him back. He'€™s like, 'Why shouldn'€™t I shoot them?' I mean, he'€™s basically dead. For me what's important is to set it up correctly, that the audience is really like rooting for him, that the audience is really saying, 'Yes! Go for it.' They just don'€™t deserve to go through what they are going through. If there is no state attorney then he is not doing anything and to basically that he has to be the, he has to go for it because the politics is not doing anything, the system is not changing. I mean look, last December, 25 billion on Wall Street and bonus payments bigger as ever. I mean who stops the madness? It doesn'€™t look like the president is stopping it - not the president, not the Republicans not the Democrats, nobody! You know it'€™s like they are watching things going that way they did it before the bailouts and they are betting on our money basically, every single day. I mean how can a bank make 20 percent profit a year, I mean I make 1 percent percent interest on the bank. If I have a loan, I make pay 3 percent interest, so how can the bank make 20 percent? Of course, they take our money and they bet it like in a casino and what they did was, they lost it and then they went to the taxpayer and the taxpayer had to pay the bill. And then they kept doing whatever they were doing before. I think this is the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened in history. It is totally unacceptable. They'€™ve got like billions and trillions of dollars and they don'€™t even like cut their salaries. I think they shouldn'€™t get a bonus payment anymore at all, as long as money is owed to the taxpayers and all that didn'€™t happen. I think a movie like Assault on Wall Street is important to just put the finger in that wound and say, 'Look!' At least in the movie, we can show you what could happen to you.

I talked to other actors, but Dominic has that kind of aggressiveness. He was aggressive and he said he lost in L.A, two houses and he couldn'€™t pay the mortgage anymore and the value was so way down of the houses; it'€™s not even enough to recover the mortgage to sell them and so he was like in a state of mind that he was like, 'Give me a gun! I'€™ll shoot them! And so I felt that this was something that I needed. I need somebody who could really perform that and can be convincing. What was surprising and why I think the movie turned out to be very very good is that the story totally works. I think Dominic shows in that movie how good he is as an actor and he's a loving husband in the beginning, and we have Erin Karpluk as the wife; it'€™s like a perfect couple and then everything falls apart. It was important to show the whole medicaments of her treatments basically. It eats all the money up, all the consult treatments. This is also a problem a lot of people face. I someone gets sick in the U.S.A, you have a huge problem. It's like you cannot, it's so expensive that people die based on this. I mean, I come from Germany, and that people vote against healthcare [here] is absurd for us. You know, we have healthcare since we are born, there is no discussion about it. You need to have health insurance because of what happens. One heart attack, $150,000 is gone, I mean how are you going to pay then? You need that insurance just in case. Hopefully you'€™ll never get anything, but if you are covered and I think this is very important. It'€™s absurd that in America there is this discussion about it; that so many normal people voted against it. I mean how can you be against healthcare if you'€™re not a multi-millionaire.

I mean, I was upset about the bailout, about what happened to the taxpayer's money basically and that no one was held accountable, nobody was really accountable for what they did. Nobody got in jail from the big bankers and I felt it was time for a revenge movie, like a movie is made for 7 million Americans who lost their houses, it'€™s such a financial crisis and something like falling down meets death wish or like something that you can connect to. Yeah, it'€™s a gritty movie and I'€™m happy that I made it.

It was that scene with [Jim] and his wife together and that chemistry; that it really worked and that you really feel that they love each other. I mean with the other scenes it was almost as if you cast the right people, I mean John Heard came as the CEO of the bank and he nailed it, he was absolutely great. We didn'€™t even have to rehearse. It was like, he could shoot that scene 15 times in a row and of course the action sequence in the brokerage room was very tough to shoot. We had cables from the ceiling to pull people up and when he throws two grenades into the crowd, we had to have like 25 stunts people jumping and like flying over the desks into the air at the same time and it was, the action sequence was tough. But I'€™m used to doing a lot of action movies.