Adam Driver Agreed To 65 For A Simple Reason: Dinosaurs And Laser Guns
Adam Driver has played many characters: a lightsaber-wielding antihero, an evil knight, a missionary, a bus driver and poet, a stand-up comedian ... you get the idea. Driver is a performer who likes to take risks — and now he's playing a guy who shoots laser guns and fights dinosaurs. Yeah, you read that right.
In "65," Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' sci-fi action thriller, Adam Driver plays Mills, a pilot who experiences a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet and discovers he's stranded on Earth ... in the past, 65 million years ago. He has one chance at a rescue, and along with another survivor, he must find his way across unknown territory teeming with larger-than-life prehistoric creatures that are dangerous, to say the least. The film delivers on dinosaur scares (you can read /Film's full review here) and monster action, and Driver describes it as a "father-daughter movie" with characters that are "three-dimensional."
"65" is relatively distinct from Driver's usual filmography, but the actor knew he had to take on the project when it offered him a battle with a T-Rex and the opportunity to shoot laser guns.
A father-daughter movie
In an interview with Collider, Driver detailed what excited him about "65," explaining that it is a unique story and "a big blend of a lot of different things." He elaborated, "It was dinosaurs and laser guns and spaceships crashing, and it didn't seem somewhat rare to get asked to do that, but that also is kind of ancillary to it being a movie that is really kind of a father-daughter movie."
Driver was drawn toward the script's big-scale family movie-style action — and how it didn't let its "spectacle" get in the way of two characters, allowing grief to be the thread that held them together. The actor enjoyed how the characters worked together and became each other's found family, which felt unique to him.
"The idea that it was about two people from a completely different backgrounds facing this obvious threat that no one had a precedent for, and through that become found family based on this common thing of grief. And him denying it because everything that he sees in her reminds him of his own daughter, and he's denying that feeling as much as possible until they can't anymore. It seems like a unique thing to do in a big-scale movie like this."
Adam Driver really likes dinosaurs
It also helps that the film has dinosaurs. While Driver is fascinated by the film's father-daughter and found family themes, he's pleased that it allows him to fight a dinosaur or two. Plus, what with shooting laser guns and everything, the actor was reminded of "a big seminal moment" in his life when he watched Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" in the theaters.
"After the T. rex, I really didn't care. I was like, 'Who do you want me to play? Sure, that's interesting, so long as I get to battle a T. rex and shoot a laser gun.'... I mean, Jurassic Park, for me — the first one — watching it in theaters was a big seminal moment, and, you know, it's dinosaurs and T. rexes, it's f**king great."
"65" has everything you'd want in a big dinosaur movie: a barrage of jumpscares, skin-crawling creatures, and the usual "man vs. nature" conflict ... but with prehistoric creatures. Driver and his co-star Ariana Greenblatt's (who plays fellow survivor Koa) characters find themselves in quite a pickle — and must navigate impossible territory. It's a fun family movie that makes dinosaurs scary again.