We’ve watched Zegers transform from the adorable child star of the Air Bud movies to an intense, troubled teen in Transamerica to a sensitive himbo in the chick lit hit The Jane Austen Book Club. He’s hit his stride remarkably quickly and at 24, is delivering on all that early promise.
Zegers’ most challenging role to date finds him in Belfast in1969, in the midst of the 'troubles', sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants under British occupation. He has a thick Irish accent and an attitude, as a murderous thug in Kari Skogland’s IRA drama Fifty Dead Men Walking.
The film, which co-stars Ben Kingsley and Jim Sturgess, looks at two young Catholic men in the late sixties, unable to work because of their religion and under constant watch and harassment by British soldiers. Their world is a powder keg of hatred and violence.
Zegers’ Powerful Performance
Zegers displays tremendous ferocity as Sean. He’s a young father or two and a member of the IRA. His best friend, another IRA foot soldier is recruited by the Brits as an informant. Sean responds to his personal and political troubles by lashing out in violent confusion. He discovers that murder comes easily to him, even if his victims are people he's known all his life.
The Truth Behind the Script
Sturgess plays Martin, based on a real life IRA / British agent who escaped the violence of Belfast, to live on the run. Forty years later, he has survived several assassination attempts and still changes his name and address every month.
"He's not particularly fond of the movie, not that it concerned us," Zegers admits. "He says it’s based on his life but we used his book as a springboard to what we created."
“We shot in Belfast and there were people who were unhappy about it because it’s a very honest telling of what things were like then and they way they still are."
Backlash
"If the movie was bad," he says, "and this was going on, it would be different. The film stands on it own. If more people go in to see the movie because of the reports, then I am happy.”
Skogland was criticised for meeting with actual IRA members in her research for the film. An ex-British spy accuses her of recruiting former IRA volunteers to learn about their techniques for warfare and bomb manufacture.
Martin McGartland says,"(Skogland) should certainly not have been negotiating with the IRA to be able to film in certain areas of Belfast and she should never have allowed former IRA terrorists to be on set while filming."
Zegers responds, saying “Any press is good press.”
What’s Next
Zegers moves on to another violent era for his next film The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. He and Hillary Duff will play the notorious Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who cut a swath of blood through the Midwest during the Depression thirties.
They were two of the most notorious bank robbers and murderers of the time, and were played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the landmark 1969 film Bonnie and Clyde.
Fifty Dead Men Walking opens in Canada July 31st.
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