With major Hollywood credits from The Fast and the Furious to Black Hawk Down, Johnny Strong is a fascinating actor and artist who segued into top tier independent work. In doing so, this shift has allowed him greater creative freedom to serve his talent and output. In films such as Sinners and Saints and Daylight’s End, he was heavily involved in shaping the script, channelling his knowledge of martial arts and firearms and, being a musician and songwriter (having released music as a solo artist under the name Operator), he scored these films too. Undoubtedly, collaborating with director William Kaufman on these titles launched a platform for Strong to showcase his work unfiltered, and unhindered, by studio politics. What’s more, these films feel like they operate on an independent wavelength, made by and for movie fans, more akin the hard-boiled style of 1970’s and early 80’s genre cinema than current trends.

Now, Strong has embarked on his directorial debut, with William Kaufman (Sinners and Saints, Daylight’s End) co-writing and co-directing. Warhorse One appears to take inspiration from Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, in which Strong played an important role portraying a real-life Delta Force sniper in one of the film’s most tense and poignant scenes. Coupled with Strong’s passion for authentic action, he devised a compelling story for Warhorse One with echoes of real-world headlines.

While conducting a rescue mission to evacuate missionaries from an Afghan village during the US military withdrawal of 2021, a SEAL team helicopter is shot down by a group of insurgents. One of the team operators, Master Chief Richard Mirko (Strong), is thrown from the wreckage, miraculously surviving the crash. With the rest of his team killed in action, Mirko continues his search for the missionaries, but finds their vehicle ambushed, with the only survivor being a traumatised 5-year-old child. Mirko must now guide the child to safety, through a gauntlet of hostile insurgents, and survive the brutal Afghan wilderness.

I’ve been a fan of Strong’s work and approach to his art for a very long time. From acting and martial arts, to music and even knife-making, he is an unusual and multi-skilled creative. We first spoke at length in my original Life of Action book, but not since he embarked on Warhorse One, so I was intrigued and excited to catch up and hear about the new journey he has embarked on.

How do you feel your career trajectory has brought you to Warhorse One?

After I left Hollywood doing big studio movies, I wanted to make the crossover from being a supporting actor to lead my own work. There’s a hierarchy in Hollywood; the major movie star group and a list underneath them who are fantastic actors. More often than not, they’re cast to support the big stars. A lot of times, that second tier group isn’t given the opportunity to be the stars of the movie. I didn’t like that. My end goal was never to be a lead actor, but I’m a storyteller and always wanted to be a filmmaker. It’s a very hard path to navigate in Hollywood with gatekeepers and all this other shit, so I decided to go and make my own movies. I asked myself, how would I achieve this goal by way of navigation? I realised that I’d need to go and star in my own independent films, then gradually become the writer and producer, and ultimately the writer, producer and director of my own work.

You’re talking about your films with William Kaufman?

Yeah, this new chapter started with the Kaufman directed, Sinners and Saints where I was the lead actor, and in that situation, I had influence around the script and story. For example, originally my character Sean Reily was a “woe is me” drinker and smoker, very cynical about life, a sort-of Martin Riggs [Lethal Weapon] type, but I didn’t want to project that. So, my take on the character made him someone who’s lived through tragedy, but someone who is trying to elevate his life, rather than indulging in self destruction. On the next movie I did with William, Daylight’s End, I also got the chance to write and direct the dream sequences, and I redesigned and changed the dialogue of my character, and my character's circumstances in the story, in a way that I felt made it more tragic and powerful.

What made you decide to team up with William Kaufman on Warhorse One?

After Daylight’s End, there was talk of other films with William, but sometimes these things fall apart for various reasons. For the next project I really wanted to make, I called William and said, “I’m going to go and make a movie, do you want to make a movie with me?” I told him the concept and idea, and we took different ideas I had presented to him in the past, and constructed what became Warhorse One. To his credit, he realised it was me in the driver’s seat on this, wanting to start the second half of my career as a filmmaker and not just work as an actor. It was really a way for me to begin making my own movies and not just wait for people to push their ideas for movies on me.

In Sinners and Saints and Daylight’s End, my goal was to support William and his vision on his movies, try to be an asset and add ideas to make the movies the best they could be. On Warhorse One, we found ourselves in reversed roles, where I’m in the driver’s seat and William’s backing me up. I think it would be unfair for people to expect a William Kaufman movie. This is a collaboration, but more so a Johnny Strong movie, which nobody’s seen before, and it’s a different type of film. In the past, William invited me on to his films, and in turn, I invited him on to this one. William came on as my co-director, but even more so in a lead producer role to support me. Not many directors would have the confidence to put themselves in that position, ego and jealousy tend to be hallmarks of lesser men, but William knew that in order for this to become what it is, he had to allow me the freedom to steer the ship.

Johnny Strong portraying Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart in Black Hawk Down

Who are your biggest director influences, and did your Black Hawk Down experience, and that iconic scene, have an impact?

I’m a huge fan of many kinds of movies, but I’ve always had a clear sense of what I want. Black Hawk Down was, without doubt, one of my all-time favourite “acting experiences,” an amazing opportunity to work with Ridley Scott. There were various credited writers, and I remember reading the latest revisions in the script at the hotel one night, the part where Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, the two Delta Force snipers, are protecting the crash site. In the script, the scene played out in around three sentences.

At breakfast, I remember I sat at Ridley’s table and explained my feelings on these two guys and how it was a huge event in this true story, which seemed to be reduced to a small paragraph in the script. He said something like “Don’t worry mate, I’m already working on it, we’re going to make it big.” About a week later, on set, Ridley came up to me with his AD, Terry Needham and the FX department, and we sat at the crashed helicopter set and he asked me, “what are you thinking, mate?” I thought “holy fuck!” This guy is a genius and the director of Blade Runner, Gladiator and so many other classics. I explained my idea where the snipers are protecting the crash site and I’m firing in one direction, I run out of ammo and pick up another gun, get hit in the back, shoot someone, then get hit in the arm, drop the gun and I’m completely overwhelmed. I explained the way it played out in my head, having gone over this in my hotel room the past couple weeks, like all actors and creative people should. Ridley’s chewing on his cigar, listening, and says to his AD and FX department, “All right, Terry, guys, let's shoot it.”

There are moments in life that people never forget, this was one of those moments for me, as an artist. To have this iconic filmmaker listen to this random actor out of fifty others in the movie, and then say, “let’s shoot it”, that’s unbelievable. It turned out to be an amazing scene and I think it became a huge moment in the movie, in fact a lot of friends in the cast like Eric Bana, William Fichtner and Kim Coates have said the same thing. It all started from Ridley and I sitting there and talking about an idea. I took the experience as an acknowledgment that I don’t have shitty ideas, and the confidence boost that I might actually have good ideas!

I was also impressed by Ridley another time on the film, when he came up to me for a different scene and pulled out a pen and piece of paper and started drafting storyboards to show me what we’d be shooting that day. I thought, “Wow, the guy’s a fucking artist!” I realised he’s like me, or I’m like him. Either way, I’m one of these dudes! That was very inspiring to me.

What did it tell you about yourself and the kind of actor, or filmmaker, you consider yourself to be?

I think it demonstrated that I’ve always had a strong vision as a storyteller. However, in most Hollywood situations, you get barriers put up around you. An actor might have a good idea, but you’re quickly told, “shut up, hit your mark, and say your line.” And it’s okay, I understand why, because otherwise you’d have fifty people on a set all with “ideas,” and it becomes a cluster fuck of everyone trying to become “director”... it’s just not possible. However, in terms of taking this approach on my own movies, I’ve done it many times working with William, laying out ideas before or even during filming if something cool comes to me. It’s very organic. I think it’s important to know who has good ideas, be open to good ideas, and keep the environment fluid, otherwise you could miss a good opportunity to add something special to the project.

I think it may have been tough for William on Warhorse One, because he’s a real “working director”. Don’t forget, as well as making his own films, he’s hired on other people’s movies and when it comes to “action” movies, I’d say, he’s the best at it. I don’t know if he’s ever been hired as a “collaborator”, a writer or producer, prior to this film, but I felt we were close enough friends and he has the confidence to collaborate in that way. When making Warhorse One, I’d have ideas laid out, storyboarded, etc, but he knew that if he had a better or different idea, we could go with it, and vice versa.

Making the film independently, while it was no doubt tough, did you benefit from working to your own schedule, with your own hand-picked crew?

Absolutely, and I’m not going to exaggerate, there were probably 15 or less people on the base crew, a tight group who believed in the project and who wanted to be there. I have a philosophy in life which looks at things, especially “movie” work, like a block of cheese. If you put a block of cheese in the street, what happens? You get a lot of rats. Some of those rats are fucking useless but they’re there, precisely because there’s a block of cheese!

So, I sat down with William and asked, who do we actually need? We went through a list of essentials, like sound, camera, actors of course, a few stunts, many of which, between the two of us, our friends could help with, and we planned it that way, eliminating anything we didn’t need, or jobs we could do ourselves. In the aftermath, I’d say we could probably do with around five more people next time, just to let certain crew focus on single jobs, but apart from that, it worked well for us. It was an experiment to see if we could do it without all that overhead? In my experience on large film crews, you find people who are just collecting a paycheck, waiting to get their piece of the cheese! There’s no passion or desire to really be there, and I hate that. So, I wanted a tight team of like minded, passionate people.

I know you’re in post-production now. How are you approaching this part of the process?

The whole post-production team is just me and two other people. Nate Hardy is our VFX supervisor and Andy Baeza, whom William hired to do the foley for the film. Everything else is me, and I prefer that. The worst thing I’ve encountered in the film business is people who just don’t care. Creating art is so personal, and so important to me, that when I am working with people who show no passion in their participation, no real reverence, it is absolutely repulsive to me. There’s one thing I can promise you on this film, I’m the one who cares the most. I said at the start of filming, “if you all hate me, and don’t want to be friends with me when this is over, but we’ve made a masterpiece, I can live with that.” I was willing to die for this movie, and almost did! I stand by it.

I understand that near-death experience took place during the scene in the rapids. Can you tell me about it?

Yeah, that river kills at least half a dozen people every year. I planned how I was going to approach it, and I storyboarded it. In the story, without giving too much away, it’s a “leap of faith” and holds a lot of symbolism. The first thing my character says in the film is, “I don’t know if things happen for a reason, if it’s fate, destiny or the hand of God.” That’s something I deal with in real life. I happen to be very spiritual, and I don’t know what I attribute that feeling to. So, I wanted my character to struggle with that too because it’s universal.

To find the right location, I scouted a bunch of places and found this cliff which looks amazing. Next, my character will be in a river. I had to find a river which looked incredibly dangerous. The crazy thing is, if it looks incredibly dangerous, it really is [laughs]. I thought “fuck it”, I had to do it. I figured we’d capture the stunt with a bunch of cameras, a drone shot, a profile shot, because I’m only doing it once! Every time you test the reaper, your odds become less. Since we had cameras picking up every detail, I had to be in full costume too! That meant a 7lb rife, full chest carrier with all the magazines, radios and props. You can’t fake it.

How did it feel once you hit the water and went under?

Well, the water’s cold as fuck so, instantly, you’re dealing with that elemental impact. The other thing is that the plates I had inside the chest carrier weren’t bulletproof, but I had what are called SAPI Dummy plates (Small Arms Protective Insert) made by Emerson Gear and at the top of the plates is a small hole. Midway through the stunt, the plates were losing their buoyancy and filling up with water, so I started sinking. I was also trying to guide myself down the river because it will continue pulling you along. At some point, you need to swim out, fight the current and make an exit from the rapids, so you don’t continue getting dragged downriver. You need to do all this while keeping yourself afloat!

I’m not going to lie; it was incredibly exhilarating and one of the greatest experiences of my life because I conquered fear. I realised, if I could do this, putting myself in pure jeopardy and capturing a shot which is authentically dangerous for the character, it immortalises the story. Most people wouldn’t be willing to do that but, in 100 years, people might look back on it. Maybe my grandkids will show it to people. I think there’s something special about that. It should be our goal in life to push ourselves, any of us would be lucky to have that dedication. I’ll be less than satisfied in my life if legendary status is not achieved!

Read part 2 of the interview here

Warhorse One is released in selected North America theatres from 30th June and is available On Demand and Digital from 4th July. More territories to follow soon.

Warhorse One - Exclusive Johnny Strong interview (Part 1)