‘The Magnificent Seven’ Cast, Updates: Antoine Fuqua’s Remake Embraces Diversity; Peter Sarsgaard Explains Playing Villains

‘The Magnificent Seven’ director Antoine Fuqua stressed that his remake embraces casting diversity to reflect the modern age. Peter Sarsgaard, who plays the main villain Bartholomew Bogue, explained what it was like to play an antagonistic role.

According to Vanity Fair, Fuqua’s remake of the classic 1960 film of the same name kicked off the Toronto International Film Festival before its scheduled premiere in the Unites States on September 23.

During a press conference preceding the release of his film, Fuqua explained, “The world was more different [when they made the first Magnificent Seven]… It was more wholesome. None of the actors were black. There were no women.” Fuqua also admitted that he wanted to stay true to the original 1954 Japanese-language film ‘Seven Samurai’ directed by Akira Kurosawa, which was really the source material for John Sturges’ English-language adaptation.

Fuqua said that his version is “edgier” and features a diverse cast to reflect the new era of films. He said, “If we were going to stick with the same thing, all movies would have all white guys looking like John Wayne in a John Ford movie.”

Denzel Washington plays bounty hunter Sam Chisholm, who leads the group of Seven. Washington admitted that he hasn’t even seen Sturges’ version saying, “I didn’t keep away from it… I just didn’t know how it would help me. I had never seen it as a kid or whatever. I think it allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do instead of not trying to do what someone else did or something.”

Fuqua added, “Denzel walks into a room, the room stops… Clint Eastwood walks into a room, the room stops. Is it because he’s a gunslinger or is it because of the color of his skin? So we’ll let the audience decide as opposed to making it obvious.”

Other members of the diverse cast making up the main Seven include Vincent D’Onofrio as tracker Jack Horne, Ethan Hawke as sharpshooter Goodnight Robicheaux, Byung-hun Lee as assassin Billy Rocks, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mexican outlaw Vasquez, and Martin Sensmeier as Comanche warrior Red Harvest.

Peter Sarsgaard plays the film’s main villain Bartholomew Bogue, a corrupt industrialist who seeks to control a small town. During an interview with IndieWire, Sarsgaard talked about playing an antagonistic role and what it meant to be the bad guy.

Sarsgaard said, “The thing that’s nice about playing a villain, for someone like me, is I don’t do a lot of thinking about the audience as I’m acting. To me, everyone is constantly doing things every day – one thing that an audience would find morally reprehensible and one thing that a lot of people would think is really great. That’s a villain in a movie.”

He added, “For me, this isn’t a real human being style villain, I’m camping it up and having fun also. In terms of a lot of the other ones, to me I’m just playing people.”

‘The Magnificent Seven’ is an upcoming Western film directed by Antoine Fuqua. It is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, which was remade from Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Seven Samurai’. It is produced under Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, LStar Capital, Village Roadshow Pictures, Pin High Productions, Escape Artists, and Columbia Pictures. It is distributed by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing in the USA.

The film is scheduled to premiere in theaters on September 23, 2016 in the United States.