The last time Tommy Lee Jones was in dogged pursuit of someone, he won an Oscar for his troubles. New thriller "The Hunted" can't match 1993's "The Fugitive" for fun, games, and train wrecks, but it does allow the 56-year-old Texan to go mano-a-mano with Benicio Del Toro and reteam with old pal William Friedkin.
This has to have been one of the most physically demanding roles you've done...
Well, I don't know if that's true or not, but it's safe to say it was extremely physical.
Tell us about the knife fighting you and co-star Benicio Del Toro had to master...
It's a Malaysian type of knife fighting. I worked with teachers who are experts in the art of the blade. It's a kind of fighting that's thousands of years old. We started training three months before filming began and we worked on it every day. It was really fun.
So were all the fight scenes carefully choreographed?
Absolutely. Nothing was improvised during the fight scenes. That would have been unsafe. We're not interested in danger; only the illusion of danger. Those fight scenes were done with very precise choreography.
What was it that drew you to the film?
I liked the cast and I had worked with the director William Friedkin before [on the 2000 thriller "Rules of Engagement"], and so I knew him and I liked him. And we would be shooting in exotic locations, which seemed like it would be fun.
