The Black Demon Star Josh Lucas on Survival & Environmental Message

Josh Lucas has been a veteran of the screen for over 30 years. Since his debut in 1990 on the shows Life Goes On and True Colors, the actor’s appeared in over 80 projects across film and television, most recently on Spectrum’s Long Slow Exhale, Peacock’s Yellowstone, and Universal’s The Forever Purge (2021). Lucas stars in The Avenue’s latest eco-thriller in, The Black Demon, which follows his character Paul Sturges, an oilman whose idyllic family vacation turns into a nightmare when they encounter a ferocious megalodon shark that will stop at nothing to protect its territory. Stranded and under constant attack, Paul and his family must somehow find a way to get his family back to shore alive before it strikes again in this epic battle between humans and nature. Lucas spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with director Adrian Grunberg, finding his character’s headspace, and the film’s environmental message.

How ‘The Black Demon’ Is an Environmental Cautionary Tale

Bleeding Cool: What intrigued you about ‘The Black Demon?’
Lucas: I’d heard about this thing, and I’d seen some documentaries about the idea that in Baha, the fishermen there for the last hundred years or so, claimed to see this giant shark, larger than they’ve ever seen, that caused these wild stories they’ve told over a long period. It was interesting to take that mythological story and try to create a cautionary tale at the same time of how American corporations are going down and taking advantage of these areas of nature, affecting small communities and pulling out the resources. How this legend would collide with how the corporations are destroying parts of the world and it was an exciting idea.
I also love this director. He’s had an extraordinary career being a first assistant director and then making movies as a director. He’s worked with some of the world’s great directors like Mel Gibson and Peter Weir, who I think is also amazing. We bonded and set out to try and make something unusual, artful, and, hopefully, fun to watch. At the same time, promote a cautionary tale of how American corporations are messing up the world these days.

How do you break down the set that Adrian ran?
Since Adrian worked as s first AD, he has had a deep understanding of film. As a first AD, particularly the scope of the movies that he was doing, these massive $100 million visions like ‘Apocalypto’ (2006) and these big, complicated films. He understands filmmaking on a very unusual level and tries to make it three-dimensional. In our case, they’ve built this crazy metal oil rig in the middle of a tank in the Dominican Republic where it was partly in the ocean so that it had a level of realism in terms of we weren’t on a studio set somewhere where they were adding all the elements later as [Adrian] was trying to make it as real as possible.

That comes from his work with Mel Gibson and all these people. He wants it to be layered and the things that are happening in the foreground and background. It also didn’t help that we didn’t have the biggest budget in the world. You try to do it in a way where there’s no giant megalodon shark that we’re working with, so how do you find that thing that’s attacking this giant structure? How do you make it seem like it’s happening when it’s us on a big metal sheet in the middle of a tank? I take what Christian Bale said to heart: “What we do is we play make-believe for a living.” This movie was like, ultimately, that.

How do you break down the camaraderie on set with your costars?
Part of this movie is somewhat unusual because there’s a Spielbergian element to it that there are young children, and it’s a family. It’s a tight family that loves each other, and they’re young kids. It’s not an average shark movie; even some of the stand-ins were young, and it was a family environment. It was a hard place to work because it was hot, dirty, and intense. The make-believe of it all was telling this ten-year-old little boy that we’re working with, “You’re about to get eaten by a shark,” but it was a lot of fun.

Written by Boise Esquerra and Carlos Cisco, The Black Demon also stars Fernanda Urrejola and Julio Cesar Cedillo. The film is currently in theaters.