In a new interview with Jimmy Kimmel, actor Peter Dinklage talked about casting James Hetfield for the movie ‘The Thicket.’
“Well, it was running around,” Dinklage said when asked how he cast the Metallica frontman. “We just wanted to fill it with like incredible faces because Westerns are those hard-living people. They were surviving each and every day. Somebody said, ‘We should get somebody that looks like James Hetfield,’ and I just said, ‘Or we get James Hetfield.’ There are ways and I happen to know somebody who knows the drummer Lars as you do in Hollywood, everybody knows and you work it. Suddenly I’m Zooming with James Hetfield.”
The crew got in touch with Lars Ulrich, but it wasn’t to cast him in the movie. “Yeah, that’s really rough,” Dinklage added. “It’s like, ‘All right. God, again? Nobody likes the drummers.'”
Hetfield appears in the dark western thriller based on Joe R. Lansdale’s novel as a sheriff. He appears in several scenes. While we don’t hear him speak, we see him in a gunfight, firing a gun and walking through snow.
Peter Dinklage plays Shorty, a hunter searching for a kidnapped woman. Set in the early 20th century, the movie follows Shorty and his team as they enter a dangerous area called the Big Thicket.
So, would Hetfield ever consider leaving his music career behind for an acting career? “I’m not into acting at all,” the frontman revealed during an interview. “I mean, I act enough on the stage, like projecting. For us on stage, projecting big, it’s almost more like Broadway. When you’re in a movie, you do just a little thing and that’s, ‘Whoa,’ that’s enough. I like big projecting.”
“It’s certainly not a career choice for me. I love what I do and I wanna continue to do that till my last breath. But just something fun. I love that someone just asks you. They see you, they picture you in a part and then you go and you do it. I think that was very cool of Peter,” he added.
The first trailer for the movie was released last month. ‘The Thicket’ hits theaters on Friday, September 6. The film also features Juliette Lewis, Esmé Creed-Miles, Levon Hawke, Leslie Grace, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Macon Blair, Ned Dennehy, Andrew Schulz, and Arliss Howard.
