As we mentioned earlier, Diesel is known for two of the most iconic action heroes of recent years: Dom Toretto from the Fast and Furious movies and the title character in the Riddick films. When asked how playing Bloodshot/Ray Garrison pushed him in a way that was different from playing Toretto or Riddick, Diesel’s response was immediate.
“Those characters, both Dom Toretto and Riddick, we all appreciate that they’re three steps ahead of everyone,” he says. “This is not the case with Ray Garrison. He’s the last to know anything. He is so in the dark. He can’t even understand what’s real and what’s not real. He doesn’t even know who’s manipulating him. He doesn’t even know that he is being manipulated. He’s just going through a daily form of torture, in that he’s reliving the most horrific moment of his life every single day.”
That horrific moment, which opens the movie, is the kidnapping of Garrison and his wife by a band of brutal terrorists, a scenario which leads to both of them being killed. But as Garrison finds out when he wakes up again in the secret laboratories of Rising Spirit Technologies, his own death and that of his wife are part of a larger plan to control Garrison’s mind and body.
“And what we learn is what it’s in service of, but isn’t that tragic?” Diesel says about the true driving force behind Bloodshot. “To be motivated to kill, all by pulling the heartstrings and breaking your heart every single second. That makes for a very vulnerable character. One of the things that was so interesting about playing the character, first coming and reading the script, was this kind of unique composition of a character that both evokes fear because of how formidable he is, but equally evokes empathy because of how vulnerable he is… the wish fulfillment is fun and exciting and rewarding, but you go through this movie and you start feeling so much for this character.”
That, emphasizes the actor, is really what sets Bloodshot apart in the larger universe of comic book heroes.
