Flula Borg plays a role unlike anything he’s done before alongside Dave Bautista in My Spy: The Eternal City from Amazon Studios, and it includes far more fisticuffs than normal.
The family-friendly action movie is a sequel to the 2020 film My Spy, which also starred Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman as a father-daughter pair of spies. Released on July 18, this new entry sees them facing Flula Borg’s Crane, a hitman with an impressive resume.
While Borg is usually known as the funny man, there are no laughs from the actor this time. Now, it’s time for him to be serious as he takes on someone played by a former WWE wrestler with a straight face.
Flula Borg Drops the Comedy for Straight-Shooting Hitman
Speaking exclusively with The Direct's Russ Milheim, My Spy: The Eternal City star Flula Borg described his role in the film as unique from his others.
Borg plays Crane, a super serious assassin with a respectable reputation that precedes him.
"Normally I play goofy, silly dudes," the actor admitted, but his role as Crane in Eternal City "was fun because I was not funny:"
"Normally, I play goofy, silly dudes, and this is a comedy as well. But this was fun because I was not funny. I was not trying to be funny, and this is a great joy for me. Normally, I am this, so it's like wearing new shoes for me. These are brand new, wide enough for my toes."
Given how often he has done comedy, did he ever find himself slipping back into those habits?
"No," Borg explained, reiterating how "it's really fun to do something different:"
"No, I think it would have probably been okay with everyone if I had been more comedic, but it was more fun for me not to be comedic. Also, I go insane if you do the same thing too many times. Albert Einstein said that's the definition of diarrhea or something like that. So it's really fun to do something different."
To help get into character, Borg revealed he writes in "a Togebuch," also known as a diary, as the character he is playing at the time:
"Yes, I have a Togebuch, a German word for a diary. When I have a role, I like to write as if I'm the person in my Togebuch. And then I will read those sometimes between scenes as I'm enjoying craft services in a small book, one of these tiny dudes. Nice. Yeah. And I do it and I read it, and that will get me back into the zone."
At one point in the movie, Crane's dating profile briefly appears onscreen. But what exactly would such a profile look like?
Borg shared that Crane is "a quiet novice botanist" who people should want "to photosynthesize with:"
"Well, people don't know this, but he's a quiet novice botanist. Do you know like that guy from 'Parks and Recreation' who whittles nutcrackers? I know Crane is a man like this. He knows everything about small, tiny, dry, and large plants… [He's a] smoke show. Listen, you want to photosynthesize with this guy."
Also starring in My Spy: The Eternal City is Dave Bautista, who Borg described as "a wonderful man" and a "very generous actor:"
"Dave Bautista is a wonderful man. I had not met him before we crossed paths. We have worked with different people, but never together at the same time. What a nice dude, what a great man. Also just the shit... Very simply put, the shit. A very generous actor, very much supportive of other people. Not as they say, like people are sometimes as a screen swine or screen piggy?... He's none of these. He's a wonderful man and a wonderful actor."
Not only is Borg sharing the screen with Bautista, but his hitman goes toe-to-toe with his character, something that was "absolutely" intimidating:
"Absolutely. Dave Bautista is huge man. And I am tall, but I am not from the world of professional wrestling. I'm from the world of novice BSing, which is my background. So a very different place... But he's such a friendly person. It was a juxtapose of a persona of huge and also a persona of nice."
Despite how intimidating the actor may be, there were "fisticuffs" between their two characters, with Borg adding that he had not done many big fight scenes up to this point:
"Yes, I can confirm that fisticuffs occurred. I participated in those fisticuffs, and no one truly harmed animals, humans, or plants. But it was very fun. As I said, all of this was new to me. I've not done some extended fighting scenes, so it was very exciting to be both ruled and engaged in fisticuffs."
One particularly challenging part of the production for Borg was how, as someone "who's communicating with all the people," he did "not speak Italian so good" like many of the crew members:
"Well, I very much want to speak to the crew, always. I like to be a man who's communicating with all the people. Unfortunately, I do not speak Italian so good. But I only learned about four or five cursing words from a friend. And so this was all I used. So, that all we would do all day is just curse at each other. But I think it was in a friendly way. I'm still not certain."
One of the actor's favorite moments working on the project was when they casually "went to a jazz bar in Cape Town, South Africa" where "Ken Jeong and Craig Robinson went to a piano and began to perform:"
"So we also shot this a little bit, not just a little bit, in Cape Town, South Africa. And so my favorite moment was when we went to a jazz bar in Cape Town. And I got to witness a bunch of dope jazz in it with a South African vibe and theme. And then Ken Jeong and Craig Robinson went to a piano and began to perform. It felt historic. Babe Ruth hitting a home run but in jazz, Cape Town, South Africa."
My Spy: The Eternal City is streaming on Amazon Studios' Prime Video.
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