Late Night With the Devil star David Dastmalchian confirmed what many were thinking about the movie's ending.
The film follows a late-night talk show host named Jack Delroy, who recently lost his wife.
At the end of the horror hit, after the demon Jack accidentally summons kills everyone around him, he is sent into a false reality next to his dying wife. It is here that it's revealed her death was a result of Jack’s wish to be more successful, assumingly, unbeknownst to him.
[ Late Night With the Devil Plot Explained: The True Meaning of the Movie ]
Jack & June's Connection In Late Night With the Devil
While speaking in an interview with Variety, Late Night with the Devil star and executive producer David Dastmalchian revealed what fans suspected about the film’s ending.
When asked if Jack knew that the cost for his wished success was the death of his beloved wife, Dastmalchian clarified that "there’s no way Jack would have participated in that" if he knew what would happen:
"It's never overt. It's a nudge on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear. If someone had come up to Jack with a contract that said, ‘For 'Night Owls' to be number one, you're going to have to kill Millie,’ - there's no way Jack would have participated in that. I'm sure there were times he got lost in the moment and said things you might not otherwise say - that you would sacrifice anything to get what you want."
The star continued, noting how, often, when people are in those circumstances, they "[don’t] consider" the "cost:"
"I've said that to myself back in the day when I was just trying to catch one commercial break get one line on a TV show. But you have to be careful. I know people who practice magic and they tell me about someone who cast a spell to get a certain amount of money and what ended up happening was there was a robbery. All of their things were stolen so they got a check from insurance for the amount of money they needed - but they didn't consider at what cost."
After Ingrid Torelli’s Lilly goes full-on demon, everyone around Jack starts to drop dead—and he finds himself in a hallucinatory reality at the bedside of his dying late wife.
Variety posed an interesting question: did Madeline reach out to Jack in the ending because she loved him or was angry with him?
Dastmalchian posed his own question, "Can both things be true at the same time:"
"Can both things be true at the same time? I believe yes. The people in my life that I love the most and I've had moments where I've realized I love someone so much but I'm so angry at them. I think Madeline has always loved Jack even as the ambitious, driven workaholic - because that's part of his makeup. But he pushed it too far. And there's a point when you go, “God, I love you for who you are but stop it!’"
When asked if the connection between Jack Delroy and Dr. June Ross-Mitchell goes deeper than just platonic, the actor confirmed, it "absolutely" does:
“Absolutely. These are all choices I made that the brothers were supportive of. There was definitely no affair when Millie was alive. After she dies, Jack is unable to process the grief. And this book comes across my desk, ‘Conversations With the Devil.’ I take a meeting — nothing illicit at all, but because I’m fascinated by this stuff, and I see the potential for a great segment. And there’s chemistry there, and a bond starts to form, which rattles Jack with guilt because still in mourning. He develops feelings, and he truly believes in her — but he also knows she could be good for the show."
Dastmalchian explained that Jack believed that he was helping Dr. June.
The actor noted how in his own life, there have been times he "had the best intentions" but felt "compelled to bend [his] ethical compass:"
"There have been too many times in my life — in relationships, in parenting — where I believe I had best intentions in mind but felt compelled to bend my ethical compass just a little bit to get us over the finish line. You omit a detail or skip one step of the process. If Jack were just a smarmy narcissist driven by fame and success, that movie is boring to me."
As for whether or not he feels that Jack and Dr. June were ever physically involved before the events of the movie, he noted they easily could have "if things went well that night:"
"I think that if things went well that night, there is a world where there’s a celebration in store, and Jack could see June becoming an important relationship in his life, romantic or otherwise."
Sadly, as those who have seen the movie will know, things decidedly do not work out well at all. Everyone is left dead, all but Jack Delroy, surrounded by a soundstage filled with carnage.
While Dastmalchian’s character may have felt guilt for his connection to June, he has a lot more to worry about following his historic taping—just, all the wrong things.
Something else fans predicted was that the mute skeleton in the crowd could be the devil himself—or something along those lines.
Dastmalchian explained how, to him, that costumed skeleton "is someone whose come from the coven to make sure and collect," while making sure to note the devil himself "only makes one quick appearance in the film:"
"The skeleton to me, in the end, is someone whose come from the coven to make sure and collect. The devil, in my opinion, really only makes one quick appearance in the film. And it’s quite subtle. I’m genuinely enjoying seeing on social media that people who have now been into their second or third view of the film and they’re going, ‘Ah, I see when we got a quick appearance!’ Because as June says, she believes that Mr. Wriggles may not be the Satan itself or Abraxas itself, but a minor deity that is serving towards the greater cause, if you will."
Late Night with the Devil is now streaming on Shudder.
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