So there is a new movie coming out on May 4th. Bad Samaritan, starring Robert Sheehan as a small-time crook who runs afoul of a criminal mastermind during a routine heist. David Tennant leaves his good-guy persona and embraces the dark side as a devious murder hiding in plain sight who is entirely too happy to grapple with a petty criminal.

Have a look at a key scene in which, Sheenan has discovered a woman, bound and gagged in Tennant’s home at the beginning of the film. As he searches for a way to free her, he makes a grisly discovery that tells him where she is headed.

Robert Sheehan: I did a play when I was twelve called “Oliver with a Twist” in primary school which was roughly the plot of Oliver Twist with a bunch of comedy sketches thrown in.

HB: So there was a twist?

RS: Yeah the twist was that the principal had gone through and rewritten the play to sort of have references to adverts and things on the telly. But he cast me as Oliver and so that was my first real acting thing. I caught the bug big time man. BIG TIME. I was onstage thinking “This is an intoxicating feeling!” and at the same time saying, “Look at me I’m brilliant!” (laughs) So that was the bug. My saintly mother endured my demands to be taken up to Dublin for auditions and things and even up to Belfast a couple of times, train rides and that. My mother’s patience has to be given an credit for the fact that I am an actor.

HB: What made you say yes to Bad Samaritan?

RS: Loads of stuff. I was doing this film Geostorm with Dean and it’s always nice when a director you are working with hands you a script and says, here’s another script and you will have an even bigger part. That’s always attractive, that Dean wanted to work with me and in a greater capacity. The script was brilliant, very readable. Scripts I struggle with sometimes even when I am enjoying them. They are very simplistic. you have to do all these mental acrobatics. You know it’s much more, um, an outline of what’s to happen. But the script (For Bad Samaritan) was very readable. It was a great project from every angle. Then Mr. Tennant came on and I went, “Right. I’m Out! I’m OUT!” (Laughs) Then they had to sit me down and give me a massage and convince me to do it all over again.

HB: What was it like working with Tennant? Had you met him before?

RS: No I hadn’t. The first time I met him was in Portland. And really we didn’t spend any quality time together because we, you know, don’t really have many scenes together and I was just working ALL the time and when I wasn’t working I was asleep, you know, for his bits. It really wasn’t until the end of the shoot that we were all together and in the same hotel. Then we had the chance to hang out, have dinner together. It’s funny because as Tennant’s character warmed up to mine, it kind of mirrored what was happening in real life.

But yeah it was great. Really intense to watch him all day doing his thing in front of me, you know?

HB: What’s going on with your Netflix project?

RS: So, so many things, so many threads. The script is astronomically good and the guys who write them, the guys that write Fargo, for example, they are so good at long-form storytelling.We’ve been in Toronto for over three months filming now. It’s really fun, really intense and a creatively juicy place to go to work every day. It’s grown up telly.

HB: Your character, Sean (Bad Samaritan), he’s a flawed character with a heart of gold.

RS: The hooker with a heart of gold.

HB: (Laugh) Yeah! Is he more like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Dexter Morgan, or Walter White?

RS: Oooooo! I think he is ultimately Jimmy Stewart. I think this film is old-fashioned, in a good way. I think Stewart because, ultimately, he’s honorable. He’s an honorable guy. He starts off at the beginning of the movie as a coward, with what he discovered, and this plunges him into self-hatred and remorse. He made a terrible decision and how he acted upon it defines it all.

HB: When I saw it I kinda didn’t blame him because he literally ran out of time.

RS: You couldn’t hate him at that moment.

HB: That’s the genius of the script though, there are a lot of little moments like that. You seem to play charmers with a dark side.

RS: The charms a mask. I’m gonna steal your wife. In fact, I already have!

HB: Is that typecasting or are you drawn to them?

RS: (Laughs) Yeah I do play a lot of those parts but it has to be a good example of that. I’ve been asked to do things over the years that were not very interesting. The character Sean, isn’t really like anything I have played since Misfits. He’s certainly a bit of a charmer. I think it comes from a lazy place I don’t think he is trying to mask any darkness.

HB: He rolls up to his mom’s birthday party with stolen goods!

RS: (Laughs) Yeah.

HB: That’s a little duplicitous.

RS: But I think there is no BAD in him. The character in Misfits would sell you down the river for the price of six cans of beer. There is legitimate malice in him. Sean is a lot more redeemable.

HB: What is one word you would use to describe David Tennant?

RS: Flexible… in terms of his acting that is.

HB: Top 5 horror films?

RS: Ohhhhh! I’ve watched a few good ones recently. I really really really REEEEAALY liked The Invitation. My movie from 2016 was The Witch. Did you see that one? The Babadook, The exorcist, That’s four…

HB: Halloween? Nightmare?

RS: Nah… OH You know what I’ll put in? Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. That movie scared the shit out of me.

HB: What scares you?

RS: Dying. Dying scares me. Like the bit after dying, not the dying itself.

Directed by Dean Devlin (writer of INDEPENDENCE DAY, executive producer of “The Librarians,” and so much more), BAD SAMARITAN gives you something new to be anxious about – what could happen when you valet your car with valet drivers who are less than honest? Featuring David Tennant who plays an amazing bad guy and new-comer Robert Sheehan (who also stars in Peter Jackson’s MORTAL ENGINES out later this year), The film comes out May 4th and we are eager to share our review with you on Friday. Unti then, check out the trailer below.