Lee Pace: Working with Edgar Wright is a pinch-me moment

Lee Pace experienced a "pinch-me moment" when he was offered a role in The Running Man.

The 46-year-old actor stars alongside the likes of Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Michael Cera, Colman Domingo, and Josh Brolin in the new dystopian action thriller film, and Lee admits that he was particularly looking forward to working with director Edgar Wright.

Lee told The Hollywood Reporter: "First, to get a call from Edgar Wright, saying, 'I want you to be a part of my film,' it was such a pinch-me moment.

"I’m such a fan of his. He described what he wanted to make and what he wanted out of this character, and I was like, 'Yeah, this sounds like great fun.' And I have to say, from that first conversation and the script that I read to the movie that I saw, it’s exactly the same. He made exactly the movie that he had in mind before we started filming."

Lee plays Evan McCone, the masked leader of the hunters, in the new movie, and he relished the experience of playing the "mysterious character".

Lee said: "He’s a complicated character. He’s mysterious, and he withholds a lot throughout most of the movie. I like a mysterious character.

"Then the complexity of him emerges towards the end, and I also like a complicated character. I still had a good time trying to make McCone be as relaxed and unbothered as possible throughout his pursuit of Ben Richards. So it was definitely great fun playing the character."

Despite this, Lee considers the director to be the number one consideration before he accepts a movie role.

The actor explained: "Director is first. That’s the reason you do or don’t do the movie.

"This was Stephen King’s, as Richard Bachman, interpretation of what 2025 might look like when he was writing back in 1981, so it was a very, very long time ago. He was sensitive to a growing hostility in this country, but the good news is we don’t live in a world where The Running Man is possible. The theme is thought-provoking, but like I said, it’s not reality.

"Inside the movie, there’s a sharp difference between the reality show and reality. In the movie, I play a Hunter, a murderer, who’s trying to hunt down Ben Richards. But inside the show, Ben Richards is supposed to be the bad guy, and McCone is portrayed as the good guy. He’s one of the brave people who’s trying to rid the streets of bad guys like Ben Richards, which is not true. So this movie is satire, and it’s fun and thrilling."