Charles Melton is coming off his first Emmy nomination for Beef, and his next act is Private K, the American soldier at the center of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell, now playing in theaters via Neon.
Following the filmmakers into ‘Her Private Hell’
Asked what era he’s in right now, Melton didn’t point to a genre or a role type, he pointed to directors. “I follow the directors,” he said in an exclusive interview with BLKCinema.com. “I think if I were to describe this era, I think it’s imperative to follow with filmmakers.”
That philosophy is what got him into Her Private Hell in the first place. Melton said he committed to playing Private K before he’d even read Refn’s script, based entirely on their first conversation. “I remember when I first Zoomed with Nick, I think some of his first few questions were like, ‘What do you think about social media?’” he said. “More so understanding me as a person. And I already knew I was going to do the project before reading anything, before he had someone fly out from Copenhagen to come drop off a script for 24 hours and fly back. I just already knew.”
What ‘Her Private Hell’ means to him
Melton was reluctant to pin down a single reading of the film, framing its ambiguity as the point. “It’s a metaphor for so many things,” he said. “And every time I hear you speak about it or anybody, it’s continuing to unravel what it means to so many different people. And really the interpretation is the projection of what you think the movie is. That’s what it is. It’s many things all at once.”
He also made clear his collaboration with Refn isn’t ending with this film. “You want to be a part of things like that,” Melton said. “And this is not our last movie. We got a few more.”
Her Private Hell is now playing in theaters via Neon.
Featured image photo credit: Neon
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