Bruce Cogburn (Guy Pearce) is the author of the book “The Infernal Machine.” When he begins receiving letters from an obsessed fan, he’s forced out of his reclusive life on a dangerous search to find the man behind these messages while facing the truth of his past and writings.

“I just thought it was written so well. I know Richard Guardian, who is one of the executives on it, and he said, ‘Look, we’ve got this script that might be up your alley. I’m going to send it to you. I think you might like it.’ I read it and I just called him immediately, as soon as I finished, and went, ‘This is great.’ He knows me so well and knew I was going to be taken by it,” commented Pearce.

Alongside Pearce in the cast of The Infernal Machine are Alice Eve, Alex Pettyfer, Jeremy Davies, and more. It’s written and directed by Andrew Hunt and available in select theaters and on digital as of September 23, 2022.

“I liked the insight into this character, as well as the sort of twists and turns… just the tension and the thriller elements of it, as well as the idea that someone who has written this book has supposedly caused this horrendous, devastating act… that, in itself, is a fascinating idea. We often hear about people who have committed sort of heinous crimes claiming to sort of blame it on a song or a book or something, or at least say that those things were partly responsible. So as an idea, I just found it pretty fascinating,” Pearce added.

Inspiration for Bruce Cogburn in The Infernal Machine

In a previous interview, Hunt commented that part of his inspiration for writing Bruce Cogburn came from the idea of artists having to live with knowing that people have committed crimes on behalf of their work, people like The Beatles and "Helter Skelter," or J.D. Salinger and "Catcher in the Rye."

“We certainly talked about a couple of examples,” commented Pearce when asked if he had anyone in mind while preparing for his role. “It was good to have those conversations and think what those effects might be like for artists, and the questions that have been raised about really how much responsibility an artist has… then whether an artist has the responsibility once something tragic occurs. It’s a major theme in the film and one worth talking about… I suppose there’s a sliding scale… the idea, particularly in a public forum, that we as human beings, whether we’re artists or whether we’re politicians, can have an effect, particularly on the vulnerable is a really sort of tenuous thing… it must be really difficult to come to terms with what the result is… so we talked about it and the effect that it’s had in the world, and you also have to look at the person who’s committed the violent act, what’s going on for them and why they grab hold of what they grab hold of…. that inspired me. It’s very tricky stuff,” said Pearce.

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Working with Andrew Hunt and Alex Pettyfer

InfernalMachineHuntPearce
Paramount Pictures

Very tricky stuff, indeed, which warranted plenty of conversation on set between Pearce and Hunt in order to capture the truth in each scene. “He was very honest from the outset… he said, ‘Look, man. I’m honored to have you, and you’ve clearly done more films than I have. Any thoughts or ideas that you have, please share them with me.’ He was very open to it. It’s funny because he wrote this really genius script and yet what came with it was a man who was kind of going, and this is Adam, ‘I’m going to need help doing this.’ Not to take anything away from what his skills and his abilities were, but I think he’s just really genuinely humble… so it was really an open and collaborative process from the outset. But quite often, I said to him, ‘Hey, man. You tell me. I want to know what you want me to do here because I feel maybe what I would do is this and this, but if you think I should do this and that, then I want to hear because you’ve written this thing, and I’m inspired by what you’ve written.’ We were both really sort of giving to each other,” said Pearce.

Pearce also had nice things to say about working with Pettyfer who plays a criminal in the film, Dwight Tufford. “Alex was wonderful,” said Pearce, “he wasn’t there with us for very long, he’s an executive on the film, but he wasn’t on set with us for very long but was so compelling, and really a lovely, lovely guy with this fantastic charisma and power. I just thought his choice of how he played Tufford, the criminal who had enacted this sort of horrendous shooting all these years before, I just thought it was great. I always said, one of the best things about being an actor is working with better actors, and you also get your own personal show three feet in front of you, and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ He was one of those for me. Same with Alice and Jeremy.”

The Infernal Machine comes to us from Paramount Pictures.