The life of a villain’s henchman can be challenging, though that extends past attempting to fulfill a villain’s epic plans of taking over the world. That’s the premise of Villains Inc., a delightful new film directed by Jeremy Warner and written by Matt Moen that features a stellar cast, including Colin Mochrie, Mallory Everton, Jason Gray, and Billy Mann. Villains Inc, which is in theaters for a special engagement on April 19th, will introduce fans to three low-level hencepeople named Beatrix (Everton), Harold (Mochrie), and Cain (Gray), who band together to try and make a life for themselves after the death of their supervillain leader. They have a plan of their own, but making that plan happen is a whole other thing entirely, and as you might imagine, hilarity ensues. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak with Everton and Mochrie about their characters and bringing this entertaining trio to life in a relatable and fun way.
That’s pretty impressive when you consider that the project was actually started in 2020, but due to the pandemic couldn’t be resumed until 2022. With the final touches being made, it’s finally time for the film to make its grand debut, as it will hit theaters on April 19th. It’s been a wild journey, but it’s all incredibly worth it, both for the cast and for those who watch the film and get to know Beatrix and Harold, who Mochrie feels isn’t appreciated as he should be.
“First of all, I don’t think he gets the respect that he deserves,” Mochrie said. “There’s a lot of his old jokes throughout the movie, and my thing is, do you know how hard it is to be that old as a henchman?” Everton added, “That’s a lot of years of trauma. Let’s be real.”
“Playing a character who is just totally committed to whatever his boss has going and meets someone that he can admire and worship. So I think he doesn’t have to worry so much about his life, and actually, that’s when things kind of fall apart for him when he has a little bit of more control in his life where, well, I guess I’ll just taste poison now and test that out. No, bad idea. You need someone to look after you,” Mochrie said. “So I love that and I love the relationship between the three henchmen. It is kind of a family, very dysfunctional at times, like all, and it’s the kind of family that one of them could kill the other two and there’s always that kind of lurking, but still, there’s love there. It’s more than just workplace friends.”
“Yeah, it’s true. I think some of my favorite things about Beatrix and sort of the general landscape of what we were able to make together is like you were kind of saying, the sort of grounded, relatable nature, like where The Boys is sort of the dark side of Marvel. This is more an indie film version of the bad guys in Marvel. You know what I mean? More just something you might expect Wes Anderson to make in his early days,” Everton said. “He’s a big influence in Jeremy’s style, and I feel like you can really feel that, like the world feels, like you said, like you can reach and actually touch people and understand them in part because of their friendship, it looks familiar to you.”
“But yeah, one of the things I like about Beatrix in particular is that I like that she makes bad choices. I think sometimes, we don’t see women do that. I think we see too many women behaving the way we think we should and Beatrix makes bad choices,” Everton said. “She’s doing what she can, but she’s kind of intense and could maybe use a breathwork class or something, but she doesn’t have access to that kind of support and she probably would think it was lame and would want to kill the instructor. It’s nice to play a woman who makes mistakes I like that she lies to her friends and she has to figure out how to… We all make mistakes like that and I think it’s important to see how characters deal with their misbehavior. And she’s a person who genuinely has no… the morality is so murky. What’s a good friend? What’s a good person? And all of that gets explored with these people.”
They are very much a dysfunctional family, and you see that play out in a number of ways throughout the film. That includes one hilarious sequence where frustration and a sudden reveal cause an impromptu brawl between Harold and Beatrix, and for the record, Mochrie feels that Everton enjoyed punching him a bit too much. “That fight scene was kind of fun. Mallory seemed to enjoy it a little more than maybe I did. I’m not sure if you were supposed to punch me in the face that often,” Mochrie said.
“I’m pretty sure it was scripted, but I might’ve asked for it. I might’ve made a special request because the way you looked at me that day,” Everton said.
“One of the benefits of working with Jeremy in particular is that he edits his films, and so I think that allows him to work very quickly and it does allow him to, what Colin was mentioning, he’ll shout out a line, he understands how he’s going to cut it, so he’s not worried about, ‘We need to start up the cameras again for a fresh take.’ He’ll just say, ‘What about this?’ And so I feel like it’s an extra relaxed, very fun comic environment,” Everton said. “I feel like we always tried to cover what was in the script and then did some kind of fun run, whether it was like Jeremy’s got ideas or Matt, the writer had ideas, or one of the writers, I should say. But yeah, I mean, I love Colin. I love Colin and I loved that I got to beat the crap out of Colin. It’s just the most fun.”
“There were things I really enjoyed as a younger actor. The difference is now, every time I moved my head back, there was a loud click from my neck,” Mochrie said.
“Yeah, but luckily, it was easier on the Foley guys. They didn’t have to add any creaking and cracking, they’d just use the sounds that naturally happened in Colin’s body, even just from walking, just standing sometimes, “Everton said.
With the family dynamic established, we wanted to know if Mochrie and Everton would be up for bringing back Harold, Beatrix, and Cain for another adventure, and the answer is a resounding yes, though Mochrie doesn’t want to step at just a sequel. “Absolutely. I mean, absolutely, this would be my Avengers. After seven or nine films, they have to recast and go back to the origin and rebuild it every couple of years. I would love to. I think there’s a lot they can still explore in this world,” Mochrie said.
“Yeah, I actually think in a lot of ways, even when I read the script, I was like, there’s almost like a sitcom feel to it. It feels like it’s sort of chaptery. There are these different set pieces that pop up with their own sort of little worlds and games and makes you feel like it’s something that could very easily just build into more episodes,” Everton said. “You just want to see what they get up to you. Who are their families, and where do they come from? There’s so many questions that you have because there’s a lot that’s left kind of vague that you’re like, there’s a lot that you could explore with these characters. I think it’d be really fun.”
Villains Inc. hits theaters on April 19th, and you find a showing in your location right here.
