Video After The Jump
Chris Brown plays Jesse Attica, the youngest in a crew of bank robbers, in the upcoming movie "Takers." The band of thieves, which also includes Idris Elba and T.I., has just days to plan and pull off a multimillion-dollar heist.
In a show-stealing action sequence, Brown is chased through the streets of L.A. by Matt Dillon's character, Detective Jack Welles, and partner Eddie Hatcher (played by Jay Hernandez). The singer-turned-actor leaps through windows, scales buildings, jumps on cars and anything else necessary to avoid being captured.
"I've never had to do so much running in my life," Dillon said about the scene. "For that sequence, we were just, like, four days straight, just running through the streets, and this kid Chris is an unbelievable athlete. This guy Chris Brown, he's unbelievable, man. So keeping up with him was a challenge even in itself, which was perfect for our characters."
Brown said he enjoyed bringing his skills to another medium, and he enjoyed getting physical for the part. The singer said the exhilarating stunts you see him pull off onscreen are all him — well, almost.
"The most thrilling part about this movie is probably the stunts," Brown said on the film's set. "I do, like, 96 percent of my stunts. Some stunts they wanna use the doubles; I don't wanna use the double! And they're like, 'We have to for safety and insurance issues.' I think the most exciting parts are the stunts, getting to blow stuff up, shoot guns, you know what I'm saying. It's all fun!"
Brown said he was attracted to "Takers" because it stood out from his other roles.
"When acting, I feel like it's cool to use your strengths, but it's also cool to use your other abilities as well," he said. "I didn't just wanna do movies that had consistent dancing and singing. I wanted to do stuff that pushes me as an actor at the end of the day. Because you have people like T.I. and Common that do stuff that's not around what they do in the entertainment industry as far as music, and they succeeded. So I just wanna branch over to that, especially like Will Smith. He comes from rapping and going right into the acting thing, so I wanna come from the singing parts and go into acting, and people can tell the difference. I think that with this role, it was more intense, more action, more stuff that I love to do, what I love to see in movies."
"Takers" hits theaters August 27 and also stars Michael Ealy, Zoe Saldana, Hayden Christensen and Paul Walker.
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