The 'Always Sunny' star tells Playboy why he shines in smaller projects like 'Hotel Artemis'
If you look at this past weekend’s box office, you’ll see a perfect snapshot of the current state of the movie industry. Of the three new wide releases, the top-grossing movie was Ocean’s 8, a perfectly inoffensive reboot of a hugely popular franchise. Then there was A24’s arthouse horror film Hereditary, whose 13 million-dollar haul was the boutique distributor’s highest debut ever, and further evidence that horror continues to buck the trend of declining theatrical attendance in the age of streaming. The most anemic opening belonged to Hotel Artemis, a John Wick-ian sci-fi thriller from first-time director (and Iron Man 3 scribe) Drew Pearce.
Boasting a deep roster of boldface names—Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista, Sterling K. Brown, Jenny Slate, Sofia Boutella, Brian Tyree Henry and Jeff Goldblum among them—and a high-concept premise featuring a hotel for L.A.’s most notorious criminals, Hotel Artemis had all the makings of a breakout summer hit. Instead, the film fizzled, adding one more bullet in the chamber for those taking aim at Hollywood and its slow mutation into a graveyard where original ideas go to die.
Set in a near-future dystopian Los Angeles, Hotel Artemis looks and feels like a throwback to such films as Total Recall and RoboCop—ultra-stylized and specific sci-fi actioners from the 1980s and ’90s that just don’t make it to the multiplex anymore. That’s largely what appealed to Charlie Day, who plays Acapulco, a xenophobic arms dealer. “These are movies that exist as much on genre and mood as they do on the story that they’re telling,” he tells Playboy. “Everything from the design to the cinematography is so intentional.” While Day didn’t go out of his way to knock Hollywood’s obsession with tentpoles—after all, he did show up in his second Pacific Rim movie earlier this year—he did take a jab at superhero movies in general, where style and mood can be often rendered afterthoughts. “In bigger movies, that stuff can feel kind of secondary,” he adds.
If Day speaks like a filmmaker, it’s because he’s spent as much of his career behind the camera as he has in front of it. Along with costars Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney, Day has executive produced all 12 seasons of the FX sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. With the show slated to run for at least two more seasons—which would tie it with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as the longest-running live-action sitcom in TV history—Day has been steadily planting the seeds for life after Paddy’s Pub.
In 2011, Day knocked on movie stardom’s door when he starred opposite Jason Bateman and Jason Sudeikis in the bro-centric comedy Horrible Bosses and the subsequent sequel. But in the years since, Day’s career choices have not resembled those of someone looking to reach the mountain summit by taking a path charted by his predecessors. Instead, Day makes his choices based on two things: who he gets to work with, and does the part excite him, which might explain his involvement in shoestring indies like John Krasinski’s The Hollars and Louis C.K’s now-shelved I Love You, Daddy. “That’s all that drives my decision-making process at this point,” he explains. “Does it feel like it’s going to be fun, and will it be worth the time and effort?”
“If I wanted to sit around, the phone would ring enough that I could make a living. But I’m addicted to the hustle.”
That ethos is exactly what led him to Hotel Artemis. Day was particularly keen on reconnecting with Sterling K. Brown, whom he first met at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 1989. “When we were in our 20s, I told him, ‘When you hit 40, your career’s going to take off,’” Day recalls of the now-two-time Emmy winner. “He had a maturity at that age that made him seem ahead to of his time. Now he’s blowing my mind. I knew he was good, but I didn’t know he was the next Marlon Brando.”
Day is nearly three decades removed from that internship at the famous festival, but he still runs on the same relentless motor that kept him going even when he was living in New York as a struggling actor with a dollar-a-day food budget. He remembers the first time he touched down in Los Angeles to test for a pilot that never got made. “I can remember flying in and seeing the palm trees and the Hollywood Hills, and I would always just think of Jack Nicholson being somewhere around here, wearing sunglasses and driving a convertible and playing golf and smoking a cigar,” he says. “It was the combination of that, and it being a city full of people who are dreaming and hoping to create and accomplish things outside of whatever’s been handed to them, that made it such an inspiring place to be.”
Despite his success, which could culminate even further if he finally manages to direct a film he’s been developing for years, don’t expect Day to rest on his laurels. “I’ve gotten to a place where, if I wanted to sit around, the phone would ring enough that I could make a living,” he says. “But I’m addicted to the hustle. Even if you’re the biggest movie star in the world, you’re probably still seeking out good stories and good filmmakers, and trying to put people together, so you can tell a story that reaches people. And the most exciting thing in the world is when you feel like you pulled it off.”