“I honestly don’t think any other pairing could have worked,” the “In Bruges” filmmaker says.

Martin McDonagh wanted Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich’s CIA duo to ‘be like an old married couple’ in Wild Horse Nine

“I honestly don’t think any other pairing could have worked,” the “In Bruges” filmmaker says.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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August 26, 2026 10:00 a.m. ET

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John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in ‘Wild Horse Nine’. Credit:

Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

- Martin McDonagh wrote Sam Rockwell’s *Wild Horse Nine* character specifically with him in mind.

- The filmmaker says that John Malkovich gets to show off his entire range in the film, as he’s “dark and sad and regretful, but also comedic.”

- McDonagh says *Wild Horse Nine* is like a “combination” of *In Bruges* and *The Banshees of Inisherin*.

It all started on Easter Island.

Playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh visited the iconic locale off the coast of Chile in the early 2010s, curious if the island could work as a setting for a future project.

“I tried different kinds of stories, but with all the stories, it was always two guys — one older, one younger,” he tells **. “Sometimes it’d be a father-son, sometimes it’d be friends. They’re going to the island with regrets about past life and that kind of stuff, and it focused on the relationship between these two people.”

Now, more than a decade later, he’s returning to the big screen with *Wild Horse Nine*, a black comedy centering on two CIA agents who end up on Easter Island just before a military coup upended the Chilean government in 1973. The story for the film “fell into place” once McDonagh settled on the early ‘70s as his setting.

“I’ve always been interested in Latin American history and the history of CIA black ops and foreign interference,” he says. “So it was a perfect time period to explore all of that.”

After earning widespread acclaim for his plays and winning an Oscar for his 2004 short *Six Shooter*, McDonagh became a cinephile favorite for his first two feature films, the black comedies *In Bruges* and *Seven Psychopaths*. His next two movies — *Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri* and *The Banshees of Inisherin* — maintained his dark sense of humor, but brought a more haunted, dramatic tone to his storytelling, and earned a collective 16 Oscar nominations between the pair.

McDonagh says *Wild Horse Nine* exists right in between those two modes.

“This falls closest to a combination of *Bruges *and *Banshees*,” he says, noting that the darker elements of the movie haven’t been reflected in the film’s upbeat marketing at this point. “I think some of the sadder aspects of it maybe haven’t been shown in the trailer, necessarily.”

Sam Rockwell in ‘Wild Horse Nine’.

Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

The filmmaker enlisted the help of frequent collaborator Sam Rockwell to anchor the cast after writing his character, a CIA agent named Lee, specifically for the actor. The *Moon* star previously appeared in *Seven Psychopaths* and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as a racist cop in *Three Billboards*, and McDonagh says that he has a noticeably distinct energy in *Wild Horse Nine*.

“It’s a quieter, subtler performance in some ways,” the filmmaker says when comparing Rockwell’s latest turn to their previous collaborations. “I think maybe the angst and the rage is definitely under the surface, if it’s there at all. But there’s a kindness and a compassion to his performance that maybe wasn’t there as fully in his other characters in my movies — maybe not there at all, definitely not as much as in this.”

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To play Lee’s partner Chris, McDonagh turned to John Malkovich. “It needed someone with a deftness of rage and comedy, and a subtlety about the whole regretfulness and guilt and all of those aspects,” he says. “And someone who, when he’s being quiet and contemplative, you want to know what’s going on inside. And John, in all his performances, has a wealth of what’s going on inside, even if he’s not saying anything.”

McDonagh admired Malkovich’s intense performances in movies such as *Dangerous Liaisons* and *In the Line of Fire* as well as his more comedic work in *Being John Malkovich* and *Burn After Reading*. “He gets to demonstrate all of those facets of his acting talent in one part,” the filmmaker explains. “It’s that combination of dark and sad and regretful, but also comedic at the same time.”

He adds, “If between John and I, we don’t get that right, then the film would fall apart. But you also know if you do get it right, then it could be something really, really special.”

The film hinges on the chemistry between the two leads. “They almost needed to be like an old married couple,” McDonagh explains. “They’ve been in a partnership in the CIA together for years and years, so you need to feel that implicitly. And you also need to feel the love between the two characters.”

McDonagh says cultivating that chemistry was easy, thanks to a longstanding mutual respect between the two actors. “John adores Sam and his acting talent, and Sam feels completely the same way about John — he can quote most of John’s lines in most of his movies,” he says. “So you’re already starting with two people at the get-go who want to be there together, who want to play tennis together on screen. And I think it really shows in every scene; it’s either the scenes are about love or that anger between the two of them or the depth of the sadness of what’s going on, too. I honestly don’t think any other pairing could have worked.”

Rockwell and Malkovich were keen to stay connected throughout production, even when they weren’t working on camera. “We all stayed in the same hotels, so John and Sam would go off and rehearse lines together on a day that they weren’t on screen together or on weekends,” McDonagh says. “So I’d always be banging into them and they’d be rehearsing in the bar or in the restaurant.”

Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell in ‘Wild Horse Nine’.

Searchlight Pictures/Diego Araya Corvalán, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Above Lee and Chris in the CIA barking order is MJ, a bureau chief played by Steve Buscemi. “He’s kind of like the big boss of the two of them,” McDonagh explains. “He’s a colder fish, but in Steve’s playing of it, it’s probably one of the most hilarious parts of the movie — and darker, too.”

McDonagh loved Buscemi’s work in *Reservoir Dogs*, *Trees Lounge*, and *Mystery Train*, and knew that he, too, could balance darkness with humor. “There’s a danger to him in this,” he said. “But the comedy — I laugh every time he comes on screen in this. He’s hilarious. Yet weirdly, he’s the toughest of the three characters, in some ways.”

He adds, “It’s great going into a film knowing you got those three guys. It’s going to be a good movie. I’d have to *really* not do my job to make a bad one [with them].”

Also in the mix is Mariana di Girolamo, the star of Pablo Larraín’s *Ema*, who portrays a student tangled in the agents’ web.

“She’s brilliant. She brought the integrity and the youth of someone who knows the Chilean history of it, and is just a gorgeous person as well,” McDonagh says. “She’s very funny, but very, very serious about her craft. And you needed someone who you knew could hold their own with these legends of the screen. Her integrity throughout every single scene and her attention to detail was amazing.”

John Malkovich and Mariana di Girolamo in ‘Wild Horse Nine’.

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

McDonagh says that, as with his other films, it’s safe to expect some bursts of gnarly violence from *Wild Horse Nine*. “I can’t promise no violence in the film, spoiler alert!” he says. “I couldn’t say how much, but I guess if you’re calling it a cross between *Bruges* and *Banshees*, that’s where it falls even in the violence, too.”

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Though those moments of violence often have dire implications for the characters in his films, McDonagh says the mood on set isn’t particularly affected by the grisliness of these scenes.

“Because it usually also involves either stunts or guns, which have their own safety issues, if you’ve done all your prep work, there isn’t a heaviness about the scene — it’s a heaviness about the safety and making sure everyone in the cast and crew come through it safely,” he explains. “They’ve usually been planned to the nth extreme and often with three cameras. So your work is weirdly almost done.”

He continues, “There’s a lot more work for me to do on a day with a three-page dialogue scene where it’s about emotional stuff. But on the violence days, all those bits of the filmmaking are quite short and sharp. It’s like two seconds of a car crash or a gun coming out. So it’s weirdly easier than on heavy, dramatic days.”

*Wild Horse Nine* hits theaters on Nov. 6.

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