Actor Neal McDonough grew up as an Irish Catholic kid on Cape Cod, and he's best known for Band of Brothers, hard-hitting prestige crime dramas, horror, and science fiction. But in the last few years, he's taken on a whole new genre.
We’ve known each other since I first interviewed him in the late ’90s, and lately his varied career has headed in a Western direction.
McDonough has been seen in roles in Justified, Yellowstone, 911: Lone Star and Tulsa King, along with a string of Western cable movies. Now, he takes his love of cowboy life to the big screen in The Last Rodeo, hitting theaters on May 23 from Angel Studios.
This how Angel describes the film:
A retired rodeo legend risks it all to save his grandson. Facing his own painful past and the fears of his family, he enters a high-stakes bull-riding competition as the oldest contestant ever. Along the way, he reconciles old wounds with his estranged daughter and proves that true courage is found in the fight for family.
Along with McDonough, the film also stars Mykelti Williamson — who previously starred with McDonough in the NBC series Boomtown, which also introduced McDonough to Avnet — Christopher McDonald, Sally Jones, PBR professional bull-rider Daylon Swearingen … and McDonough’s wife, Ruvé McDonough.
The presence of Ruvé in the cast allowed McDonough to do something that he has been unwilling to do in many years -- kiss a woman on-screen (a faith-based decision that has cost him work).
Click here for the official site.
Shortly after the election of Pope Leo XIV, I had a video chat with Avnet and fellow Irish Catholic McDonough. The whole video is embedded below, but here are some highlights.
I think it was great to have a non-European pope, but to have a non-European pope now that's actually from the United States, who spent so much time in other countries, learning cultures, understanding people, understanding that not everyone has all the things and all the stuff in life, and that's not of importance.
What is importance is love and understanding people and understanding each other, and that's what this new pope stands for. I'm just so excited that, the whole English-speaking world, how exciting it is to have someone who can speak to us in English, but also who speaks Spanish fluently, who speaks Italian.
He's just this amazing human being that we are so blessed to have as our new pope. It's just awesome.
[My father] would take us horse riding every Sunday, and my brothers and I would just complain all the time. He goes, "One day, you'll thank me, boys. You'll thank..." Well, I'm thanking him now, because I always loved... I still love my saddle, which was his saddle from Ireland, I still ride all the time.
I love horses and I love being part of this culture, and about 10 years ago, it all started to change. It's from The Warrant to The Warrant 2 to Yellowstone to Tulsa King to this, and a couple other Western films that we've done,
I love the all-American Western culture. I always have. It's what I wanted to do when I first moved to Hollywood. I wanted to be John Wayne, I wanted to be all those guys, and now I had the chance to do it.
Writing a film with my wife, producing with my wife, and having that film directed by none other than the amazing, incredible, my favorite director of all time, Jon Avnet. I'm a very blessed guy, to be able to sit here with you, Kate, and talk about The Last Rodeo.
Neal brought this project that he had written with Derek Presley, and that he had this deep personal connection to, which he can go into in a second, I thought, "Neal is such a great actor and this is the opportunity for him to be a leading man," because he had those qualities, to me, of Gary Cooper, of Wayne, of Jimmy Stewart, take Paul Newman or Redford. Redford, not so much. More of the John Wayne world.
I thought, "If I could get the audience to feel the way I feel about Neal, this would be a big rush of energy," and it was late in the film, it was last day when I shot that opening where the brim of his cowboy hat tips up and you see his face, and then you see this bull, and then you see his face. No words.
I mean, what do you get when you see his face? You go, "We're on a ride."
Western stars, traditional stars, they imply so much history, so much character, and Neal did that. It seemed like it was effortless and it might've been less effort than some of the other things he's done, but that was because he owned this character and he understood the journey of this character.
I really wanted to do this film for a big audience and I wanted a big release. Look, I've had my share of good fortune, and I'm very, very happy about that, of course, but this to me, was, "Bring people into the theaters, again, have them experience this."
It has a positive view of the world, even though his character is flawed, his character's hurting, his characters pushed everybody who's loved him away.
His story is not one where he gets redemption miraculously. He has to work for it, he has to try and earn it, he has to be worthy of his daughter's love, he has to be worthy of Mykelti's friendship with him. That, in the context of this action film, had all the ingredients for a really great cinematic experience in the theaters.
If you love these types of films, you have to send the message to Hollywood, "We need more of these films." Well, how do you do that? You have to go to the cinema, buy tickets, bring the whole family.
The whole family will love this movie, it's a great night out. Or pay it forward, whatever the case is, but if you need more films like this, it's up to you all who are watching here and listening to support films like this and go to the theater and buy some tickets.
Well, I'm a knucklehead. During one of the shots... I don't mind getting busted up, that's just part of who I am. After all the years of hockey and all the fights and all... These teeth that are all fake, as I've joked. This nose has been broken so many times, it's finally straight. Also, growing up in Boston, you get tough as a kid. That's what you do.
This one shot in the film, I got busted off the bull and I landed on my shoulder and it popped straight out. Hadn't done that in a very, very, very long time, and that was my good shoulder. This is my bad, and it just popped.
I didn't stop the take, we kept rolling, and I go to Jon, I said, "I need to go pee," and he's like, "Okay, weird." I walk off and I go to the barn right around the corner, I slam my shoulder back in.
I'm like, "OK, I'm ready to go." I walk back out, and he looks at me. I don't even know if you remember it. He goes, "That was a quick pee," I'm like, "Yeah, go back and shoot the scene."
I didn't tell Jon until three or four months later, the story. He's like, "You didn't tell me?" I'm like, "Well, if I told you, you would've shut it down. We had a movie... We had a 23..." It was originally a 24, "23-day shoot to stuff a $50 million film into an $8.5 million budget," and we did it.
I wasn't going to slow that down, because I hurt my shoulder.
That's in the works, that's coming.
Here's the whole thing:
Image: Angel Studios
Kate O’Hare, a longtime entertainment journalist, is Social Media Content Manager and Blog Editor at Family Theater Productions.
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