CM Punk Loved Playing a Villain In Night Patrol, Reflects On Movie’s Bigger Themes

CM Punk gets to lean into the dark side with his role in the new action-horror film Night Patrol, and he recently spoke about playing a villain in the film. Punk plays a racist cop in the new film from Ryan Prows, which mixes social commentary with vampire action. The movie releases on Friday from Shudder and RLJE Films.

Punk spoke with Josh Wilding for Comic Book Movie about his role in the film and more. He talked about being able to play one of the big bad guys in the movie, and how his work in the ring is different from his work on a film set. You can see highlights below:

On The Film’s Bigger Themes:

“It’s really exciting. You know, I’m a big horror movie fan. And a lot of it is because of the subject matter, but horror movies to me have also been the genre that filmmakers use to speak on social issues. Way back when George Romero made Night of the Living Dead, that is a social commentary.

“This movie is no different. And it’s fun to be able to do an action horror movie, because you like them. It’s more meaningful when you’re actually saying something with the movie. So yeah, getting to play a bad guy in this kind of movie was tremendous, meant a meant a lot to me. I took it very seriously, because we talk about — there’s a lot of underlying issues in this and I I think we did a masterful job of kind of asking the question like, ‘Who’s the real monster? Who’s the real gang?'”

On Having Fun Playing a Villain:

“Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s one of those [things] where you’re looking around like, ‘I would do this for free, but they’re paying me.’ So it’s a win for me. Yeah, it’s just a lot of fun, like there’s something about villains that I think are — villains are more often times, for lack of a better word, sexier than the good guys. Like, the villains get to do fun stuff. The villain’s got the better weapons, the better outfits. Cobra’s cooler than G.I. Joe. But this movie really kind of turns that on its side and explores it like, ‘Who really are the villains here?'”

On How the Two Jobs Are Different:

“Yeah, absolutely. I mean there’s so many parallels with both jobs. But there’s there’s tiny little minutiae that are are different here and there. Obviously, TV and movies we can do multiple takes. The wrestling shows we do on a weekly basis are live, but that’s a lot like theater. So there’s you can take from both and apply to both.”

“For wrestling, I need to be bigger. I need to wrestle bigger so people in the cheap seats can see me. And for TV and movies, you know, like this is it [framing his face]. So, I almost need to be more subtle or it comes off like I’m overacting and being comedic. So, I can apply that to wrestling and vice versa. When the time’s right, I can act bigger and sillier if need be on a on a movie set.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Josh Wildling with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.