Expanding a tradition in films from writer/director Shane Black, the new 2025 movie Play Dirty is a story set at Christmas in New York – but it took a bit of cinematic magic to actually make that special setting happen. Instead of shooting in Manhattan during December, the production took place in Australia during the summer. As you might expect, this circumstance meant that the stars had to do a bit of extra imagining in crafting their performances… but what you probably couldn’t guess is that the work also involved serious distraction from the local fauna.
I learned about these surprising interactions with other members of the animal kingdom when I had the pleasure of recently doing a virtual interview with Keegan-Michael Key and Nat Wolff during the press day for Play Dirty (which is now available to stream with an Amazon Prime subscription). We got on to the topic because I asked about the contrast of the season on set and the season in the movie, and Key told the story of encountering a tree full of giant bats:
You just have to lock in and start to use those imagination muscles. But I think maybe, perhaps we use them more on this film than other times in our career. I remember shooting a scene right when we’re all running out of the building and we’re running, LaKeith [Stanfield]’s character is running, Grofield, running across the street, and we’re all running down to the subway to get in the subway ’cause we’re like, ‘Oh no, they moved it’ la la la. All I remember is the tree above us was filled with enormous bats. Big enormous, like three-foot fruit bats.
You just have to lock in and start to use those imagination muscles. But I think maybe, perhaps we use them more on this film than other times in our career. I remember shooting a scene right when we’re all running out of the building and we’re running, LaKeith [Stanfield]’s character is running, Grofield, running across the street, and we’re all running down to the subway to get in the subway ’cause we’re like, ‘Oh no, they moved it’ la la la. All I remember is the tree above us was filled with enormous bats. Big enormous, like three-foot fruit bats.
The whole crew, all the Australians, are just working. All the Americans are going, ‘Look at that! What is that ? You get that video?’ I’m like, ‘Ok, I gotta lock in and concentrate.’ But it was clearly summertime, and I thought that the set decoration, they did a great job making it look kind of cold and frigid.
But of course, this is Australia we’re talking about, so you didn’t really think that this article was going to conclude with just one fun animal story, right? Separate from the “Christmas in summertime” subject, Nat Wolff had a creature tale of his own and told me about witnessing some strange behavior from a local bird called the Australian white ibis. Said Wolff,
This is a little bit more towards the animal thing, and you can cut me off, but there’s a bird there also that recognizes human faces. And my neighbor had a little kid that threw – like a three-year-old – that threw rocks at the birds and the birds attacked him every single day. The birds would come for the kid. They were vengeful birds and they were all attacking this little guy.
Never change, Australia!
Also starring Mark Wahlberg, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Jane, and Tony Shalhoub, Play Dirty is the latest feature adventure for Parker – the legendary thief of literature created by Richard Stark (the penname of Donald E. Westlake). It’s a heist film with plenty of big twists and turns to go along with comedy and action (as I note in my three-and-a-half star CinemaBlend review), and it’s available to stream now.