See Metallica’s James Hetfield get into a firefight in trailer for western thriller The Thicket
Metallica singer/guitarist James Hetfield appears in the new trailer for The Thicket.
The preview of the Tubi Original film was released yesterday (July 23).
Hetfield appears as a sheriff in the western thriller and is briefly seen firing a revolver.
Watch the trailer below.
The Thicket, starring and produced by Game Of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, will come out on September 6.
As well as Hetfield and Dinklage, the film will feature actors Juliette Lewis, Esmé Creed-Miles, Levon Hawke, Leslie Grace and Gbenga Akinnagbe.
The project is directed by Elliott Lester (Nightingale) and written by playwright Christopher Kelly.
The official synopsis reads: “When fierce bounty hunter Reginald Jones (Peter Dinklage) is recruited by a desperate man to track down a ruthless killer known only as Cutthroat Bill (Juliette Lewis), he rallies a band of unlikely heroes including a grave-digging ex-slave and a street-smart woman-for-hire.
“Together they embark on a perilous quest to track down Cutthroat Bill that leads them into the deadly ‘no-man’s-land’ known as…The Thicket.”
The first photos of Hetfield in his as-yet-unnamed role were published on social media last month.
The singer/guitarist has appeared as himself in numerous films, including 2004 Metallica documentary Some Kind Of Monster and 2006 comedy The Darwin Awards.
He first acted onscreen in 2019 with Ted Bundy biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile. Hetfield portrayed a police officer in several scenes with Zac Efron, who played Bundy.
Extremely Wicked… was directed by Some Kind Of Monster co-director Joe Berlinger.
Efron said of Hetfield’s acting chops in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel: “James Hetfield, to his credit, absolutely nailed the part, he just crushed it.
“It’s like he’s been acting his own life. He had no fear. He did a great job.
“I was ready to maybe give James Hetfield [an acting] tip, but he didn’t ask for a single one. James Hetfield is the shit.”
Away from the silver screen, Hetfield continues to perform with Metallica.
The metal titans will embark on a headline tour of North and Central America next month. See the list of dates below.
Accusations of “selling out” have followed Metallica for almost as long as they’ve been a band. From the moment the metal titans first touched an acoustic guitar in 1984, gatekeepers have been pissed off at them, sometimes for the most ludicrous of reasons. And one seemingly innocuous act that infuriated the purists was the first time the Four Horsemen made a music video.
Metallica made their MTV debut in 1989, with the release of the haunting clip for …And Justice For All single One. It was a moment of victory for the band, following years of rejection from mainstream TV and radio, even as Master Of Puppets became a megahit and they toured extensively with Ozzy Osbourne. As singer/guitarist James Hetfield revealed in 2018, however, that win didn’t enthuse everybody.
“When [MTV] asked us, ‘We need a video,’ that helped us a lot,” Papa Het reflected during a video interview on Justice…’s 30th anniversary. “There was one moment where I was at [legendary venue] The Stone on Broadway in San Francisco, there to see some metal band. Some kid came up to me and he spit on me!”
The ‘fan’ proceeded to verbally accost Hetfield, accusing him and his Metallica bandmates for selling out by making a music video. The frontman responded with undented bravado. “Right there, I went, ‘Yes we did. Fuck you!’” he remembered.
Hetfield goes on to sound shockingly grateful for the experience. He looks back on it almost three decades later as a learning curve, where he figured out that catering to insular minds would never let Metallica grow and develop.
“That’s when I started to realise, ‘OK, you can stay small and in this thing but, if you have something to say that’s really important, you need to utilise these things, whether it’s video, the internet or a movie.’ That’s what you gotta do: you gotta go for it!”
Following the release of One in ’89, Metallica would continue to flourish, headlining arenas around the world before topping global charts with 1991’s Black Album. The simplified-sounding follow-up again (unsurprisingly) riled up thrash’s elitists, but also affirmed its creators as the heavy metal band, setting new standards for what the genre can achieve commercially.
Decades on, Metallica continue to cram stadiums. The band just finished the European leg of their 2024 M72 tour and will embark on a series of North and Central American shows next month. See the full list of announced dates below.
After giving Bell “the proper Hollywood Deadpool treatment,” makeup and all, Reynolds sits down with the father, who details of his late son, “Where do I start? He was just so funny, so comical — and we did everything together. He was my firstborn son. He was just absolutely everything to me.”
After he lost Jake, Bell goes on to say, he was “in a very dark place.”
“I was planning my own death and talking myself into staying because my family needs me, my kids need me,” he continues. “What I do now keeps me alive daily because I’ve made my peace with death. I’m gonna be reunited with him at some point, but it damn right ain’t now.”
Related: Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s Relationship Timeline
After commending Bell’s efforts to raise money and awareness for mental health struggles, Reynolds then reveals that he also has a son.
“The resilience it takes to, you know, put one foot in front of the other as many times as you’ve done it, and transmute that much grief into something powerfully useful,” the actor says. “I’m very grateful that you shared his story.”
“I want to share with you that I too have a son and that if … boy, John, if I love him one-tenth as much as you love Jake, I feel like I’ve done a pretty damn good job,” he adds.
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