Why ‘Black Bird’ co-stars Paul Walter Hauser and Taron Egerton were ‘ready to tear each other apart’

nypost.com:

Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”) is also a movie buff — so it’s no surprise that he describes his Emmy-worthy turn as “Black Bird” serial killer Larry Hall in cinematic terms — including Hall’s “Vincent D’Onofrio in ‘Full Metal Jacket’ stare.”“I’d say for my process … is that if I treated [the role] some other way it takes the humanity out of it and I’m kind of leaning into this tendency to overact,” Hauser, 35, told The Post. “So rather than be like, ‘Wow, I’m playing a serial killer so I better get ready’ … [Hall] was a human before he was a murderer, before he was a rapist, so you don’t want to play a killer like a killer.

You play [him] like a human — and that’s where you get Alan Rickman in ‘Die Hard’ or Christoph Waltz in ‘Inglourious Basterds.’“These villainous roles are always better when there’s some sort of human element,” he said. “There’s another world where Larry Hall owns a body shop and cooks a vat of chili that he brings into a dive bar on Monday nights to watch football.”“Black Bird,” streaming on Apple TV+, is a six-episode series based on James Keene’s 2010 autobiographical novel, “In with the Devil.” Golden Globe winner Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”) plays Keene, a high-level Chicago drug dealer who’s busted by the FBI and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He’s offered his freedom, but only if he transfers to a maximum security prison and wrangles a confession from Hall — a high-talking Civil War re-enactor with mutton-chop sideburns who’s suspected of killing as many as 14 young girls.

Hall claims his prior confession to one of those murders was coerced (they were just “dreams,” he says) — and he could be free to kill again if his appeal is upheld … so Keene is on the clock.Hauser said he “found a.