NEW YORK, 14 de marzo (UPI) — Stranger Things, The Princess Bride y Robin Hood: Men in Tights icono Cary Elwes dice que investigó a fondo la vida de Michael Grable, el detective de policía real de Indianápolis que interpreta en la película de Gus Van Sant, Dead Man’s Wire.

“Fui a Indianápolis y pasé un tiempo allí y conocí a los hijos de mi personaje, Michael y Jason, y me dieron una gran cantidad de material para trabajar con: audio, visual, álbumes de fotos, todo, y su comportamiento, sus gustos, sus disgustos, sus frases favoritas”, dijo Elwes, de 63 años, en una reciente entrevista por Zoom, señalando que Grable murió nueve años antes de que se estrenara la película.

“Traje todo eso a Louisville [donde filmamos] y lo compartí con Gus y él seleccionó ciertas cosas sobre el personaje que quería que resaltara”.

Ahora disponible en plataformas digitales y DVD, la película está inspirada en el secuestro de 1977 del prominente banquero Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery) por Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård), un cliente descontento, quien sentía que había sido estafado.

Cary Elwes llega a la alfombra roja del 2026 National Board Of Review Gala en Cipriani 42nd Street en Nueva York. Foto de archivo de John Angelillo/UPI

Grable era un detective de narcóticos encubierto llamado a desescalar la situación de vida o muerte.

Él y Kiritsis eran conocidos porque frecuentaban la misma cafetería, una que frecuentaban la policía.

Dacre Montgomery attends the “Campari Passion For Film Award 2025” and the “Dead Man’s Wire” red carpet during the Venice International Film Festival in 2025. File Photo by Rocco Spaziani/UPI

“Tony Kiritsis used to eat there a lot because he liked policemen for some reason. For a guy who ended up becoming a criminal, he was fascinated by cops and, so, they knew each other,” Elwes said.

Grable had just taken an FBI hostage seminar about a week before this nerve-wracking event took place.

Gus Van Sant attends the “Campari Passion For Film Award 2025” and the “Dead Man’s Wire” red carpet during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival in 2025. File Photo by Rocco Spaziani/UPI

“Being the first cop on the scene, he was actually more qualified than anyone else to talk Tony off a ledge,” Elwes said.

“Because A. They knew each other, and B. He’d done this seminar, so they had a relationship. And, so, Gus and I worked together to figure out a way to find an arc in that relationship, more in terms of a power play, and it was fun.”

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Grable figures out pretty quickly that Kiritsis is experiencing a psychotic break.

“When you’re dealing with someone who’s unstable, you have to approach that person a different way. The course — I took part of the course myself [to prepare] — is to make sure that you don’t let the kidnapper leave the scene,” Elwes explained.

“And, of course, that’s what Tony did right away. So, he threw everything up in the air once he left the scene with the hostage and got back to his apartment. Then all bets were off on how to extricate [him and Hall from] the situation.”

As the radio and television media exhaustively covered the ordeal over nearly three days, the public began to take sides regarding whether Kiritsis is mentally ill, a criminal or a national hero.

“There are modern parallels in the themes in this, about how the role of media [is played] in these kinds of situations,” Elwes said. “That was one of the things Gus wanted to comment on.”

Elwes named Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver as stories that share the same cinematic DNA as Dead Man’s Wire.

“I think we’re fascinated, even throughout film history, about characters who feel marginalized and pushed up against a wall and forced to make decisions that end up having huge consequences,” Elwes said.

Kiritsis eventually surrendered, and was arrested, tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was released from a mental institution in 1988 and died in 2005 at the age of 72.

Colman Domingo, Myha’la and Al Pacino co-star in the film.

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