The following contains a spoiler for Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven, so if you haven't yet seen it, steer clear, and head to a theater, where it's currently playing.
Bartholomew Bogue. The dude just SOUNDS like a snake. And, as played by Peter Sarsgaard in the latest interpretation of The Magnificent Seven, he IS a snake -- a thieving bully of a real-estate baron who intimidates the denizens of a quiet, small mining town into selling their property for pennies on the dollar, just so Bartholomew Bogue will stop making their lives a living hell.
You will spend the bulk of Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven begging for someone -- anyone -- to shoot this evil bastard... and someone eventually does. Only, when I sat down to interview Sarsgaard at the Toronto International Film Festival, I asked him how the filming of his confrontation went down, and it turns out he had a very specific demand:
I remember, the one funny thing is that [Denzel] was not being clear about where he wanted to shoot me. And he had all sorts of, um, optimistic, fanciful ideas about where he was going to shoot me. And I was like, 'Ehhhhh, no.' [Laughs] Nowhere in here [points to his groin area] circling my whole pelvis area will be where I get shot.
The Magnificent Seven, much like Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (on which this is based) features a band of cowboys -- some good, some not quite good -- who agree to assist the helpless townsfolk who find themselves under the thumb of a tyrant. And because the Seven are led by Denzel Washington's mysterious Chisolm, it only serves the story that he be the one to ultimately take Bogue down.
If you have seen The Magnificent Seven, you know that there's a physical confrontation between the two men in the burned church from the beginning of the movie. It's prolonged, and it's violent. And from what Sarsgaard tells us, it was supposed to end with Chisolm shooting Bogue in the crotch. At least, that's what Denzel would have preferred. Here's Peter Sarsgaard, recollecting this pivotal scene from The Magnificent Seven. Again, he talks about a few SPOILERS, so be warned:
The Magnificent Seven stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Peter Sarsgaard and Haley Bennett in a classic tale of Old West vengeance. It's directed by Antoine Fuqua, he of Training Day, The Equalizer and King Arthur. It is in theaters as we speak.
