How Dylan Sprouse and Callan McAuliffe Brought ‘The Duel’ to Life

There’s something especially interesting about the new movie The Duel.

In the film, Dylan Sprouse and Callan McAuliffe star as Colin and Woody, two best friends who horribly betray each other to the point that they end up agreeing to an old-fashioned duel to settle it. Their two other best friends (Denny Love and Hart Denton) and the woman who has come between them (Rachel Matthews) also get involved. So do the proprietor of a shop dedicated to the history of dueling (Patrick Warburton), a mysterious billionaire living across the border in Mexico (Ronald Guttman) and his odd daughter (Marîa Gabriela de Faría).

It all adds up to a unique enterprise that doesn’t ask you to love its main characters, especially when they’re behaving badly.

The Duel is also provocative and stays with you long after it’s over. The film makes you ponder the decisions the characters make, why and how they are so horrible to each other and how you might react given similar circumstances. It helps that Sprouse and McAuliffe have terrific chemistry together and make you believe that they both love and hate each other.

Lionsgate is releasing the film as part of a one-night-only event on July 31. The pair joined us for a chat to discuss the movie, Sprouse from LA, and McAuliffe from New York.

What drew you guys to The Duel?

Callan McAuliffe: Dylan worked with Luke Spencer-Roberts, one of our writer-directors, on a very charming movie called Banana Splits some years ago. When Luke and Justin finished the script, they sent it to both of us.

My role in that was as more of a demographic gauge to see how people like myself and my contemporaries would respond to it. But I also know that they had us in mind in the writing. When I read it, I couldn’t imagine a future where I wasn’t at least in some small part involved. I was in from the get-go if they’d had me.

Dylan Sprouse: Callan and I had met previously in passing, and Luke and I, as Callan said, had worked together. Justin and I met in college playing beer pong together, which is rather fitting for the movie.

I think that the dream of this project was to see what we could do for the budget we had in Indiana amongst friends during COVID-19. I’m really proud of what we made. It had its share of pitfalls, but I think it’s it really paid off.

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.

I noticed, Dylan, that you’re an EP on the project. How did that come about?

DS: Luke sent me the script and was like, “Hey, I wrote this thing, I’d love for you to read it.” I read it very quickly and called him back and said, “I want to help you guys get this made.”

The executive producer thing was an idea that came to me as a way to help get this thing going, but also as part of a genuine desire to try my hand at a side of the industry I’ve been interested in. I’ve only really been interested in doing it with people that I love and who are my friends, so this was kind of the perfect union there.

Let’s talk about these guys you play, Colin and Woody. They clearly love each other, but they also do some pretty heinous things to each other, which brings us to the titular duel. I’m curious about playing guys who aren’t always likable, but who you want the audience to like and support.

CM: Very seldom, save fantasy and certain genres of that kind, are there genuine good guys and bad guys. It’s only the best of friends who could possibly hurt each other in this way, and I think of the film as less of an argument as much as a performance. To define the friendship in a way, every horrid step that they take is almost a, “Look what you mean to me, look what we’ve broken,” thing. 

DS: I think the question the movie is trying to pose is how far are friends willing to go to repair a friendship? If they didn’t duel, would they still be friends? I think the movie is a love story. As bullheaded and stubborn as they are, if they don’t go through with it, what would their friendship be afterward? I think that’s part of the beauty of them.

CM: Yeah, it’s a love story as much as a comedy or a tragedy. That resonates with me.

DS: The actions that they take against each other are terrible, but they’re not necessarily terrible people. They’re people who made mistakes, and the journey of how far are you willing to go to rectify those mistakes is a very human dialogue to have. At so many of our screenings, people responded to that, because it’s a conversation piece.

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.

That’s one of the things about the movie that’s interesting to me, is that both characters have several off-ramps before they get to this point of no return, but they’re also both at the place where they’re thinking, “I’m willing to die for my best friend and I’m willing to kill my best friend as a means to prove how much this friendship means to me.” Isn’t that a little counterintuitive?

CM: Yeah, sure. I mean, the movie is intended to be a bit of a masculinity Rube Goldberg machine. In an age where so many of us feel somehow over and understimulated all at once, complacent and devoid of true purpose when something is happening to you that feels significant and powerful, it can be very difficult to get off that train. I think, for these guys, it becomes necessary, with every successive step along the way, to keep it going.

What about working with Patrick Warburton, who provides a tremendous amount of much-needed comic relief throughout, while also offering some meta-commentary for the audience?

DS: First and foremost, Patrick is this wonderful, wonderful dichotomy of being both the funniest and most talented person in the room while also being the easiest to talk to and a genuinely hard-working actor with no ego. That’s something that is always such a breath of fresh air for fellow actors.

I think part of the fun of his character is that as soon as the boys enter his little shop of horrors and you see this emporium of dueling, it’s almost like they’re entering a fairy realm. When [Rachel Matthews’] Abby comes in at the end and she’s seeing this all with fresh eyes, she’s looking around saying, “What the fuck is going on?” 

CM: This is such a beautiful way to look at it. We’re all dancing in a circle forever and ever, and she’s coming in trying to pull us out.

DS: Patrick is the way into all that, and I think he plays it phenomenally. There’s a danger that someone will seem cartoonish, in contrast to the rest of the movie, but he walks that line so perfectly.

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate.

Do you take any lessons from making a movie like this?

CM: It injected me with fresh hope for the industry, just because it’s really easy to get jaded about seeing some of these scripts pass you by that you don’t get to touch. Then you see friends making things that you adore and it suddenly seems like doors have swung open.

DS: This is the first project I executive produced, so I want to make an effort to create more projects with our friends, as Callan said, and make something that really matters to us. A lot of times as actors, you come in for this very particular part during production, and then you kind of depart from the process after that. This was very nice.

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