Luke Hemsworth and Tyler Atkins on Bosch & Rockit's 'disappointing' rating

Bosch & Rockit's Luke Hemsworth and Tyler Atkins share their disappointment over the film's MA 15+ rating due to a few 'C-bombs'. Bosch & Rockit is out in cinemas nationwide from August 18.

Video transcript

- Congratulations on the film. It's already receiving a lot of praise. That must feel amazing. Tyler, this has been a long, long in the works for you, right? How does it feel to finally have audiences seeing it.

TYLER ATKINS: Yeah, yeah, it's been a long journey for me. I've been writing it for about five or six years. We've been making it full time for two years once we started sort of preproduction.

So, yeah, just deep gratitude that it's finally coming out. There's a lot of-- there was a lot of thoughts that we weren't going to do it through COVID. There was a lot of blockages, but we prevailed and we just kept the belief going. So I'm in just deep gratitude that people can finally see it.

- And what was it about Luke and Rasmus that really drew you in.

TYLER ATKINS: Well, I love Luke.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Ridiculously good looking.

- Mm-hmm. Obviously.

TYLER ATKINS: Exactly. You know, it was interesting because Luke came on late in the process. And my friend Brenton Thwaites has always told me about Luke years before. And it was just funny that through COVID with all the border closures and people couldn't get out of Melbourne or get out of Queensland, it just really everything fell into place.

And when Luke came on, Rasmus and Luke were like best friends. They were like fathers and sons. And it was amazing. It was just incredible. It was just meant to be.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Yeah.

- And Luke, what was it for you that drew you into "Bosch" and Tyler. Also incredibly good looking, I'm assuming that's why?

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Yes, yes, I didn't want to do the film until I met Tyler.

TYLER ATKINS: Yeah, he didn't.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: It's actually-- that's actually true. I was on the-- no, I was on the fence. That's perfectly honest. It's true. I was on the fence, because, I mean, first-time director and you just never know what people are like and what their vision is. But we went, and had coffee, and we spoke for about two hours, and we have many, many of the same friends.

And it's just been weird that we haven't actually met somewhere around the traps over the years. But mostly, I was actually blown away with Tyler's vision and obviously being-- this being his story, parts of it are very, very similar to his early childhood. I felt like that we'd be able to do something at least interesting and at least different from regular Australian underbelly and that type of thing. We made a very conscious choice to steer away from going down that road and focusing on these underworld characters.

It had to be about this father-son relationship. I knew that because of his past that we're going to treat this with the reverence and respect that it deserves. And, yeah, I think it's all there. I think this film is a beautiful testament to a father-son relationship. And it's the love that they have for each other is all there on screen, and it's all real.

Rasmus and I became very good friends. We spent weeks hanging out beforehand, you know, surfing, getting to know each other, pulling the scripts apart, making sure that he had everything-- everything dialed, that he was comfortable. And then we got to set, and Tyler and this wonderful crew created this beautiful little space that he was able to relax in, because he's doing his first thing. And it was a question mark whether he was going to be able to hold up his end of the bargain. And he just got better, and better, and better.

He just opened up as a man you can see him become a man throughout the film. He starts as a boy and ends as a man. And he did in real life. This is we're just putting the camera on his journey and capturing this beautiful evolution of a young man.

- And what parts of you are in Bosch? And Tyler, I guess with you and Rockit, what parts of yourselves did you kind of put into the characters.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: I mean, a lot of me, I'm a father of three girls. And so I have my fears. I have my fail-- my-- you know, my so-called fails that I think of as a parent. I have the things that I wish I would do more often, the things that I wish I would say less often to them. And so I bring a lot of that.

It's just very hard not to. I don't really know anything else. But I'm self-aware enough to know when I am doing things that are-- and saying things to my kids that I probably shouldn't be. And so it's fun to explore that.

And it's fun to take that to the n-th degree. And I think that's what we do in this. And that's the fun about acting and what we do, is that we get to do and say things that we don't normally do and say.

TYLER ATKINS: Yeah, and I saw myself in Rasmus. That's why I cast him as a-- you know, he'd never acted before so.

- Yeah.

TYLER ATKINS: So I saw myself in him. Every single little bit of myself is Rasmus. And we're like brothers too.

And so, you know, Luke has such a perfect balance between this masculine and feminine energy where he's very vulnerable, but also very strong. And that was very vital when writing the character of Bosch. But also when you bring a human element to a script, to a screenplay, it changes everything too. And you kind of got to throw it out the door and really find it. And we really found it together, so just really, really blessed that it turned out exactly how we wanted it to.

- Luke, have your kids watched the film? Were you like there will be some C-bombs thrown, guys.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: I mean-- [LAUGHS] they've actually watched it three times, which is more than they've watched "Frozen," which I'm counting as a win.

- Oh, that is a win.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: As for the swear words, they're doing better than me at the moment. They are terrible.

- [LAUGHS]

LUKE HEMSWORTH: My middle one with the F-bomb is, ah! Brutal! I'm like, you can't talk like that. She's like, you do!

TYLER ATKINS: Yeah, but that's just our culture. The swear words is Australian culture, whether the people want to believe it or not. They try and filter it out in all our films, and we didn't let them, so we fought really hard for them. And I'm glad I did. We got an MA-15+ rating because of the C-bombs.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Right.

- Yeah.

TYLER ATKINS: It's so ridiculous, because you can have sex scenes, you can have hardcore violence, and you're not even getting MA+. And it sucks. But we stood tall and--

LUKE HEMSWORTH: But it's funny, because I haven't heard anyone say that they're offended by it, you know? Like it's just these weird ratings guidelines.

- Yeah.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: People have to adhere to, which don't make any sense. And mean, you watch the film, I mean, it becomes like-- it said so often, that it really has no effect.

- Yeah.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: It's part of the vernacular, as it is in our culture all the time every day anyway. So it's a little disappointing that we got that rating, but oh, well.

- Like, we obviously also loved your cameo in "Thor." Is it a great day at work when you just get to take the piss out of your family?

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Oh, look, I don't-- I don't even think of it as taking the piss out. It's a lot of fun. Chris is usually there on set. Taika is obviously a mad scientist.

And so those-- but you're also there to work. You sort of-- there's always a little bit of trepidation about being funny and getting things right. And, you know, I mean, I'm standing there next to Matt Damon, and Sam Neill, and Melissa McCarthy. And you know, I've got to try and be funny.

And so there's a fair bit of nerves going on there. I'm not really worried about whether I'm taking the piss out of anyone or not. I'm just worrying about [MUTED] it up for everyone.

- [LAUGHS]

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Hopefully-- hopefully, it all came off OK. And I would say-- they brought me back for another one, which was which was a nice little nod.

- Yeah.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Yeah, it's good. I mean, it's an honor. It's an honor to put on the-- to put on the bloody-- the hair, and the wig, the wig, the beard, the armor. They do have to chop six inches off the pants, because my legs are a bit shorter than his.

- And also you mentioned Matt Damon. He had a pretty rave review for this film. Is it cool to have that line out there, that he loved the film so much?

LUKE HEMSWORTH: I mean, he's been incredibly supportive throughout the film. And it was actually great. He saw the-- he saw the film in a mostly finished product and said don't touch it. His input was that this is was a very beautiful and incredible film that needed to be made to be out there and in the good eyes that it was in that he saw. And so he's championed it.

And I've been very gracious with all of his time and love. But he was-- yeah, he was blown away with it, as everyone who sees it seems to be. I know Tyler's had people coming out in tears and hugging him. And this is just in the prescreening so far. And it's not in horror, which is great.

- [LAUGHS] Is that what you were expecting?

LUKE HEMSWORTH: No, no, no. You never know what to expect. The script is one thing. The process is another-- another thing. The edit is another thing. And then you hope that people will respond to it the way--

TYLER ATKINS: And we--

LUKE HEMSWORTH: --you want them to.

TYLER ATKINS: Yeah, we had the highest intention making it. We knew it was a lot bigger than just making a movie. It really did-- it was about parenting. And that's a pretty deep issue in our society.

And so we had high intentions of telling a story that was healing, and that showed a kid that had an out, and showed what drugs and alcohol do in families. So, you know, it was always of the highest intention. And we saw that.

- Yeah, definitely.

TYLER ATKINS: That's why we made it. We didn't make it just to go and make a movie.

- What do you guys hope that audiences take away from the film?

TYLER ATKINS: I just hope we question our actions on our children. And as a child, I hope that we can learn how to forgive our parents, because they did the best that they could. But I really wanted to open a discussion around parenting and around our actions and how they affect yourself and others.

LUKE HEMSWORTH: Yeah, I'm like-- you know, I think like any great art piece, you want to be affected one way or another, whether you love it or hate it. That's-- I think, that's when you've achieved something. If it's beige and in the middle, then maybe you've done something wrong. But I hope that people are affected.