Getty Images for 51MM/Paras Griffin(NEW YORK) — Stephen Bishop and Annie Ilonzeh star as husband and wife in the new psychological thriller ‘Til Death Do Us Part. According to Bishop, one of the challenges of the film, which tells the story of an abusive husband who terrorizes his wife, was playing a man he “despised.”
“In the beginning he seems to be like he has everything going for himself, he’s got it all together,” Bishop tells ABC Radio. “But things start to happen and his demons surface and he’s not able to control them. And you get to see a different side of me as an actor and hopefully everybody doesn’t hate me after this is over.”
Annie, who plays his abused wife Madison, says she understands Bishop’s frustrations, because he’s so unlike his character.
“You are so not this guy — at all,” Illonzeh tells him. “He apologized so many times. I mean he still is apologizing to me and my family.”
Bishop says that part of his struggle in playing the character stems from the fact he truly hated the man he had to be.
“Well that’s why I had to apologize so much,” Bishop explains. “Because in order to do that convincingly and authentically, you have to commit to it. So I literally — other then physically slapping her — I did have to put hands on her. I had to do things that were extremely uncomfortable.”
He continues: “So the only way I could really do it and feel decent about it — because I despise this type of person — the only way I could really feel good about my commitment was to be able to let her know every single time I did it, that was that I was not enjoying doing what I was doing.”
‘Til Death Do Us Part hits theaters today.
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