“We Meet Him At A Low Point”

Dave Franco sheds some light on his character Jack Wilder’s arc in the new movie Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, in theaters now. The Now You See Me franchise has followed the exploits of Jack and the other members of The Four Horsemen since the first movie in 2013.

The Horsemen are a magic act whose tricks involve stealing fortunes from the ultrarich and redistributing the money to their audiences. Jack is a main character in both Now You See Me and 2016’s Now You See Me 2; he began his career by using sleight of hand to run small-time scams on the street before joining the group.

In the first sequel, Jack also has a romance with new Horseman Lula May (Lizzy Caplan), who replaces Isla Fisher’s Henley, though Henley is now returning for Now You See Me 3. The new story kicks off when the Horsemen are forced to reunite after a falling out and recruit a new generation of magicians to confront a powerful crime syndicate leader.

So what has Jack been up to in the intervening time? “We meet him at a low point. He has sold out a bit and become a corporate magician, so he’s going away from his street roots and cooler magic,” said Franco in an interview with Ash Crossan for ScreenRant‘s cover story on Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.

“Not that this is anything against corporate magicians. […] but it just goes against his core values,” continues Franco. The Now You See Me movies have generally positioned extremely wealthy businesspeople and corporations as the villains, with the magicians using their skills to balance out the scales against those with too much power.

This theme is at the forefront of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, when the main characters’ primary mission is to rob Rosamund Pike’s new villain. Though “the original Horsemen are kind of at odds at the beginning of the story,” they are brought back together by this mission and reaffirm their friendship, especially in Jack’s case, according to Franco.

Check out Franco’s full comments from ScreenRant‘s interview below:

ScreenRant: What is it like stepping back into the character of Jack? Did anything surprise you about him this time around, in terms of where we meet him?

Dave Franco: We meet him at a low point. He has sold out a bit and become a corporate magician, so he’s going away from his street roots and cooler magic. Not that this is anything against corporate magicians. We’ve all got to do our thing, but it just goes against his core values. That manifests itself even in the way he looks. He’s a little more buttoned up, like I am right now in this interview. But over the course of the film, he slowly starts to get his mojo back. That’s kind of a fun journey for me to take.

Dave Franco: All of the original Horsemen are kind of at odds at the beginning of the story. We haven’t seen each other in a long time, so there’s a lot of bickering and a lot of finger-pointing about why we broke up. But over the course of the movie, you see that Jack is the guy who is extremely loyal and will literally do anything for his friends. These are more than his friends; these are his family at this point. He’s the gung-ho guy who’s like, “I don’t care what kind of danger I’m going to get into. I’m going to do this for you guys. I’m going to do this for the greater good.” He’s just got that positive energy.

Now You See Me 3 debuted with a series-best Rotten Tomatoes score, despite mixed reviews, which indicates that its approach to the themes will be more impactful this time around. Franco’s comments on Jack’s arc in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t illustrate exactly what the series has to offer as the magicians oscillate between different worlds.