Skip to main content
Games Radar
  • Newsarama
  • Total Film
  • Edge
  • Retro Gamer
  • SFX
Total Film The smarter take on movies
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Trending
  • Best Netflix Movies
  • Best movies on Disney Plus
  • Movie Release Dates
  • Best Netflix Shows
Recommended reading
Tom Holland in new Netflix movie The Devil All the Time
Thriller Movies The 25 best Netflix thrillers to watch right now
Josh Brolin in Weapons
Horror Movies Barbarian director's new horror movie Weapons gets a bloody and tense new trailer featuring jump scares, demonic voices, and an angry Josh Brolin
A still from a Weapons teaser
Horror Movies Weapons keeps its crown as one of 2025's most mysterious movies – thanks to this teaser that's just two hours of Josh Brolin watching creepy CCTV footage
Weapons trailer
Horror Movies Barbarian director's new horror movie Weapons gets creepy first trailer
Leonardo DiCaprio as Trooper William "Billy" Costigan Jr. undercover and sneaking next to a wall during a scene in The Departed.
Thriller Movies The 25 best thriller movies to send a shiver down your spine
Caught Stealing
Crime Movies Doctor Who royalty Matt Smith is almost unrecognizable opposite Dune 2 star Austin Butler in a criminal underworld thriller from director who guided Brendan Fraser to his Oscar
Bark teaser trailer
Horror Movies New single-location horror movie with in-tree-guing premise unveils nail-biting first trailer
  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies
  3. Horror Movies

The Making Of The Iceman

Features
By Matt Maytum published 3 June 2013

Director Ariel Shannon on his real-life hitman thriller, starring Michael Shannon

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

On learning about real-life contract killer Richard Kuklinski

On learning about real-life contract killer Richard Kuklinski

Ariel Vromen, director of The Iceman : “I knew nothing about Richard Kuklinski before I started working on the film. The only connection I had with the story was a completely random night that I saw the documentary on HBO. The first part, not the second or the third.

“That was kind of like a hell of an experience for me because I remember when I watched it I was like ‘Wow, there’s something about this guy… it really bothers me that I feel a certain empathy when he came to the end speech.’

“And that started my quest on researching the story, the book, the court manuscript, his police state criminal records…everything.”

Page 1 of 12
Page 1 of 12
On wanting to put Kuklinskis story on screen

On wanting to put Kuklinskis story on screen

“It was not necessarily the empathy, it was the duality. It’s that idea that this guy can talk about murders in such a cold way and almost show no emotion about it, and then at the same time there’s still a place in his soul to love.

“It makes you ask yourself; what do we have as human beings? We have our memories, we have our love. But you can also be in such a disconnected duality from one place to another, you know? You can be that guy and you can be that guy.

“It started to remind me of a lot of people I know that are sometimes really brutal in their business interaction in their daily life and then they come back home and ask for such forgiveness, sweetness, security and love. That was the initial reasoning for me to go forward and try and make the project happen."

Page 2 of 12
Page 2 of 12
On getting Michael Shannon involved

On getting Michael Shannon involved

“I saw Michael Shannon for the first time when he was nominated for an Academy Award for Supporting Actor for Revolutionary Road , and then I saw him at an Oscar party and I approached him. He was very nice and sweet but he thought that I couldn’t finance the movie with him leading it, not in that capacity. Afterwards I went and did my research and he was right.

“But then I saw him again and I couldn’t let go of this idea that he would lead this film. Then I saw him in a steak house and we accidentally both had dinner, literally, one next to the other. I came back and said, ‘We’ve gotta do something.’ He told me the classic line, ‘Well, we should figure it out.’

“I came up with the idea of doing a test scene with him to try and convince everybody that I could make it and he was the right guy. And that’s what we did. We shot a little scene from the film and that was the beginning of the Michael Shannon journey."

Page 3 of 12
Page 3 of 12
On Shannons on- and off-screen presence

On Shannons on- and off-screen presence

“I would say Michael Shannon definitely isn’t the Iceman in his real life. He is pretty much a methodical actor.

“During shooting there were no jokes. In fact, he couldn’t even laugh because he had issues with the glue of his facial hair so every time he would smile or start laughing, his moustache would fly away. He literally kept it cold as stone the whole time.

“But then at nighttime we were racing to the only open restaurant in Shreveport, Louisiana where we shot the movie. Every now and again I had a good 45 minutes with him over dinner."

Page 4 of 12
Page 4 of 12
On getting the supporting cast involved

On getting the supporting cast involved

“Well, sometimes you need to take the first jump on the first actor, whether it’s financially viable or not. When you’re picking a guy like Mike Shannon, what it does is bring a certain credibility to the script and to the project. People become more intrigued to come along because, you know, we didn’t offer much money to anybody: we didn’t have much money!

“So that was kind of like the story of how everybody joined because Michael Shannon was like an actor magnet. Then there was the script and the whole idea of making the film; the ball was rolling from the story, the script and Mike.”

Page 5 of 12
Page 5 of 12
On the first day of shooting

On the first day of shooting

“I remember that Ray Liotta was testing me. We were shooting the scene where Robert Davi’s coming to tell Ray Liotta about David Schwimmer’s character.

“I asked Ray Liotta if he could stand up and he was very funny, he was like, ‘You’re giving me directions?!’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and he was like, ‘Nah, go play with your lenses, don’t even go there.’ I was insisting, ‘You know, if you want, we can stay here the whole day.’ It’s funny enough that the moment he tried it and he liked it, I started to gain some confidence. Now he’s a great friend obviously, and during shooting he became a great ally, but he really put me on the spot the first day.”

Page 6 of 12
Page 6 of 12
On the tension generated by the intense presence of Shannon and Liotta

On the tension generated by the intense presence of Shannon and Liotta

[Potential spoilers follow for anyone who isn’t familiar with Kuklinski’s story.]

“When we shot the last scene of Ray Liotta in the car, when he’s threatening Kuklinski, he literally shoved the gun so far into Michael Shannon’s cheek.

“The day before he slapped him, when we shot the porn lab scene, he gave him at least, like, sixteen real slaps in the face. So I think at that point, it was all a matter of if Michael Shannon will be able to hold himself or not for a fight. But it worked."

Page 7 of 12
Page 7 of 12
On not shooting in chronological order

On not shooting in chronological order

“I shot first all of the violent scenes, and then I focused on all of the family scenes. Shannon’s frequently changing looks in the different eras of the story were a nightmare, more than anything.

“To begin with, shooting a film like that in 30 days when you have three different eras and so many different locations and different looks, it becomes a real dodgy ground to work on. So, we made mistakes.

“In fact, there’s one of my favourite scenes in the movie that was not even scripted. It’s when he writes the poem and he shaved. Just that one shot saved me on a mistake of continuity with the beard and moustache.”

Page 8 of 12
Page 8 of 12
On the shoots biggest challenges

On the shoots biggest challenges

[Potential spoilers follow for anyone who isn’t familiar with Kuklinski’s story.]

“I think that everything that involves a lot of cars or a lot of wide shots that we had were a fucking disaster, because we did collect a few cars, we had about 12 or 14 cars, but none of them worked properly.

“So I’m calling an action and, it’s like ‘Vrrrrrr!’ from the movement of cars and then suddenly a car stops right in front of the camera. So dealing with the cars was very, very, very challenging, especially as we didn’t have any good mechanics.

“The other thing that was super challenging, a day that I remember, it was very intense day to shoot the arrest. The arrest was very, very intense, because both Mike and Winona Ryder are so methodical. She was crying the whole day in the car and he was screaming and being pulled down to the ground and there were no stunts or anything like that.

“They took it really hard; I remember that by the end of that day, people wanted to kill me.”

Page 9 of 12
Page 9 of 12
On deciding on which eras of Kuklinskis life to focus on

On deciding on which eras of Kuklinskis life to focus on

“Well, you know, when you have such a long story over 20 years, I guess for me it was almost like making one decision, and I decided to focus on the love story, in a way. He met the girl and he separated from the girl.

“I had many different versions of the draft of the script: I had the first act as completely involved with his childhood and how he became a murderer, but then when I kept on reading it and reading it and reading it, what came out very clear was that I was basically painting a portrait of the guy as an abused child, this was kind of like the mathematical psychology that being abused means he became a murderer. It became a very, very dangerous statement, even if it was true.

“So I decided to do what Martin Scorsese did in Raging Bull , by not even giving any information about how this guy became that animal without a soul and basically just trying to figure it out during the story rather than just feed you up at the beginning by saying, you know, this is what happened and this is what he became through the journey of an abused child.”

Page 10 of 12
Page 10 of 12
On stories about the real Kuklinski that didnt make it into the film

On stories about the real Kuklinski that didnt make it into the film

“There’s a couple of stories that I really loved and in fact, if I could even put them back in somewhere in my dreams, it would be great.

“There’s one story - in fact it’s where the script almost started - when he’s at a Sunday ceremony at the church and he’s an altar boy, and when he left the church there were a couple of kids that were really bullying him on the way home. He was running away from them and he tore his pants when he jumped over the fence. When he got back home, his dad was beating him pretty hard, and he got so humiliated by that, that at night, he took the closet pole and he waited for one of the guys that chased him and bullied him and hit him 32 times in the head.

“That was his first kill, when he was 16 years old, or 15, something like that. Just at that second, when he’s killing him, there’s no emotion in that shot. I remember I storyboarded that scene. It was almost supposed to be the opening of my movie. Could have been cool…”

Page 11 of 12
Page 11 of 12
On finishing the movie and showing it to audiences

On finishing the movie and showing it to audiences

“You know, statistically, when you’re screening the movie for so long at festivals, we did so many screenings that I know for a fact that there are some people that really love it and obviously, there are people who related less.

“I know one thing that’s starting to become very clear to me is that 99 per cent of the people who saw it for the first time and responded to the movie, the second time they watched it they absolutely loved it. It’s really weird; even people who maybe had issues with the script here or there, suddenly the clarity was so much more defined on the second time.

“What I want people to get out of it eventually is the idea of seeing that we live in an interesting society where human beings can be stretched. People that you think you know, you might not know. It’s like the same story that happened in the States [ the Cleveland, Ohio kidnapping case ] with those three brothers that locked those girls down, every witness who they asked about those guys were like “Oh, those guys were the nicest guys! He was a good guy, he was a school bus driver…’

“So it’s kind of like being aware of the stretch of humanity and the fact that back then, people were sick, and they didn’t know that they were sick. It’s an interesting point of view of mental health, I guess.”

The Iceman opens in UK cinemas on 7 June 2013.

Read our review of The Iceman

Page 12 of 12
Page 12 of 12
CATEGORIES
Amazon Prime Video Streaming Services
Matt Maytum
Matt Maytum
Social Links Navigation
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.

See more Movies Features
Read more
Tom Holland in new Netflix movie The Devil All the Time
The 25 best Netflix thrillers to watch right now
Josh Brolin in Weapons
Barbarian director's new horror movie Weapons gets a bloody and tense new trailer featuring jump scares, demonic voices, and an angry Josh Brolin
A still from a Weapons teaser
Weapons keeps its crown as one of 2025's most mysterious movies – thanks to this teaser that's just two hours of Josh Brolin watching creepy CCTV footage
Weapons trailer
Barbarian director's new horror movie Weapons gets creepy first trailer
Leonardo DiCaprio as Trooper William "Billy" Costigan Jr. undercover and sneaking next to a wall during a scene in The Departed.
The 25 best thriller movies to send a shiver down your spine
Caught Stealing
Doctor Who royalty Matt Smith is almost unrecognizable opposite Dune 2 star Austin Butler in a criminal underworld thriller from director who guided Brendan Fraser to his Oscar
Latest in Horror Movies
Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter in Nosferatu
After creepily mastering vampires with his hit Nosferatu remake, director Robert Eggers will reportedly bring back its stars Aaron Taylor Johnson and Lily-Rose Depp for his new werewolf movie
still from The Amityville Horror (1979)
The Amityville Horror is getting yet another remake, this time by the studios behind modern horror hits Barbarian and Heart Eyes
The hook handed killer strikes in I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer star makes huge horror blunder in saying the original movie walked so Wes Craven’s Scream could run
Jonah Hauer-King, Sarah Pidgeon, Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, and Tyriq Withers in I Know What You Did Last Summer
I'm as surprised as you, but it looks like decent horror reboots might be back, as I Know What You Did Last Summer gets overwhelmingly positive first reactions
M3GAN post dog attack in M3GAN 2023
After flopping at the box office, it looks like once horror icon M3GAN is dead and buried as the sequel lands on digital just weeks after theatrical release
Weapons
"I probably shouldn't even say that": Weapons director teases surprise cast members in his new horror movie, which has "more twists and turns than Barbarian"
Latest in Features
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
The Fantastic Four are in Avengers: Doomsday, and I think I know what that means for First Steps
Naoe looks over at a dense, lush, green forest in Assassin's Creed Shadows from a viewpoint
I took 140 hours to finish Assassin's Creed Shadows, but post-launch updates are making it harder than ever to feel satisfied by RPGs
Ghost of Yotei gameplay showing Atsu sitting on her horse between bright pink cherry blossoms, looking at a distant fortification built against a mountain
I asked Ghost of Yotei's creative directors all of my burning questions, and I don't want to get your hopes up but Sucker Punch's sequel sounds like feudal Red Dead Redemption 2
Steam Deck review
I'm too broke to buy Donkey Kong Bananza, so if you're sharing my FOMO here are the best Steam Deck games I'm playing instead
Skate reboot screenshots
I played 4 hours of the new Skate and caught up with developer Full Circle, who believes "this is the best Skate has ever felt or played"
Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot of female V who has blue hair and wears pink trousers and black jacket and sits on the back of a motorcycle before neon skyscrapers
I've put over 900 hours into CD Projekt Red's RPG, and these are the best Cyberpunk 2077 gigs I always love replaying
  1. DK and Pauline look surprised in Donkey Kong Bananza
    1
    Donkey Kong Bananza Review: "Destruction isn't just a flashy gimmick for the Minecraft generation, it's one of the best inventions Nintendo has had in years"
  2. 2
    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 review: "A nostalgic, must-play hit for fans"
  3. 3
    College Football 26 review: “Thanks to rivalries and dynasty, this is the greatest show on turf”
  4. 4
    Mecha Break review: "This mech battler makes up for lacking customization with a varied roster that lets me live out my Evangelion fantasy"
  5. 5
    Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review: "This tarpunk delivery epic is more Metal Gear Solid than ever, for better and worse"
  1. David Corenswet as Superman inside the Fortress of Solitude in James Gunn's Superman.
    1
    Superman review: "A triumphant reinvention and a promising start for the DCU"
  2. 2
    Jurassic World Rebirth Review: "An unscary sequel that needed a little more time in amber"
  3. 3
    M3GAN 2.0 review: "A bold sequel with a slightly underwhelming conclusion"
  4. 4
    28 Years Later Review: "Enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy”
  5. 5
    Predator: Killer of Killers review: "Great characters, thrilling action, and gorgeous Arcane-esque animation"
  1. Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun in Squid Game season 3
    1
    Squid Game season 3 review: "A staggeringly excellent final season wraps up one of the greatest Netflix shows ever"
  2. 2
    Ironheart review: "A relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era"
  3. 3
    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 review: "The show's most assured run of episodes to date"
  4. 4
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 8 spoiler review: 'The Reality War' is "a mix of the good, the bad, and the truly baffling"
  5. 5
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 7 spoiler review: 'Wish World' is "an exciting and ambitious" start to the season finale, with hints of WandaVision

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...