Adapting a beloved novel for the screen is no small feat. While it might be a good way to ensure ticket sales, it also puts the director, writer, and cast under a microscope, with the fans comparing every scene to a chapter of its source material. Right now, audiences have a short window to head to cinemas and see Nick Cassavetes’ take on Jay Crownover’s 2012 novel, Rule, in Marked Men: Rule + Shaw. In adapting one of the books from the author’s Marked Men series, Cassavetes was careful to pay close attention to the details that made the title such a success, while also adding his own personal touch to the characters and story.
One of the major changes that readers will immediately pick up on is the decision to keep Chase Stokes’ hair the same throughout the film. Stokes plays the titular Rule — a tattooed bad boy who goes through a handful of hairstyle changes from chapter to chapter. During a conversation with Collider’s Christina Radish, the Outer Banks star broke down the decision made by him and Cassavetes when it came to Rule’s ever-changing head of hair.

“If you were to go off of the book, just from a logistics standpoint in the film, it would be really tough to keep that element of Rule alive because I think he changes his hair four or five times. So, we knew going into it that the ability to keep up with that was gonna be a task in itself.”

Stokes Is All About the Attitude in ‘Marked Men’

Sharing a bit about where he was prior to filming Marked Men: Rule + Shaw, Stokes reflected on his jump from his messy mop that he’s rocked throughout Netflix’s hit series, Outer Banks, to his shaved look in Steve Barnett’s upcoming war flick, Valiant One. Allowing one project to bleed into the next, he and Cassavetes agreed that Rule’s devil-may-care attitude would be fine with the hair he had at the time. He explained:

“I had my head shaved for Valiant One, and it was already a pretty drastic change from what I was known to look like. Nick and I talked about it, and he was like, ‘I kind of just dig your hair how it is. You have this don’t-give-a-shit [attitude]. You’re the type of dude who, instead of having a mohawk or something crazy, when his hair gets a little bit out of control, you just shave it off.’ That was still a version of what was on the page. If you took some of the visual cues away from Jay [Crownover]’s novel, and you look at Rule, that felt really authentic to the character, so we went about it that way.”

Marked Men: Rule + Shaw will be available on digital soon. Check out the rest of Radish’s conversation with Stokes now and stay tuned at Collier for more.

Marked Men

Release Date

January 22, 2025

Runtime

93 minutes

Writers

Jay Crownover, Sharon Soboil

Producers

Andrew Panay, Jennifer Gibgot, Brian Pitt, Ryan Westheimer, J.B. Sugar, Josh Keselman

Cast

Sydney Taylor

Shaw Landon

Ella Balinska

Ayden Cross