In the new action thriller The Dirty South, which opens in theaters and is available on demand November 10, Shane West plays Dion, a handsome drifter who becomes a bright hope for the character of Sue Parker (Willa Holland of Arrow). Sue is in the thick of it, desperately trying to save her family’s struggling bar, which is suddenly on the brink of collapse due to her father’s neglect.

The engaging premise makes for a great drama in writer/director Matthew Yerby’s film. Sue sees Dion as her only chance to lose the bar to a gritty tycoon (Dermot Mulroney in fine form). What begins as a simple plan to keep her family intact, quickly spirals into one big mess — larceny, lawlessness, and deadly consequences. If you appreciate intense dramas filled with tension and engaging characters, put The Dirty South into your queue. Shane West opened up more about the production in this exclusive MovieWeb interview. Dive in.

Getting Down and Dirty
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Shane West is no stranger to the south. The actor was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, before relocating to Los Angeles. He took the best of his southern upbringing to fuel a successful career, however, first finding fame back in 1999 when he was cast in ABC’s Once and Again. The role in the family drama made him an instant teen heartthrob. He’d go on to star opposite Mandy Moore (This Is Us) in A Walk to Remember, then turned heads in the action film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. His role as Michael on the hit show Nikita eventually led to the show Salem, where he played the character of John Alden.

He said there were a lot of surprises when it came to starring in The Dirty South, particularly with the intensities of the script. “It’s there on the paper,” shared West, “but you don’t really know sometimes until you’re actually in the process of filming and putting it together, how emotional and how intense it can be.”

West went on to say that one of the reasons he wanted to be in the film concerned the characters Sue and Dion having a kind of true romance; as he says, “[it’s] a romantic storyline of these troubled characters finding themselves in troubled circumstances, and making it work,” he added. “That’s very important on casting, with who plays Sue and who plays Dion. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. But in the infancy stages, I thought that this had the potential of being a classic; taking a classic story with a 2023 twist.”

On Working with His Costars
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Willa Holland and Dermot Mulroney deliver powerful performances in The Dirty South, playing two characters at the opposite end of the psychological spectrum. Sue’s desperation gets the better of her, but she won’t back down. She wants to save her family. Mulroney’s Jeb Roy is intense and determined. Shane West was intrigued by both actors’ performances.

“With Willa, I’ve known her for years,” he said. “Not well, but I knew that she was a great actress. She came into this [film] last second. But she carries the film. I think she did an amazing job. She brought this gravitas, this edge, this hyperrealism to the character and to reality around her circumstances, trying to save this bar and her deadbeat dad. And the fact that she’s a mom trying to raise her son… we couldn’t have done a better job with casting. She knocked it out of the park.”

Related: Filmmaker Matthew Yerby Takes Audiences into The Dirty South

Of his character, a brooding drifter, West said:

I’ve never played that role in that complete capacity, but I knew that I could do what I could do. It was sort of like, ‘let’s hope that there is a connection and let’s hope that [the character of] Sue knocks it out of the park and my God, she did. You have to bring your A game every day when you’re working with her [Willa].

He said he worked with Willa Holland almost every day. It was different with Mulroney. “I only worked like two, three hours with him,” West said, noting that he’d always wanted to work with the actor. “I’m a big fan. I’m glad we got him in the film. But if you watch the film, I only really have one scene with him. And when we filmed it, it was about three o’clock in the morning, it was freezing cold. It was rough, it was tough. So, the joke is that I need to work with Dermot again, in a bigger capacity.”

Related: Best Dermot Mulroney Performances, Ranked

Lessons Learned Early On

Shane West caught the acting bug at an early age. He admits that he felt acting might garner him some attention, but soon discovered it would take work. Ultimately, he committed to the craft, learning early on that it would be a process.

“I was a kid in high school that no one paid attention to,” West admitted. “I just had no idea what I wanted to do besides potentially study psychology. I was a huge movie and television nerd, and music lover. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I was in the right city. I happened to be in Los Angeles, and kids in my high school were popping up in commercials and little teen magazines. I thought, ‘Okay, maybe I can do this. I’m 16 years old, 17 years old, and when I hit about 19, I was sleeping on couches and living in people’s houses. I did a play at the Mark Taper Forum called The Cider House Rules. This helped me get Once and Again.”

He credits the creators of Once and Again, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, for believing in him. When asked how he’d sum up The Dirty South, he says he’d call the film, “an action thriller,” and a “modern Western with a little bit of romance.”

And plenty of intensity. Catch The Dirty South in theaters, on demand, and on digital November 10.