‘Heads Of State's Jack Quaid Never Saw Himself As An Action Hero

Forbes

2 days ago

Jack Quaid is all smiles on the set of 'Head of State.'
2025 has been one heck of a year for Jack Quaid. Heads of State is his latest film to drop this year, following the crowd-pleasing Novocaine and Companion.
"I don't know. It's getting obnoxious at this point," Quaid laughs as we chat over Zoom. "It's been great and I'm very lucky. I feel like I've worked a lot over the past year. It has been strange for me. I didn't realize that all of it would come out within a few months of each other. That's the thing. It's interesting because I did Companion, Novocaine, and Heads of State, and Heads of State is coming out now, but I shot that first."
The Boys' Quaid plays a small but pivotal role in the action comedy, which lands on Amazon's Prime Video on Wednesday, July 2, 2025. When the UK Prime Minister and US President, played by Idris Elba and John Cena respectively, become the targets of a foreign enemy, they're forced to rely on one another to thwart a global conspiracy. Directed by Hardcore Henry and Nobody filmmaker Ilya Naishuller, Heads of State also stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Paddy Considine, Carla Gugino, and Stephen Root.
Quaid loves being an action movie star, but he didn't see it coming.
"I think this movie gave me the action bug that I carried forth in Novocaine. Ilya is one of our great action movie directors, and it was such a great opportunity. When the offer came in, I was like, 'I have to work with this guy.' I loved Nobody so much. Hardcore Henry is amazing," he enthuses. "First and foremost, he cares about entertaining an audience, and I love that about him, and he brings a lot of heart."
"I think that's something that appeals to me about it. I don't think anyone looks at me and thinks that I'm an action hero in any regard, but I think that's what makes it kind of fun and unexpected when all of a sudden, I am in a very intense action sequence. I love action movies from the 80s and 90s, and I especially enjoy those that are character-driven. I love stuff that's like, 'Well, you care about the characters, therefore you care about the action.' Both Novocaine and this have degrees of that."
Something else Quaid loves about the opportunity is that his character, Marty, gave him something that almost no other role he has been offered.
"I rarely get to be a person who is trained in combat or a badass in any way. Marty, he's not in the movie for a ton, but he knows what he's doing, and that was fun to do," the actor explains. 'He's a guy with a plan, a guy with actual skill. Knowing that Ilya was going to be behind the camera made it even more special.'
Quaid's big moment in Heads of State is an action sequence that took weeks to film due to its complexity, "even though I'm behind a wall shooting a shotgun for a lot of it."
"Every beat of it is very dense, whether I'm sliding down my hallway, or explosions are going off by my head, and I have to pretend not to be fazed by it in any way. You have to look psyched about it," he laughs. 'It took a while, and that's not to mention the scenes that we were shooting before that with John Cena and Idris Elba. I was a fan of them beforehand, but they're some of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. They're such great role models for what a number one or number two on a call sheet should be.'
The Scream and Plus One actor says that WWE legend Cena took him under his wing and "was basically my dad for those two weeks."
"He was like, 'Oh, you don't need to do that stunt in rehearsal. I don't want you to pull something.' He was so unbelievably kind and looked out for my well-being," he enthuses. 'Idris Elba is the coolest dude I've ever met in my life. I was making these dumb mashups on my phone, and I showed him one of them. He's a very accomplished DJ, so just getting a 'That's dope, man' from Idris Elba was the greatest moment of my life. I had a blast working with those two, and they crushed it in this movie.'
Jack Quaid at the Deadline Contenders Television 2025 held at the Directors Guild of America in Los ... More Angeles, California.
Jack Quaid Says 'Heads Of State' Hits All The Right Iconic Beats
Quaid's stand-out action sequence even surprised the actor when he got the chance to screen the movie. Impressed by the final product, he was especially surprised by the choice of music in the film, which featured one of his all-time favorite tracks, Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.
"I had no idea. It wasn't Sabotage when we were on set, I think they were playing a heavy metal song, but I'm not exactly sure what it was," he recalls. "Ilya had a certain beats per minute that he needed to hit. It needed to have a certain rhythm. He cares about every single sequence in his movie, and I didn't expect him to get that much face time with him, honestly, but we were having meetings about what the sequence should be about. The scene comes at a very pivotal part in the movie that is often referred to as the 'fun and games' section, which is all about getting the audience excited and hopefully laughing, to fulfil the promise of the premise."
"The whole time I'm like, 'What's going to be the song? It has got to be an absolute banger, 'and we were texting different ideas back and forth. At one point, we were both excited about the idea of it being ABBA because it would be a little bit unexpected to have an action scene set to an ABBA song, or for my character to be an ABBA fan. You never know what you're going to get the rights to in the moment."
He continues, 'I remember watching the movie for the first time. I was in London again, about a year later, and Ilya was like, 'Come on down and see the movie.' It was like me, Priyanka, and Katrina Durden, who plays one of the villains of the movie. My sequence came on, and they started playing Sabotage, and I lost my mind. I love that song. I work out to that song. It's perfect. I was so unbelievably happy and surprised that it was a Beastie Boys track. That was sick.'
John Cena and Idris Elba in 'Heads of State.'
While Quaid would have loved to have been in the film more, he's very happy with his work and how Heads of State turned out. He'd love to return to Marty if the opportunity came up.
"A sequel all depends on whether or not an audience enjoys the first movie, so hopefully they do. I would play this character again in a heartbeat. I think there's a lot left unexplored with him. I came up with my backstory, which I love, but you never know what's canon or not," he muses. "Case in point, I remember I came up with this whole elaborate backstory for my character in Scream then Scream VI happened, and it's like, 'Oh, I have a family and I have siblings,' which is great, but not what I'm thinking in my head at the time. I would love to explore this character further, because he is so intriguing. He's such a loon. What I was trying to tap into the most was that this is a guy who has lived by himself alone in a CIA safe house for seemingly years, and he doesn't socialize with a lot of people, so what does that look like when all of a sudden the President and the Prime Minister show up at his door? He's such a fan of the President, and at that moment he thinks that he's dead."
"I knew my role in helping their arc, where I'm supposed to be just fawning over the President and making Idris feel a little insecure about himself, and in a polite, nice way, plant a little bit of doubt in their relationship that they get over. That was fun to play as well. I remember really meeting John Cena for the first time and just being like, 'I'm going to hug you a lot. Is that okay?' He was very sweet, nice, and kind about it. It was really great hanging out with those guys. Obviously, I'd be down for a sequel, if that's something Amazon was interested in doing."
Jack Quaid attends the 'Novocaine' Los Angeles Premiere at Paramount Pictures Studios in Los ... More Angeles, California.
Quaid also wouldn't say no to a follow-up to another of his 2025 movies, the acclaimed box office actioner Novocaine.
"Oh, my God, yes," the humble actor concludes. "Honestly, I want to thank anyone who checked out anything I've ever made out. Seriously, that means the world to any actor, and I'm no exception. The fact that anyone has seen anything I've made in this past year, or ever, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart."