Working With Tommy Lee In ‘The Retaliators’ Movie Was Risky, Michael Lombardi Explains

Most rock stars are notorious for being unpredictable, so embarking on a filmmaking journey with them would be an alarming and risky move for most actors as they don’t know what to expect. Michael Lombardi told Appetite for Distortion that working with Tommy Lee for ‘The Retaliators’ was daring on his part, but he and all the rock stars on set brought their A-game to the set.

Lombardi stars in the new bloody fun horror movie, ‘The Retaliators’ alongside famous rock stars, most notably with Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee. While the actor plays a pastor who’s out for revenge, Lee is a strip club DJ, and it seems that the initial risk of making the movie has paid off for Lombardi as he praises the musician for bringing the emotion to the cameras.

Michael shared that the whole experience could have been horrible, but talking to the rock stars and sharing his expectations helped them get into character. The actor understood that singing personal songs on stage for fans is very different from showing emotion with the eyes or smaller movements to a camera.

Michael Lombardi’s words about working with Tommy Lee read:

“Oh yeah, I mean, that was a real stretch for Tommy Lee, right you know what happened was this, and he says that, and I’ve only actually done a few interviews with him, but he said the same thing, and everyone it’s pretty funny of course. So here’s the thing, man, it was incredible working with them. The biggest thing that I’m personally most proud of, and I think that they should be, too, is that their work was tremendous. They’re storytellers by nature, right, but they’re on stage, telling the story of the song they wrote, and it’s bigger, so you know your movements and actions might be bigger. When you’re on camera, you want to keep it inside and keep it behind your eyes. You always have to have something going on, and it has to be real, but you know, they all came to play, man; these guys did their emotional preparation, if you will like, they got there, and we carefully chose their role.”

He added:

“It was great to have all these incredible rock stars, but then you have to go for me; it could have been negative; quite honestly, it could have been because I wanted to have a real film first with the story. I loved the movie, then when I had the opportunity, Allen Kovac, Better Noise Music, said to me, ‘Michael, let’s do this movie.’ He got behind me a hundred percent and just like let us do our thing, you know, and he gave me all the musicians’ numbers, and he’s like, ‘Call them to talk to them about their part,’ and anyway he was absolutely incredible.”

Ultimately, Michael Lombardi was more than pleased and proud of what Tommy Lee and all the other rock stars brought to the film. Their chats on the phone before the production even began allowed them to have some time to prepare emotionally, which worked tremendously well.