- Tony Shalhoub talks about the dark tone of Mr. Monk’s Last Case in an exclusive interview.
- The actor explains the difficulty in balancing the darkness and comedic aspects of the movie.
- The film includes an emotional scene where Adrian encounters his late wife Trudy and other deceased victims for whom he solved cases.
Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie
In Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, Adrian Monk is back to investigate the murder of his stepdaughter’s fiancé, undeterred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tony Shalhoub returns as the genius-level, OCD detective to find out if the world’s richest man, Rick Eden (James Purefoy), was behind the bungee-jumping tragedy. In an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, Shalhoub talks about the dark tone of the film, which is based on the TV series Monk, and states:
“When Andy [Breckman] first pitched the idea, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s not something I would’ve anticipated.’ But it didn’t take long for it to lock in. I thought, ‘You know what? This is really right because we want it to be different.’ Why do this at all? Why revisit these characters unless we’re treading on new ground? It’s very real. The biggest challenge in my mind was, ‘Can we pull this off and do it justice while balancing the comedic elements?’ We want to go dark. But we don’t want the darkness to undercut the comedy we need in there. We’ve always done a balancing act. We’ve always walked the tightrope. This was a higher rope, and it’s a lot thinner, and there’s a volcano beneath us.”
Tony Shalhoub won three Emmys during the eight seasons he played the OCD detective on Monk. In the Peacock original film, Shalhoub embraces the movie’s dark tone while also relishing the opportunity for Adrian to connect with some of his previous victims, albeit in his mind. This includes the emotional scene at the end of the movie where Adrian sees not only his late wife Trudy (Melora Hardin) but also other victims whose cases he solved. Shalhoub explains:
“I always loved the idea. There’s a certain surreal element to it. It’s taking place all in Monk’s head. Trudy represents to him a tiny, tiny intestinal glimmer of hope that exists way in the recesses of his mind that he’s not even aware of. That leads him to conjuring Griffin, who talks about closure and is grateful. That triggers this idea that possibly it was not for naught and that the others got some benefit from it too.”
Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie is now available to stream on Peacock, and fans can watch the trailer before diving into the new film.