It is impossible to forget the Gestapo dude in Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — Arnold Ernst Toht (Ronald Lacey) walks around torturing folks with a flaming poker and jumps out of tavern windows to soothe his scorched hands in ice. However, the way Toht speaks also stands out, as there is something quietly menacing about his demeanor while he talks in a sadistic, whispery tone, threatening everyone around him. Scott Adkins told Screen Rant that Killa’s voice was based on Toht, and once he was able to nail that aspect, the rest of his character was fairly easy to construct and work with:
“I based the voice on, I need to look up his name ’cause in the other interview I forgot, but the guy that plays the Gestapo dude in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ ‘What should we talk about?’ Yeah, that’s where the voice came from. And that was a way in, and everything sort of just grew from there. And then you get the costume on and the suit and start to see how the guy moves.”
Adkins also explained he created some of Killa’s backstory in order to better understand how his character fits into the world of “John Wick,” and how Killa would feel about John in general. Adkins wanted to “just wanted to disappear into the role as much as [he] could” and this process started with finding the right choice for Killa, which clearly takes inspiration from a straight-cut villain in a film about fighting and defeating Nazis. Also, in order to flesh out Killa’s personality, Adkins went on to develop his laugh and play him as a “jolly, bigger chap who’s obviously pretty mean-spirited.”
