'The Death of Robin Hood' Director Discusses Hugh Jackman's Dark Take on the Iconic Outlaw in New Film

Old legends die hard in The Death of Robin Hood, A24's latest and greatest foray into the historical thriller genre. Resurrecting the Robin Hood myth for an entirely new generation, director Michael Sarnoski manages to rebuild the centuries-old character from the ground up – namely by throwing everything viewers thought they knew about the folkloric hero right out the window.

Set in the dark and dreary years of the Middle Ages, The Death of Robin Hood follows an older and far more grizzled version of Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman) near the end of his life. Far from the romantic defender of the meek he's portrayed as in legend, Jackman's Robin has instead spent his life murdering and thieving out of pure amusement, forcing him to reflect on the morality of his many horrendous crimes.

Starring Jackman, Jodie Comer, Murray Bartlett, Noah Jupe and Bill Skarsgård, The Death of Robin Hood has already received an altogether warm response from critics, with many praising the film's lead performance as well as its emotional resonance.

As it makes its way to theaters on June 19, we had a chance to speak with director Michael Sarnoski to discuss The Death of Robin Hood and the movie's realistic treatment of the titular character.

What was your formal introduction to Robin Hood like? Did you grow up reading the stories, was there a particular adaptation that you saw earlier on that really captured your imagination?

I think like a lot of people in my generation, Costner and Disney were sort of my earliest introductions to Robin. Those were sort of these defining movies for me. I had all the toys and loved all that – I had the Costner treehouse toy set, which I loved, from Prince of Thieves. But [the Disney version] was my favorite Disney movie growing up, so that was a big introduction.

And then when I was around 10, I got a book of the old stories of Robin Hood. And that was when I became familiar with the full lore of the character, and that was when I first read the death of Robin Hood story, which this is based on. So that was when it kind of went from, "Oh, I'm familiar with the movies and that folkloric character in the more general mainstream sense" to "Oh, I'm really into the lore here."

And then I think I just loved that character for the rest of my life, and the death of Robin Hood was always that one story that kind of stuck out at me and I was really fascinated by and I wanted to explore more deeply. It's weirdly one of the ones that isn't explored that often, so something about it really appealed to me.

What was it exactly that made that story so appealing for you?

I think what it was about the death of Robin Hood story was how shockingly quiet. You know, you're familiar with the character and he's this adventurer and you think of him in all of these ways, and even reading the book that I had it was like, "Oh, here are all of the the fun adventures that you're familiar with," and then you get to this final story and it's like weirdly quiet and simple and human. And I think it was that that just kind of stuck with me. You're like "Wait a minute, he's this man of action who never dies and suddenly he's just like slowly wasting away in this in this bed."

And there was something about that that just confused me as a kid. It was weird to think of this heroic figure as dying such like a quiet, simple, human death. But then it also just kind of fascinated me, and I wanted to understand the intimacy of that act even more. There was something about that relationship between Robin and the Prioress (Comer) that seemed really interesting and and the story didn't really dive into it deeply. And it became wanting to think about that, like what would that actually be like as a human being, to explore such a strange, simple death.

One of the many great things about this film is how approachable it is for viewers who might have no idea who Robin Hood is, but also the numerous references you weave into some of the character's more famous stories. How much research went into creating the central narrative for the film? Did you find yourself revisiting previous iterations of the character in preparation for the movie?

I mostly went back and looked at the original ballads. There were these five original ballads that pretty much all of our Robin lore comes from. They were the earliest written stories of him, and even those were like 300 years after, theoretically, he would have existed.

But I looked back to those early [stories] to think about, "If he were real, maybe these would be the closest to the sort of reality of that person." And all this was about trying to find the humanity and trying to think, "Okay, what might he have actually been like?"

How do you see this version of Robin Hood compared to previous versions as played by Errol Flynn, Sean Connery and so many others?

In a lot of ways, it doesn't have like the levity of that character, like he's not having feasts in the woods with with his Merry Men. It definitely leans into the more realistic brutality and violence of that time period. This is a version that, if he really did exist as this medieval outlaw bandit, this is maybe closer to what that might have actually looked like and who those stories are based on might have been like.

But yeah, I'd say it's more brutal, darker, and it still deals with the sort of folklore and mythology of the character, but much more in a way that that [folklore] is haunting the character himself. This is something he's grappling with, his own folklore. So the characters are kind of aware of that fictional idea of Robin. But if anything, it's almost like a curse for our Robin, who knows that that really wasn't his story.

What drew you to Hugh Jackman for the role of Robin Hood?What did you think he could bring to the role that no other actor could bring?

I knew that he could handle the action, aggression side of it. But what really struck me the first time I met with him was [how] very intelligent, curious [a person he is]. He really is interested in understanding what makes the people around him tick in a very warm, supportive way. But I knew that this character needed to have a sly sort of cunning where they could see through lies.

And so I was really impressed that he was able to bring his benevolent curiosity to this character and turn it into this kind of very manipulative, sharp, aggressive curiosity, among so many other things. He has so much deep warmth to him as a human being that in those moments when that warmth finally comes out for Robin, you feel like it really comes from a human place. There's so much that he was able to bring, but I think that curiosity and intelligence was a big thing for me.

It was interesting to hear that the movie was made almost entirely in Belfast. What was about that area that was so integral the film?

This was a smaller budget movie we shot this in 30 days, and we kind of needed a place that could give us all of the locations that we needed, but within a responsible radius. So Belfast was great because within an hour of Belfast, you could have these barren moor mountains; you could have the north coast; you have forests, old churches and castles. And it just had the wide variety of bleak but beautiful landscapes that we needed, but also in an accessible way. And then the other amazing thing was that it has this crew that came up on Game of Thrones, and they really like medieval, actiony kind of darkness, which is really their bread and butter and they like understand how to accomplish that. They were just lovely and it was so much fun to work with them.

It's refreshing to see an indie director transition from a more intimate film like Pig to a mainstream Blockbuster like A Quiet Place: Day One, only to once again return to indie filmmaking with this project. What attracted you to the idea of returning to smaller scale filmmaking over, say, a big budget blockbuster?

I'm a little bit budget agnostic where I just want to make movies that speak to me and that I'm excited about on a deep level, and I want to make them for the responsible amount. So I'm not against doing another studio movie. I just want to do movies that I care about and I want to make them right way.

I think there was an element of this reaction to doing my first studio movie with Quiet Place and seeing some of the stuff that gets added into that process through the sort of more corporate side of making a movie that's kind of exhausting and frustrating. And [that] isn't what you do it for. And that can be a little heavy and a little tiring. So there was definitely this element of wanting to get back to that summer camp feeling of making an indie film together. And I was curious to see if I could sort of do that, all the while still havving that scale that I had learned on a more studio movie. So there was definitely an intentional side of wanting to strip away some of the bullsh*t and get back to that essence.

But then also, you know, this is like a grown-up, slow, weird Robin Hood that's not going to be for everyone. And I wanted to do it for a small enough budget that that was okay. We can't have cool, weird stuff that isn't for everyone if you make every movie for like $100 million. So [if you] make it as an indie movie you care about and love, then it doesn't have to earn $200 million in the box office to justify itself. So it was a little bit of an experiment in that, too.

It seems like it's like every new project you've tackled has been radically different from one another, whether it's an original story like Pig, a Robin Hood adaptation or your upcoming adaptation of Death Strandingfor A24. How exactly do you manage tojuggle all these wildly unique projects so well?

I want to make sure that everything I'm doing is something I deeply care about, challenges me and excites me. I like doing a movie where I'm like, "Oof, this could be a tricky one to pull off." Like a video game adaptation? Like, "Oh, that could go wrong." A Robin Hood movie? "That could go wrong; we've had a lot of Robin hood movies." A horror movie about someone who's not trying to live?

I like stacking the deck against myself a little bit and playing in challenging waters because I think that's where you get to come up with the fun stuff that, if you're just doing what you know and know how to do and it comes easily, that's going to be kind of boring from an artistic standpoint, and I would expect for the audience [as well]. I don't just want to crank out stuff that is exactly what people expect.

The Death of Robin Hood is in theaters nationwide starting June 19.

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This story was originally published June 19, 2026 at 3:00 PM.