“We wanted to frame it in a very morally gray area,” says actor Dylan Sprouse. The premise of his new movie sounds at first like a uniquely American tale of what one character refers to as a classic case of “toxic masculinity” — betrayal, anger and inevitably, guns. But the protagonists of the twisty black comedy “The Duel” don’t erupt into sudden violence; they don’t whip semiautomatics out of their glove compartments. Instead, they settle things like gentlemen — with an old-fashioned challenge and a set of antique pistols.

The premise appealed to the former “Suite Life of Zack & Cody” and "Big Daddy" star in part because of his own upbringing, sharing a household with his father and twin brother Cole. “My father's a very sensitive man,” he recalled during our “Salon Talks” interview, “and he was always good about making sure we were not being a**holes.” For him, the film (which he also executive produced) is an examination of “the idea of honor” and of conflict resolution in a world where men aren’t encouraged to talk through their differences.

In a candid and surprisingly R-rated conversation, Sprouse also opened up about why he wants to make Indiana the new Hollywood, which actor he thinks played identical twins best, and what he learned when he had to choose his own stunt butt double for his last film. “I asked a few other people,” he admits. “I was like, ‘If you're comfortable, would you help me pick a butt?’”

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

“The Duel” is a movie about, as the tagline says, modern problems. Tell me about the concept and this crazy idea of this film.

The movie follows two best friends who gravely wrong each other. One of them decides the only way to handle this is to challenge the other to an old-timey duel to the death, and all the problems that arise from that idea. There are some twists and turns along the way, which add to the chaos of the movie. It's a dark comedy. I made this quite a while ago now, three or four years ago, with some of my best friends in the world. We filmed this down in Indiana, and I'm very, very proud of this movie. It's the first one I've ever executive produced.

I saw the AMA that you guys did recently. You said it was also inspired by you and your co-star Callan McAuliffe. That's an interesting thing to throw out there, and I have to say it left me with a thousand questions.

None of the subject matter, I should say, thankfully.

I worked on a movie called “Banana Split” years ago. My best friend in that movie was Luke Spencer Roberts, one of the two director-writers (with Justin Matthews) of this movie. When they were writing the two leads and their characters and how their personalities match up, Luke was inspired by me and Callan. Callan is another very longtime friend of his. And then we added all the trouble into that.

You were working with friends on this production. You grew up working with family. I would imagine that can be a double-edged sword.

For me at least, I always think it's better to work with friends and family, because there's a shorthand towards taking and making creative risks too. When you know and trust people on set, everything comes easier. I know actors talk a lot about chemistry. But the backbone of good chemistry, whether you're acting angry or sad or happy or trying to make jokes, it's always made better if you're actually friends or like the people behind the scenes. Having that, not only with the cast but also the crew in this particular scenario, allowed us to stretch our wings and make choices that I'm proud to say panned out in this movie well.

A lot has changed in the time since you made this movie. We now know about the difficulties of gun safety on........

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