Writer/Actor Neal McDonough & Director Michael Avnet talk to The Inside Reel about truth, stakes and context in regards to their new film from Angel Studios: "The Last Rodeo."
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00:00You got to focus, Joe.
00:16I'm in my seat.
00:17I only ask once.
00:19That went well.
00:20Yeah, very.
00:21Be patient with her.
00:22She loves you fiercely.
00:25Can Joe Wainwright keep up?
00:27I'm fine.
00:27Of course you are.
00:28That's a genuine, true legend right there.
00:31Lord, I'm out of for the show on time.
00:33Here we go.
00:35Come on, Joe.
00:36Get in.
00:36Get in.
00:37Get in.
00:39You're also leaving one thing out.
00:40You were prepared, right?
00:42Prepared.
00:42Well, that was Reveille.
00:43My wife Reveille will wake me up at 3 o'clock in the morning, go, and there'll be a soliloquy
00:48that I have to deliver, and I'll have to, at 3 o'clock in the morning, recite it off to
00:52her, so I have a great life coach and my wife Reveille as well.
00:55Well, he had a partner in producing with him.
00:57But, you know, Neil, the only thing I was worried about was that Neil was ready to do
01:01the movie six months before we started shooting.
01:03And occasionally, at meetings, I'd say, Neil, back off.
01:06Now, John?
01:07Now?
01:07Hold it.
01:08Now, John?
01:08And so he was there and prepared, and so was Michael T., and so was Sarah Jones.
01:13And in that professional environment, and Chris McDonald, I mean, you know, they're there
01:19to work.
01:19And for me, it's to play.
01:22You know, you want to feel like you can do the worst thing in the world, and you'll get
01:27another chance.
01:28Right.
01:28And dare to be bad, because if you don't dare and push yourself, and you're not a little
01:32scared, you're never going to be great.
01:34And that's what we're hoping for.
01:36You know, and again, I don't want to, you know, beat a dead horse, but you look at Neil
01:41when he's not talking in some of these scenes.
01:43Look at his face.
01:44Look how there he is.
01:46You can't fake that.
01:48Nobody can direct that.
01:50That's an actor who's prepared, who's there, who cares.
01:54And, you know, sometimes if you mention it to Neil, it's like, huh?
01:57You know, he's so inherently modest about this stuff, not because he's an introvert.
02:01He's obviously capable of handling himself in any situation.
02:06But the emotional truth that he brought to this was something that was just grounded the
02:11whole story to me.
02:12You allowed us to have fun.
02:14Good.
02:19Come on, focus, Joe.
02:21It's your own, Charlie.
02:22I'm trying.
02:29Finally, listen to the wise one.
02:34Joe, now, he's crazy, and then he's stupid.
02:37I'm grandfathered in, right?
02:38Well, he right about that granddad part.
02:40This is me enjoying myself.
02:42I'll see you at once.
02:43He's acting like a dying pig.
02:47Whoa.
02:47All right, now, we're going for it, man.
02:51Give me a big nod.
02:55He's actually grandfathered in.
02:57He was born before 1993, so he's old enough to decide if he wants to ride the helmet or
03:02a cowboy hat.
03:03Well, John, to ask about, like, the prep, because obviously, you know, it sounds like
03:07Neil was ready to go, but to do all those sequences, you know, and balance the fact
03:12of seeing him in certain ones, obviously, you had some people that you had to have in
03:15some of this as well, of course.
03:18Could you talk about finding the details, finding those moments?
03:21I mean, I love the moment where, you know, you're being taped up, and it's such a small,
03:27it's a small thing, but it's like, get me back out there.
03:30And it's something so precise that I think it had to be everybody working on all cylinders
03:36to make the stakes of that moment reflect the stakes that you feel, then, in the arena.
03:42Again, I blame Neil for, you know, the good stuff.
03:45You know, I did prep it, and a lot of the stuff Derek and Neil wrote about bull riding,
03:50they didn't know what they were doing.
03:52I didn't know anything about it.
03:53So we spent time going to the PBR events.
03:56We educated ourselves separately and jointly.
03:58And, you know, and because of, you know, the people who we were affiliated, which was
04:03the PBR and Sean Gleeson, they basically told us a lot of mistakes that were in the script.
04:09Obviously, I tried to fix them.
04:10And then the really challenging thing was to make the bull riding better than anything
04:17we'd seen and hopefully anybody had seen.
04:20And how do you do that?
04:22It's challenging.
04:23You know, again, I didn't have to worry about my knucklehead friends here other than keeping
04:28him from hurting himself.
04:30Because like many leading men, he's a great athlete.
04:33He can take pain.
04:35And my job is to keep him from hurting himself.
04:38That's right.
04:38But, you know, in that context, you know, we had Buddy Joe Hooker, who's a legendary stunt
04:43coordinator who we've worked with multiple times.
04:45I have.
04:46And then figuring out, you know, how to put the camera position.
04:49And then the ultimate element was the editor, Tom Costantino, who happens to be my son-in-law,
04:55who I can never get to hire because he only works for Seth MacFarlane.
04:58He crushed it.
05:00He did a great job.
05:01He crushed it.
05:02So Tom took what we shot, which was a lot of footage, and the concept we had, and he did
05:09something great with it.
05:10But again, if you look at these sequences, I mean, the audience looks at it once.
05:15Maybe they like it.
05:15They want to see it again.
05:16You look at Neil's close-ups there.
05:19We couldn't find any close-ups in other bull-riding movies that we thought were good.
05:24And more importantly, Sean Gleeson at the PBR was disappointed in them.
05:28So one of the things we wanted to do was to shoot them well.
05:31So even if I could figure out how to do that, and I think I came up with something, you got
05:35to have the actor there.
05:37You don't have to worry about that.
05:38So if the camera does what it has to, I got my partner over here, and guess what?
05:43He's there.
05:43Joe is focused on winning the biggest pilot of the year.
05:48This matchup is about to be high voltage, and I can promise you one thing.
05:52This man is fearless.
05:54Well, will the Cinderella story continue here?
05:59Tiny Tim and Wayne, here we go.
06:02And then the one thing that we learned beforehand and became very important was a bull ride is
06:26eight seconds if you stay on, right?
06:29So it's all about the anticipation and the buildup of that, and that goes all back to
06:34character and to him and his relationship with Sally and him and his relationship with
06:39his grandson.
06:40You know, these are the things he's bringing there.
06:42And what's Michael T. saying to him?
06:44Focus.
06:45If you can't focus, you got no business being on a bull.
06:49And what does Neil say?
06:51I'm trying.
06:52You know what I mean?
06:53And he is trying.
06:55So, and what Michael T. is saying is correct.
06:58So the stakes are very high on a lot of levels, including on the most personal level to his
07:03character.
07:04And in this case, Neil, because he was writing a story that was so personal.
07:09But I want to say one thing.
07:11So Sean Gleason, who's the head of the PBR, this is his baby, right?
07:14He's been with PBR since, I think, 1997.
07:18So to win him over was obviously the goal for John and I and everyone else involved.
07:23We had a screening two weeks ago in Dallas.
07:25And at the end of the screening, and here we are nervous because John created these new
07:30shots that had never been seen on a bull.
07:32Certain things of guys walking down the chutes that had never been seen in PBR.
07:36All these new things added to what the pre-existing shots of PBR really are.
07:41We sat next to Sean and the film's over.
07:44He walks up to me, he puts his big bear claws on my shoulder and goes, that is now my new
07:49favorite film of all time.
07:50As tears were welled up in his eyes.
07:52I was, wow.
07:53To get that compliment from Sean Gleason to say, that stamp of approval, you nailed it,
07:57John.
07:58You did what you had to do.
08:01Wow.
08:02So you did both of you.
08:03One of the things I think I do well is I listen well to the actors.
08:07If Neil has an idea, I don't say explain it.
08:09I say do it.
08:10Sarah had some ideas.
08:12I listened.
08:12They were great.
08:13Michael T, the same thing.
08:14Again, I've worked with all these actors.
08:16Most directors, you have to explain it to them.
08:18And then it takes 15 minutes of conversation.
08:20And by the time you get to shooting it, it's not organic anymore.
08:23Right?
08:24With John, it's like, I've got an idea.
08:25Great.
08:25Do it.
08:26Don't you want to talk about it?
08:27No.
08:27Do it.
08:28And then we see what it is.
08:30And guess what?
08:30Often, if not more than often, they're good ideas because they understand the characters.
08:36So in some ways, it's both being encouraging and staying out of the way.
08:41You know?
08:41And what Sarah brought made that last scene, which I'm not going to talk about.
08:46So good.
08:47This ain't the senior circuit.
08:54Good luck.
08:54You're going to need it.
08:56Joe Wainwright competing at over 50 years younger.
09:00I'm grandfathered in, right?
09:01You're right about that granddad part.
09:04Come on, Joe!
09:06His grandson's sick.
09:08And he's got to earn money.
09:10That's why he's evil.
09:11He's got to earn money.