00:05I'm Damiano Panattoni from Italy Movie Player. Hi Joe, nice to see you.
00:08Damiano, how are you, man?
00:09Fine, fine, fine. Congraduation for the movie. At the beginning, money, corruption, power.
00:15What does the rip say about our times?
00:20What does it say about, you mean contemporarily where we are?
00:23Yes.
00:24I mean, brother, I think it's a great question. It's a reflection, I think, of where we are.
00:27Listen, the morality and amorality of what money can do.
00:30I've said this before. It's like the money in this movie is really the villain.
00:35It's the ultimate bad guy in the movie. It's the money.
00:37And what that temptation and that desire does to the human condition, does to the ego,
00:43does to our sense of the idea that my life could change.
00:48This is a little bit of money.
00:49So we are very much, unfortunately, society right now, it's all about kind of avarice and greed and cruelty.
00:57And I don't like it, you know.
00:59And I think that, again, we've encouraged, you know, billionaires just keep making more money.
01:03And, you know, so I think there's a lot to be said for this movie that involves this wildly crazy
01:10sum of money
01:11with very kind of blue-collar working-class cops, you know,
01:14that I think is something to me that feels very culturally resonant at this moment.
01:21The movie feels like a horror but also a Western movie. Do you agree?
01:27That's great. Yeah, absolutely.
01:29It's like it has, it does, it has kind of a haunted house.
01:34We would say that.
01:34It's like it's a haunted house movie with money and cops, right?
01:38And it's very much a Western because, again, you're not quite sure.
01:41And it's also kind of a whodunit.
01:43You know, it's very much like, you know, like, again, like, who's telling the truth, who's not telling the truth,
01:49who's gaming who, you know, it's got all the kind of the components of movies that I loved, you know,
01:54as a kid and wanted to make as a grown-up.
01:57So, yeah, but it absolutely, it absolutely has horror and Western elements to it.
02:03How important is it to engage the audience through a strong script?
02:09I mean, I think it's, listen, it's everything, you know, like, you, you know, you, you have to, especially now,
02:14like, you know, we think about how, how our attention spans have waned over time, especially kids, you know,
02:20my kids don't watch movies, you know what I mean?
02:22It's like, so you really got to grab them early and you got to get, you got to engage the
02:26story.
02:27I don't always think that's a good thing, but I do think it encourages a more kind of thrifty,
02:32a little speedier process that I think is quite good because I think it's just great.
02:37I think, listen, shorter is, it's almost always true that shorter is better.
02:40And I think that if you, if you, if you elongate and protract and elaborate, over-elaborate,
02:45I don't think that's good, but I think it's really important to get your hooks into the audience as soon
02:49as you can.
02:50What impressed you most about the true story?
02:54It was, listen, it was, again, taking elements of my friend's life and fictionalizing them is always tricky
03:02because you don't want to feel like you're exploiting what, what he went through,
03:05which is a horrible thing that he, you know, the loss of a child.
03:09And so I think it was a really, it was a bit of a tightrope walk to make sure that,
03:13you know,
03:13that he was, that I was doing right by him, honoring his son and then maintaining our friendship.
03:19So that was, that's a tricky bit of business, man.
03:22But I think because he was so supportive and because he kind of gave me his full blessing,
03:26it was, it was easier than, it was great, man.
03:29It worked out beautifully.
03:32The movie features a rising star like Teyana Taylor.
03:36How did you work with her?
03:38Teyana is, is so funny because Teyana's like, it's like, there was a quote years ago about a buddy of
03:44mine
03:44who was, who was an assistant director on a movie.
03:46They had Robert Duvall in the movie and they had replaced the director.
03:50And the new guy came in and told the AD, here's the deal with Bob.
03:53We're going to, he's a wild animal.
03:56We're going to pick, we're going to take a bunch of meat.
03:58We're going to throw it in a room.
03:59We're going to shut the doors.
04:00We're going to let him do his thing.
04:01And Teyana's kind of like, I love her because it's like, she's got this effervescent quality to her.
04:06And this, and this just kind of, she has such a unique authenticity about who she is as a woman
04:12that you don't want to overdo it.
04:13You want to, and, and, and Teyana's never, you want her to ad lib, you're going to get it.
04:17You want, you know, it's like she stays in these scenes effortlessly and she, and she, you know,
04:22she's going with, you know, she's against heavyweights.
04:23These are, these are some of the best we got.
04:25These are movie stars.
04:26And she held her own, I thought, beautifully.
04:29I love the movie's colors.
04:31How did you work with DOP?
04:34Juan Miasparos, the man from the Basque Country, who's my, mi hermano por vida.
04:40He's, he's, he's just the best.
04:43You know, we're the same age.
04:45We like the same movies.
04:47You know, we push each other.
04:48We had this great brotherly connection with one another.
04:51And I just think he shot a remarkable film.
04:54And, and all the, again, all the, you know, the, and, and that Lenko at the end with all
04:58the passing out of shadows.
05:00And, and that was all stuff that we talked about and really planned out.
05:05You know, green being the color of money, red being the color of Jackie, blue being the
05:10color of the cops.
05:11It's like, if you watch it, it's, there's a really interesting interplay with all that stuff.
05:14And if you rewatch it, you start to pick things up earlier.
05:18And it kind of, there's indicators throughout the movie of what's going on.
05:21Another important element is this, the music.
05:24How did you work with the composer?
05:26Clinton Shorter, who I've done, I think this is the fourth film I've done with him.
05:29Fifth film, fourth or fifth.
05:31Clint is, it's so funny because I said this for a reason.
05:34It was the hardest collaboration he and I ever did.
05:38We fought.
05:40But, but he, but Clint is such a wonderfully gifted composer that it's like, it's like
05:47fighting with your family.
05:47It's like, you're, cause you know, you're, what you're after is the, is the best outcome.
05:51And I think it's his best score.
05:53It's like absolutely his best score.
05:56And, and so he, but we all, we labor intensively on it and really put the work and put the
06:02hours
06:03and put the time in.
06:04So, and that's just a testament again to how good Clint is.
06:07He's just, he's one of the best.
06:09Joe, in the end, the movie talks about truth.
06:13Today, it's hard to believe in truth.
06:16Do you agree?
06:17It was, I'm sorry, it's, it's hard to believe.
06:19It's hard to believe in the truth.
06:21Oh yes, absolutely brother.
06:22It is.
06:23Well, listen, look, yeah, we talked about earlier.
06:25It's like, where are we right now?
06:26What is the truth?
06:27It seemed, I thought the truth is a fairly subjective thing.
06:30There's a fact and there's a non-fact.
06:32And apparently now you can muddy the waters enough.
06:35We don't know what's real and what's not.
06:36And I think that's, that's what is deeply concerning for me.
06:40I got, you know, I got young kids.
06:41I've got two 11 year old daughters and it's like that.
06:44I don't want them to inherit this place that doesn't have a moral center and that values
06:48cruelty over compassion, you know, and, and, and greed over, over, over empathy.
06:54You know, I just don't want that.
06:55So it's, it's, it's, it's tricky, man, but we've got to do better as a society in general.
06:59All of us globally have to do better.
07:01This country, especially, we've got to do better.
07:03We got to do better.
07:03It starts with the removal of one, you know what I mean?
07:07So yeah, we, we got it.
07:09We got to figure some shit out here.
07:10We got it.
07:10We have to do better.
07:12Thank you, Joe.
07:13You got it, man.
07:13My pleasure, brother.
07:14Thank you.
07:15Bye.
07:15Thank you.
07:16Ciao.
07:33Bye.
07:35Grazie a tutti.
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