Green Light with Chris Long - Tiller Russell! On 'Operation Odessa,' 'The Seven Five' & 'Silk Road.' Jail Breaks, Corrupt Cops & The Dark Web.

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

(01:00) - Welcome, Vacation Update and Tiller Russell Intro. (10:06) - Tiller Russell on 'The Seven Five,' 'Operation Odessa,' 'Night Stalker' and 'The Silk Road.' Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And I look down and I get an email. And the email says, jailbreak, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And I open it up and it's Tarzan. And he's like, great news. You know, I did a jail break out of Panama. I went to Costa Rica. They sent me to Cuba. And now I'm back in Russia.

We can make the movie. And it was like, it was like a kid. You know what I mean? It was like Christmas. It could have been the same. Right. It was like the tone of the email. I was doing my best making impression.

I am out of the office. You are hearing Chris Long, pasty white, no sun tan Chris Long. As you're listening, I'm on vacation. So, you know, a round of applause for Cowboy Reed. Cowboy Reed has worked 800 consecutive weeks in this little studio. I've been right there with him, but my man is working his ass off.

He works harder than me because he has to clean up my mess. I try to clean it up with him. but we've been going for a long time here at Greenlight Studio. So shout out to him. Shout out to John. Everybody need a little break, right? And I feel like shit because now I'm saying like, yeah, I'm at the Bahamas. I took the show on the road down to the Bahamas.

Well, I am unplugging or trying to getting around for the NFL draft. So in the event that I missed anything big, I'm sorry. But we got a great interview for you today, a little change of pace. And I want to do more of these. Like we get away from it with everything going on with sports. I just love sitting down one-on-one and interviewing people that interest me outside the world of sports. So apologies if you like it. We'll do more of it.

And if you don't like it, give this one a chance. If you're just thinking, I just want to talk football. Give this one a chance. Tiller Russell, he is a director, producer. He's a filmmaker with a knack for finding these kind of like true crime stories that have a larger-than-life vibe to. him like the characters are larger in life he's very good at identifying like who's going to be the hook for this doc we got to have one guy who's magnetic the first thing that i saw him do was the seven five i saw the seven five like last summer and didn't didn't even think to look at who produced it um who

directed it anything like that i had no idea you know who tiller russell was but i loved the series and the 7-5 was, you know, a true crime deal. It was a police corruption thing, and this one focused on Michael Dowd. Simply put one of the most corrupt cops of all time. He's out of jail now. He's out of prison. But he went away back in like the 80s

or like the beginning of the 80s up in New York. I mean, this guy had his hands in anything illegal you could possibly imagine. And Tiller did a great job of peeling back the curtain on just how corrupt a police precinct can be. And obviously we see. issues today with police, but imagine how unchecked it was in the 80s. It's actually incredible to consider. And watching something like the 7-5 certainly makes your wheels turn a little bit.

You know, and the one I saw recently was Operation Odessa. That's the one, you know, you've probably seen 7-5. It's been around for some years, but Operation Odessa was kind of hot on Netflix this year. It was very hot on Netflix, and it should have been. It was a damn good documentary. How about this plot? Russian mobsters selling military submarines to a Colombian cartel for drug smuggling. Like, how's that for an elevator pitch? Like, you had me there, but you talk about some of the characters in this thing. I mean, some of the most cunning, scary dudes, like a Tony Yester, who you're going to hear me and

Hiller talk about right down to probably the most magnetic dude in the whole in the whole deal. His name is Tarzan. He's a Russian guy named Tarzan. Russian guy named Tarzan that went to Russia. He was living in Miami dealing with these cocaine dealers and went back to Russia to buy when the Soviet Union fell. They were just like offloading like helicopters and shit like a fire sale of helicopters. They couldn't get rid of them.

Like they couldn't get rid of them. So these things were cheap. And these guys were going over there to Russia and they were and they were buying fleets of helicopters and trying to, you know, send them down to the Colombian cartel and that sort of thing. And in this story as it weaves together a bunch of different subplots, you're going to hear names like Pablo Escobar. Like these guys were legit. And some of the characters in this Operation Odessa are incredibly magnetic.

But there's a side to it that's like this anti-hero genre is. is really picking up a lot of steam when it comes to, you know, we've always like true crime, but I feel like you think about Breaking Bad. That whole show is predicated on watching a bad guy unravel. Like a good guy turned into a bad guy and become an anti-hero. But, I mean, like to just go to show you how, you know, I mentioned Tony Esther earlier,

his character just jumped off the screen, you know, it'd be enough if you had Tars, and alone, but this guy was just a total, like a gangster and he was charismatic. He's a guy that, like, if you didn't know that he's probably killed a bunch of people, you'd want to hang out with him. And I think that's the most interesting thing about considering who you're rooting for as you're watching or who you find yourself drawn to. Like, I'd love to have a beer with that guy and then you, like, find out who that guy is. Like, he has a knack, Tiller had, you know, for identifying not only this incredible story, but like the characters in it, bringing them

to life. And then the links that he had to go to to interview people like Tony Esther, who's like on the run, like he's, he's been on the run for years. He had to meet this guy in an airplane hangar somewhere in Africa. Africa is the biggest fucking continent in the world, by the way. Okay, you guys probably already knew that. Don't know how big it is. Google like Africa actual size. They'll lay China, India, the United States on top of that motherfucker, and there's still continents to go. The subheading when he met Tony Esther is somewhere in Africa. If you're meeting with somebody who asked to do one of those meetings and it's like

meet me in Africa, like it's pretty legit. You know, you watch one of these like cop mysteries. They just put the shadow over the guy's face and queens and they give him the robot voice. But he had to meet somebody somewhere in Africa, like PJ's hangar. So Tiller Russell, the backstories are incredible. obviously a great storyteller. I was nervous about interviewing him because I think of these guys

as being so artistic and smart and like I'm just me. But John put it really well when I was getting ready to talk to Tiller. He was like, these guys, their job is to pitch these stories to be able to go out and execute these projects. They're charismatic guys.

And Tiller was an incredibly charismatic guy. And I thought a very authentic guy in getting to talk to him. So fun interview, a ton of stories. He's also done the story about the serial killer, Richard Ramirez, Nightstalker. He did that as well. And we talked about that a bit. Like, you know, how do you handle stuff like that?

It's a heavy, heavy topic. It's not just like your run of the mill drug war kind of documentary that you can spice up and make fun, even though right on the surface there's a lot of crime and violence and that sort of thing. And we got a question who we're rooting for and, you know, why we're attracted to these type of stories. Like, you can't have fun with a serial killer documentary. You got to handle that with care.

That was interesting to talk to him about as well. So without further ado, I didn't mean to rub the vacation thing. And I may or may not be drunk on a beach. I hope you guys are having a great day. And here's Tiller Russell. Tiller Russell's here. Filmmaker, most recent work, Silk Road. Off the top, I'm going to tell Tiller.

I haven't seen it yet because I'm halfway through American Kingpin. We will talk about that in a little bit. I know him from the 7-5 and from Operation Odessa, which Operation Odessa is a kick-ass time. Like everything about that movie, that documentary is kick-ass. It is fun. It is interesting. It is a rabbit hole. You got to check it out. And if you haven't, we're probably going to spoil some shit. So just a heads-up. It was a caper making that thing, too, as you can imagine. Yeah, man. It was, it looked like a lot of fun to make. I mean, some characters. And I guess that, let's start with Operation Odessa. Right. It's on the top of my head. Why do you think it is that we do so much Italian mob stuff

and the Russian mob stuff seems like such an untapped resource in entertainment? Well, you know, it's funny. There's a couple of things to it, right? Like on the one hand, you've had all these amazing Italian American storytellers that have kind of told their version of the culture and the like gangster outlaw America. Right. So whether that's Mario Puzzo initially writing the godfather and then you know, Coppola picking it up or Scorsese doing his version of like, you know, crime in New York, you know, endlessly, which I could just make it never end.

The Irishman could have been like 20 more hours. Yeah, I know. It was pretty amazing. Um, but like the weird thing with the Russian mob stuff is that that is a culture, which is pretty hermetic. Like there's very few outside. outsiders in. And so the public hasn't gotten that big of a window into it because it's, it's serious shit. Those guys are, those guys are not to be trifled with. I mean,

I guess none of these guys are really, but, but there's something about that that's kind of a, that's very heavyweight. And, and what was funny about Operation Odessa is, you know, you go into it thinking like Russian mob, Eastern, you know, Vigo and Eastern Hell yeah, shower scene. Exactly. So that's like what's, sticks in your head and then unfortunately and the and the but yeah like the tone of operation odessa was you know and i'll give you the quick sort of like story about how the damn thing happened which was years ago this narc i knew called me and he was like dude there's this russian mobster

who goes by the name tarzan and he used to run his operation out of a strip club in Miami named after his favorite movie, Porky's. And he's locked up in like a Panamanian prison. Do you want the guy's cell phone number? And I was like, hell yes, I want this guy's cell phone number. I've never one and one more. So I call, I called this guy, you know, thinking like, what the hell is this going to be? He's in a Panamanian prison.

How does he have a cell phone to begin with, you know? And I answer, and it's this like larger than life kind of like comical, you know, half out of a Scorsese movie, half out of a Tarantino movie. And he's like, hello, Taylor, you know, you should come down and visit me in Panama. It's amazing down here, you know. And I just thought, like, this is going to be one hell of a crazy ride. And so I flew down there to Panama with like, you know, 10 grand tape to my legs, figuring I'm going to have to peel off bribes and whatever.

And I go in there and I get to the prison and I'm at the like prison wall or whatever. And I'm meeting his lawyer. And his lawyer's like, all right, here's the plan. We're going to give the guard a hundred bucks and then he's going to open the gate and you just run as fast as you can across the like lower yard. And then you'll get to the other side. There's a steel door and push it open. And I'm like, bro, this is the worst plan I've ever heard, you know. Let me back up a step. Like this place was like intergalactic, right?

It was like out of Mad Max because the guards would leave the prison every day at like 5 p.m. and just lock it up. And it was like inmate rule at night. at night. So when I showed up, there's like dead bodies and wheelbarrows and shit. You know, they're just wheeling it around like it's cordwood. And I'm like, dude, this looks like beyond Thunderdome. Like what's going on here? And and then I find so I finally like, you know, stupidly or naively or, you know, whatever version of it, you know, begin this caper running across this yard, you know, I gave the guard. I was like, here's 50 bucks. I give the other 50 when I get out, you know?

And I go in there and then I push open the door and inside of it is this like giant Russian bearer of a man who's like, Taylor, welcome to Panama. You got great big balls for coming here, you know? And it was just this kind of like crazy surreal adventure. And then once I was inside the prison, there were no beds, right? So these guys in the prison were literally, like they were killing people for sloth. sleeping on cardboard boxes just to have like that much. There was no water. They had taken like chlorox bottles and they were capturing rainwater so that there was like

something to drink. I mean, it was literally out of another galaxy. And but I met Tarzan who was this just character. You know what I mean? And at the time, we couldn't kind of like, we couldn't figure out how to do it. He was still locked up. And then years later, what happened? happened was the 7-5 was out, right? The police corruption documentary. And I'm in New York

and I'm doing press when that thing is coming out. And I'm also writing for a TV show at the time. So I've got like eight weeks off or whatever it is between the season. And I'm in New York. I'm doing press for the 7-5 and I look down and I get an email. And the email says, jailbreak, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. And I open it up and it's Tarzan. And he's like, great news. You know, I did a jail break out of Panama. I went to Costa Rica. They sent me to Cuba.

And now I'm back in Russia. We can make the movie. And it was like, it was like a kid. You know what I mean? It was like Christmas. It could have been the same. Right. It was like the total of the email.

And so I called my producer, Eli Holtsman, who's a, you know, good buddy. And we've been making stuff together for years. And I'm like, dude, can you get like a million dollars in a week? because I want to go shoot this movie like right now as soon as I leave New York. He was like, let me make a phone call and called me back like the next day. And he was like, yeah, I got a million bucks. Start shooting in a week.

And so I literally, I've been thinking about it for years, but I had no preparation, no prep time, no nothing. And we literally blasted out of a cannon, went down to Miami, started shooting in Miami. Then all of a sudden we get to broker a deal. with Tarzan and Russia. So I call my wife and I'm like, listen, I know I said I was going to New York, but now I'm in Miami. And actually, now I'm going to go to Moscow. And she was like, what? You know, Moscow's scary, I feel like probably. You know, the weird, the fascinating thing about Moscow is, and I had a sort of surreal version of it, right? When you're rolling with the like criminal underworld, it's a weird

vantage point on it. But it was, I happened to catch it at like the most beautiful time. It was like springtime in Moscow. The city was totally green, spectacularly beautiful. And it was kind of surprisingly wild and fascinating and just weird, you know? So, like, amazing crazy dinners and like underworld, you know, whatever. So it was just this like really weird, you know, vantage point from it. And then we shot with him there and then we flew on to Africa.

So it was literally the whole thing was this. It was like a Gonzo Hunter S. Thompson operation making the movie to begin with. And obviously for the people who were with us earlier, I'm presuming the Africa trip was for the Nelson yester. Tony yesterday, yeah, as you called him in the dock. But I want to hit that in a few. But you had me at Tarzan. And then like the first five minutes of this guy I had,

I was just leaning in and smiling. and I don't know if you set it up to where there was a moment for me where I was like oh this guy's really actually a bad guy you know what I mean or like has done some bad things like he charmed my socks off in the first couple minutes and then it kind of got dark and you were like

oh shit but the entire time I couldn't make sense of was he supposed to be his lovable idiot or was he just like a mastermind you know it's a great question and like it's you bring up a really interesting point because really the same has been true for like a lot of my like work and the experience of it where it's like on the one hand these guys are characters you know whether it's michael dowd and the seven five or you know tarzan and these guys so like on the one hand you don't want to be turning it into like cheap todry you know entertainment on the other hand like the stories are so bonkers and there is this like weird childlike thing about like larceny entertainment. and about Michael Dowd, too, that is unexpected. And that to me is what's fascinating.

It's like, wait a minute, is this guy a killer, or is this guy going to make me laugh? Or is he going to make me laugh and then shoot me? Yeah, I watched Michael Dowd on Joey Diaz's pod, like the other day. And I'm supremely interested in how folks, I've always been, of course, doing a little reading would answer any questions I have, but God knows. I'm not going to do that. I've always watched documentaries and been like, these guys are just. out like talking about crazy shit and it's just interesting and I heard you or I read you

talking about horse whispering you're trying to get criminals in the chair what's that like what's that process as much as you could tell me what's that like it's one of these things where you can't bullshit people right anyway right so there can be no hustle to the game like If somebody says, dude, am I going to get burned for doing this? Like, my answer has to be, hey, you're a grown man. If you get burned for doing it, like, I didn't make you smuggle cocaine coming into the world. Like, that was your decision. So if you're telling the story, then I'm going to do, I'll go to the end of the earth to tell the story as like powerfully and honestly and on as big a canvas as possible.

But like, dude, I'm not a cop. I'm not the U.S. Attorney's office. So I don't know what's going to happen to you. So you have to really shoot people straight on the one hand. And what could happen? Well, it like, you know, there's these things where it's like what ended up happening in, you know, Tony Esther eventually got arrested after the movie. And is actually locked.

I got a call from him the other day. And it was my phone rings and it's like correctional facility in Florida, you know, whatever. And I always take it because it's like, who knows, you know, what the story is going to be. And so I answered it and it's like, dealer, it's fucking Tony, man. you know and the the craziest thing was he goes you know I never seen that fucking movie

fucking man but it must be pretty fucking good because every fucking prison I go into everybody knows who I am you know you got a voiceovers for Tony dude and for Tarzan you went from Russian to Cuban you know I spent a lot of time

with those guys you know and and so and I just fell out laughing because it was like it was so outrageous, you know. Yeah. But, but, but, but I guess the thing is how, how I always look at it is when you're making the documentaries, a lot of the directing is long before there's ever camera, lights, a chair, any of that stuff, it's sitting down like eye to eye man to man being like, hey, if you don't like me, if you don't trust me, if you don't think I'm the guy to tell your story, walk away. But if you do, we got to go to the end of the earth to do it.

it because that's the only way these things work when they're totally real and when they're just bad shit crazy. How does it feel when somebody walks in the room and now you're going to get to know them? You've had that conversation like, hey, listen, this is going to be something I got to do it. Balls to the wall or nothing. And whatever happens to you happens, you've had that conversation. You've had that heart to heart.

I'm sure you have to make some sort of a connection with the subject of your interview for them not to feel, I don't know, like you hate them. but maybe you're at odds with the things they've done and maybe it's an uncomfortable situation for you. Is it easy to separate it when you're actually getting the job done? Really interesting, really smart question. The way I look at it is my job is not to make a moral judgment one way or another. It's about trying to get the most.

authentic, honest version of the story from as many different angles as possible. So I'll sit with a gangster, but I'm also going to sit with the cop that put them away. I'm going to sit with the wife that got left behind. I'm going to sit with the best friend that betrayed him. And so it's like each one of these people is a spoke in the wheel that leads to the story. and so I'm trying to be the one that connects all of them without passing judgment. And then hopefully when the when the movies finished or whatever, the audience can watch it.

And it's, I'm not telling you what to think. If you want to think Michael Dowd is a piece of shit and should be locked in jail for the rest of his life, you're entitled to that. Or if you think like, wow, that was like a Scorsese movie, but like real, also cool. You're welcome to draw that conclusion. So it's, I want them to be provocative, I guess, and I want people to be arguing about it. Has there been one person that you've, that you've had to interview that your kind of hair stood on end? Well, I mean, you know, there have been several.

Tony Yester was a very serious guy from Operation Odessa, you know, and basically, you know, everyone said it was going to be like categorically impossible to get him to sit down and agree to an interview. You did a good job of building that up too. I was like, there's no fucking way they get this guy. And I assumed that it never would happen. So what happened was so weird what happened. We were in. And so we planned on shooting the movie without it, right?

And then we're in Moscow and I get a WhatsApp message. And the message says, you've talked to the waiters. If you want to know what really happened, come talk to the chef. Meet me in Africa tomorrow for a cup of coffee. And I'm like, holy shit, this is the guy. you know that's insane that's so like him just from knowing him in the movie that he would have some like just grandiose way of setting up a meeting i mean just like from his fashion sense to his charisma and he's the guy i'm thinking about that like i kind of wondered for a second until you told me that he

got picked up again who was the smartest guy in operation odessa to you that guy was is stone brilliant and really there's only like there's there's a small slice of his whole crazy life story that's told in there. But he was, you know, at the height of it, dude, he was on the run from DEA, the U.S. Marshals, FBI, you know, America's most wanted for years, you know, decades even. And he was so sophisticated in the way that he would change identities, be in countries where there were no extradition treaties and use his knowledge of both. intelligence and the sort of cartel crime war.

You know, it's like Jason Bourne, like, as cartel guy. On the other side of it, I'm looking at Juan, who I got nothing against, or Tarzan, who I got to, but they seem like the times they just accidentally accomplished shit. Right. It's like, and I always joke to Tarzan, I was like, dude, you were like the forest gump of crime. You just happened to be there, like every crazy deal that ever happened. And he kind of laughed.

And, but you never quite know. you know, I mean, the truth of the matter is these guys all had, it was like for them, it was the caper of a lifetime that they were on. And it was this insane wild ride when they were out ahead of the culture a little bit. The Soviet Union had collapsed. Everything's for sale. Who's got the balls to go show up and try to buy military attack helicopters and submarines, you know? Well, they did. And it worked. and it blew me away. Like, explain to me what the fuck was going on in Russia. I know that the Soviet Union had collapsed,

but just that you could stroll in and impersonate Pablo Escobar and get away with it and buy helicopters. It's the pre-internet era, right? Dude, it's like, it's the analog days. We're like, there's no real way of checking it. And the way they explained it to me sort of what was happening in Russia was, um, basically they were like, listen,

if you're the general and you are, you know, in charge of the military, air strip and the next day the government goes away you're no longer in charge of the military airstrip you own it so if you want to sell something you sell it and so it was this like complete seismic shift that happened overnight and the people that were smart enough to or crooked enough or whatever you want to call it both you know to like play it were the ones who you sort of became the oligarchs of today and then the crazy thing with that one is like do they had photographs

They're sitting there and it's like they're shopping for the submarine like they're at Macy's. You know what I mean or whatever? And you're just like, really? That felt like him in a nutshell to me. That picture felt like him in a nutshell to me. It's so funny like with making these documentaries. And the same thing, like it's the opposite end of it because it's like it's very serious. But like, you know, when I was making Nightstalker, suddenly what we had early on was we had access to all of the crime scene photos that were taken by the.

sheriff's department and suddenly like when you have the photographic documentation of the story that goes with it it just takes it to kind of a new level of specificity or like connection with the material because you're like oh wow this is real and like here's the photo taken like back in the day when this happened you've talked about the origin stories of seeing a story like operation odessa for the first time and as albeit you had to wait years same thing with the seven five you saw, I think Michael Dowd on the stand saying I'm a policeman and a criminal. Is there just an aha moment where you're like, there's nothing that's going to get in my way, no amount of a lack of B-roll is going to get in my way, no amount of like, I need this

fucking story, or is it kind of a multi-planar discussion of these are the impediments and I might never get to tell that story. But there's a story out there that I just wish I could tell. I just don't have, like you said, whether the pictures or video or the people to talk to. Yeah. No, that's another really great question. To me, there's a couple of things, which is what people don't necessarily put two and two together about is documentaries need stars just like movies need movie stars, right? So like you have to have great characters. It's not just the story. It's like are the characters telling the story larger than life and charismatic and sort of gripping? So like question one for me is always. is like, who's the star or stars of this? Can these guys carry your attention for four episodes or for 90 minutes or whatever, whatever sort of the format is, right?

And that becomes a big piece of it. And then the next layer is, okay, what are the materials that go around this? You know, do we have photos or do we not necessarily need them? Or are there wiretaps that we can use? Because really, in a weird way, my docs, it's a very simple set of ingredients. It's firsthand, first-person interviews with the people who live the story, and as many of them as possible. It's the archival materials, photos, video, wiretaps, whatever the stuff is. It's what's the original photography, the pictures that we're going to shoot that evoke the world for, you know, that sort of tell the story visually.

And then finally, it's what's the graphic treatment that fills in the gap? okay where does this like how far is it from Moscow to Miami what's required you know sort of that and then that's it so those are the pieces of the puzzle and I'm kind of and I guess the second part of your question is a great story I will chase like till the end of the earth so if it takes like 10 years for that I'll keep it cooking quietly in the background until like all of the ingredients were there and then all the sudden when it's time and you have the canvas and the access to the people, then it's like go make it. And then the opposite is true with, you know, Silk Road was it was a, it was a rolling stone article that was, I knew an amazing story about this like young guy who kind of becomes, you know, who creates the like Amazon for dope, you know. And it was this amazing story that there was a rolling stone piece on, but the kid, Russ Albrecht was locked up in MCC correctional in New York at the time, MCC New York. And I knew that I was never going to be able to get to him.

So that one, it was like, okay, this wants to be a movie because there's all of these amazing pieces of information in the story. There's all of the chat logs that this guy had with his other cronies. There's the public statements he made. There's the diaries that were on his laptop that was confiscated after he was arrested. So there were all of these elements giving me a window into the, uh, into Ross Ulbrick's mind and story, but there's not Ross Ulbric telling it. So suddenly that becomes actors, um, uh, performing that story, but you're trying to use as many of the real elements

to make it as authentic, um, you know, to the story as possible. And that story was too good. Well, it was just, it was just a crazy, you know, and to me, that's the thing is like these stories, you know, I used to work and, you know, in a writer's room writing, writing for Dick Wolf TV shows. And like, if I came into that writer's room and I pitched a story, hey, it's three best friends who's, you know, are going to buy a submarine for the collie cartel and one of them's going to rip them off and disappear with 20 million. They would be like, dude, that's a terrible pitch. You're fired. Get out of you. But because it's real, you're like, okay, let's do this. that one. And it's the same thing with Silk Road. You're going to tell me a, you know, 24-year-old kid comes up with a technology that allows anyone on earth to buy dope at any time. And it turns out the mailman is accidentally your dope dealer. Like, and it's real. And that all happened in like two years. Then it's like, that's a story that's so sort of surreal and hard to imagine. Yet it's true. And so those are the stories that I'm gravitated to that I gravitate towards to tell what about your decision

project to project you talk about having a star how about having a narrator what goes into deciding if you want a narrator um well jem like on on the docks basically for the most part I have not had anything in there I want those people to tell the stories a little bit when I did the last narc which is the story of the, you know, the murder of this DEA agent Kiki Kamerina in Mexico in 1985, I ended up actually doing some amount of the voiceover myself, right? Because I felt like, okay, to understand why is the story really matter? This is one guy that gets killed in 1985. Why are we still talking about it? Why is Narcos Mexico based on the story? Why am I investigating the real one? So there was some amount of, you need to download the audience. And

say, okay, here's the history of the drug war. Here's how the game changes. Here are the players in Mexico. And here's why this murder in 1985 unleashed all of the violence that's still engulfing Mexico and spilling over into the American border today. And so in a way, that became, okay, I'm going to tell you the story because I'm the guy investigating it. Right. You know what I mean? I mean, for me to sit down and map out like a pod is stressful. I'm thinking about knowing I have a point a and a point B at the end of a story. That's what I know. But also knowing that like in interviewing people for months, presumably, there's going to be other waypoints that I've got to now correct for. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe when you start, you think your B's here and it's all the way the fuck

over there. Do you come into an interview and think, I know this thing. I need to get him to talk about this thing to fill in this portion of the story? It's, it's, um, this is a really, really excellent questions. It's both. Like on the one hand, if I end up making the movie that I thought I was going to make when I set out,

then I didn't learn anything along the way. Like, I don't know what the weird turn is going to be, but there's always some weird turn where I'm like, didn't know that, didn't think that's where it was going, and that's the movie. And so it's that process of discovery that you have to kind of prepare.

You think like, this is exactly what it's going to be. And then when the curveball comes, it's like, wow, that's way better than I thought it was going to be and not at all. And now I'm chasing that. And so there's that sort of piece of it. But then there's also, when you go into it, you need to be incredibly prepared because it's like, particularly with this crime stuff, okay, I'm going to talk to Chris. Chris is going to give me a load of bullshit about this, but I'm also going to talk to right. and I know that Ralph is going to corroborate this piece.

So I'm cross-checking, you know, your testimony or your, you know, interview against Ralph's interview. And then I'm able to kind of triangulate, okay, here's the overlaps. Here's where the discrepancies are. How will these fit together? And so it is, and I use both a board and I, because I've done both writers rooms for like, you know, Dick Wolf TV shows as well as documentary. So I'm trying to use the tool.

that I know work from each of them and blend them together to kind of have a a methodology that's dependable. I wonder how much you gauge on your own or how you would rely on, okay, like I have a bio on this guy and his propensity to tell the truth. A lot of it's, you know, having some degree of a bullshit meter, right? Like if you're spending all of your time with, you know, cops and crooks and informants and people like that, you know, you have to have a pretty high, you know, finely tuned bullshit meter all the time to like traffic. Am I getting hustled here? Because these are like sort of smart people that may not be academically book smart, educated or whatever, but know how the streets work and know how to spin your asses. And you look like fresh meat. You might not be, but like you probably look like fresh meat. Anybody who's not in their circle looks like fresh meat. 100%. And the thing that Michael Dowd said when he got in the car was, who's going to play us in the movie? So like, you look like fresh meat and like, hey, this is my ticket. Exactly. So it's like this weird combination of like, you know, them thinking like, I'm going to run circles around this moron. And exactly, this is my lottery ticket to Hollywood. And so, so it is this thing where, and I'm very straight about it, dude. Like I'm not a gangster. I'm not a cop. I don't live in your world. I already know.

weird ass passport where I get to come visit and you get to tell me about shit but then I go home you know and so it's like it's you know the job is to be a chronicler not a participant you know biggest curveball you actually got where you that B that B point changed you know there's there's one in every like when I first started out making the 7 5 I went into it thinking that I was going to make a documentary about the commission that investigated the police corruption after Michael Dowd's, after he was busted, basically when Serpico was sort of came forward and unleashed the sort of malfeasance and police corruption in New York in the 70s, they had this commission that was convened, the Knapp Commission, which went out to study, hey, was this an isolated

incident of corruption, or is this epidemic throughout the department? Well, same thing when Michael Dowd got busted, they convened what was called the Mullen Commission. And the same thing. Was Michael Dowd an isolated instance of this or is this citywide corruption? So when I went into it, I was making a movie on the Mullen Commission thinking like, oh, this is the answer to Serpico all these years later. And I couldn't find anybody, I couldn't find out because he had like fallen in the gaps of the digital record. because I used the like software that the like bounty hunters used to track people down and stuff. Without he there was no record because it was right when the like digital era was starting.

So I got everybody. I sent FedExes all over the country being like, all right, I got everybody, which was total bullshit. I didn't have anybody. It was like I got everybody. I'm telling you're in it either way. Come sit down with me. And if you don't like me, don't trust me, think I'm going to burn you, walk away. but I'll meet you anywhere anytime and vibe with me and see if you want me to tell the story.

But I couldn't find out anywhere, right? And then one day I get a hit on the list. And I was like, God, there's like a known associate. There's this like woman doctor that's listed. Like, who the hell is this? And so I called on a lark and I'm like, yo, was Mikey there? And she's like, yeah, let me put him on. Put, you know, hands the phone over it down.

He's like, yeah, what do you want? And I'm like, dude, I want to make your movie. And so, and then suddenly I called my pretty. I called my friend Eli Holtzman again, and I'm like, dude, forget that movie about the Mullen commission. We're making a movie about Michael Dowd and his corrupt cops. These guys are lunatics. And he was like, let's do that one, you know. How about the anti-hero thread? Because me and my producer, we're talking about this before you came on. But like when I was growing up in the 90s, I feel like we loved crime thrillers.

I feel like there was, like we were into this stuff. I feel like we were maybe not as like openly into anti-hero stories, but from like breaking bad all the way back to the Sopranos, like, and now in entertainment, we consume that with regularity. Do you see that pattern or is there just more avenues to tell stories so it seems like more? I think in a way it's kind of, I think it's uniquely American in some way or another. I mean, if you think about the history of the country from like Billy the Kid through the Godfather or whatever, we've always mythologized, romanticized, been fascinated by the outlaws and gangsters and crooks and whatever.

And so it's, and there's cyclical waves of it, right? Sometimes, you know, when it's like Jack Nicholson movies in the 70s, like he didn't play anything but an anti-hero, you know, throughout the entire 1970s. And like, you turn on any one of those movies and I'll like, stop everything and watch the whole thing. Or, you know, like you said, it's the Sopranos and Breaking Bad, you know, in the 90s or whenever those dropped.

And to me, those are the stories that I'm fascinated by, too, you know. And sometimes, you know, there are people who criticize, you know, me as a filmmaker for like, man, why are you always telling the stories of these crooks and like, whatever? But to me, these are stories where the stakes are life. and death. Every time these people walk out of their house, you know, they could get whacked. And so that is inherently so dramatic and so fascinating and so much more intense than the lives that, you know, we lead as civilians. Where's the line on, okay, there's a level of playfulness that we can, the tone can be with like an operation of Dessa, even though there's a lot of guys that are

objectively have done fucked up things and then you go do the night stalker you got to handle that with care right i mean they you know the victims are just as real in the drug game but it's it just feels different and then with the ted bundy thing recently and everybody was like oh they made him too sexy not that you can make the nightstocker sexy did you think about that yeah it's it's a it's a huge i think about it all the time every every project and and the whole time like to me at the end of the day, like the simplest definition of what a director does is you're a purveyor of tone. Like, what's the tone of this? Is it light and flippant? Is it funny? Is it serious and dramatic? Is it, you know, horrifying? Like, that decision determines everything else that's in the, that's in the, that's in the piece, right?

And so you're constantly, like, refining that and each one is its own thing. Like Operation Odessa, you're meant to sort of like laugh, you know? And then Nightstocker really, it's, you know, it's a horror film, but it's real, you know, so that when you're dealing with the victims, that has to be, or the survivors or people who lost a loved one, that has to be treated with like deep respect because it's not entertainment. It's like the most painful, harrowing moments of these people's life. lives. So it can't be flippant and smart assy. It's got to be respectful. And so every time throughout the entire project, it's like, ooh, is this like, do we want another joke in here? Or do we want this to be

emotionally heavy here and like refining it? And you don't know. I mean, you're, I fly by such lights as were given me, you know, in the sense of, I just have my instinct. you know and I'm trying to do my best and hopefully it's engaging and thoughtful and compelling you know why Ramirez out of you know because there's so many like crazy sick you know characters over the last to me it was the cops like that that particular series I sat down with the two homicide cops who worked that case And they were, it was really funny. I sat down with them and they had seen my, you know, they'd seen, they were like,

you make movies about like lunatics. We're not lunatics. We're just like straight, like, you know, like serious homicide investigators. And I said, I had to tell them, no, it's not that I make movies about, I mean, sometimes I make movies about lunatics, but like, really what it is is it's people that have extraordinary lives. And you guys, by dint of what you did and the fact that you collared the biggest serial killer of the 1980s in this massive epic citywide investigation and that you guys are night and day different. One's like this white, Italian, old school homicide legend. Another, you know, his

partner is this young, up-and-comer, Latino, you know, youngest guy on the four-soucest. on the homicide squad. And it's this unlikely pairing of these two guys who come together to work this iconic case in an iconic city about an iconic killer. And it's the combination of what really struck me about those two guys is they were super real about the human toll that it took on them as a father and as a parent and as a, you know, a husband and a cop and as a man and they were so unexpectedly I guess vulnerable and open about it that I was like man I've never seen uh I just I didn't know and so that's what fascinated me way more so

than Ramirez at the end of the day you know it was those two guys and then the strange dignity of the victims and survivors who either had their lives irrevocably scorned. from what happened or who, you know, were like, this happened to me, but this does not define me. I'm going to have a beautiful life. And just because Richard Ramirez kidnapped me when I was a child doesn't mean I'm going to crumble and have my life destroyed. And that sort of strength and centeredness and power, again, it lets you talk about the surprises. I sat down with this young woman who had been abducted by Richard Remedy. Ramirez at six years old and, you know, molested and miraculously released alive.

And I expected to meet this destroyed broken person. And I had like tears in my eyes 10 seconds in because I was like, you're stronger, tougher, smarter, more self, more centered than I am. Like, and this shit did not break you. And it was so moving to see somebody that was empowered rather than broken. by it. And one thing that always comes across to me is like the need for closure first and foremost. I mean, like that to me, it's the last thing you think about like closure would make things any better, but it seems to make things a lot better for these families. There's a weird thing that

happens generally making these films or shows or whatever in that what happens is people carry these stories, these secrets, these, you know, um, um, powerful experiences inside them their whole lives and never speak about them. And then suddenly they're finally ready to talk for the first time in their lives. And it's almost like this private therapy session between me and one other person. And yet there's a camera there. And at the end of the day, like the whole world is watching. You know?

And so there's this like cognitive dissonance between the intimacy of the connection and the conversation. but like, but it wouldn't be happening if there weren't a camera there and there weren't an audience tuning in. So it's a, it's a weird combination of events and circumstances, if that makes sense. And do they generally, and this might be a sensitive question, so stop me if it is, but like, are you, are you granting some leniency in post-production? Because you're like, what you want in there is what's going to go in there. you know, like certain people that you interview. Do you handle certain interviews more with care? And then like you're somebody from the cartel.

Sorry, buddy. You talk to me. You know? Well, my whole deal is like, I'm like if you're agreed to sit down with me, I'm never going to burn you. Right. Right. Like I can't afford to burn people,

whether it's civilians and victims or whether it's cops or whether it's gangsters. You know, at the end of the day, like my word is my passport. And so everybody gets treated with the same respect. And I say, you know, like, because I'll sit with cops who are investing in a case. And they're like, tell me what so-and-so said. It's like, dude, I ain't telling you what so-and-so said. Just like I wouldn't, you know, I'm not going to give somebody.

That's not what I do. My job is to tell the story and to protect the relationship. And so it's always about, I guess, respecting that first and foremost, with everybody. all the time. You got that you got the clearance process with like dealing with Coke dealers and that sort of thing down but what about like government agencies? It's it's really tricky. I mean institutions in general are tricky right so like and oftentimes the stories that I'm not telling for the most part you know even Silk Road is a story that takes place and you know eight or nine years ago and I sort of would jokingly say to the

producers this is a period piece because it actually is like. 2013 is not 2021. All the tech is different. Everything is different. Generally speaking, I tell stories that are not right now. There's some degree in the past, whether it's Silk Road eight years in the past or whether it's Michael Dow, 30 years in the past, or whether it's Nightstock or 40 years in the past. Because when the cops are retired, when the FBI agents are retired, when the DEA guys are retired, suddenly nobody can muzzle them. They can tell their experience as human beings because they're no longer representatives of the institution. They are civilians who have the right to tell their own story.

Yet at the same time, you know, much of the material that's in those movies, you know, whether it's the photos that are in, you know, Nightstalker from the crime scenes, or whether it's the surveillance video that's in the 7-5, it's the cooperation of DEA or the U.S. Attorney's Office or criminal defense attorneys being like, Hey, we trust you to tell this story. So we're going to turn this material over to you.

So it's all trust. It's negotiating trust with everybody all the time so that people feel like that they won't get burned. Let's talk about Silk Road. And before I get you out of here, man, because I'm really looking forward to seeing this. I'm pretty captivated by about halfway through the book, American Kingpin, which is all centers around kind of the same thing with Ross. And a guy who, where I'm sitting in the book, he's growing mushrooms. Okay.

Like just fucking, you know, mushrooms. Okay. Like, this is like low level stuff. And then I know where point B in the story is. So tell me what happened to this kid. Well, it's, I mean, like, what was so crazy about that story is like it all happened in less than two years, right? From the moment of like having this notion of, okay, I'm going to create a website.

I'm going to call it Silk Road. I'm going to, and it was a very simple invention. Basically, it was, I'm going to use Tor, which conceals your identity and usage so that you're anonymous when you come on to it. And then you're going to pay with Bitcoin so that the transactions are secure. And then anybody can buy anything from anyone at any time and there's no trace of it. And so this young guy, you know, kid, frankly, comes up with this idea. and it goes supernova overnight. And suddenly it metastasizes all over the globe.

It's this. He goes from kind of dreamer to kingpin in 18 months. And suddenly, like, the entire American justice system is like, okay, we're going to catch this kid and we're going to grind him to bits. And so it's a, the compression in the story is what struck me. Normally it takes like a lifetime to become the godfather. You know, this kid got the express ticket, you know, took the bullet train and did that in, you know, less than two years and literally changed the way the drug game worked and the drug war was fought overnight.

And then the way I constructed the movie, it's interesting that you're reading Bolton's book, which was brilliant. Because there's so much story in it. To condense it into sort of a film, what I did is there's a couple of corrupt law enforcement. officers that that were essentially fleecing Ross, you know, both ripping him off and then trapping him at the same time, you know, trying to bust him and then trying to rip him off. I combine those two characters into one character, played by the actor Jason Clark, as the like, you know, Crooked cop that's trying to take down Ross Ulbricht, who's played by Nick Robinson, two wonderful,

terrific actors. And so the way I, like, boiled the story down while staying true to its essence, I hope is it's the story of these two guys that are like two missiles kind of fired at one another and they're like the last people on earth either one should be dealing with and it's the collision between them that causes the you know the explosion you know you say it happened fast 2021 it makes a lot of sense I mean you know it took you a lifetime become a mafia kingpin in the 80s today it's emblematic of everything yes it is instant gratification and like that's that's part of what the movie is about too you know on on kind of a I guess a deeper level is all of us are now used to okay whatever I want to watch whatever I want to listen to

whatever I want to eat I want that shit's into my house and pipe to my computer right now and like so that every like the culture is moving so fast and when that happens there's a disconnect between hey man I'm just doing I'm just ordering hits but I'm ordering them on the computer just like I would order pizza. And so there's kind of a lack of, I guess, a disconnect between, you know, intention and what happens in the real world and what happens behind your screen. And yet the real world's still out there, you know. And so, and that really to me is kind of the heart of the movie, I guess, you know, in some

fundamental way. And it's probably why Ross didn't need to put hits out on people to get the sentence he got. like you know that'll scare the government pretty fucking quick you devise a way to sell heroin halfway across the world with an untraceable currency i mean like that's way more terrifying than all the herculean effort michael dowd engaged in to be crooked i mean he did 13 years yeah well no it's like dude it was and i think and like here's a crazy fact which is ross got two life sentences plus 40 without the possibility of parole, which is significantly harsher, more draconian sentence than El Chapo guy.

Right. You know what I mean? So, like, that's, that's a crazy fact to me. And I think that, you know, it makes me wonder anyway is the reason that sentence was so intense because this isn't just Michael Dowd ripping and running in like, you know, East New York. This is like worldwide, anybody with a phone or a computer, you know, holy shit, it's an existential threat to law enforcement. And he's the first. And he's the first. And back when me and Cowboy Reed were talking about this, back when the fucking Silk Road came out and it was this thing that

people just talked about in the shadows, the same thing was true for Bitcoin. Well, and like, here's the thing is, but for Silk Road, none of us would know about Bitcoin. That's what put Bitcoin into the zeitgeist. When Ross got busted and like everybody's like, well, it's Bitcoin. And like, that story is why we all know about own trade mine whatever bitcoin today i wonder with ross if you did any psychoanalysis of him i know you're not like that's not your job but amateur psychoanalysis i could see and i wonder if a lot of this is because i know how the story ends but i'm like this guy's a fucking kind of a culty guy he's got like a cult leader kind of magnetism to him did you pick that up at all with him well yeah

I mean, the reason the character was so fascinating for me is like for a couple of reasons, right? On the one hand, it's a kid from Austin that's like an Eagle Scout, right? He's like a Boy Scout. He's got like a physics degree. He's, um, you know, uh, like had all these kind of like naive aspirations. But then suddenly you've got this like worldwide platform. You've changed your name to the Dread Pirate Roberts. You're broadcasting your bullshit to like an eager audience. And there's like kind of a megalomania thing that comes with the power.

And yet the weird thing is it's so isolating. You can't talk to anybody. You can't share who you really are. You can't even really spend the money. He's walking around with flip-flops and, you know, his laptop and a backpack moving from crash pad to crash pad to stay ahead of the machine. So that weird combination of like, yeah, you've got an audience and you are playing the role of this kingpin, yet you can't talk to anybody you love or share it with anybody. Everybody

gets cut out of the circle. And that like that kind of weirdness and cognitive dissonance to me, it was like, ooh, that's a fascinating character. What was the craziest thing that you found out in learning about the story that they were selling on the Silk Road? When we got into making the movie, I had written all this stuff. And then I went back through all because I had pulled everything, the same way I would do a documentary, right? I pulled all those journal entries. I pulled all the postings as Dread Pirate Roberts. I pulled the chat logs. And I was like, man, working with my editor, who's this brilliant, you know, collaborator and partner in crime. And at some point, we hit on the idea, man, every word this kid says in voiceover and every word that appears on

the screen, we should pull it from the actual words that's in the journals and whatever. And so that, like when you see the movie, all of the voiceover, it's all taken from his words. And the fact that we had access to his voice both kind of before when he was just dreaming this shit up like, you know, in Austin to the height of it when he's rocking and rolling and is, you know, really a player to right before the bottom drops out. It was a fascinating record of who he, self-portrait, who he thought he was accidentally left behind. And so to me, the most interesting thing, was like piecing together because you like like in a funny way I think of myself as a portraitist right whether you're painting a portrait of Michael Dowd or Ross Ulbricht or you know the cops

that investigated the nightstocker it's it's it's portrait making in some way or another and so with this one it was taking the little breadcrumbs that he'd left in his trail and being like okay how do you build like what was going on inside his head along the way and so that journey was really the fascinating for me you know as a filmmaker and hopefully hopefully interesting to audiences too what's next for you tell her

well you know what I'm actually doing is the next movie is Operation Odessa I've written the script on it so we're going to go do the feature film remake of that so so that's kind of who the fuck plays Tarzan man it's a big question right everybody wants to know I'm open to suggestions so you tell me your pitches oh man I might hit you up after this is amazing

I can't believe a movie's coming out and Tarzan's going to be represented in it. I got to think about that one. Yeah, I'm taking suggestions generally. We love casting shit on this. When you get an idea, send it to me at three in the morning. Email me at three in the morning. I will email it to you. Is there one story out there that you salivate over writing that you just had or telling that you

just haven't yet? There's a bunch, man. I've got, I was looking up. I'm like, my walls are covered with all of the story ideas that I've been chasing. and people, you know, that I want to work with or who've reached out to me. Do you have to protect those ideas? Because they're not ideas, like the things happen. But if you say on this pod, hey, man, I really want to tell you about X.

Like, then everybody's like, oh, X? And then they're like looking over there. Yes, a little. I mean, to some extent you do because you don't necessarily control everybody's stories or whatever. But at the same time, you know, hopefully it's the kind of thing where increasingly, hopefully, you know, the audience or the streamer or whatever. is interested in me telling my specific take on that particular story. But like, I just, like, there's not enough time in the world to tell all the stories that I want to tell.

And I always, and like these stories now find me at this point. Like people kind of come in over the transom or through, you know, the agents or lawyers or emails or wherever it comes from. And I'm always fascinated because who knows where, you know, you're going to be a week from now, you're going to be like, dude, this is a crazy story. I'm telling Tiller. I got an actor for fucking Tarzan and I got a story for you. And by the way, as a side note, open the Rolling Stone article on Ross and I thought I was like, what the fuck does this have to do with Robert Patterson?

Crazy, right? I mean, it was eerie. I know, it's crazy. And actually, Pattinson and I worked on it together early on. And like, you know, these movies take so long, but to actually get it done. By the time it was done, he kind of aged out of the part and, you know, whatever, or was, you know, on to be busy with whatever he was doing. But he and I sat down on it and worked at it, worked on it together early on.

So his DNA's in there a little bit. Okay, good, good. I was wondering because it's too uncanny. Till Russell, thank you so much. Check out Silk Road. I have it queued up ready on YouTube. Where else can people see it right now, stuck at home? It's on Apple.

It's on Amazon. You know, wherever people are watching. Everywhere. Everywhere. My man tells great stories. Hope to have you back to talk about the next one. Teller, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it, brother.

You'd be good. Thanks for having me.