The Press Box - 'The Big Picture' — The Safdie Brothers and ‘Good Time,’ an Instant New York Classic (Ep. 341)

Episode Date: August 11, 2017

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and K. Austin Collins discuss the Safdie Brothers’ new crime film, ‘Good Time.’ (0:30) Then, Sean sits down with the Josh and Benny Safdie to discuss making a movie starring Robert Pattinson, capturing New York City on-screen, and the frenetic pace of ‘Good Time’ (11:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, I'm so excited to announce the newly relaunched ringer.com this week. This is something that we've been working on for a long time. Really so proud to be launching with Fox Media on our new platform. I just check out the latest articles and videos and podcasts on the site because finally we have a chance to show you those things in the way that we've really always intended, and I'm just thrilled with how everything turned out. And special thanks to Miller Light, who've been with us since the beginning and have been just fantastic partners for us.

We're thrilled to have them as the relaunch sponsor for the site. Miller Light is the official beer of the ringer. Okay, and now here's the big picture. Let's write it in. You know, we got Rob Pattinson. We can get this. And we did that so many times, like bank robberies, car crashes. Even though we had a lot more money, we still were like kind of acting like we had no money.

I'm Sean Fennacy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and here's the big picture. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by the Safty Brothers, Joshua and Benny. They have a new movie called Good Time, probably one of the single best movies I've seen this year. They've also made a couple of other New York classics. Heaven Knows What. and Lenny Cook for you basketball fans out there. But before I talk to the Safdies about their new Robert Pattinson starring Good Time, I'm going to be chatting with K. Austin Collins, film writer for The Ringer,

and just generally a thoughtful man who also happen to love Good Time. Cam, thank you so much for joining me today. Great to be here. Cam, you and I both love Good Time. Let's talk about why. In your piece, you called it a New York City Instant Classic. Why did it feel that way to you? It's funny you start there because that's the thing I've been trying to think more about.

And I think for me, part of it is just that it, it's a movie that's clearly made by people who are familiar with the city and who have a sense of what like the monuments of the city are. But they're not, they're not drawn so much to those places. They're drawn to what it feels like to be on the streets of the city. Like the thing that I love that they do is the way that they film a lot of conversations happening on the streets in the midst of life going on all around the people that we're watching. There's just like a sense of locality and just the people that they make movies about just feel very New York to me. I mean, I don't know if other people from other places feel like, you know, like heaven knows what could have been Portland, I guess, or something. But for me, it's just like that is a city in New York that I know that I don't see a lot of, in a lot of movies right now. It's like it feels like good time feels to me like what panic and needle park must have felt like for people in the 70s or even dog day afternoon.

These movies that feel like they're just, they're, there's such, so rude. in the place, but maybe in ways that are hard to define. It's just like a feel. Yeah, you mentioned Dog Day Afternoon, which I think is a pretty good parallel for good time, obviously, also a story about brothers who are bank robbers, who find themselves and, you know, trapped in this awkward and difficult situation. Good time, though, to me, is way more sort of kaleidoscopic and intense. And, you know, the colors of the movie are overwhelming in Robert Patinson's performances. is probably the closest to, you know, the Pacino in terms of intensity.

But tell me about, like, the way this movie looks and the way that it feels in that way. I'm glad you to bring that up because it's something that I really harped under my piece. It's just the way that the cinematographer that they work with, Sean Price Williams, they've worked with them before. And this is a guy who's kind of big in the New York indie scene in particular. And he's filmed a lot of those, like, smaller budget, but just very, when he's shooting, just very beautifully colorful and well-designed movies. And I think what he gives their movie is just this weird.

He just bounces colors off of Robert Patton's face throughout the movie, particularly when things get really weird. But there's just this way in which you're looking at Robert Pattinson's face and you're just looking at colors. And you're just looking at the things that are going on all around him and you're sensing things about what he's feeling from the ways, you know, from the ways they use light. It's like it's it's like not abandoning realism really, but it's still doing something that's weird and psychedelic and fraught and just. you know, anxiety inducing for me. You just feel like there's a lot going on in there. Yeah, it's completely like a hands around your next sort of movie too in the pace. Yeah, absolutely. So quickly. And I think there's something, it's a little bit difficult to explain to people how hard it is to make a movie that has pace like that. Yeah, I mean, I was to jump out to you. Yeah. I was just warning. A friend mentioned, you know, going to see it on edibles. And I was like, I just feel like.

It's a dangerous move. Yeah, I just, I don't know if this is that movie. I just, I just, I don't know if this is that movie. I just, I feel like that would send me into a panic, even just like the performances of people like Jennifer Jason Lee, who sort of shows up to be frenetic to just make me anxious. Yes. Because the way she's yelling at her mom and because the situation she gets herself into with Robert Pattinson's character, which is just like not a good look at all for anybody.

Yeah, it's all around. It's living nervous energy the whole movie, right? It's just living. And what she's right, she's like so good at, which is what it's terrifying about it. Yeah. And it's also just like for me,

this sense that like the, the imbalance between the brothers, like the frustration that I felt the entire time dealing with, the one brother whose development disabled and finds himself in this situation and paying for it, like, by going to Rikers, it's just like way, like, not what he, you know, not something that he chose to be a part of. And then just figuring out how Connie, Robert Pattinson's character, is going to try to, like, get them both out of it. It's just like, it's one of those movies where just like, the character just keeps making

increasingly frustrating decisions. but in this case, Robert Pattinson's playing someone who's also very calculating. So I, like, trust that he sort of knows what he's doing, even as he's doing things that are just like, I really wish you wouldn't. We start to lose faith in his ability to make good choices as the movie goes on, I think. But let's talk a little bit more about the Safdi's. You know, you mentioned Connie's brother, who's played by Benny Safdi, who's one of the directors in the movie and co-stars. You know, Josh and Benny make very New York, very real, for lack of a better word, movies. They're sort of in a pursuit of a kind of authentic.

Not just about the city, but about people. And, you know, you mentioned, you know, in Heaven knows what, what the people look like and how they feel. Tell me a little bit more about their other movies and, you know, what kind of, how you would describe them as filmmakers. First of all, like, they're very much part of the broader New York scene for me. And I think one thing that's great about all of these people, it includes, and not just New York, but like a certain generation of indie filmmaker that includes people like Joe Swamberg and Alex Ross Perry and other people who seem to all have come up at the same. time and who are now doing like good time-sized project. They favor this like spontaneous, nervous, very New Yorky kind of movie where it's just like characters who I feel like I'm watching energies rather than watching characters necessarily.

Even even as I like think about a movie like heaven knows what, it's like it's based on the Ariel Holmes memoir and she's the star of the movie and it's very autobiographical. But what I mainly like when I think about that movie, I just think about how. nervous it makes me and how nervous she is. And that's the kind of movie that I associate with them, even though, like, I've gone back and watched some of their short films from, like, maybe 10 years ago. And the thing that they have in common is that, like, they're still pretty New York streets, New York people, kinds of movies. But earlier, it seemed that they were doing more comedy. And now they're sort of, like, they're kind of taking the tools of comedy, I think,

and kind of bending them in this very dark direction. But I think comedy is essential to what they do, actually. I think a lot of their protagonists remind me of people that I would see bolting out of bodegas in New York. And I sort of would be trying to avoid somehow. You know, I'd be like, this person just doesn't really seem like they have their shit together at the moment. And so I don't really want to get in the way of them having to ask me for something, even if it's just directions. Which, you know, they also, I think they have a ton of empathy for these characters, for these people. And they are, I think in some ways identify.

When you hear the conversation that we had, you can see that they are not lacking. in energy as well. Yeah. But how do you view the way that they view the people in their worlds? I love it. I feel like, I mean, I think something they've really, really gotten right in good time and heaven knows what in particular is just like it feels like I'm experiencing New York City through their characters.

Like it feels like they adapt their view of the world around these people to suit the people that the movie is about. You know, like if I think about heaven knows what in the way that Aaron Holmes's character makes out with her boyfriend on the street. And it's just like suddenly the way they film it, that's so focused on these two people that you understand how these people have an intimacy even as they live in public. You know, like it feels like they allow these people have private lives, private desires, even as they're happening in the midst of everything else.

I think it's very like sympathetic. And I also think that they, you know, I also think they favor characters who are hard to sympathize with often enough. Good time. And sympathetic is a complicated word for movie like, good time. because I don't think they're going out of their way to, like, criticize the character of Connie. But I do think they're eager to understand how it is that he adapts and how it is that he survives and how he thinks. I think they think a lot of just about, like, the nature of their characters.

And I feel like that's something that comes off. Everything seems to be determined by just who is this person. There's also something very specific about the way they handle race in this movie that I wanted to talk to you about. And, you know, if you look at a lot of the, there are a couple of black characters who have sort of vital roles in the way that they're positioned. And also, obviously, Connie and his brother are two white guys who wear masks that are meant to resemble African-American men. And so it seems like there is a sort of teasing or prodding at something. And what did you make of that in the movie? You know, for me, it's about, it's about, because I take the, for example, the masks.

Like, I think Connie chose those masks, right? And I think that Connie knows what he's doing when he manipulates race. Like, I think he, I think for me, the movie's really getting at this is someone who, understands how these systems work. This is someone who understands what he needs to do to survive. Like if his mission is to break into a hospital and steal his brother from the prison wing of a hospital, then he's going to do what he has to do. And if that means like he's going to throw black people under the bus when it's available

to him, he's absolutely, you know, like he's going to do that because he knows that he can because he knows that he can get away with these things. Right. Pawns in the game. Yeah, you know, and it's just, I think that's fascinating. I don't need the movie to go out of its way to say, and by the way, it's bad that he does that because I think it shows such an understanding of the way these things work systemically by being about a character who manipulates these things in such a clear way.

And it was also very clear to me that that was intentional, which I know there's already been a little bit of discussion about it. I'm curious to see how this plays out. And I know that some people are not satisfied with their angle here. But I think it was smart, you know? I agree. It seemed very purposeful to me. I mean, it seemed like they had a point, which is that there is something scurrilous about this guy in the lead and that he is willing to take advantage of anybody.

And he knows the best people to take advantage of in many ways. Right. I mean, and he, and he knows. But also that he doesn't know, like, you know, that the masks, for example, like, they're still idiots. That's right. That's right. You know, which I thought was really, which I thought was really apt. And, you know, it's like he does know what the systems are.

He knows how to play the game, but he's still like an idiot. Well, Cam, you're far from an idiot. Thank you so much for chatting to me about the sap. He's in Good Time, and we'll hear from you soon. Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited to be joined by Josh and Benny Safdi. They have a great new movie called Good Time Out. Guys, what's up?

What's up, man? How are you? I'm very good, thank you. Cool to be here. It's very cool to have you here. We were just talking about your movie Good Time and what it's like to have been making movies for 10 years, but now to be getting a lot of shine.

But first, tell me about what it's like now to get all this attention, having been working so hard in New York on films for a while. Yeah, like when I say we've been making movies for 10, making feature films for 10 years before I basically left college just before I could have finished. And I just started making, I just started shooting a feature. I basically, like, hustled a feature out of a company. They paid for.

They didn't even know what it was. And, you know, we were, like, very stubborn about things for a long time. So, you know, we were, like, you know, never, never responding to any agents reaching out to us. Like, movie stars, we were like, we had, like, d'et on us. We're like, no, leave us alone. Like, you know, we just want to, you know, incubate, incubate. but we've been making these movies, and they would get attention, you know, bless the critics, like they were always being, you know, very supportive of us, and they saw what we were trying

to do. Of course, there were, like, I don't read the reviews after my first movie, because it was some guy told me he wanted to see me get hit by a train. So, like, yeah, there's, you know, people take shit personally. This was the pleasure being wrong. Yeah, I mean, that was, look, in defense of that guy, like, that was an experiment of a movie, and I never even intended for anyone to see it, and all of a sudden. Yeah, I mean, I consider our first movie, Daddy Longlegs, but, like, yeah, we've been working towards this thing and incubating and then, you know, basically over the past three or four, basically after Daddy Long, because we were really aiming to make this Diamond District movie. And it's been like this drive to make this movie. And then we'd make a detour and make

Lenny Cook the documentary or we'd make a detour and make, you know, this hybrid film called Heaven Knows What. And then Heaven Knows What actually attracted Rob Pattinson. And he was just like, whatever you want to do, I'm game. So we're like, all right, let's do this. So tell me about that. You said Rob Pattinson came to you guys after Heaven Knows What? Which is also a really interesting and sort of experimental movie. It's interesting that he responded to it. But why did you decide to then write Good Time? What was it?

Well, he saw a still that was released for the movie. And the movie, like, we premiered it, like, you know, these big high flutin festivals. And, you know, it got the attention. And I'm very proud of that movie. And we made it like, you know, we basically just made it with nothing. And we just kind of just did it because it was a very risky movie. It's a movie about a girl. who I met trying to make the Diamond District movie.

And, you know, it's her, I paid her to write about her life. And then we adapted her writings. And then she plays herself reenacting things that happen in her recent past. So it was like a, you know, but he saw a still that was released on the internet and, like, reached out to us and said, you know, very much like in good time, his character gives this kind of very kind of metaphysical, you know, spiritual speech, like about his purpose and everything. His character is obsessed with its purpose.

And he, like, wrote his first email to us was like, hey, we don't know each other, but I got your email and threw a friend, and I just want to let you know, like, I saw this still, and I don't know what it is, but there's something, it evokes some type of purpose that I feel like I have on this planet is to work with you guys. And this is off of a still. He didn't see the movie. He didn't see the trailer. He saw a still. And it's not even, you know, that wild of a still, but the nuance of it, he just felt it immediately. And then we met, and then he saw the movie, and then he saw our other movies. And he was like, listen, whatever you want to do on game, whatever you're doing next, I want to be a part of, even if it's catering on your movie. And I was

like, no, but we were so dead set on this Diamond District film, which we're finally doing in the top of the year next year, and he wasn't right for the lead role. And I didn't want to put him in a supporting part. So we wrote it for Rob. Like, we wrote this project. I was, like, really into, you know, American criminal and the prison ethos in America and, like, you know, the writings of Norman Mailer and the TV show Cops. So I just was like, you know what, I have this major interest. My friend Buddy, who was in heaven as well, got out of prison recently. and I had all these journals that he kept, and basically was like, you know what, let me mind this stuff.

And let's make, I want to make a genre movie. I want to take all these things that we've learned over the past 10 years about, like, what is real, what is fake, and basically put it into a thriller. Because we know that we figure out a way to tell, like, an ordinary story in a thrilling way. Let's tell a thrilling movie in a genuinely thrilling way. And it's cool.

We get to see people like literally sitting on the edge of their seats. Like last night we did a screening, and people were like, the seat wasn't deep enough. Like I, they said they looked around and there was like, it was kind of a crazy screening last night. There was like a lot of crazy people that I've seen on television and stuff before. And there are, you know, people probably have like big egos and stuff. But everyone was just like a little kid.

Literally, I asked people that they said the entire audience just shifted forward and watched the entire movie leaning forward. So that was really cool to hear. But it's strange because it's like, yeah, somebody said to us like, oh, you make movies in a very old-fashioned way. And it's like, what do you mean by that? And like, well, if you don't have the money to make a specific thing. film, you don't make it. It's like, yeah, that's pretty normal. That makes sense to us. If we were trying to make this Diamond District movie, but if we can't make it the way that we want to make it, we won't make it then. So we made other films in between, and we would just like

Josh were saying, we would learn from each one. We made the documentary Lenny Cook, and we learned about narrative. It's like, you need to say certain things because this is a real life, and you can't leave things out, so you kind of really understand what's important, what the true essence of a story is, and then you apply that to fiction, and then we blend fiction and And then again, we were going to make the Diamond District movie. But it got pushed a little extra. So we're like, huh, we have five extra months. Like, we don't want to just sit around and wait, you know, because that's the last thing

that we want to do. We always get kind of uncomfortable. But I mean, in defense of our decision, I actually don't think we could. I'm not saying I'm fully in support. I think if we went and made uncut gems, which is like wild, big, expensive world about bling culture. Not really. And on 47th Street where it has NBA superstars and rappers.

And, like, it's a thriller also, you know, I think that I think we wouldn't have done it well I think good time we learned so much and I you know we figured out we've been yeah we were it was it was a blessing that like we were forced by the world to kind of make these other films to learn what we didn't know you know but I found like recently people were like I'm constantly telling people

like oh this isn't one of the best first films I've ever seen I was like because it's not our first film but so I wanted to ask you about that right because the movie is I think in some ways a leveling up you've got a movie star and it seems like you've got more money or with some bigger marketing budget and all that. But totally in keeping with the style and some of the themes of your other movies, it's about some hapless characters. It's in New York.

It's about winners that don't win. Winners that don't win. That's a good way. That's my way I look at it. You know, also it's about brothers. You guys are brothers. Benny, you're in the movie. I want to know a little bit about that about kind of your working dynamic on these

movies and your decision to cast yourself in it and how all that came about. I mean, working together, we really just kind of vibe it out. We don't really, we don't delineate specific things like, oh, you deal with the acting and I'll deal with the camera. I mean, on a technical level, I am dealing with the camera and he's literally booming when he's not acting. He runs the boom because that's like an overlooked job. Like people, that's a very intimate job on a set. That's usually the person who's closest to the action, you know, usually more closer than the camera. So it's, that's interesting, I think, for the actors to all of a sudden look up and see one of the co-directors, like, you know, booming, you know, doing like kind of, you know,

know, a thankless job. Did they have more respect for you because of that? I think so. But it also allows you to see parts of the performance that you wouldn't necessarily see on the camera. So I kind of can get a feel for that. And I'll, Josh and I will talk, it's like, okay, how did it look? How did it feel? And we kind of put the two together.

And then I guess you had the decision to cast myself. It was just like, it just was, it was organic in the sense that we were trying to look to cast somebody who was maybe had some developmental disability. and there's some really great people, but there was something, it didn't feel right, because the schedule we were going to work on, the speed at which we needed to work, and we had interviewed all these people, and we kind of got a sense at how we would have to get the performance out of them, and it didn't seem fair. You know, we'd have to push them in ways that they didn't want to be pushed, and it just didn't seem like it was like it was like it was like it was like it was like it was like it was like it was like it was you nervous? We don't want to make that kind of movie. You know, we don't want to do that. So you mentioned your character is developmentally disabled at Robert Pattinson's brother. What was it like to, were you nervous? about taking that on, or were you concerned about taking criticism for something like that? Did not even enter. Because it was a character that was, that my co-writer Ronald Bronstein, like him, Benny, were developing that character seven years ago. And we wrote it with that character that they developed this character named Jordan in mind.

And we basically, we had this kind of obnoxious, you know, it's almost a pretension. Like, no, we're going to be real. We're going to get, you know, a real disabled person so that it'll bring, they'll bring the truth in like we have to cast a real disabled person because, you know, what's going on in the world these days, like, you want to know, like, oh, that's a disabled performer. But, you know, the more

the deeper we got into the audition process, like, Benny's saying, the more we found that, and we were looking at the schedule and, like, these insane action sequences, set pieces, that, like, it actually would have been impossible. And also, just... And Benny's, like, I've had the pleasure of watching Benny acts since we were kids. Like, he's always

been a great actor. He's always been wowing me. And, you know, I just, you know, we knew our financiers, there was a lot of, like, actors who wanted to play that role, too, and they were sending tapes in, but a lot of people, you know, no offense to them, it's a difficult thing to do, we're playing the part and not being the part, and Benny has the ability. I mean, I believe, like, this actor we've, like, revere and love, like, basically said to him. He came up to me, he's like, so normally when you play, like, how did you play that part? I'm like, you tell me how to play that part, but he's like, it was insane. And he said, well, normally when you, when you do that, you're, you're looking at somebody. said, who did you study? And I was like, well, I studied myself. You know, I looked into myself, and that's where it came from. And it's, it's, I really do believe that the feelings and emotions that Nick feels are inside of me somewhere.

And I think that with any actor, it's like you're pulling from what's inside. This sounds like an interesting writing process. You mentioned that Ronald Bronstein, you guys worked on a character. How do you fit all those pieces together when you're, when you're doing something like this? Well, I think that from a writing standpoint, like, we basically, because like, We knew we were going to pair Rob Pattinson with like certain first timers and, you know, other actors as well. But anyone who wasn't playing the version of themselves. So we like did these obsessive character biographies, like obsessive.

Like with Rob, with Connie, the character Rob plays, we literally, it starts, his back, his biography starts when he's born. And it ends with the minutes leading up to when he enters the movie in the opening scene. And, you know, I think that what that did for. us as writers is we knew what Connie was like. We could pull from anything. So we would just basically, we had very few parameters of what was going to happen in this script. We knew that we wanted it to be, you know, a one night type film, a thriller, a crime drama. But we didn't know the details of how it was going to, you know, the rabbit hole. So we would just like take it one scene at a time and almost right at stream of conscience. And we'd be like, oh, okay, now he gets here. How would he

get out of this scenario, okay, and we just knew the guy, and we knew the landscape of America and, you know, at the time. So we were like, oh, he could do this, he could do that. And we were surprised when we'd be like, yeah, that actually is very plausible. And sometimes you'd be like, well, that's fucked up that this is very plausible. Yeah. And at the amusement part, yeah, so. What's interesting also is, so Josh and Ronnie will write and then Ronnie and I would edit this. And so it was kind of, then there was kind of a separation where now we're going through the same process with the editing. And then Josh would come in and they would bounce off ideas with me. And then we would bounce off ideas with Josh.

The editing was crazy because they were editing in different places. So I'd go from working with Ronnie and then I'd run over to work with Benny, and then I'd have to have this string in my mind that's like, okay, this is what's happening with Ronny's and then they're communicating with each other. It was just like, well, it was all a matter of like these three, like the heads would always always come together. But in the editing it was also just very clear. Like you had, okay, there's now another character that's involved and that's Pace. Pace became very important. Whereas it's like that's, that was only. evident, like, really, while we were filming,

you're not really thinking about that, but once you start actually seeing it constructed, you realize, okay, there's this fourth dimension almost to the movie that really needs to kind of push forward. Because you need to move forward. It's like, literally, it's like a shark. The moment it stops swimming, it dies. You mentioned, Sean, your director of photography, the pace of the

movie is incredible, the way that it looks is incredible. It's very loud. You have this awesome soundtrack by Woon Otricks Point Never. He's the best, yeah. Does all that stuff get conceived ahead of time, and you think that you're going to have this propulsive machine that is moving at all time? What's wild is when we wrote the script and we were sharing with our finances stuff, the script was like about 118 pages with margin cheating.

130. Something like that. Yeah. You know, optics are everything. Personally, just to be like we're getting in under two hours here? Basically. But we knew it was a problem on our end. We're like, guys, we knew we wanted this to be a 90-minute movie conceptually.

We wanted it to be a rocket. We wanted it to be a piece of pulp, something that seemed almost disposable. You know what I mean? that you can just consume like a comic book. And I can go to get something before also. You know, like, we don't want to waste anyone's time. So like, and then like, and Connie,

Connie's like all about like, you know, time, he needs to maximize his time in the movie. So that was a conceptual kind of driving force throughout everything through like when. And Dan was attached. 1 Otricks. Never was, was attached. Right after Rob was attached. He was like

someone we wanted to work with. And we were like, let's attach him right away. He was attached before even we had the money like lined up. So it was like, it was interesting that it was like Rob Pattinson and Wondotrix Point Never where like our two first, and Buddy duress, were the first, basically, you know, the only things that were really attached to the movie and Sean and 35 millimeter too. But, you know, it was this, there was this driving kind of overarching concept. Like the concept of the movie is that it's vertical, it's top down, like literally everything is in sync with one another. The, you know, the music and the photography and the length of scenes, it's all kind of working in conjunction with it,

each other. Hey guys, we're going to take a quick break so I can tell you about a new movies podcast on the Ringer podcast network. It's called The Rewatchables. You can imagine what this is about. It's about movies you can rewatch. So what happens on this podcast? Bill Simmons and a roundtable of people from the Ringer universe are talking about movies that can't seem to stop watching. If you're a sucker for cable movies that are on constant repeat, this is the show for you. This week, breaking down what else, one of my favorites, a few good men. Chris Ryan, Amanda Dobbins, and Bill are chatting about that. So subscribe and listen to the rewatchables wherever you get your podcast. All right now, back to my conversation with the Safdi brothers. Tell me about making a bigger

movie in New York. Was it much harder to do this time? Well, what's weird is we had more money. We had more permission. Considerable a lot more money than we've ever had before. And more permission. And we had more permission. And it's, but it's like, it's like you look at. But like, we wrote in, like, Adventureland into the movie. And like Ronald Brunstein from Long Island, he was just like, let's write it in. You know, we got Rob Pattinson. We can get this. And we did that so many times, like bank robberies, car crashes. Like, we did. did it so many times that like, even though we had a lot more money, we still were like kind of acting like we had no money in a weird way, because A, yes, we were trying to do a really

aggressive schedule. The movie should have been an extra 10 days to shoot. How many days do you guys do? We had 36 days. It was, I think it was less than that. It was 30, actually, it was like 37, actually. Oscar was breaking it down. It was 32, but it technically was 37. Because if you count how many hours. It was actually 37 days. But it was, but it was spread out over like. But each day was like 16, 17 hours. Then you go to like, it was a lot. You know, our assistant director was like, you're doing an action sequence. Like, it'll take you all day to do this quarter of a page. It's hard.

It's talking about. You don't understand how we work. There's a certain energy that comes to just kind of shooting on the street without a permit, you know, and you kind of have to really go fast. And there's that, that energy gets kind of built into the movie. Now we have full permission to use this, this mall, for example, where they run through in the chase. It's like, how do we capture that same feeling and that energy of theft and just the, excitement. But we didn't ask ourselves these questions. No, no, that's something we realize it now. It's like, we get, we're like, really, we have the full mall. And it's like, okay, we got one

take. We'll put one camera here, one camera here. And then we'll call it out and we'll run in and we'll just tail slate and all this stuff. But we don't have to steal the shot. It was just an instinct. You know, like, that's how we have. How would we capture it if we were stealing? We wrote in New World Mall, which is a huge Asian mall in Flushing Queens. And we got it. Our location's manager is a G. He worked for the Coens. Like, he's just amazing. Samson Jacobson, and we, he's like, I got us the New World Mall. I'm not like, I was like, does that mean we could shoot anywhere? He goes, I think so.

And then we get there and we see the supermarket, which was open. And we said, we don't want them to close down the mall. We'll shoot, you know, separatiously on the side. But like, there was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people shopping. And then we were like, no, we want to film in here. And they're like, okay, sure. We have Rob and Benny running through their full speed. They said, just don't hit anybody.

And that was that was what the cops. We just approached every location, like even when we had permission, like we were stealing it in a weird way. Yeah, that's all, yeah. And then so then, but like you have a cop saying, just don't hit anybody. It's like, okay, great. And then that, in turn, helps the performance because it's like you're running full speed and you can't hit anybody. You have to literally dodge through this crowd because if you hit somebody, there will be a consequence. Even though we had the permission, there was the cop there saying, but the first take, of course, I barrel into somebody.

And he was an extra. He knew he was going to get hit and all this stuff. But the cop was like, the cop was like, what? It's like, what have I just done? Well, because our extras casting was like so involved, too. Like, our extras casting, they didn't just like pick people out of pictures. They would, like, interview people. Everyone got interviewed.

So, like, it was so particular. And it looked, it just blend right in with the public in that scenario. So all our extras, like, nobody knew if they were actually there to shop or if they were actually acting in the movie. And it was, you know, that was like the whole movie kind of in a way. Yeah, the blend of non-professional with professionals, interesting too. And you even have people who have sort of significant roles. You know, the woman who Robert Pattinson visits her home later in the movie, you know, she's not, glad as she's not,

she's amazing. But she wasn't a professional actor. She has a first time actually. She has, but she has the incredible ability to say anything and have it be real. Like I'm like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, we have always watched a lot of movies. We, like, started watching movies to try to find answers because our dad didn't want to sit down and have conversations with us about, like, serious shit. So, you'd be like, watch this movie instead. But, you know, we didn't, Kramer. Okay, oh, you're going to go back to your mother now. Yeah. A child of divorce. I get it. Yeah. He's like, I'm Dustin Hoffman and your mother's male street. Yeah. And then we had to go hang out with our mom for the first time in a long time. And we were just like, why are they being so mean?

That's how you breed loyalty. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, hey, it's propaganda. movies are pure propaganda. No, but we didn't... Weirdly, we watched one movie actually watched it, like with Rob and everything, but we watched it not for its cinematic qualities. We watched it almost because it's the executioner's song. It's a TV movie.

Which the book was a huge inspiration on. A mailer book. Yeah, the mailer book. We were just like... We weren't going to sit around and read a thousand-page book together. You know, we sat down and we watched a movie. And, you know, the movie... Tommy Lee Jones's performance is really.

Interesting. Yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. But we didn't, you know, we talked about, like, the tradition of movies that we wanted to kind of make this in. Like, you know, we wanted to make a movie in the tradition of, like, you know, 48 hours or an after hours. Anything hours. You know, but, you know, the running man. Like, we wanted, there were these ideas of movies, movies that we loved as kids.

But it wasn't, like, one thing. Like, it's going to be like this. Meets that. I mean, when someone saw the movie for the first time. That's when the best, like, we didn't, I don't know how to do that thing. But like when we showed it to someone for the first time, it's like, it's like Rain Man meets Dog Day afternoon. And I was like, awesome.

Yeah. Because it totally is. And what I love about Rain Man is just, again, it's like you have the Tom Cruise character. His intentions are so messed up for taking his brother. You know, and it's the same thing. And I was like, wow. You know, that's almost like here just to a different extreme. But yeah, there's, you just also go to the ending of Rain Man.

He's like, do you want to live with your brother? He's like, yes. Do you want to stay here? Yes. And it's like there's that same kind of... That's true. You guys hadn't discussed that at all. No, no.

That's a similarity. I talked with Ronnie a little bit about Rain Man when we were writing. And actually, I did watch that movie when we were writing. And Ronnie was like, you know, Ronnie's amazing. And he was just like, I'm not going to watch Rain Man. Why are we going to watch Rayman? And then he's like, I watched Rain Man last night. But, you know, just because it is, it's a...

It actually has aged really, really, really well. We look more to like a show like Cops. We watched, you know, looking for the nuance there. We try to figure out a way to bring something like that to a movie. Some great mirroring of the things you see in the movie and then the end of the movie, you know. Totally. So let's just to wrap up. Tell me a little bit about Uncut Gems.

This is a big movie. Uncut Gems is the movie we've been trying to make since 2010. It's almost scary that now we're actually going to do it. And it stars Jonah Hill as a maniacal gambler who's a basically, he's a jeweler in the diamond district. I'm in. I'm in. Like a Bucharian Jew. who was like from the disciple of Jacob the jeweler.

And he mingles with, he's an obsessive gambler and that doesn't stop with bookies in sport. He's obsessed with NBA basketball. And he doesn't stop, his gambling doesn't stop at the bookies. It goes to his wife, his girlfriend, you know, his entire business. Everything he does is a gamble. But everything's falling apart, but he's smuggled into the country. Well, he owes a bunch of bookies like, like, you know, a lot of money.

And they're starting, it's starting to like come home to ruse. I got to take care of. And he has this 600-carat black opal that he smuggled into the country. It's going to fix all of his problems. The main problem is that a huge NBA superstar comes in and he lends it to him because the guy's like, I need to borrow this for one night. And that guy has an incredible game. And he thinks it's because it won't give it back.

And it's like, oh, God. But it's, you know, there's a lot more that happens. What's interesting is it's, it has the thriller aspect, but it's also, it's very funny. Yes. It's a way, it's, there's, the element of comedy is much larger. The situations are so insane that he gets into. This movie is the most ringer our place movie of all time based on the description. Josh Benny, thank you guys so much for having today.

Congratulations on Good Time. Thanks so much.