Speaker 1: Oh gee, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 2: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want clothed sodas,
Speaker 3: pop popcorn, and no monsters.
Speaker 2: In the Projection Booth.
Speaker 1: Everyone for ten podcasting isn't boring?
Speaker 4: Got it off?
Speaker 5: Hey, folks, Welcome to a very special episode of The
Speaker 5: Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode,
Speaker 5: I am talking with writer, director Will Means, and actress
Speaker 5: Rocky shay All about their new film Junkie. Junkie is
Speaker 5: currently going around the film festival circuit. You can follow
Speaker 5: it on Instagram. I will have a link in the
Speaker 5: show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I hope
Speaker 5: you enjoyed this interview. You two have been working together
Speaker 5: for quite a little bit here, and I was so
Speaker 5: curious how did you meet each other?
Speaker 1: It was about exactly ten years ago now.
Speaker 2: I was living in Atlanta after I just finished undergrad
Speaker 2: at University of Georgia, and so I started paying on
Speaker 2: film sets down there, and I was paying on the
Speaker 2: angly movie Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which is like
Speaker 2: the majority of its centers around like that football halftime show.
Speaker 2: And my main thing was that I had to check
Speaker 2: all the background in and out of the set every day.
Speaker 1: It was like four hundred of them or something's crazy.
Speaker 6: And sixteen hour days.
Speaker 2: Yes, And so Rocky was one of them, and so
Speaker 2: she was a face that I would just see at
Speaker 2: check in every morning. But specifically I was wanting to
Speaker 2: make a short film at the time called shit Show
Speaker 2: that was going to be a house party of a
Speaker 2: bunch of white trash rednecks just like spiraling into sort
Speaker 2: of a surrealist nightmare. And I was trying to figure
Speaker 2: out who on earth I could cast for that. And
Speaker 2: there was a day on the set where we were
Speaker 2: like in between takes and I look across like the
Speaker 2: bleachers of the football stadium where we are, and I
Speaker 2: just see Rocky Shay over here and her and her
Speaker 2: tight little gems that were talked into her ug boots,
Speaker 2: and she's like jiggling around in her seat seeing Missy
Speaker 2: Elliott's work. It to the two women on either side
Speaker 2: of her, who like didn't know her, and they're both
Speaker 2: just looking at her like what is your problem?
Speaker 1: So naturally I went up to her and I was like,
Speaker 1: do you try to act?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I really like your interviews, She's like, I'm trying to now,
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's literally how it kicked off was thanks
Speaker 2: to Missy Elliott.
Speaker 6: Yes, oh, thanks to her.
Speaker 5: How do you guys work together when you're on set together,
Speaker 5: and especially when it comes to, you know, your first
Speaker 5: feature here, I don't think.
Speaker 6: It went like really good. We think a lot alike,
Speaker 6: Like we have like the same energy, so we feed
Speaker 6: off each other, and for the most part, I'll understand
Speaker 6: what Will's directing me to do, and if I have
Speaker 6: a question, he knows I'm gonna ask to make sure
Speaker 6: that I get it right or whatever. But I think
Speaker 6: like we'd feed off each other.
Speaker 2: Like really, well we yeah, we kinda. We definitely have
Speaker 2: the same fucked up sense of humor. And like when
Speaker 2: I made that short film, she has like a really grimy,
Speaker 2: gross monologue in it, and I always thought, oh, this
Speaker 2: actor is going to try to just bury this thing
Speaker 2: afterwards and pretend they never heard it, and then said
Speaker 2: she would perform it again in her acting classes and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and I was always really.
Speaker 1: Proud of it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so I like I had known her for
Speaker 2: or since back then. I always just like really loved
Speaker 2: her energy. And then almost ten years later, I was
Speaker 2: out here in LA for grad school the American Film Institut,
Speaker 2: and she had moved out here doing working COVID.
Speaker 1: Department on films.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I had an idea for another short
Speaker 2: film I wanted to do, which ended up being my
Speaker 2: AFI thesis about an orgy in Los Angeles gone horribly wrong,
Speaker 2: and Rocky naturally was like, I'm down, like.
Speaker 5: I'll do it.
Speaker 1: But so the nature of it was all very like
Speaker 1: comedy centered.
Speaker 2: But then I was having this idea for Junkie and
Speaker 2: wanted to do something that was very like heartfelt and
Speaker 2: very real about addiction, but inject a lot of our
Speaker 2: chaotic energy into it and show more the lows and
Speaker 2: the highs of addiction.
Speaker 1: And so I justly this knew Rocky on a surface level.
Speaker 2: But when I first took her the idea of I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of doing something like this, she pretty much immediately is, oh,
Speaker 2: I should tell you about all my years as a
Speaker 2: methaddict and like the three rehabs that I ran away from,
Speaker 2: and proceeds to tell me five million other super crazy things.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Rocky, what the thought had it
Speaker 2: know that you had done any of this, and then
Speaker 2: she gave me a stack of her journals that she
Speaker 2: kept when she was like in rehab and also something
Speaker 2: that she wrote when she was high to help me.
Speaker 1: Come up with the script.
Speaker 2: But so I felt like going in the Junkie really
Speaker 2: kicked off a whole different era of our work together.
Speaker 2: Because I didn't necessarily even know that Rocky had dramatic chops.
Speaker 2: Like I knew she could do comedy, I didn't really
Speaker 2: realize the extent to which she's just capable of really
Speaker 2: laying it all on the line like she does in
Speaker 2: this film. But it's something that I think is so
Speaker 2: personal for both of us and really coming from something
Speaker 2: very personal that we wanted to express. That it was
Speaker 2: such a like a raw, grimy, grassroots filmmaking process that
Speaker 2: it was easy for a lot of people to get
Speaker 2: like uncomfortable or want to complain about, like the working
Speaker 2: conditions or the hours, just like the lack of assistance
Speaker 2: that every department had. But Rocky was always just so
Speaker 2: committed that it was like I like, I would ask
Speaker 2: her to get trampled by a mosh pit or run
Speaker 2: through a blood pit with four wheelers swirling around her,
Speaker 2: and she would just be like how many times?
Speaker 1: How many more times do you need me to do?
Speaker 1: It was always yeah, yeah, like totally.
Speaker 2: I feel like totally changed the nature of our working
Speaker 2: relationship because I knew it was just like she was
Speaker 2: willing to do anything, but we were like very well
Speaker 2: on the same page the whole time.
Speaker 5: So rocky. How much did your life inform Junkie?
Speaker 6: A lot of it did. I'm ten years clean now,
Speaker 6: but just as with the journals, I still haven't went
Speaker 6: back and read back through them. I just don't want to.
Speaker 6: I just don't want to or whatever. But when I
Speaker 6: handed unto will that right there. I trust him with
Speaker 6: my deepest, darkest hurt secrets, everything, just handed them off
Speaker 6: or whatever. But in doing that, I wanted him to
Speaker 6: really see what the mind of an addict is. That
Speaker 6: there's reason why I acted and I did what I did.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of pain there or whatever, and trying
Speaker 6: to escape it and then trying so hard to get
Speaker 6: clean and get right, and you just fight and fight,
Speaker 6: and sometimes you just you can't get there. But then
Speaker 6: whenever you finally get there, it's triumphant. I want to
Speaker 6: to show that there's hope, there's always hope. Because if
Speaker 6: you ever just lose hope, then that's just it. You're done.
Speaker 6: I think with that, with my experience and sharing that
Speaker 6: with Will, I just really wanted him to be able
Speaker 6: to see what it truly is like in the mindset
Speaker 6: of an addict, and I think that really portrays through
Speaker 6: the film.
Speaker 5: How was it portraying an addict after you had been one?
Speaker 6: At first people were like, isn't that going to be
Speaker 6: like triggering for you and stuff like that, But honestly,
Speaker 6: it was the exact opposite. It just that made me sick,
Speaker 6: like never just ever want to go down that road again.
Speaker 6: But I wanted to make sure that I portrayed Stevie
Speaker 6: as true to my experiences too, but as Stevie's experiences
Speaker 6: as well. I wanted it to be a little bit
Speaker 6: different than mine or whatever. But I was so focused
Speaker 6: on getting it right, making sure that she came across
Speaker 6: to where you actually could pull for her, not just
Speaker 6: be disgusted with her with all these bad decisions that
Speaker 6: she's making, And that was that was really important to me.
Speaker 6: I think that's what drove me, is just trying to
Speaker 6: get it right. She just really wanted this character to
Speaker 6: really show what It's truly like, I think that was
Speaker 6: my main focus, even.
Speaker 2: Though I think I definitely even had to worry sometimes, oh,
Speaker 2: is it good for Rocky for me to be creating
Speaker 2: a scene where she's like freebasing meth off of tinfoil,
Speaker 2: even though it's with fake meth and everything. But she
Speaker 2: always had the polar opposite reaction to being like triggered
Speaker 2: or uncomfortable. She became like meth expert on set because
Speaker 2: she would just be happily and excitedly telling the other
Speaker 2: actors how they were doing it wrong and how you
Speaker 2: would actually crush or blaze up some Ethem'll just huh,
Speaker 2: taking notes from Rocky throughout.
Speaker 5: Well, this is your first feature, and I'm so curious
Speaker 5: as far as how this all came together for you.
Speaker 2: I've been making movies my whole life, since it was
Speaker 2: in my backyard as a kid, since I was eight
Speaker 2: years old, and I always knew it's what I wanted
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: This whole long process of you go to undergrad and
Speaker 2: then you think like, if I can just get on
Speaker 2: film sets, all my dreams are going to come true.
Speaker 2: And so then I was on them as a PA,
Speaker 2: and yet I'm like crashing my car because I fall
Speaker 2: asleep at the wheel on the drive home, and like
Speaker 2: of being worked ridiculous hours. I was like, wait, I
Speaker 2: am on film sets now, why am I depressed? And
Speaker 2: so I ran away from it for a little while
Speaker 2: and then found my I did like some years of
Speaker 2: hippie backpacking around the world, but then found myself like
Speaker 2: really missing it and just missing the artistic outlet and
Speaker 2: took a chance to apply to grad school, got into
Speaker 2: American Film Institute, came out here just in time for
Speaker 2: the pandemic to hit during that But the one like
Speaker 2: really nice thing about that was during that time I
Speaker 2: got to meet Patty Jenkins and she was promoting wonder
Speaker 2: Woman in eighty four at the time, and since she's
Speaker 2: an alumni of the school, came into a talk and
Speaker 2: everyone was like fangirling about Wonder Woman, and I was like, like,
Speaker 2: I got one question in the Q and A, and
Speaker 2: I was like, how do you come out the gate
Speaker 2: as a first time filmmaker, nothing under your belt and
Speaker 2: managed to make something as niche as I want to
Speaker 2: do an empathetic portrayal of a serial killer that's also
Speaker 2: a queer love story. And She's like whoa, And so
Speaker 2: it like kicked off a relationship between us, and I
Speaker 2: started she read another script of mine I've been working
Speaker 2: on and really loved it and really wanted to develop it,
Speaker 2: and it was just the whole up and down chaos
Speaker 2: of I'm in grad school. But I'm also like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, all my dreams are coming true because Monster,
Speaker 2: her first film, has been one of my favorites literally
Speaker 2: since I first saw it when I was like twelve,
Speaker 2: and you think your.
Speaker 1: Whole career is launching right there.
Speaker 2: But then financing fell through on one of the ideas
Speaker 2: we were trying to do, and then she was getting
Speaker 2: pulled off to have to produce her other projects and
Speaker 2: develop other big studio movies. So I was like, let
Speaker 2: me scale it back and try to maybe come up
Speaker 2: with a smaller idea I could do more easily, which
Speaker 2: was this other film idea called Calamity. But then when
Speaker 2: we're budgeting it out, even though it all takes place
Speaker 2: in one house, it suddenly was like, okay, but will
Speaker 2: there's a stunt in every scene of this movie, Like
Speaker 2: this is going to be almost two million dollars.
Speaker 1: So then I'm like, oh god.
Speaker 2: I'm really I really feel like I'm in a room
Speaker 2: full of closing doors. And I finished AFI and you
Speaker 2: realized that even if you go to a fancy grad school,
Speaker 2: that like, the world doesn't just come knocking at your
Speaker 2: door begging you to make cinema after something like that,
Speaker 2: because there's already enough people competing to do that. It
Speaker 2: was Patty and also my editor NOILM Clement who both
Speaker 2: said to.
Speaker 1: Me, like, do you are you?
Speaker 2: Are you really telling me you don't have a smaller
Speaker 2: idea somewhere in you that you can really get scrappy
Speaker 2: with it and pull something together. And so that was
Speaker 2: when I started just developing this idea of Junkie, because
Speaker 2: the one before is much more like I said, an
Speaker 2: add an addiction film in a horror direction, and phivoted
Speaker 2: being like, okay, what if I took an adic and
Speaker 2: made them like a superhero. But to me, a superhero
Speaker 2: is like that they a heroic act is just trying
Speaker 2: to do something right, as simple as that. But let's
Speaker 2: shoot it in action movie widescreen and have these like
Speaker 2: crazy fight sequences and shit, and let's just go back
Speaker 2: to my home turf of Georgia and shoot it like
Speaker 2: in our backyards. With our friends on a bunch of
Speaker 2: borrowed locations and stuff like that, and that is pretty
Speaker 2: much exactly how it happened. And Patty wasn't really involved
Speaker 2: during it because she was busy, and I knew, I
Speaker 2: just want to make something good enough that if she
Speaker 2: sees it afterwards, she'll want to put her name on it.
Speaker 2: And then apparently it worked.
Speaker 5: Yes, I hear that you somehow used Canva to help
Speaker 5: you with this. No, not at all.
Speaker 2: That's the hilarious thing is that Canva wanted us to
Speaker 2: speak on it, and I was like about prepping and
Speaker 2: developing a movie with their software.
Speaker 1: I was like, you guys couldn't have picked a worst
Speaker 1: film for me to speak on, because there's no for junkie.
Speaker 2: But so, the funny thing was the other film idea
Speaker 2: I'd had that was also this southern thing in a
Speaker 2: horror direction. We had developed for so long, We had
Speaker 2: made look books, we had used Canva, stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and then I was having this idea and the other
Speaker 2: thing I knew I wanted to do was I had
Speaker 2: heard about this mud bougging festival in Kentucky called Redneck
Speaker 2: Ravee that it had gone viral for being open during
Speaker 2: the pandemic, and it was something like forty something people
Speaker 2: were arrested on warrants at it one year and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, I want to go there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And the idea was like, if I have no money
Speaker 2: to make a first film, I don't want people to
Speaker 2: watch it and feel that and be like, Okay, it's
Speaker 2: like it's a chain for peace with two sisters in
Speaker 2: a cabin, like it's I was like, I want people
Speaker 2: to watch it as it's going on and be like
Speaker 2: holy shit, like how did the scale of this film
Speaker 2: like balloon this big as it was going And so
Speaker 2: I like cranked out a script in a month, and
Speaker 2: by the time I finished that draft, there was one
Speaker 2: monthuntil Redneck Grave was going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't want.
Speaker 2: To wait a whole other year.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's try to get out to that festival. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: because we had done the prep for the other film
Speaker 2: and with CANV and everything, it was the same like
Speaker 2: DP production designer like crew that we're trying to pitch
Speaker 2: the other film, still the same environment. Let's take all
Speaker 2: this prep work we did transplant it to this other film,
Speaker 2: but instead of steady cam work. It's all handheld and
Speaker 2: instead of going into saturated colors surreal horror, it's all
Speaker 2: going to be like desaturated like grimy, dusty, junkie. And yeah,
Speaker 2: and we literally had a month to be ready to
Speaker 2: shoot it from the time the script was ready. So
Speaker 2: it's like, is the first thing I did with no
Speaker 2: shot list, Like the crew didn't see the locations until
Speaker 2: we showed up to shoot them each day, like very
Speaker 2: from the hip on the fly, stressful. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: recommend it, but see.
Speaker 5: To your pants. It sounds like Rocky. You're in I think,
Speaker 5: almost every single scene of the film. So how was
Speaker 5: that for you? How much had you been talking to
Speaker 5: Will about this idea and like how ready were you
Speaker 5: to just jump into this project that kind of came
Speaker 5: from nothing to all of a sudden it's ready to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 6: I had a little less than a month to prepare whatever.
Speaker 6: And of course whenever I read the script, I loved it,
Speaker 6: but I thought, oh my god, I'm literally on every
Speaker 6: page except two. This is a lot. But I was
Speaker 6: actually living in la at the time and my lease
Speaker 6: was up, and so I was like, instead of getting
Speaker 6: another apartment and we're shooting in Georgia, that's where I'm from.
Speaker 6: I'll just move back in with my parents while we're
Speaker 6: filming this or whatever and put my stuff back in
Speaker 6: storage here. And then the strike happened and I ended
Speaker 6: up just staying out there. But we shot what it
Speaker 6: was a little bit of a month. Was it five
Speaker 6: weeks so the sho yay?
Speaker 1: Thirteen days?
Speaker 6: Oh god, quite so much longer?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it was thirteen basically nonsob so.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So basically to prepare because it was I basically
Speaker 6: prepared the morning of, because for me, I can't prepare
Speaker 6: for two days later when it's a totally different scene
Speaker 6: or whatever. I will totally mess up everything. And I
Speaker 6: just willed the way my mind works. So it was
Speaker 6: preparing the morning of, getting into that mindset or whatever.
Speaker 6: But also I think knowing this scrip pretty good and
Speaker 6: knowing like what the story was about and how Stevie is,
Speaker 6: and luckily Will was very lenient on some of the
Speaker 6: lines that I may have mixed and allowed me to
Speaker 6: do a little bit of improv queen. Yeah, so thank
Speaker 6: god for that. But yeah, preparing was like literally kind
Speaker 6: of like by the seat of my pants, like literally
Speaker 6: that morning, just making sure I get right. And I
Speaker 6: think sometimes I would psyche myself up. Oh my god,
Speaker 6: I've got to I've got to get this right or whatever,
Speaker 6: and then I'm like, I'm sorry, and then but I
Speaker 6: think it all worked out. It worked out for me.
Speaker 2: Not to sound like a bitch. But it was like
Speaker 2: if ever, if sometimes other actors had like a complaint
Speaker 2: about what the scene required of them, or the lines
Speaker 2: they couldn't remember or something, it was always just okay.
Speaker 1: Rocky has a book that she had that she has
Speaker 1: to memorize.
Speaker 2: It is like she she literally doesn't get a day off,
Speaker 2: she doesn't get a shot, yeah a lot in this film,
Speaker 2: Like she has to carry it on her back, put
Speaker 2: her through the ring.
Speaker 5: That all sounds difficult. What was the toughest stuff for
Speaker 5: you to do? Rocky?
Speaker 6: So I don't like to run, and he literally had
Speaker 6: me in booty shorts and I'm running this entire film.
Speaker 6: So that was really the most difficult, trying not to
Speaker 6: because nobody runs pretty and I definitely do not run pretty,
Speaker 6: But which kind of goes with a character because I'm
Speaker 6: high or I'm like coming down or just trying to
Speaker 6: get away from my family or whoever I'm running from
Speaker 6: that at that moment.
Speaker 1: Or what ever.
Speaker 6: But that was really probably the most difficult. The scenes
Speaker 6: were that were very dramatic, and especially the ones with
Speaker 6: my son or whatever. To me, those kind not simple,
Speaker 6: but I knew how important they were and I wanted
Speaker 6: them to come authentic, and I think they did. So
Speaker 6: I tried not to worry too much, even though I
Speaker 6: wanted to get it right. I tried not to put
Speaker 6: too much pressure on me. Oh my god, you've got
Speaker 6: to get this line has to land exactly like this.
Speaker 6: I just let it flow and hopefully it did right,
Speaker 6: and I think it did. We had some beautiful moments.
Speaker 5: The same question for you will what was the toughest
Speaker 5: stuff for you to shoot?
Speaker 1: Oh man, tough stuff to shoot? I'm literally like, which
Speaker 1: one do I pick?
Speaker 2: Because I just remember that the whole nature of the
Speaker 2: shoot was that we were like every day, we'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: today's a hard day, Tomorrow is an easy one. And
Speaker 2: especially when we started the film by shooting the climax
Speaker 2: like in a mud bogging festival, we had no control over.
Speaker 2: We got the biggest challenge out of the way, but
Speaker 2: it was like every day would surprise you of like
Speaker 2: I I couldn't possibly have expected this to be more difficult.
Speaker 1: Then it's like you don't expect that, like when you're trying.
Speaker 2: To get a toddler to act as seen, that's going
Speaker 2: to be a nightmare. Or like some of the places
Speaker 2: we shot in were like real trap houses and like
Speaker 2: in the real like meth neighborhoods of Georgia and stuff,
Speaker 2: and it was like we literally had like people on meth,
Speaker 2: like coming screaming through the sets and stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think those times or whatever kind of it
Speaker 6: did make me nervous, like to be around the people
Speaker 6: who would because I can always spot someone who's high
Speaker 6: or whatever, and I'm like, yeah, we're definitely in the part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there would always be the tension for me if
Speaker 2: are we gonna pull something off in time? But I
Speaker 2: feel like when it came to stuff that felt more
Speaker 2: stunty or like we need to shoot them pushing through
Speaker 2: a concert crowd, or we need to shoot a crazy
Speaker 2: fight sequence in a kitchen, I feel like some of
Speaker 2: those almost just felt easier because it felt like playing Legos,
Speaker 2: because you're like it's really just like craftsmanship and that
Speaker 2: it was easier to be outside of your head during
Speaker 2: but it would be something like nailing a really intimate
Speaker 2: dialogue or something that I feel like would usually be
Speaker 2: the thing stressing me the most of feeling like I
Speaker 2: needed to nail it. And then suddenly we're shooting like
Speaker 2: one of the most emotional scenes at three am, after
Speaker 2: a whole day of Rocky already having to run around
Speaker 2: and Booty short, and then I can tell that like
Speaker 2: her brain is melting because it's it would usually be
Speaker 2: more about sticking the landing of something emotional rather than
Speaker 2: getting her to crawl through a mosh pit, And so
Speaker 2: those are like a walk in the park compared to
Speaker 2: some of just like dialogue seeing Honestly.
Speaker 5: I know that you probably wrote this with Rocky and mind,
Speaker 5: but tell me about the rest of your past and
Speaker 5: how you found them.
Speaker 2: It's a whole hodgepodge of actors I worked with before,
Speaker 2: total non actors, like street casting because there's no time
Speaker 2: to prep it again. Two of the main supporting people,
Speaker 2: Jessica and Kean, who play Sherry, her like girlfriend, and Kai,
Speaker 2: her drug dealer. They had also been in my like
Speaker 2: two previous short films, and so I kind of wrote
Speaker 2: with them in mind for those parts, because they've really
Speaker 2: become like writer or die actors down to do whatever.
Speaker 2: But then otherwise it's like the guy who plays her son,
Speaker 2: who I think does an incredible job, was just my
Speaker 2: barista my local neighborhood and had mentioned to me that
Speaker 2: he liked acting. And then the guy who plays her
Speaker 2: ex boyfriend was like, I was telling people I needed
Speaker 2: like a gruff like southern guy who can pull that off,
Speaker 2: and someone sent was sending me links to other actors,
Speaker 2: and I saw the picture. I saw the guy who
Speaker 2: it now is in a picture with one of those recommendations,
Speaker 2: and literally was like, who's hit? Who's that guy? And
Speaker 2: just DMed him like one person and plays like the
Speaker 2: meth head. Bailey, the blonde girl, has been one of
Speaker 2: my friends since we were thirteen, and she's not an actor,
Speaker 2: she's a dancer. But I just tour under the bus
Speaker 2: and making her do this. So it yeah, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it it literally be shooting a montage and be like,
Speaker 2: which one of our friends is nearby, Let's throw them
Speaker 2: in the movie.
Speaker 1: Really like very yeah, very all.
Speaker 5: Over the place for sure. Other than the challenges of
Speaker 5: shooting in some very bad neighborhoods. How was Georgia to
Speaker 5: shoot in?
Speaker 6: It was good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean humid in summer gat but it was
Speaker 2: That was one thing that I wanted so bad was
Speaker 2: to do a different type of Southern film, because I
Speaker 2: feel like when we think Southern in movies, everyone's brain
Speaker 2: goes to like desert movies and you think like Felma
Speaker 2: and Luise, like Texas or like No Country for Old Men,
Speaker 2: and it's all either orange or it's like blue and gray,
Speaker 2: and the South that we know that we grew up
Speaker 2: is very.
Speaker 1: Lush, green, humid, sweaty.
Speaker 2: One of the few other movies I feel like I've
Speaker 2: seen that Captain that So what was Patty Jenkins's Monster?
Speaker 2: When I saw that movie, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this feels like where I grew up, and that all
Speaker 2: the characters weren't. It wasn't that we took a supermodel
Speaker 2: and had them grow an ugly beard and put a
Speaker 2: cowboy hat on, and we were like, it's a southern
Speaker 2: and Southern authenticity. It was like monsters in a movie
Speaker 2: where like they took a supermodel and they like uglied
Speaker 2: her down to make her look like a real person,
Speaker 2: and everybody in that film looks like a real person,
Speaker 2: and I've been really happy that a lot of people
Speaker 2: watch it say the environment feels like a character in
Speaker 2: the film, because it, Yeah, a lot of people were like,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen this type of southern before, but it.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's weird desk because we're like, that's
Speaker 1: what we know right so well. But so there was like.
Speaker 2: A comfort element of even shooting there because I think
Speaker 2: I've been trying to make things work in La for
Speaker 2: so long, and that's where it felt like all these
Speaker 2: doors were shutting, and so it was like I went
Speaker 2: back to home base, and it just being scrappy with
Speaker 2: my friends in the woods felt like exactly how I
Speaker 2: grew up, made him movies Like.
Speaker 5: Ye, tell me about your premiere.
Speaker 2: We're freaking out to get ready for it. After these
Speaker 2: interviews are of It's six pm tonight. Yeah, we're premiering
Speaker 2: at afi Fest. Sold out, So we sold out like
Speaker 2: before the weekend even hit, which we can't believe because
Speaker 2: there's no famous people in our movies.
Speaker 1: So we're very happy about that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like Patty will be there, We'll be doing
Speaker 2: the whole Q and A afterwards. Much I'm saying, yeah, humble,
Speaker 2: I'm saying this knowing I'm not processing it mentally as
Speaker 2: I'm saying and I won't be for the rest of
Speaker 2: the day. But like that we did this scrappy thing
Speaker 2: with not even enough money to finish a movie, yeah,
Speaker 2: in our backyard, and now for some reason, people are
Speaker 2: taking it seriously enough that they want us to play
Speaker 2: it in a sold out room at the Chinese Theater
Speaker 2: on Hollywood Boulevard. It feels like we're getting away with
Speaker 2: like we duped people and we don't know why they're
Speaker 2: not onto us yet, Like how did we get here?
Speaker 6: It's surreal, But that's how I feel, just and just
Speaker 6: all the good press that we've had about it, just
Speaker 6: everybody seems to have really enjoyed it. Didn't just to
Speaker 6: hear that that's something that we poured our heart, literally
Speaker 6: our heart and soul into when people were actually recognizing
Speaker 6: that and liking it, so it's just what. So I'm excited,
Speaker 6: Like we're excited, just don't know what to expect, but
Speaker 6: just my daughter's going to be here. She hasn't seen it,
Speaker 6: so I'm so excited just to see her reaction, and
Speaker 6: it's just yeah, it's Yeah, it's just great.
Speaker 2: A lot of a lot of the actors, like still
Speaker 2: haven't seen that you were going to see it for
Speaker 2: the first time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, So I hope they're happy.
Speaker 5: Are they going to do the whole red carpet, the
Speaker 5: photos and all that kind of stuff that really do
Speaker 5: it up.
Speaker 2: We're not getting that like George Clooney Adams and their
Speaker 2: level that they had the other night, for sure, because
Speaker 2: I don't think people are clamoring to photograph will Meians
Speaker 2: and Rocky shot. They'll be clamoring the photograph first heon orenough,
Speaker 2: but we do have to go through a whole photo
Speaker 2: op at their like af I backdrops.
Speaker 6: A little red carpet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, talk to some breath.
Speaker 2: I'm mainly going to be I was haggling AFI all
Speaker 2: week to let me get in the theater to approve
Speaker 2: the audio levels before they play the movie, So I'm
Speaker 2: mainly going to be trying to run off to do that,
Speaker 2: probably while she's taking photos. This thing has just been
Speaker 2: so graspers from the ground up, and we're premiering at
Speaker 2: this huge festival with like no studio attached to the film,
Speaker 2: like no distribution plan yet, like it, and I can't
Speaker 2: believe we got it this far, but it's yeah, I
Speaker 2: really I think we're just hoping that it blows the
Speaker 2: roof off and that it becomes a conversation piece that
Speaker 2: helps us get a much wider release for it and
Speaker 2: all of that, because obviously we wanted to get out
Speaker 2: there as far as possible. And I think Rocky and
Speaker 2: I both still believe in a kind of cinema that
Speaker 2: we're not seeing anymore. That is movies with just faces
Speaker 2: you don't recognize and zero CGI and India's hell like yeah,
Speaker 2: like very handmade, and I feel.
Speaker 1: Like people want to see that.
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, I feel like Hollywood's underestimating how
Speaker 2: much easier it can be to empathize with that. A
Speaker 2: lot of the time, Like even if I'm watching a
Speaker 2: rugged Southern story, I'm gonna be or even an addiction story,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to relate to it as much when
Speaker 2: I know that it's like Timothy Shamalama Bingbong playing the
Speaker 2: drug addicts, because I know he's like a huge A
Speaker 2: list celebrity, and I just like, yeah, I really hope
Speaker 2: that people identify how much easier it is to connect
Speaker 2: and have empathy with something real, something and something not
Speaker 2: familiar to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I just really I think we're.
Speaker 2: Both just really hoping that people like respond to it,
Speaker 2: get excited about it. And yeah, even the sellout, it
Speaker 2: feels like maybe we're like the cool kid of the
Speaker 2: festival because it's all these like these big celebrity dramas
Speaker 2: and there's just the and then there's just the I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is movie called Junkie with Rocky
Speaker 2: flipping a middle finger on the poster.
Speaker 5: Very nice image on that poster. Is there a place
Speaker 5: for people to keep up with the movie and with
Speaker 5: you guys?
Speaker 1: Yes, Instagram mainly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where I post everything for it at Real
Speaker 2: means as mine.
Speaker 1: It's our il period means my last name, Rocky's is
Speaker 1: a girl called Rocky Shay. It's our Instagram handle.
Speaker 2: But and then we also were having an East Coast
Speaker 2: premiere at Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore two weeks after this,
Speaker 2: and I really love that festival. And they're playing it
Speaker 2: twice actually on like Thursday and Saturday.
Speaker 1: Of that weekend.
Speaker 2: And other than that, Yeah, we're out to other festivals
Speaker 2: and we're starting the like sales talks with people so yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just we're about to see what happens.
Speaker 6: Best.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're both about to disappear back into obscurity.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and.
Speaker 5: Hopefully not, because I loved the movie and I really
Speaker 5: had a great time talking with y'all. So thank you
Speaker 5: so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 3: There's nothing you can say to She's write where if
Speaker 3: she wants to be out on the edge where.
Speaker 5: No one can to know though she's not moving.
Speaker 4: I hear the laughing.
Speaker 3: Wait till you've tried before you jug He says you
Speaker 3: you don't you know, No, you don't know.
Speaker 4: You don't, you don't don't. I said, you love the junkie,
Speaker 4: So no, I.
Speaker 7: Want to know what You're so good.
Speaker 4: You're breaking the hearts of your loved ones like crackers.
Speaker 3: Since while you pond off the Silver Cross Watch you
Speaker 3: in New Mexico gave.
Speaker 4: To the seasons over the desert. You, she says, you
Speaker 4: don't don't, No, you don't know, you don't, you don't don't,
Speaker 4: I said the Chelsea so long.
Speaker 7: I finally found out on the floor of my hotel.
Speaker 7: Who things filled the pus the custom free and I
Speaker 7: pulled myself out and stared in the middle. Just for
Speaker 7: an instant I could finally see it.
Speaker 6: She says you.
Speaker 3: No, no, you John, don't get out class the jockey.
Speaker 4: Jock Jo, don't tell no, no, you don't know, you
Speaker 4: don't don't you don't know, said Jump. So who.
Speaker 2: Oh stop?
Speaker 4: Who in name?
Speaker 2: S an.
Speaker 4: A miter st