Hello ladies and gentlemen, Muldoon here with a fun chat with director Ariel Vromen. His film, CRIMINAL, comes out tomorrow and stars a handful of big names like Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot. While the opportunity to speak with him came to me rather at the last minute, unfortunately I didn't have the chance to see the film before we talked. So what is a guy to do when he hasn't actaully seen the film at hand? Well, talk about the weather, right? I kid... What follows below is a pretty interesting chat given Ariel was pretty honest and open, or at least came across to me as a genuine guy who took the time to answer questions others might have been a bit more dismissive with. So let's jump right on in!
Vromen: Hey, man.
Muldoon: I know we don’t have that much time, so I hope to just “jump on in.” Just so you’re aware, I’ve not seen the film yet.
You don’t want to talk about the weather? Where are you calling from?
Austin, Texas.
I love your city, man. It’s one of my favorite Texas cities, that’s for sure.
I would agree with that. Well first off, let’s go with some basic questions that I’m sure you’ve answered eighteen times today… Let’s go from number nineteen. How did this movie land on your desk and what did you find special about it then in order to get you to direct it?
Well, I found the script because my cousin wrote it. So that was kind of an easy approach of how I found the material. I think what made me direct it, or want to join in on a movie like that, are… I think the main thing is the fact that I saw a lot of challenge in putting a story like that together and I knew that that challenge could be a disaster if it were done wrong, and if it’s done right then it’s a great entertaining and suspenseful ride that you can get out of it, and selling all of those ideas. I think also the other side of why I wanted to do it is I’m really, really curious about how we affect our lives and who we are with our memories. Some of my friends keep on telling me like “I’m in trouble” and “I have depression” or “this or that, because when I was six years old my mom screamed at me and told me that I’m a bad boy and even sometimes used a hand to punish me” and I’m like “Yeah, but that happened thirty-five years ago. How does that memory still affect your behavior every morning when you wake up?” This was something that I was really interested about, because our memories are so powerful. Then going into the world of researching memory, of what it means even, then even trying to transplant it into a guy who is such an icon like Kevin Costner, which our memories of him are from westerns, so even just taking that and switching it around and creating a new outlet for Costner to come on board and express how “this is going to be fun, but tough, and also bring the charm and heart out…” I don’t know, I think those two elements were very… (Laughs) I hope I didn’t fuck that up, man! You never know, but that was the challenge that I had when I got the script.
You have some of the biggest names in Hollywood in your film, so clearly something in that script was attractive to them. Speaking of your cast, what was the order of how you got them? Like who signed on first?
For the most part, it was the same with most films. You anchor your star… When I did THE ICEMAN, I anchored my star with Michael Shannon and at that time nobody knew who he was. I mean he was very… Right now he’s much more known than he used to be and it used to be a huge hurdle as I went around for three years trying to convince people to do a movie with Michael Shannon. Some actors saw him from Broadway and some in theaters and movies… He was an “actor magnet” even when he didn’t have the fame or the star power that Kevin has. People joined him. I think with Kevin it was the same thing, how once Kevin joined it was almost like the sound of a train leaving the station and everybody else with their agents and managers calling like “Let’s join in.” People responded back then to what I did with ICEMAN and obviously the script, so they said, “Let’s give it a chance.”
So once you got Kevin Costner involved and what you did with THE ICEMAN, it sounds like it just snow balled positively.
You got it. Some times, by the way, you can gamble on an unknown actor and then hope for the factor of the magnet that you’re going to reach a little bit more of attention from other actors that want to work with him. So it can go reverse, but yeah that’s the way it is.
How long was the shoot? Can you describe any moment, or day that years from now you will look back on, perhaps a moment or a take that will stay with you?
Did you see the movie?
Not yet.
Okay, cool. Well the shoot was ten weeks in London and there’s a moment that I freaked out… a moment where I was like “Holy shit, we are in trouble.” There’s a moment that you can see in the trailer where there’s a car flying from a bridge. Do you remember that from the trailer?
Yep.
Okay, well in England you’re not allowed to shoot with guns and they are very, very strict on everything and we were shooting near by an airport and so in order to do all of that stuff, I mean they had so many restrictions and on the day that we were supposed to throw the car into the river they said “no.” We knew we didn’t have the budget to do it with CGI…. It was a very stressful day, but then it became even more stressful as we only had permission to use drones as an aerial point of view. What happened every time we’d send the drones up is the interference with the airport’s radars fried our drones, so the drones were falling into the river…
Oh? Wow.
So we were really screwed, and at the end of the day we went to the head guy that runs all of the traffic control and we said, “Please! We will have to bring a chopper into the air…” and he told us “You guys are lucky, because tomorrow is Sunday and the airport is actually closed all the way to 2:00PM, so you can do all of your aerials until 2:00. We will grant you the permission to bring in choppers. So we were saved completely by luck. That was a day that I think I’ll remember for a few years… (Laughs)
That certainly seems like a heavy deal of stress when I assume there are so many other things you’re having to corral to get your vision in the can.
Yeah, but I mean if you’re asking me about a day where I was thinking… I mean other than them using it for the marketing material… Can you imagine not getting that shot for the marketing even? Or not even getting that for the film itself…
I can imagine. Just glancing on IMDB, it lists about twenty folks who are some level of “producer” for the film.
Yeah, I don’t know most of them. I have no idea who they are. (Laughs)
It sounds like you had quite a few folks in your corner, and then you’ve got the studio, as well as this crazy cast of men and women with an enormous body of work behind them… how did you maintain your vision while also making sure not to upset anybody? Do you know what I mean?
(Laughs) I think we’re going to have to do a more “one on one” interview on that technique. It’s challenging, man. I mean you’re right. You just need to be passionate. I think if you have a passion about something then you will be able to deal with the lows with a toughness and you will be able to enjoy the highs a lot. You’re always going to have a lot of people telling you what they think and trying to influence you. There’s also that dance as most of my leading men are also filmmakers, so how do you satisfy everyone? Well first of all there’s no such thing as satisfying everybody, but you can speak to what you believe in and when you answer and when you do things you are really doing it with a passion, and need to disconnect your ego out of it. If you don’t come from “It’s me, me, me…” but instead “This is really what I believe for the film” and you’re passionate about it, then it becomes contagious and that perseverance will eventually take you to the end. Hopefully people can say, “I get it. He took a very challenging script and a very challenging subject matter and somehow this is all working really nicely together.”
It looks like you have five features under your belt at this point.
Four… Well, if you count the documentary then five.
Knowing what you do now, given your experiences, what are some things you wish you would have known when you did JEWEL OF THE SAHARA?
(Laughs) You’re funny! First of all, I would know not to shoot in the middle of the winter in the desert, because you’re going to freeze. The other thing is you better have an animal wrangler when you have Gerard Butler trying to make love to a camel. That by itself is a challenge. What else should I have known? Who knows? When you’re doing everything for the first time or the second or the third, I think with movies specifically it’s like every time is like starting from zero. You really need to push yourself as a filmmaker to grow and to do things better. Whether this experience will save me in the future? Absolutely. Is it going to change my life or my journey? No, because it’s part of it!
That’s totally fair. With you production company, Sumatra Films, what type of films to you hope to bring to the world? What types of movies are you looking to create?
That’s a great question. You know, I would love to label myself somewhere like Scott Free or what William Friedkin used to do back in the seventies… I love the combination of true stories and not just true stories, but ones that bring you back into thrillers and action that try to elevate them a little bit. Michael Mann used to do that a lot. It’s like trying to bring some humanity and some honesty into those fun, big stories, and when we are so suffocated with superheroes not forget that there are superheroes living among us. So with Sumatra, that’s the direction I’d like to go, make films that have that vibe of “true story” with the suspense of a thriller or action movie, but give them another element instead of showing the people things they’ve seen a thousand times, just try to pus the envelope a bit and do the best work.
Cool, well Ariel it was a real pleasure to talk to you today, sir. I’ll let you get back to the rest of your interview filled day! I really do appreciate you taking the time and I’m looking forward to seeing the film.
All right man, thank you so much.
They we have it, ladies and gents, an interesting (and brief) look into director Ariel Vromen's head. It appears the film features performances from quite a few living legends and a passionate director who has already created interesting tales like with THE ICE MAN. Hopefully you all enjoyed the interview. I appreciate Ariel taking the time to chat with me and wish the man the best of luck with his next few projects!
- Mike McCutchen
"Muldoon"
Mike@aintitcool.com
