Annette Kellerman: Thanks for being here for talking about the film. So, I wanna know, what was your inspiration for this story? I mean, do you have your own Beverly Luff Linn?
Jim Hosking: No, there's no actual inspiration for this story. The truth of it is, if there is any inspiration then it's about letting our minds go to creative characters that we're interested in and we've been going off a map and going somewhere new and just being excited about something. So that's the inspiration. It could be any story, but I think that we both enjoy this sort of, capricious nature of our minds.
Kellerman: How did you guys end up collaborating on it?
David Wike: We had met through a mutual friend a number of years back. We kinda started playing with another film, anyway it was fun and just became too many cooks in the kitchen. This one kinda came out of, that. We both like working [with one another] and this thing just popped up. We sorta sent the scene to Jim, Jim sent something back and before we know it we are on this thing that we couldn't get off. This ride. So when you think about inspiration set out for Beverly, we didn't even know there was going to be a Beverly Luff Linn in this film. It was mostly about the LuLu, Colin and...
Hosking: It started with the guys in the coffee shop when Dave sent me this scene, with the guys in the coffee shop. I think a few hours later I had written this scene with like, Colin and Adjay. I didn't know who the fuck Colin and Adjay were. It was just like gradually... and then Adjay is talking about his sister, and so now there is a character called LuLu. That's just how it goes, but it's how we like writing things. Definitely how I like writing stuff. I like to not... it's like you're the character in the story and you're just finding out where it's taking you and not being remotely strategic with it because I'm actually nauseated by careerist, self-promotional, strategic, narcissistic directors.
Wike: And also, I just came up with this thing, bullying characters for your own agenda. It's like, put the character down, the characters got enough going on. That character should tell you where they're gonna go...
Hosking: Letting the character be a mouthpiece for your own frustrations.
Wike: Yeah, so you start bullying them, so like that's how you get Adjay and Colin deciding that there is just going to be this hit, or a heist and everything just comes out of these characters and you're like, well that might not make much sense, might be, but that character wants that, that's what we are getting from them. So the bullying...
Hosking: That's the joy of working- like writing with someone else as well- is that, I mean unless you are not really not in command of your own brain or you might be schizophrenic, the nice thing about working with someone else is that, you get these surprises.
Kellerman: Yeah, so I guess it starts more with the character development and then takes it to where the characters are going? Ish?
Hosking: Yeah, I mean it's just like... yeah for example; Rodney Von Donkensteiger. It was like, everyone says he looks like Michael McDonald. I mean I did know who Michael McDonald was, I think I lied and just said I didn't know who he was, but that wouldn't have occurred to me, and that came from Dave and I think, probably the grossest anxiety I had going into the shoot was, do people really care about Michael McDonald? What makes the joke is that it doesn't matter.
Kellerman: True, true. There is a definite aesthetic to the film. What are your notes to your production designer? Like what does that entail?
Hosking: Well, less notes than there were on previous film, because he worked with Greasy Strangler, and then this film. I am really thrilled to work with, production design and costume design, everyone I have total faith in and feel really lucky to be working with.
Kellerman: You're on the same page.
Hosking: Oh yeah, but they also just fucking contribute so much to it, you know? And I give them the stakes to do that. But I did say to Jason, who is the production designer and to Christina, the costume designer that I just wanted everything... it's like everything is possible and that's just what I said was every element in it is possible. But also kind of choosing what to put in and what not to put in the film. That's probably not the only note, but beyond that, Jason he's one of a, he has a very strong aesthetic too. I mean there may be times where he'll sorta present me with something and I'll be like, I don't know man I think that's a bit too much. You know like for the coffee shop he was like so keen on this place that's called Bob's Footlong's in Fortuna in California that's where we shot the coffee shop and I was probably a bit wired at the beginning but it felt like a little kid at Disney Land. But then it had this sort of like, some nostalgic kind of feel to it that felt a bit sad in a way or something and it even kinda reminded me, and even though it's black and white of what you think of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.
Kellerman: Yeah, and like that magnificent hotel- it's like a time capsule, like stuck. That's incredible. And I'm assuming that...
Hosking: That's how we ended up in Eureka was cause he found that hotel so we ended up doing it there.
Kellerman: You're kidding! I was just in Eureka this summer.
Wike: Really?
Kellerman: Yeah!
Wike: I wanna go back.
Kellerman: There was this badass pizza place downtown.
Hosking: Yeah, I think that's like half-a-block from the hotel.
Kellerman: Oh how funny!
Wike: How long were you there?
Kellerman: It was just like a stop through on a roadtrip. I'm gonna have to go back and Google Earth it.
Wike: The pizza place... is right there. It's the big building on the corner.
Kellerman: I knew there was some vibe that I was cluing into! I love that...just that whole vibe. I mean like the heavy wood paneling. And I'm assuming the interior set is not really from that hotel? It is?
Hosking: It's the whole place, like where the event takes place is in kind of like a little ballroom that, I mean there was some rooms that were a little more modernized, where Rodney and Beverly have breakfast and Kennedy Gordon turns up. And I thought that was a bit too nice that room, but it actually closes it out fine I think. But there's another, sort of wood paneled room, where they sit down. The first time that Colin and LuLu sit down with Beverly and Rodney and it just looks great. Kinda feels like being there or something.
Wike: Yeah, yeah and the whole hotel I mean... when we wrote it we definitely knew there was this place and didn't know. I mean, we looked at a lot of different pictures but, when you find the location that has that. Because this was a place in the 40s, 50s that was the main juncture if you were going north, and at one point it was very much the destination zone. Throughout the hotel is like, photographs of every famous musician. Well, not photographs but paintings.
Hosking: But it's so bleak. I mean God, when I first went there, or scouted there, it was December, just before Christmas. Oh my God it was so freezing, and I remember I was just... this whole place was crawling with ants. The people who were working behind the bar were like, God knows they were on...
Wike: Definitely haunted and like 100, or 200 rooms even. Big place.
Kellerman: Wow! It's crazy that this place hasn't been bulldozed, but thank goodness? I mean it's fascinating to me.
