Cold Wallet is set to steal the spotlight at this year’s South by Southwest. With an innovative screenplay by John Hibey and masterful direction from Cutter Hodierne, the film features grounded and nuanced performances from a talented ensemble including Raúl Castillo, Tony Cavalero, Melonie Diaz, and Josh Brener, promising to enthrall audiences with an edge-of-your-seat masterpiece.
In the film, after falling victim to a cryptocurrency scam, a group of vigilante Redditors embark on a mission to kidnap the kingpin responsible. However, their plans take a dark turn during a home invasion, plunging them into a sadistic game of survival.
Pop Culturalist had the opportunity to catch up with Cutter to discuss Cold Wallet, his approach to breaking typecast, the incredible performances showcased on screen, and much more.
PC: Throughout your career, you’ve always been drawn to stories that center around a group of people who have been wronged by a larger entity. What ultimately led you to the exploration of cryptocurrency and inspired you to co-write Cold Wallet?
Cutter: That’s a great question. In early 2021, during the frenzy around GameStop, I became really enamored by this grassroots meme stock movement that was threatening to upend the way everybody invested in the market. It also brought a lot of new people to the market.
But there was this collective daydream about everyday people who were changing the financial system. Maybe for once, we were going to be sticking it to the man. But, of course, we were wrong. It was a wave of get-rich-quick schemes and an endless barrage of digital currencies.I started to wonder, was this more like a collective gambling addiction that everyone was starting to have? Of course, the house of cards came falling down on the little guys.
I am always attracted to characters who are going up against it, the David versus Goliath element, but also characters who get in way over their heads. In crypto, it’s very easy to become one of those characters, especially if you’re new, as is the case of the characters in our film. They take pretty extreme measures. Their experience in their heist is a bit like a representation of getting in over your head.
PC: One of the most interesting things about the film is the process in which you made it and how you and your co-writer, John [Hibey], willed this into existence. How did that quick-paced environment empower you to trust your instincts and influence the creative decisions that you made with the script?
Cutter: John wrote the screenplay. I developed it with him, but he really took a lot of our raw ideas and brought out a specificity, particularly with our villain. That was something that totally came out of John’s psychotic, wonderful mind.
His shaping of that character really gave something for this trio to balance against. The way that we were thinking of it was this: Charles Hegel is the physical embodiment of capitalism. Capitalism will lure you in and make you feel like you’re part of the club, only to turn on you and try to hunt you down. We had a lot of fun with how we were going to take that through the story. But a ton of credit to John. He’s an amazing screenwriter.
PC: Cold Wallet is making its world premiere at SXSW, and it’s already garnered approval from Steven Soderbergh. How did that partnership come to fruition?
Cutter: It’s a pinch-me moment for me because fifteen years ago, I was waiting in line to meet him after an event in Washington D.C. that he was speaking at, but I didn’t get a chance to. He ended up leaving and waved at everyone on the way out. But to have someone who’s not only a master in filmmaking but also a master in the heist genre give us the stamp of approval means so much to me, honestly. He’s somebody who I’ve really idolized for a while and continue to idolize.
It came about through our partnership with Decentralized Pictures. That’s a company/organization that is trying to upend Web3/Film3 space by allowing audiences to get involved in greenlighting projects. So they have some awards. You first have to get through the crowd. The crowd chooses the finalists, and then Steven watches the finalists and picks a winner from there. So it really came about through Decentralized Pictures, which is like American Zoetrope. It’s their digital crypto/film financing project.
It’s coming from a long history of true independent cinema. It’s only natural that in this Web3/Film3 space that Decentralized is making such a splash, but it’s been a really amazing partnership, not just in that Steven Soderbergh is involved in our film, but the inroads that they’ve made in the crypto world have been really meaningful.
PC: That award is so well-deserved. You have such a star-studded cast at the helm of this project, and many of them are going outside the realm of what we’ve seen them do in the past, particularly Josh Brener. Was that something that you were mindful of during the casting process? What was that like putting together this ensemble?
Cutter: I get warm and fuzzy every time I get to talk about Josh branching out from what we’ve known him to be because there was something in Josh that was ready for this. This was meant to be in his life because he does have dramatic chops, but he also has a super dry humor. He’s a sharp-witted person. Him taking on a villain role was so exciting. I’m so proud to have worked with him in helping bring that out.
He was both an unlikely villain and yet the complete obvious choice by the time we were walking onto set to make it. He’s a very smart guy who can manipulate people of lesser intelligence, but also bring a vulnerability and that fear and terror that the guy was experiencing while also trying to put up this facade.
In the case of Tony [Cavalero] and Josh, they come from a real comedic background. Melonie [Diaz] and Raúl [Castillo] come from a more dramatic background. So there was this feeling that everybody was doing something that was slightly new but was always meant to be. Even with me and John, who wrote the script. John and I started out together years ago making comedy shorts. We both started in the world of comedy and then took this dramatic turn. Being able to laugh while making a film is something that I started my career doing, so it was nice to do this and really lean into the moments when there is humor in the film, even if it’s a bit subtle. Everyone was doing something new, but oddly, everyone was doing something that came naturally. I’m so proud of the cast, and they did an amazing job. They were the obvious right choices in all directions.
PC: Credit to you as well. That’s one of the beauties of independent cinema and being able to take those risks. With this project being so personal to you, I imagine you have such a strong sense of who these characters are, but when you cast your actors, you want them to bring their own interpretations to them. As the director, how did you foster that environment where they were able to play? Did any of their interpretations surprise you, especially as they play in these morally gray areas?
Cutter: Oh yeah, it’s really all about trust. It’s about creating a setting where they feel comfortable to take chances and to know that’s allowed and to know that their input is very, very important to me. One thing I found myself saying if they were ever doubting an instinct or wondering if they should try this is, “I cast you for your instincts.”
In a way, that’s why I work with everybody from the producers to the writers to all of the crew. Everyone who you bring into a film, you want to establish that trust. That trust has to do with everybody listening to one another. I’m listening. I’m truly taking in what you’re saying. Maybe the director’s job is really to be the arbiter of what’s going to work, but we all want to believe as directors that we have a vision that we knew all along and that it’s not subject to change, you must do this, and it’s a fine line because there’s a difference between being too rigid with a vision and being deliberate in your choices.
If you’re deliberate in your choices and not rigid, it’s easier to listen to people. It’s easier to trust, and then they trust you in turn. It really comes down to building and establishing that trust and making sure everybody knows it’s okay to take chances and to try things. It was an experience working with these actors that really meant a lot to me. We were able to build that rapport, and it felt good.
PC: Yeah, and then it leads to the incredible performances like the ones that we see on screen. Something else that I think you’ve done brilliantly with this film is the way that you were able to create these suspenseful moments in primarily a singular location. There are so many mind games that Josh’s character gets to play in that setting. Was that ever a daunting task? How were you able to do that so seamlessly?
Cutter: What an insightful observation. The last thing I wanted was to make this place feel claustrophobic or like we were all in the same place over and over. We joked it would be like the Seinfeld effect. [laughs] We didn’t want it to feel like these characters keep coming into this door. So Oliver Millar (the cinematographer), Teresa Strebler (our production designer), and I were always thinking about either setting a scene in a different room or changing the lighting in a room to make it feel different than the last time we were in there. It always came down to making choices that were right in the moment and not pre-determining things too much, but trying to keep a variety because while there’s an intensity feeling like we’re locked in a place and there’s nowhere to escape, you want the film to be progressing and moving towards something. So it wasn’t a daunting challenge; it was a challenge that kept us sharp in making choices.
PC: I feel like this film is going to play so well with the SXSW audience. What do you hope they take away after they see this? Is there a scene in particular that you’re really excited for them to see?
Cutter: The thing that I want is for people to have fun. This is a fun movie, at least I hope. I want them to go, “Man, that was a ton of fun,” and it also made me think about the elements of crypto and what our society is becoming. But ultimately, it’s a movie that has a big, fat beating heart.
As far as a scene, I’m really excited for them to see the scene where they buy guns at Walmart. That’s the one that I could show on loop to people because I thought that was really fun. It’s sort of the place where the movie takes a little bit of a sidebar. I really love that.
Make sure to follow Cutter on Twitter and Instagram.
Cold Wallet Screening Times at SXSW:
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