Pop-Culturalist.com

Director Vincent Grashaw and stars Tim Blake Nelson and Andrew Liner are landing a knockout blow at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival with their compelling sports drama, Bang Bang.

Retired pugilist Bernard “Bang Bang” Rozyski (Tim Blake Nelson) is inspired to try his hand at training once he reconnects with his estranged grandson, Justin (Andrew Liner). While their training brings Bang Bang out of the hole he’s been living in, everyone questions his motivations, including an ex-girlfriend from decades ago, who was privy to Bang Bang’s meteoric rise in the sport in the ’80s as well as the rivalry with his former opponent, her cousin and Detroit’s Mayoral candidate Darnell Washington. Is Bang Bang merely passing down inherited rage, or is there true altruism behind his tutelage?

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Vincent, Tim, and Andrew about Bang Bang, how they pushed each other as collaborators, and their transformative performances.

strong>PC: Vincent, there’s something so special when the< right script comes across the right team. You have such a deep connection to the sport of boxing, but it's such a refreshing and different take on a sports drama. Can you share a bit about why this is such a personal story to you and how this script came across your desk? How did that connection aid you through this process?
Vincent: The script came to me from Jesse Ozeri, one of our executive producers. He is very close with Will [Janowitz] (writer). I had known of Will but I had never met him before, but I fell in love with the story. Even if I didn’t have a deep connection with the sport, it’s just one of those scripts. It’s rare that you read one that is this strong. That’s what, as a filmmaker, I’m always in the hunt for. It’s a good script.

I’m genre agnostic. I’ve dabbled in different genres. For me, it’s what do you feel at the time. This sport is very special. By no means was I a professional fighter or anything like that, I had done training. I grew up watching the sport with my grandfather, dad, and parents. It was my favorite sport, simple as that. I wasn’t even out to make a boxing movie, but this one spoke for itself. I fell in love with it.

PC: It’s an incredible film and so captivating to watch. Tim, you have this innate gift to disappear into a character and there’s so much complexity when it comes to Bang Bang. As an actor, how did you create that space for yourself to step into his shoes and explore his tragic past? How have your prior experiences directing and writing influenced the way that you now interpret scripts and characters like this?
Tim: Sorry guys, my answer is going to be so long that there isn’t going to be any more time. I’ll try to be succinct, but that’s a lot and these are good questions. I don’t think I could have played this part ten years ago, even if I’d been the right age. I think Will wrote an extraordinary role here. It’s certainly as demanding a role as I’ve ever played, physically, emotionally, and in terms of the character’s history. It all came together to create this perfect storm of a challenge. That was very exciting.

The writing was one of the reasons why I took the film on. But it was also Vincent. I had gotten to know Vincent a bit and he asked me to be in another film of his. I love the way he went about approaching me for that role. I just knew he was a good, classy guy. When this role came my way, I knew that Vincent was going to allow me the time and space. I came on early also as a secondary producer on the film, so I had a good six months to work on the role and make sure that the conditions were going to be right for me to not disappoint Vincent.

On his part, he gave me that space, supported me, and guided me. That gave me the confidence to take this on. There’s a wonderful acting teacher named William Esper who said it takes at least twenty years to become an actor. I was in the right space and had done enough work and enough of these characters that combined with Vincent’s guidance and his generosity in terms of creating the space to work on the role made taking this on possible. It gave me the confidence to do it.

PC: I can’t imagine another actor playing this role. Andrew, you grew up as an athlete, and in so many roles that you’ve done recently, there’s a physicality to the characters that you’ve played. What is the training process like for a film like this and how does that prep work allow you to further tap into your character?
Andrew: It was a really interesting process because when I auditioned for the film, my character Justin was written as this gangly, alien-looking kid who was very skinny.

Tim: We got the gangly part. [laughs]

Andrew: I was training a lot. I boxed growing up as well. I sent Vince a bunch of emails before I even booked the role asking for clarity on the character and what he wanted to see. We got to a place of who we wanted Justin to be and how we wanted him to look. I was already putting on a bit of size. It all worked out in the sense that the anger within the character physically came through as well.

Vincent: To add to that, in casting Andrew, it really shows how he brought out this character, because initially when I read it, he wasn’t something that Bang Bang’s character would have seen and saw the different traits and said, “This guy’s a fighter.” It wasn’t necessarily like that in the script to the degree that it is in the movie. I’m really happy that came out because in Andrew, it was a little more obvious. I feel like if Tim’s character didn’t see those little signs, why would he do that? It would actually make him a worse person to throw this kid to the wolves like that if he didn’t have these elements and this potential. His motivations aren’t clearly all that, but it’s a big part of the initial jump. Andrew brought a lot of that physicality in just his size alone, and then seeing the weaknesses as in his eye and things like that, and then it leads to where the story takes off.

PC: That’s a great point. Vincent, not only did you direct this, you also edited it as well. That’s often the stage where the film really takes its form. Were there any discoveries or themes that you made during that process that may have been less prevalent during the filming experience?
Vincent: Not really. I edit pretty quickly. To me, editing is just a part of directing now. I would never go back to having an editor. That said, I’d get a lot of opinions after having a first cut of the film. I like to really prep the movie and post as best as I can. I’m very fast. We did do one day of pick ups in post. Tim was in L.A. and we shot a couple elements of the movie that I felt were missing and that would add a bit more to his character because he’s a very brash, kind of crabby older guy who’s resentful in a lot of ways and grumpy. We added a sprinkle of a couple of moments to his character that added a bit of contrast to that. So if anything, that was one thing that came up. It added depth to the character and the ending.

PC: Tim, there’s a lot of unexpected humor within this film due to Bang Bang’s points of view and the things that he says, which is something that he becomes known for. How much of what we see is scripted versus improvised? How were you able to toe that line so seamlessly and push it while keeping this character so grounded?
Tim: There was a degree of improvisation. But anything that I do that’s funny in the movie, even if I improvised it, I took from Will’s script. Will is the guy who came up with this character. If I did some improvising, I still give credit to him for any of it, and to Vince for editing it in the right way and curating it in the right way. There’s probably some stuff that got left on the cutting room floor that should be there.

My attitude is that the director is the conductor, and I’m the instrumentalist. It’s like jazz conducting because you can improvise and stray a little bit within the modal parameters or what have you. I like to give the director as much as I can and as much variation as I can so that he or she can have more to work with and have the confidence that I’ve done my work in prep that none of that is going to be a waste of time. Meaning, I’m never going to go so far that it’s not going to be useful in one way, shape, or form. I don’t like to waste the director’s time. It should always be about the character, not the actor.

Vincent: You know what’s interesting about that, Tim? It’s rare for a director to see that jumping-off point. For me, it was when I saw the accent that you did. It transformed you in such an instant way. When I saw that, I was like, “Oh, wow. He’s going for it.” I don’t know if you want to go into that, but that’s something that I admired the hell out of. It was like one day you just started doing this accent. I don’t know what the work you did, but it was awesome.

Tim: Thanks. It was very helpful. But again, I felt that if I didn’t do that, I wasn’t giving you what you needed as a director and what the character written merited or demanded because anybody that’s that specific to a place who grew up in the middle of the last century, before the internet, is going to have a dialect of that place. And that’s true with Bang Bang. I think that movies, as sort of an archival phenomenon, are going to be a great gift to future generations because accents are disappearing, dialects are disappearing. But that’s the truth of the character. It always seemed to me, and maybe it’s a weakness, but also a strength for me as an actor, that dialect is really freeing for me.

Andrew: Also, your work with David Atherton and how you guys completely crafted the look of who Bang Bang is was awesome. It inspired me to sit down and talk to David and be like, how do we make Justin freaky? How do we make him look like he’s been through it with the eye and the eyebrows? It was very inspiring for me to get myself into this character as well.

Tim: He’s referring to a makeup artist with whom I work pretty much on every film now. His name is David Atherton. He’s not only a gift in terms of my own performance, but when I can bring him to indie films where I’m also a producer and the director is open, which to Vince’s credit he was, this is a guy who has a theater and acting background, but who loves what he does as a makeup artist. He’s a little older than I am, but he’s just a magician at helping an actor build characters that are transformative.

PC: Andrew, there’s such an interesting parallel between boxing and acting, and how a film set feels like stepping into the ring. You’ve spoken so highly about this filming experience. What did you learn about your own craft having collaborated with everyone that you’ll bring to your next film?
Andrew: A lot of things. Watching Tim and Vince sit down and talk about everything and how they operate and work was extremely inspiring from an acting front, and seeing how many different things Tim would try, but all within the realism of who Bang Bang is. It pushed me in a way to give as much as I could possibly give and let the director take whatever they want to take.

I connect a lot of sports to how I approach acting. It’s all in preparation. At the end of the day, if you’re not prepared, it’s a crapshoot. I prepared a lot for this film. Everyone was super passionate about it. I think you can see that passion in the film. That’s another thing that I learned is that it didn’t feel like work, which sounds cliché, but it felt like we wanted to make something special.

Make sure to follow Vincent (X/Instagram) and Andrew (Instagram). Screenings for Bang Bang at Tribeca below:

• SVA Theatre – Tue June 11 – 5:00 PM
• AMC 19th St. East 6 – Fri June 14 – 9:15 PM
• Village East by Angelika – Sat June 15 – 2:15 PM