Exclusive Interview: Filmmaker JohnPaul Morris and Stars Tanner Presswood and Simón Elias Discuss Quicksand

Filmmaker JohnPaul Morris has stars Tanner Presswood and Simón Elias are the creative team behind one of the funniest films of the year, Quicksand.

Directed and co-written by Morris, the film follows best friends Ray (Presswood) and Paul (Elias), recent college grads who are co-best men in their buddy’s wedding. But when they lose the ring just days before the ceremony, their fateful road trip to get it back accelerates into a loud exploration of life, love, and how to not die.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with filmmaker JohnPaul Morris and lead actors Tanner Presswood and Simón Elias about Quicksand, how the project defies expectations (and the budget), making films with friends, and more.

PC: JohnPaul, this script has been years in the making. What was the initial inspiration for Quicksand? How has it evolved over time and as you brought in co-writers?
JohnPaul: I started writing the script as practice. I knew that I wanted to get better at writing and I knew that I wasn’t that great to start. It’s the ultimate irony that it actually turned into my first feature and that we actually won a film festival award for Best Screenplay. Bringing on co-writers, Jake Burgess and Brody Steele, made me feel a lot more comfortable with that. They were people who held me accountable. They let me know which jokes were funny and which jokes were only funny to me. That’s invaluable feedback.

The story is very much based on me and my best friends going through our twenties—all the mistakes that we made and the things that we couldn’t seem to figure out. Obviously, it’s heightened for cinema, but it’s all emotionally true. The actual events have definitely been amplified.

PC: That’s an understatement. Tanner and Simón, what was it about this script and these particular characters that resonated with each of you?
Tanner: That’s a great question. It was the millennial aspect of it all. There is a universal truth that life is a lot harder than you think it’s going to be. It feels like when one thing is going wrong, suddenly everything is going wrong. That’s the part of the movie that I really identified with. I’m glad that plays well in the movie. You feel that when you’re watching it. It’s one thing right after another.

Simón: I agree. It’s realizing that you have to face the reality of life after you finish college. No one prepares you for that moment. This film shows that really well.

PC: JohnPaul, something that you’ve done so brilliantly with this film is that you’re able to tackle these universal themes and dilemmas that everyone faces in life through a comedic lens, and you never let audiences sit in any emotion for too long. Was that something that you were mindful of as you penned this script? Why do you think comedy lends itself to this type of storytelling?
JohnPaul: That’s a really good question. It’s one of my favorite questions that I’ve been asked so far. What’s really cool about comedy is you test it off someone’s immediate response. When you’re trying to write a joke, whether it lands or not, completely depends on whether or not people understand it. I think with dramas, you are often trying to bring someone into something new and spend a lot of time doing that. But with comedy, you can let a joke out. If it lands, it’s because it immediately makes sense. That was something that we took really seriously. It was trying to test as many of the jokes as we could with our writing team, but then also literally getting together all the comedians and theater people we knew in our lives. We ran through scenes with people to see how they would react. The pace of the film and the speed of it were a bit based out of fear that if there was something that didn’t land, we would move on to the next thing. It’s not theater where you get that immediate feedback of hearing people laugh or not. The film is stuck the way that it is once you send it to theaters. We definitely wanted to keep the film moving as much as possible. We picked out our favorite moments and jokes and gave those some air.

PC: Tanner and Simón, the film doesn’t work unless you believe the friendship between Ray and Paul, and the two of you truly brought that bromance to life on screen. How did you build that bond?
Tanner: It was pretty easy because Simón is great.

Simón: Thank you, Tanner. We were really lucky that we quickly became friends. Early on, we started working on our characters and our relationship outside of the film, so that when we started you would believe that friendship. That was important to us because we knew it had to be authentic for it to show off on screen. We wanted to approach these characters and their friendship truthfully and help audiences connect with them and push the story forward.

Tanner: Simón was coming up from Bogota, Columbia. We only had a couple of weeks to spend together. Before he even flew up, we were having Zoom conversations to get to know each other. As soon as he came up, we went on day trips together to help him get to know Michigan a bit better. We showed him the main sights like the Sleeping Bear Dunes and invited him over to dinner. I introduced him to my wife and we hung out as much as we possibly could when we weren’t shooting. We were spending weekends together, running lines, and just being bros. By the end of the shoot, Simón and I had a rapport that wasn’t too dissimilar from Ray and Paul’s where I felt like Simón had my back throughout this whole process. It was really special.

PC: JohnPaul, you also have experience acting as well. As you’ve started directing and writing, have you found that your experience as an actor has influenced the way that you collaborate with your cast?
JohnPaul: Yeah, and better I would say. The only reason that I’ve done any acting whatsoever was to try and improve my directing. I used to be a DP and found that I had a real knack for directing. But I had also taken full advantage of ignoring actors every time I was on set because I was a bit introverted. If I didn’t have to interact with the thespians, I would walk a wide circle around them.

As I got more and more interested in directing, I started to love working with the performers. I realized I was way behind on this. So I started shadowing other directors that I really liked. Those directors would be like, “If you’re around, stand there, and here are your lines.” That was the only acting that I’ve really done. It was to get practice for directing. I was very much unraveling it from the inside. I hope it paid off. I still have a ton to learn, but it was a fun perspective.

PC: It definitely did. Simón, in addition to the incredible work that you’ve done on screen, you’ve also directed and produced in the past. How have your experiences behind the camera impacted the way that you approach your work on screen and interpret scripts and characters like Paul and Quicksand?
Simón: One of the main things that I’ve learned, whether I’m behind the camera or in front of it, is to stick to your job on that day. If you start thinking about all the other stuff, you’re going to be stressed and thinking, “I would have done it this way.” You have to respect everyone’s jobs and trust the director, the filmmakers, the crew, and the cast. Focus on your work and do the best that you can. It’s not your job to focus on other people’s jobs. That’s the secret.

PC: Tanner, your character is able to play in both the comedy and the drama. You brought so much nuance to his journey. There’s a moment where he confronts the fact that he’s been so scared about making the wrong decision that he’s made no decision for himself. How did you prepare for that scene in particular? How did that differ from the others that you shot for the film?
Tanner: Good question. That was a hard scene. We shot it very late at night. It was one that Simón and I knew was incredibly important. We didn’t have a lot of time to shoot it. We had multiple cameras going. I remember Simón and I were sitting in a car running lines over and over and over again, so that when we were in the moment, we weren’t trying to recall the lines, we were just feeling the beats. I feel like the pressure that we felt shooting that scene because it was the end of a very long night and we didn’t have much time, helped the pressure the characters are experiencing in that moment when they don’t know where they’re going, but everything is collapsing around them. They have no path forward. It worked in the scene’s favor. Sometimes the realism came from the journey of making the film, which was an adventure all on its own. Those two things played well together. That scene is a good example of that.

PC: Quicksand is an independent feature and you all shot it on a tight timeline, but you could never tell from an audience perspective, and it’s done incredibly well on the festival circuit. Is there a scene in particular that you’re really excited for audiences to see?
Simón: I think the gas station one is a really good one. Also, the last scene.

JohnPaul: The last scene that we can’t talk about without major spoilers.

Tanner: The scene in the park at night, the one right before the scene that you were just talking about, where we have some nice, well-intentioned citizens watching us from a window…

Simón: Sorry to interrupt you. But with Quicksand, every scene gets better and better. Every scene has more comedy and more action.

JohnPaul: Yeah, that’s one of the things that I look forward to the most, especially now that people are familiar with the trailer. When we first started showing the film, there was no trailer. We didn’t get a trailer until a few months after we were on the film festival circuit. I love that the trailer gives away nearly nothing and yet still catches people’s attention.

I’m excited for people to be able to watch this on Apple TV+ and feel the moment when the story leaves the trailer and keeps going and accelerating. There are a lot of surprises and twists. It’s a constant acceleration that really betrays the budget and the scale of the production. I’m really proud of that. I’m always excited for people to have that out-of-theater experience and not know how much further things are going to keep going because it contradicts expectations on a few levels.

PC: This is a film of firsts for all of you. What did you learn about your craft being a part of this project?
Simón: How amazing it is to shoot a film with your friends; people who are talented, good people, and hard workers. Quicksand has all that. We had an amazing crew and cast. They all became my friends. I really enjoyed that. I hope I can keep working with them.

Tanner: I agree with that. I also learned that budget doesn’t really matter. The things that matter are heart and dedication. That’s something that this team has in spades. There were very long and hard days. Everybody was probably getting paid less than they deserved to be paid, except for maybe me. [laughs] But we got the job done and we had a great time doing it. The end product demonstrates that there was a lot of love that went into this.

JohnPaul: I tested a theory that I’ve been babysitting in my brain, which is what happens when you create a platform for all the most talented people in your life to do what they’re good at. As a director, I just hold it together. I let everyone do their best, and my only job is to keep it cohesive. Some days, it felt like I had the easier job. I’m walking away from Quicksand thinking, “I think that worked.”

Make sure to follow JohnPaul (Instagram), Tanner (Instagram), and Simón (Instagram). Quicksand is available in select theaters and wherever you stream movies.