Exclusive Interview: Filmmakers Daniel Robbins, Zack Weiner, and Joe Gallagher on Blurring the Lines Between Reality and Narrative in ‘Citizen Weiner’

Filmmakers Daniel Robbins, Zack Weiner, and Joe Gallagher knew their political run was more than just a campaign—it was a chance to redefine storytelling. With Citizen Weiner, they blur the lines between reality and narrative, embracing the performative nature of politics to craft a film that pushes boundaries without following the traditional rules. Their bold vision transforms both politics and filmmaking into something fresh, daring, and completely original.

At the heart of this project is Zack Weiner, an actor based in New York’s Upper West Side. When the film industry came to a standstill during COVID, Zack and his friend Joe embarked on a creative venture: to run for New York’s city council while making a film about it. This wasn’t just a candidacy—it was an experiment in how storytelling could intertwine with real-life politics.

Zack and his team worked closely with their community, aiming to make a tangible difference in the lives of their fellow West Siders. Despite their efforts, the campaign initially struggled to gain attention. But through a series of unconventional moves, they propelled their underdog campaign into the spotlight of NYC politics.

Pop Culturalist had the privilege of catching up with Daniel, Zack, and Joe ahead of the film’s digital release to explore the creative process behind Citizen Weiner, their innovative approach to storytelling, and how they turned an unexpected political run into a groundbreaking cinematic experience.

PC: Daniel, when Citizen Weiner made its world premiere at Slamdance, audiences had little knowledge of the twist revealed at the end. You’ve now gone back and edited the film, building more context clues leading up to that moment. How soon after the festival did you realize you wanted to rework those elements? How involved were Joe and Zack in that process, given that this is their brainchild?
Daniel: We’re all pretty much equally involved in terms of the edit. We all give notes, and whatever the best idea is rises to the top. After Slamdance, there were some minor edits, but the main one was how we handled the reveal at the end. When you’re familiar with the twist and expect it, you think just showing the information will be enough. But because it’s such an emotional seesaw to accept, we realized we needed more of a build-up to that moment so it would resonate with people. At the screening, some got it immediately, some were whispering with their neighbors and didn’t understand it until later, some needed the Q&A to catch on, and a few even walked out thinking the whole thing was a documentary. It’s been a wide range of reactions. But with this team, and with Zack’s mom’s help, we found the right balance.

PC: Zack’s mom is the star of this film. Zack and Joe, you’ve described Citizen Weiner as a “reality movie,” blending elements where you relied on the ensemble to drive the story forward while also interacting with real people on the street and on those Zoom calls who had no idea you were making a film. Can you talk about how you found that intersection between reality and storytelling while being intentional in ensuring that the joke was never on the community? How did you toe that line?
Zack: Joe, do you want to take this one as the campaign manager? You really spearheaded the mechanics of all those interactions.

Joe: The whole movie came from a place of real frustration with politics—that was a genuine issue we were observing. We earnestly discussed ideas in the neighborhood and had real conversations with people. We always respected the role of public servants and what they were offering to the community. But at the same time, we’re colorful characters surrounded by colorful characters. You mentioned Zack’s mom—the whole ensemble brought different personalities than you’d typically see on a political campaign. It was the right mix of people and this slightly off-kilter idea that created a magical combustion. Hopefully, you and others enjoyed that.

Zack: We had real ideas. We didn’t expect to win, but we thought maybe by some miracle, we could.

Joe: We hoped we could at least impact policy. When Zack debated other candidates, he was in the arena. At that point, when he said or suggested something, it had to be taken somewhat seriously. There were many ideas we earnestly believed in. Zack wanted to talk about startup retail, and there was a big win recently with Mayor Adams changing zoning laws that support that idea.

Zack: That was our idea—filling stores.

Daniel: You guys might have influenced that.

Zack: Probably. We were the key deciding factor, changing minds all the way to the top. [laughs] We were intentional about making sure the joke was always on us, not a prank on the people we were interacting with—especially in a place like the Upper West Side, where people are naturally skeptical of politicians. A lot of the humor came from watching them try to size us up. It wasn’t about tricking the average voter. We were just openly campaigning in a very bizarre fashion, and that dynamic was the funniest part. Seeing people taken aback by the almost circus-like nature was the point. Almost all candidates were performing to some extent, trying to entertain and meet voters where they were. We were just a little more cartoonish in our approach.

PC: Zack, your initial idea was about a politician who benefits from a scandal, told through a narrative lens. While you didn’t win the election, you did get more votes after the reveal. What does that say about our society, or is Joe just a really great campaign manager?
Zack: Joe is an excellent campaign manager. He could definitely be very successful in mainstream politics. I don’t think we would’ve gotten as many votes as we did without him. That said, if Gale Brewer hadn’t been in the race, we might have had a better chance. We had the endorsement of the more conservative faction, and even some on the left, including a campaign manager for one of the top candidates, who openly supported us and liked us as their second choice. We straddled that line. But there’s also an element of truth to the idea that there’s no such thing as bad press. All PR is good PR. The way we embraced the situation and refused to be ashamed really resonated with voters. Often, when people handle a scandal by apologizing, the more they apologize, the more they lose. It’s like admitting defeat. They’re perceived as weak. But if you’re unapologetic, it’s more fun, and that’s the kind of person voters want—someone who can’t be brought down so easily.

Joe: It also helped that you didn’t really have anything to apologize for.

Zack: That too. I didn’t do anything wrong—it was just really embarrassing.

Daniel: This Friday (October 11th) is the Jewish Day of Atonement, and Zack is famously the only Jew I know who doesn’t atone.

Zack: Don’t say that! It makes me sound terrible. I do atone.

Daniel: That’s his new policy ever since he became a half-politician. It’s his new approach.

Zack: I atone without shame.

PC: The takeaway from the film: don’t apologize for anything. Even before the scandal could be revealed, you had to get Zack on the ballot. That process led to a lot of creativity and hilarious moments where it’s so ridiculous, but also a quirk of this city. If you go anywhere outside of the Big Apple, I think it starts to raise eyebrows. Can you talk a bit about the brainstorming process for figuring out how to not only get those signatures, but also do it tonally with the film?
Daniel: The signatures were all Joe. He handled the campaign work, figuring out how to get on the ballot. He didn’t even have a consultant—just Google and his own research. He found Dan Bright, our campaign lawyer, who’s in the film and helped us navigate the loopholes, like getting triple the number of signatures in case some were disqualified. The signature collection gave the film a nice structure, with everything leading up to Election Day. We also thought the interactions with people while collecting signatures were naturally funny. Each actor had their own ideas on how to make it hilarious—whether it was Joe chasing joggers, Sarah [Coffey] dancing at Lincoln Center, James [D. Watson] aggressively going after people relaxing in the park, or Aaron [Dalla Villa] trying to sell things on the side while gathering signatures. Each person brought their own spin, which made for a fun sequence.

Zack: From a cinematic perspective, when you’re trying to get signatures or hand things out in New York, it’s annoying—you’re bothering people. But when the people doing it are entertaining, it’s a breath of fresh air for those who are used to being peppered with requests. Instead of just another person asking for a signature, it’s someone singing, chasing after you, or offering free ice cream. We were a little clownish, asking for a kidney while getting signatures or pretending to deal drugs—just kidding, but kind of. Hopefully, people found it entertaining.

PC: You all accomplished what you set out to do, bringing humor and levity during a time that feels so bleak. Zack, you’re the face of the campaign, and much like a politician, there’s this facade you have to embody, especially when you’re hiding the filmmaking aspect of it. Did you feel that pressure when you were doing those debates? Would this project have been completely scrapped if the public or other candidates found out what you were doing? What was the contingency plan?
Zack: From day one, our approach was to fully embrace the identity. Inside the house, when we were alone and the cameras were off, we’d talk about the project openly. But every time I left the house, I never thought, “We’re off the clock, the cameras are off, I can go back to being an actor.” It was always, “I am the candidate.” Even up to the very end, there was no way to prove we weren’t legitimate. You can call it a mockumentary, but at the same time, we were on the ballot. If enough people voted for the so-called “mockumentary candidate,” you’d have a mockumentary politician in office—so, the joke would be on them. They doubted us at their own peril.

PC: Daniel, you mentioned Dan Bright, the election lawyer, and he’s such a character in the film, but he’s not an actor. Were you casting him for the film or hiring him for the campaign? How much did you tell him upfront about what you were doing, or did you keep it vague to capture those genuine reactions?
Daniel: That’s such a good question. I don’t know. Joe, what did you tell him?

Joe: He was actually the second lawyer I called. The first was Rudy Giuliani’s election lawyer because we all thought that would be the funniest choice. Giuliani was in the news a lot, and we figured his lawyer would be kind of a character. So I talked to him, and he quoted me something like $30,000 to $50,000. He said, “I’ll do it for $50,000.” I was like, “Well, I’ll have to get back to you”—but probably not, because we weren’t going to spend $50K. So then I called Dan Bright. I just told him we were filming a documentary about local politics and asked if we could film the first time we met. He agreed, and he just did his thing. [laughs] I remember at one point, he pointed at the camera and said, “You guys are going to want to start filming this.” Then he started rattling off—boom, boom, boom—just like you see in the movie. What you see on screen is exactly what it was like in the room.

Zack: He took no coaching whatsoever.

Joe: None.

PC: Wait, so that rant was genuine? It wasn’t something you went back and filmed after revealing the secret?
Zack: It was genuine in the sense that we didn’t give him any preparation. But I don’t think he behaves that way naturally without a camera. In some way, he was definitely playing to the camera, but no, we didn’t coach him or script anything. That was all from our first meeting.

Daniel: He’s really become a partner on the project. He has such funny and smart ideas, and he’s given us great input on the edits.

Zack: He even came to Slamdance.

Daniel: Yeah, he came to Slamdance.

Zack: And he’s also a great lawyer. He’s done amazing work for the working man, unions, and all kinds of people. It all comes from a really good place.

Daniel: I think someone at Slamdance asked him if he was concerned about how people might perceive him as a lawyer, and he said, “Fu*k ’em.”

PC: You all took a big gamble that this scandal would be picked up by the media. In the film, we see that in the early days it wasn’t getting much traction, but eventually, it does. How much of what we see in the film reflects what actually happened? What was the backup plan if things hadn’t worked in your favor?
Zack: There are parts we left out where Joe was in constant communication with the media, trying to get ahead of the story and control the narrative once it was out. The plan, if it didn’t work, was absolute devastation—gloom and misery.

Daniel: We’d have just ended it on a very depressing note.

Zack: The movie might have been ruined. The only people who would have seen the video would be the people I know, and I wouldn’t be able to say it was for something bigger. It would’ve just looked like this bizarre campaign exposed my personal life to a small community. No mockumentary, just an embarrassing exposé.

Daniel: One scene in the movie that’s very real is when the video leaked. We expected it to get picked up right away, but it didn’t. When Zack’s asking, “What do we do? We can’t film the next scene,” that was genuine. Zack was devastated, Joe was devastated, and I was devastated. Zack was lying in bed, feeling like this was a year of documenting failure—failing to get votes, failing to get attention. That was real. Then Joe stayed in touch with the press and, through a few maneuvers, finally got it the attention we needed.

Zack: I was so sad, so upset.

Joe: The truth is, there was no plan B. I guess plan B would’ve been to just accept the reality. But we were like, “We have to make this go viral.” We fought tooth and nail to make it happen.

PC: The line you all toed between blurred reality and fiction is going to be a big conversation starter when this comes out on digital platforms. Zack, you touched on this already, but you’re a filmmaker first, but you and Joe also worked on real solutions for the community. Have any of those ideas since been adopted by Gale? Have you thought about pitching a sequel where you run with her slogan, “Again!”?
Zack: As for Gale, she’s been corrupt and dangerous for the neighborhood and the city.

Daniel: Whoa.

Zack: I would challenge her if it came to that. It’s true—she’s been a scourge on our local storefronts, shutting many down.

Daniel: Are you running again?

Zack: I’m just saying, this is the truth. I hold grudges.

Daniel: I think Gale’s great. I hope she doesn’t hold anything against him.

Zack: Well, you didn’t have to go to battle with her like I did. In terms of a sequel or follow-up, I’d be very interested in doing something else in this realm—maybe something related to lobbying. It could be a fun reality movie or even a reality TV show where we run a lobbying firm, using the same mix of entertainment and real involvement, but with minimal donations. I think the era of prank shows, or even news satire, has faded because politics has become so ridiculous. It’s not about making fun of serious people proposing absurd ideas anymore; now, it’s about mocking ridiculous politicians pushing dangerous ideas.

People want humor that also has minimal consequences. We’re being a little facetious saying we had a major impact on Eric Adams, but our ideas—like startup retail and changing the way storefronts are used—are happening. They’ve rezoned the storefronts, and we’ll probably see them fill up again. I’d love to do something else in this space, though I don’t know if everyone else feels the same. Mixing movies with politics is something I’d love to continue.

Joe: There’s a natural overlap between movies and politics.

Zack: Exactly. If we got financing for another movie, I could run again. I think I’d do pretty well.

Daniel: Lincoln lost his first election, and so did your favorite politician.

Zack: When we screened the movie in San Francisco, I was really nervous. Slamdance is more film-oriented with filmmakers expecting off-the-wall stuff, but San Francisco had an older, more serious crowd—establishment types and wealthy people. I thought they’d be offended, like we were mocking politics. But after the screening, people came up to me, including folks who knew and worked with some of my opponents. They loved it because they’d tried running long-shot bids themselves and had trouble getting attention. They said, “You guys figured out how to get attention.” Even though our method was unconventional, it worked. If you make a movie, the message lives on, even in a failed campaign. That can be a model—getting something entertaining and meaningful out of it. And if I ran again, I think I could do pretty well.

Daniel: Yeah, you have a campaign that was filmed, and once that film is out, everyone knows about you and your platform. It’s almost like a campaign strategy.

Zack: It’s one giant campaign ad that’s fun to watch, and we were genuinely trying to do something positive. None of our ideas were mean or harmful—we were trying to improve things.

Daniel: Look at Zelenskyy, who played a politician on a comedy show, and now he’s leading Ukraine. People could see Zack in that same light.

Zack: We had no money for the campaign. We spent the legal minimum while others spent $100,000 or more. Joe put in his blood, sweat, and tears running the campaign, and I spent hours on Zoom—basically became an emoji.

There are a lot more young people in the neighborhood now, and many who voted for Gale last time think things have gone downhill. If we ran again, I think we’d win a sweeping victory, and the movie would continue into City Hall. It could become a franchise.

Daniel: That would be fun.

PC: You should go back and find the guy in Central Park who asked about your platform, and show him this film to prove you’ve been planning this all along. I feel like at the premiere, Zack is going to announce that he’s running again.
Daniel: That’s how you should start the Q&A: “Now that I’ve gathered everyone here…”

Zack: “Please donate to my campaign because I’m interested in relaunching my campaign.”

Daniel: It’s actually kind of brilliant.

PC: I hope all 750 people come back and watch this film.
Zack: It was closer to a thousand.

PC: Wait, what? Wasn’t it 750?
Joe: At a certain point, they stopped counting. It was 750 when we stopped filming, but more votes were counted the next day.

Daniel: If they had counted every vote, Zack could have been in second place. That was the rumor.

PC: That makes me feel a lot better. I thought Joe’s math was really bad, and he was rounding 750 to 1,000, which would have been a stretch.
Joe: On one of them, the official number was 986.

Daniel: We thought about doing a sequence at the end of the movie where Zack doesn’t believe the count. But things got a little too real. [laughs] We had to back off.

Zack: That would have been in poor taste.

PC: Going back to what we were saying earlier, the film serves as a great reminder that filmmaking is meant to be fun and bring joy, especially in times when everything feels so bleak. I think this project is going to put a smile on everyone’s face. For each of you, what was your favorite behind-the-scenes moment that didn’t fit into the story but you remember?
Zack: My favorite was with Joe and Sarah Coffey. During the time when we weren’t gaining any traction with the video, it felt like the movie was a failure. We went down to Riverside Park at magic hour, and I was bemoaning the state of things. Meanwhile, Sarah was having a great week on TikTok, so she wasn’t as invested in the movie initially. Joe kept insisting everything was going to be fine. It became a touching moment—Sarah, who had refused to put anything from the movie on her TikTok, finally did, but it failed. That moment was fun for me because I completely lost track of everything. I was with some of my best friends, and worst case, the movie flops, but we had fun making it. You don’t always get that, especially with big-budget films. It was nice.

Daniel: The energy of the project was the same as with the campaign—low budget, run it with your friends. The movie was like, “pick up a camera and make it with your friends.” We had a cinematographer, Alex [J. Hufschmid], and a sound mixer, Mark David Chapman, on some days, but mostly it was just us. There’s a ton of footage that didn’t make it in, like Zack and Joe doing a ton of Zooms and campaign work. We had a plotline where Aaron was supposed to infiltrate Gale’s campaign. I followed him for days, going to rallies, handing out flyers for her. He even talked to her campaign manager. It was a funny plotline, but it didn’t fit the story. Me and Aaron spent hours campaigning for Gale, and that didn’t make the movie. That might’ve been the difference.

Zack: That’s why she won—you pushed her over the edge.

Joe: My favorite days were the ones Daniel mentioned, where we were all packed into Zack’s mom’s apartment. Those were the best. We’d eat pizza, salad, whatever. I can’t think of a specific moment, but I loved the shoot Zack referred to—it was so pretty, magic hour, and Zack was in such despair while Sarah was pretending not to be. It was funny. Overall, like Daniel said, it was fun being together, making something with your friends.

Zack: I didn’t enjoy those days as much [laughs]. That usually meant we were campaigning, which was stressful because I had to pretend to be a different person—moving differently, adopting different mannerisms. Those were scary days for me, but everyone else seemed to have fun. I would love to run again if we had a significant campaign treasury because then I think we could make it go so much further. I’d want to have floats going up and down Broadway. This is crazy, but they let you manufacture pharmaceuticals in your home now.

Daniel: What does that have to do with anything?

Zack: I think that’s something to invest in as a city. We could cut prices way down.

Daniel: People making Tylenol in their living room?

Zack: Not Tylenol, but prescription drugs.

Joe: You know what was a funny day that didn’t make it? The after-party of the panel discussion—it was lit.

Make sure to follow Daniel (X/Instagram), Zack (Instagram), and Joe (Instagram) Preorder Citizen Weiner on iTunes today.