Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Breach’s John Suits

Director John Suits brings us behind the scenes of his new sci-fi film Breach. Breach follows a junior mechanic on the cusp of fatherhood who sneaks abroad an interstellar spaceship to New Earth in order to protect his family. We had the pleasure of speaking with John about Breach, what it was like working with Bruce Willis and Thomas Jane, and how his experience working on 3022 helped prepare him for Breach.

PC: Tell us about Breach.
John: Breach is a sci-fi thriller where its arc is about going to New Earth, but there’s an alien on board the ship that’s infecting the crew and creating problems for everyone.

PC: You’re somebody that reads thousands upon thousands of scripts. What was it about this particular project that stood out to you?
John: It’s interesting because I had just done a spaceship movie about the end of the world called 3022. I was in post on it and a producer that I’ve worked with before, Danny Roth, contacted me. He said, “Hey, I’ve got another spaceship movie. It’s got Bruce Willis in it,” and to me that sounded like fun. I’m a huge fan of Bruce Willis and grew up watching his movies. It seemed like an awesome opportunity, and it’s fun for me too because tone wise, this film is very different from the space movie I had previously done. It has a lot of action, and you’re on a ride the entire time. I thought that seemed like a good challenge. That’s what got me involved.

PC: You’ve quickly built an impressive résumé as a sci-fi director. How has your previous experience working on 3022 prepared you for this film?
John: It’s always tough when you’re working with a smaller budget and you have to figure things out. Building a spaceship is always hard. [laughs] On 3022, we built a lot of it in a parking lot actually. The stage was too small, so most of the sets were in a parking lot, and it was really hot. That was a good experience because I know now that you need to have a large enough space.

On this one, we shot in Fitzgerald, Georgia, which is a town that’s had a lot of productions going on, and it has great people and an awesome community that loves film. There was an old gym that we basically built a spaceship set on. That’s the hard part when you’re working in this genre and you don’t have a budget. You need to figure out how to be creative and how to maximize your budget and get the most on screen. That’s always a big piece of it.

In this situation, we had fifteen days to shoot. It was a very aggressive shooting schedule to do all the genre beats and actions beats. To fit them all in, it requires a lot of planning and a great crew. I worked with the DP, Will Stone, a lot, and he’s great. We have a good shorthand and came up with an approach to maximize our time. It was a really fun experience.

PC: The film features a nice mixture of up-and-coming actors and Hollywood legends like Bruce Willis and Thomas Jane. What was it like collaborating with them?
John: It was awesome. Working with Bruce is amazing. He has such a good attitude, and he’s great. You put a camera on him and he’s an icon. That was really fun for me. Thomas Jane was amazing to work with. He had a really calm presence and is a really great guy. He’s incredibly professional. Rachel Nichols I’ve worked with in the past, and she’s amazing. Cody Kearsley, our lead, is a really awesome guy and great to collaborate with. It was a great cast, and they’re all really fun. Being in a small town, you get to spend a lot of time together because everybody after the shoot would just hang out.

PC: For you as a director, what was the biggest takeaway working on this project? What did you learn about yourself?
John: This was the first time that I was brought onto a project later in the process and only as a director. That was very different for me. There were a lot of fun parts to that and a lot of learnings I got out of it. Every shoot, there’s always that Murphy’s Law that where if things can go wrong, they will. You have to figure out how to adjust and learn from every shoot. That’s always been my thing with every movie. It’s figuring out how to adjust when there are obstacles. When you’re working in sci-fi, it requires a lot of pivoting and a lot of thinking on your feet.

PC: With the film out now, what do you hope audiences take away?
John: I hope they have fun. I hope they’re along for the ride. Once it gets going, it’s challenge after challenge. They’re trying to survive this onslaught.

Breach is in select theaters, On Demand, and on digital now.