Pop-Culturalist.com

Cassius Corrigan is a firm believer that you have to bet on yourself. It’s a lesson he learned while directing, producing, starring in, and writing his first feature film, Huracán. The psychological thriller, which follows an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter suffering from multiple personality disorder, has caught the eyes of not only HBO but also the New York Times. Pop Culturalist caught up with Cassius to learn more about his start as an artist, Huracán, and the biggest takeaway from the project.

PC: How did you discover your passion for the arts?
Cassius: It’s actually so coincidental that it feels like destiny. I ended up getting an academic scholarship to USC. I went there with the intention to become an entrepreneur. Growing up, I always had these little side hustles, like the neighborhood lemonade stand when I was a kid to a mobile car washing business. I loved having an idea for something and seeing it come to fruition, but Miami is not a hub for the arts, so to speak.

It wasn’t until I got to USC that I discovered they had a film program there. I was taking a business class and one of the students told me that if you took a film class, they did it in a movie theater. I was like, “Man, that sounds pretty great. I can take classes in a theater. That sounds like fun.” To make a very long story short, I took my interest and passion for literature, because I’d always grown up loving books and reading voraciously, and my passion for entrepreneurship, and when I discovered filmmaking, it seemed like the perfect blend of those two skill sets.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Cassius: I would say iconic filmmakers from Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola to new-wave Latin filmmakers like Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, who for me are trailblazers and role models that I look up to. They set such high standards in filmmaking for originality and creativity. It pushes me further, and I’m so grateful for that.

In a more personal way, I have a producer named Diomedes Raul Bermudez. He’s been a mentor to me, and he’s the lead producer of Huracán. We just made our second movie together this past winter. He really holds me accountable and pushes me further and has the highest expectations someone could have for me and I love that. I love that kind of pressure. It’s something I like living up to.

PC: Tell us about Huracán and the inspiration behind the film.
Cassius: Huracán is a psychological thriller about an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter who suffers from multiple personality disorder. It’s very much designed to live in the same lineage as Black Swan and Whiplash—these darker stories of a bit mentally unhinged or unstable characters who become obsessed to the point of self-destruction of their craft. In this case, it’s the sport of MMA. The genesis for the film was my passion for and interest in martial arts and my long-standing interest in abnormal psychology. I was at a point in my career where I felt I’ve been writing and directing in the commercial and music video space—obviously a bunch of short films and stuff like that—and working on a lot of other projects, and I felt so ready to make my first feature film.

To guarantee that I could do it, I had to design a film in such a way that it could be done on no budget, essentially. I looked at Darren Aronofsky and Christopher Nolan, and their first movies, Pi and Following, are both no-budget psychological thrillers. That’s how I understood “Okay, this is my path forward. I can demonstrate my style, my vision, my signature as a director, even with no budget in this genre,” because you’re given the opportunity to play with perception, using music and sound design in a very creative way to express your voice without it being so budget intensive that we’re not able to do it. That’s how it came together.

PC: You starred, wrote, produced, and directed the film. How challenging was it for you to wear all those different hats? At what point in the process did you realize you wanted to do it all?
Cassius: It seemed like every day more responsibilities came onto my plate. It’s been the challenge of my life so far. But also, I love challenges, so it’s been incredibly gratifying and fun for me to try and do the impossible. I did not originally set out to act in the film. I knew that I wanted to write and direct it. That remains my enduring passion. I also understood to get it made, I’ll have to produce. I would have to bring the project into existence and shepherd it and put the whole project on my shoulders, so to speak.

Once we started casting, I realized how difficult it was going to be to find someone who would be credible on the acting side with this very difficult role where we really wanted to bring a lot of authenticity and nuance and layers to the mental illness now known as dissociative identity disorder, better known as multiple personality disorder.

I knew how challenging that was going to be from a performance standpoint. Then completely unrelated, there was the MMA element, and this character would have to be credible as having trained for several years and be on the verge of becoming a professional fighter. So just casting someone and giving them two months of MMA training wouldn’t have worked, and casting a UFC professional fighter and teaching them how to act didn’t strike me as a path to success, you know?

In my limited experience studying acting, which I did to improve as a director, I learned the language and the vocabulary of actors because I love working with actors. It may be the most gratifying part of the whole process for me. I also had an implicit understanding of what my limited range was as an actor. This role happened to dovetail with that. We were at a point where we had this fantastic actress, Yara Martinez from Jane the Virgin, interested and available with very specific dates when she was available. We had Jorge Masvidal, the UFC superstar. He was also available on those same dates. I had to make the call to act in it. They’re a hundred and twelve out of a hundred and twenty scenes that we shot so that we could keep this schedule and work with the talent that I felt so lucky to have their interest and their attention.

PC: Like you were saying earlier, this is your directorial debut. What’s been the biggest takeaway from this experience?
Cassius: I really appreciate this question because I’m self-taught. I went to film school and I learned about the industry. But in terms of actual filmmaking, I had to learn a lot of it on my own. I spent four years working on this project. Two years, we were developing it before we started shooting. I was looking desperately to see what I could learn about filmmaking. What other tips or insight can I get online from other filmmakers who can share what they’ve learned? If I could share anything specific, it isn’t that the film was picked up by HBO or that the New York Times loved it. Those are things that are out of my control. Once I deliver the film, everything else is out of my control.

The biggest takeaway is that I kept moving forward. It was the decision to say “I’m going to make this movie. I’m going to design it in such a way that no one can tell me that I can’t make it. I’m going to write it so that I don’t need a lot of money—so I don’t need someone to green-light it for me.” It was taking that risk to fail. It’s like, I wrote, directed, and starred in it. It could have been looked at as this ego trip and that it was a catastrophe. It could have been so embarrassing, but I had to take that risk for the movie to come to life. That’s what I am taking from this. It’s being willing to take that risk and bet on yourself.

To keep up with Cassius, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Stream Huracán on HBO Max.

Photo Credit: Galfry Puechavy