Exclusive Interview: Writer-Director Dillon Tucker Talks ‘Pure O,’ Creating Art That Transcends Entertainment, and More

Dillon Tucker’s directorial debut, Pure O, is a poignant and semi-autobiographical film about a rehab counselor (Daniel Dorr) who questions his sanity after being diagnosed with a crippling form of OCD known as Pure Obsessional. With the help of his friends, a therapy group, and his addiction recovery clients, he discovers the life-affirming power of community in order to fight through the darkest moment of his life.

It’s a film that has transcended entertainment and one that has created a lasting impression on audiences, and was nominated for the grand jury award at SXSW 2023.

Pop Culturalist was fortunate to catch up with Dillon to discuss the digital release of Pure O, the impact he and the film have had on audiences, why it was important to him as both a sufferer and filmmaker to incorporate humor and highlight that juxtaposition, and more.

PC: Pure O is such a personal story to you and your own OCD diagnosis more than eight years ago. You were really intentional about creating that outline and setting it down until you were ready to write it. How did you ultimately know when was the right time?
Dillon: That’s just one of those things that’s an intuitive process. I knew that I wanted to write it in the space where I was past everything and I wasn’t in the middle of it. But I also wanted to do it soon after that, where I’d moved on with my life, but I didn’t want to be so far removed where I was so far gone. Our memories as humans are tricky things. Sometimes you start forgetting things. I wanted to write it while I was in that space where I could remember everything, access everything, remember the conversations, and remember what was happening in my life but not be so far removed from it that I had completely moved on and started forgetting things.

For me, that time came right during the pandemic. That was a very self-reflective time for most of us. So I had written something else and was trying to think about what to write next. How did I know? I knew because I had found that outline that I had written, and I read everything and it didn’t trigger me. I was reading it, and it didn’t hurt to read it. I was like, “I think I’m in a good place.” I’ve moved on. I feel like I can write about this from an objective place. There is obviously going to be personal bias because it’s my own story. But I could be as objective as possible. I felt like I was in that space.

PC: That opening scene in the film is so powerful. It makes you think that it’s going in one direction, but you take audiences on a completely different journey. How early on in the writing process did you know you wanted to begin the film with these horror elements and divert expectations?
Dillon: From the very beginning, I knew that I wanted to do that because OCD is so misunderstood. That’s how it’s normally depicted in the media. You either have this serial killer who has OCD or the quirky friend, so I knew that I really wanted to subvert audience expectations and that I wanted to set it up thinking that and then very quickly show that’s not it at all. He’s a normal human who’s dealing with OCD. So I wanted to try and flip it on its head and subvert expectations. That was an intentional choice from the outset. It was there from the first draft and that never changed.

PC: Something else that you did so brilliantly with this film is the ways in which you were able to interject moments of levity and humor, which feel like such a good slice of life, and that even in the darkest of times, you can’t help but laugh. I was so engrossed by what was happening between Cooper and Emily and all these different characters that I missed it in the first watch, but it’s a testament to you and the writing that with every new watch, you learn something new and observe something new. How early on did you know you wanted to have that juxtaposition and contrast? Why was that so important to you as a filmmaker?
Dillon: I love that. Everything that you outlined was a very specific choice in the writing and the creation of the project. That’s really true to life. We as human beings, it’s all messy. We laugh when we’re not supposed to. It’s a lot. It’s a release of energy. I had a professor at drama school who used to always talk about that just as an actor and finding those moments. She would share anecdotes about a story where after her mother died and her sister and she had to go to the mortuary, and something happened, I think one of them farted when they were looking at their mother’s corpse, and all of a sudden they started laughing, and the mortician was looking at them all weirded out.

That’s such a true-to-life moment; in the darkest of times, you’re inherently looking for the light. I knew that I wanted there to be humor in the film, and I knew that I didn’t want it to be ha-ha humor. I knew that I wanted that humor to come from circumstances and to come from life and come from the situational humor that was happening. I tried to be very conscious of that in the writing. It’s dealing with really heavy issues. It’s dealing with taboo issues. But I don’t do bleak. I didn’t want it to be bleak. I wanted the tone to be bittersweet yet hopeful. So in order to achieve that, whenever in the writing, I felt like it was heavy for a while, I’d make sure that I would mine it to find some life moments where they could stop and laugh because that’s OCD too.

People with OCD are incredibly self-aware individuals. That goes hand in hand with them, even though they’re dealing with really heavy issues. They have like a dual brain. They’re also completely aware of it at the same time. A lot of people, even when they’re stuck in a theme or in a spin cycle of anxiety, are able to still step away from that and laugh at the reality of their own life. You’re experiencing it, but at the same time, you’re also piercingly self-aware of how insane it all is, but you can’t stop it. That’s the nature of the illness. So I thought that tonally matching that experience with OCD would be a good juxtaposition for the film.

PC: It takes audiences on such a wild rollercoaster of emotions. There’s also such an openness in which you collaborated with your ensemble, particularly Daniel [Dorr] and Hope [Lauren], and allowing them to bring their real-life relationship into these characters as much as they were comfortable with. There’s so much discovery that was happening when the cameras were rolling, which really ties back beautifully with the themes of vulnerability and how that’s often the greatest form of courage. Did that process of creating and fostering that environment differ between Daniel and Hope since Daniel came in having done so much research and also had you as a resource as opposed to Hope who came in and was doing a lot of that discovery in the moment?
Dillon: That was something that we really spoke to that was a creative decision in the process. You can talk to Daniel and Hope more about this, but Daniel’s character is getting diagnosed and he’s reading everything furiously that he could and everything that he could find about OCD. I gave him everything.

Whereas Hope’s character was the partner of that character who had her own struggles going on in her own life. She wasn’t as invested and didn’t know as much about OCD. We actually made a conscious decision to not have Hope read anything about OCD. I didn’t want her to do that or talk to Daniel about it.

I wanted to separate them in the creative process. They’re a real-life couple and they live together. I had these conversations with Daniel where I was like, “Listen, when you’re doing your research, don’t talk to Hope about it. Keep yourself completely separate so that when we get on set and we’re filming, everything will be discovered in the process of the movie for Hope. That was a creative decision from the beginning. It worked and it ended up working very well for their performances and the film as a whole.

PC: You touched upon this already but community is such a central theme within the story and how we all need the help of others. For you as a filmmaker, who have been the people in your own life who have held that space for you and your creative endeavors, and inspired your journey?
Dillon: Oh my gosh, there have been so many people. I’m standing here right now today on the shoulders of giants. Luckily, a lot of them got to come and be a part of this film. There are a lot of people in the film that I’ve known for a long time, starting with Daniel. We went to college together. We’ve known each other for twenty years. A lot of my professors from school showed up in the film, people that I wanted to work with, and a lot of the therapists. Steve [William Gonzalez] was a mentor of mine. My creative partner, Ricky Fosheim. We grew up together since we were kids. He’s been there every step of the way. He’s been a huge champion of mine since the beginning. He was on this project with me as a producer and DP. I was literally surrounded by so many of those people—people like Jeffery Baker, Isaac Nippert, and Clint James. These people have been in my life not just as creative collaborators but also life collaborators.

That’s one of the funnest things when you’re producing, directing, and making an ensemble piece; you get to look at it and be like, “Who do I get to call? Who do I want to call from the past that I haven’t seen in a long time?” It was very formative and very meta. There was a lot about this film that was meta and that was intentional with a lot of this. We wanted to have a meta approach to making this film for a lot of reasons, but one of them was connecting with people. Some people I haven’t seen in twenty years that I was able to pick up the phone. I was incredibly fortunate, and I feel grateful that everybody said yes to me and everybody was able to come out and do this film. It’s been a full-circle experience for me.

PC: That’s so special when you have a group of collaborators who are also your friends and you create something. You also have a cameo in this film. Did you go into the writing process knowing that you wanted to star in it as well? How did that come to fruition?
Dillon: I kicked around the idea of playing the lead as well. But then we had a producing partner who had to fall off the project before we were going in. I’m wearing so many hats on this project that we decided that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. But I’ve been an actor for a really long time. I wanted to be in the sandbox playing with everybody. But also, we really wanted to have the OCD groups. I wanted to have real-life people with OCD in the group. So there are other people in the groups as well who are sufferers. I knew I wanted to have that part, and I thought there was something poetic in having that juxtaposition where I’m somebody in the group who’s just getting diagnosed and I’m lost. Then having the character who’s sort of based on me helping me. There was something meta and cool about that. I thought that was fun and a bit of an Easter egg, and also being a real-life sufferer, I felt like it was right for me to play that part. That’s how it happened.

PC: I also want to take you back to that moment at SXSW during the audience Q&A where a young lady who has OCD shared her own personal experience and how this project has impacted her. What has it been like getting to see that response from the audience in such a visceral way and the impact that you’re creating and will continue to create with its digital release?
Dillon: That part of it has just been awesome, in the truest sense of the word. Not just that experience itself, but our whole theatrical run here in L.A., and the in-person sort of cathartic experience of this film is why a lot of us as artists create art. It’s to create community, have people be seen, representation, and all of those things.

We’ve had these gobsmacking experiences that have been completely unexpected. In our theatrical experience last week, we had somebody who showed up to the theater, and he was there because his two daughters have OCD and he was struggling and wanted to try to figure out more about it and how it relates. At the end of the film, he raised his hand and he shared that he found out through watching this film that he has OCD. He never knew that it could be this mental form of it. He only knew of it as handwashing and the physical stuff. His daughters have physical manifestations. But he realized he thought it came from his wife and he was like, “I’m realizing that I have that. They got it from me.” He was able to come up on the stage at the Q&A and connect with the therapists who were there. He’s getting into recovery treatment. I’ve had experiences of people reaching out who’ve seen the film, and they were able to get the right treatment and understand what their children are going through and what their partners are going through.

It’s been really, really cool to have a project that’s out in the world that’s bigger than just entertainment. First and foremost, I hope it’s entertaining. I do think that you can watch this film and have no association with OCD or mental health whatsoever and have an entertaining movie. But I do think that it also works as this educational document for people that are either getting diagnosed or if they have a loved one that’s getting diagnosed. It’s something that the whole cast and crew is incredibly proud of. I know that I am. I think that everybody is really proud to be part of a piece of art that transcends entertainment and connects with people. It’s not lost on me going through this experience right now how rare it is to have a piece of art that’s greater than the sum of its parts. It can really help people in a meaningful way. It’s beautiful. It’s a really, really humbling beautiful experience to be a part of.

PC: Outside of Pure O, there are so many different facets to your craft. What’s next for you?
Dillon: I’m working on a film called Just Never Leave. It’s a film that I wrote and was working on before going into Pure O. We’re circling back on that. It’s a romantic drama, crime, thriller that’s set in Buenos Aires about an expat American punk rocker who falls in love with a trans woman and is pulling crime jobs in South America. Hopefully, we’re going to go into production on that by the end of the year. That’s the goal.

To keep up with Dillon, follow him on Instagram. Pure O is out now wherever you stream movies.