A Talk with The Directors of the Award-Winning Film, The Peanut Butter Falcon

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

Hey, I'm Allison with FlickDirect and I'm here with Tyler Nelson and Michael Schwartz talking about the Peanut Butter Falcon. Hello, gentlemen. How are you? I'm really good. Thanks for having us. I'm also really good and thank you for having us. You're welcome. What motivated you to write this story? Um we wrote the story for Zack Gottsagen and he's an actor with Down syndrome who'd been working really hard and had a talent.

And I'm actually excited. I don't know where this is going, but we are here in his hometown showing the movie right now for the first time. Very exciting. We're here in Florida for anybody who doesn't know that and he's got a whole crowd here cheering him on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a couple of couple sold out theaters. He got got the people out, yeah. That's excellent.

Um how did the film evolve over time because I'm sure the first draft was probably a little different than what we're actually seeing. No, um it was a we we were pretty aware of what we wanted to deliver the first draft We mean the first draft wasn't much different than what you're seeing now. We we spent a lot of time with Zack working on it and tailoring the script and the story pretty closely to who he is as a human and the the the magic that he brings into the world we wanted really be able to capture combined with I come from the Outer Banks, North Carolina and we knew that we could go and shoot there for free, basically cheap, so that kind of fed it you know, become a braided rope of like things we can afford and things we have.

And we had Zack and he's a wonderful actor and we had my hometown. Oh, fantastic. Um the visuals are unbelievably stunning. Talking about North Carolina. Especially you know, like Tyler towing Zack and that overhead shot, it's phenomenal. How did you visualize that originally? Did that come later on? Yeah, we visualized it like our whole process is Tyler and I go on long walks and talk about story.

So 40 miles a day. We just walk and talk about stories and even talk about what things look like or we'll block it out or we'll play with it and then we went and shot to get people to agree to make the movie. We went and shot a 5-minute trailer and we actually shot the senior talking about just with Tyler and I and our buddy Dave and Zach and it looks almost exactly the same but we we knew exactly what everything We we storyboarded the whole movie.

Did you? Yeah. We knew going in like even the walk across water scene we were aware of like this I want to look in water and sky and we're ner- we're nerds about that. So it came out exactly as you would hoped it would. Yeah, I think when you're when you're really prepared like um great jazz musicians um you know the structure that you're playing within there's still room to improvise within that and it feels like it fits.

So we prepared like geeks for years. And then and then we were still able to improvise within that and some of the lines like when Zach says rule number one is party it's in the trailer. That's just him improvising and throwing a curveball at Shia, yeah. Well then I can't ask that question. I was going to ask you what the number one part you know, what was rule number one and you already answered that.

Party. I thought it was don't slow me down but then I changed it to party. Yeah. Uh I want to talk about Shia because he is fun- I mean he's an excellent actor to begin with but I think this was probably one of his best pieces of work and I know he came on with the proof of concept there wasn't even really a script yet. So talk to me about how that evolved.

There was a script. Oh it was? Yeah, there was a script um pretty much what's in the movie right now and then the proof of concept he saw that and I think he was moved by Zach's performance and what the world felt like and um he called us. We got a Skype call from him and it was Shia LaBeouf on your cell phone saying please please can I make this with you?

Yeah. That's a little surreal, huh? It was awesome, yeah. yeah. And then he's um I mean he's always been one of my favorite actors and he really showed up and created space for everybody to do a great job. He listened a lot. Um I'm our whole cast I think was really really special. Yes, they absolutely were. I mean even Bruce Dern is in this movie for maybe what 10 minutes and I loved him in this.

Yeah, maybe 15. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But he anchors that that opening 15. He really does. There's a couple of poignant moments for me between Tyler and Eleanor. Um but we did that scene was intended to show that there's the traditional bullying way of treating people that are differently abled, but then there's also the coddling side.

And when we we worked closely with Best Buddies and Special Olympics and the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, and you know, felt it was really important to show both sides and that people can go take it too easy and talk down to people and be patronizing and in its own way that's just as harmful. Yeah, and to me, like I said, that resonated with me.

And there's you know, there's other lines that were just phenomenal, too. Um was there anything that you thought you wanted to put in that you took out necessarily? No, just the way it was. Yeah, we we wrote the script. We were really really aware of what we wanted to do going in. The reception has been incredible. I mean, South by Southwest Audience Award, Nantucket Film Festival Audience Award.

Are you surprised by how great it's being received? I mean, you put me in a corner, I'm not surprised cuz I always I always sound like a jerk when you say I I sound like a jerk when I say it. I always you had good work here. No, I I knew that the performances were fantastic. I knew that Zack had a talent. I knew that Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson were some of the best actors out there, not to mention the three Oscar nominees with Thomas Haden Church and John Hawkes and Bruce Dern and I'm it was ours.

I'm grateful. Yeah. I'm just really grateful it's being received like that. I wouldn't say surprised, I'm just super grateful. Cuz there are great films out there, but they don't necessarily get that backing or they don't get that momentum and they kind of fall into oblivion, whereas this has really just grown and grown. I mean, even here they're in two theaters today.

I mean, that's pretty incredible. Amazing. Yeah, it's phenomenal. And and we're not taking anything for granted. We're still in limited release and hoping that movie this movie doesn't disappear. It's really common right now for small films like ours still can disappear. So, please take 10 of your friends to this No, you go see. I want to No, I've seen it and I think it's phenomenal.

But, how many friends did you bring? And how many tickets did you buy? Oh. Yeah. Oh. We got to get some We need money. All right. Everybody go see this movie.