Hot Seat A Talk With Director James Cullen Bressack

Automatically transcribed; may contain errors.

sin with FlickDirect nice to meet you thanks and uh we're gonna talk about Hot Seat today for the most part I may throw something else in there so what attracted you to this story you know for me it is a couple things it's like you know I love I love intense Thrillers so being able to do something that had like a lot of twists and turns was a lot of fun for me but the other thing that I thought was really interesting uh was you know when I was reading the script I was like how do I make a person sitting in a chair intense and interesting and so like when I started thinking about that when I was reading it I was like that's the challenge and I like the idea of the challenge of making that fun and interesting because you know I was like if this almost could like live or die on how it's done and so that's kind of where what really drew me to it because I was like okay I'm up for the challenges hopefully I succeeded and said challenge I think you did I felt like there was a lot of tension um I wonder how Kevin felt about having to sit in that chair for so long and and be dramatic without as much body language as an actor would normally use yeah I mean Kevin is Kevin is so wonderful he was great to work with I mean such a such a great guy I mean I I love that guy uh Katie is is one of the coolest people I know and and I really think he brings like a seriously relatability to this character uh and he's you know he's he's like you're every man like it feels like this could happen to like your neighbor or your cousin or you know he he really makes it feel like very human uh and and uh and I really feel like audiences will connect with that yeah because audiences are not necessarily going to connect with a brilliant hacker but because he's a father he's a family his family is falling apart in the beginning of this film uh so you're right he is very relatable what kind of challenges did you have because you had such a small space for him and he had to sit in the chair I know you tried different angles and things and I love the idea of the different cameras that could see him from above so what would what was the challenges with that you know one of the one of the challenges just in general uh is you know uh in rehearsals we really found the challenge but one of the challenges just in general is like you know you want to like go like this you know like you want to like get up and do it like hey you know and it's like well you know you can't so it was it was really getting down like okay you can push around you can move around and then the other thing is like you know um Kevin you know it plays most of the movie to you know a camera or to a computer you know what I mean so so even though he might be interacting with another actor he's not looking at them and so like that's that's kind of you know it's it's a very different way to to play uh play a character and luckily Kevin really brought it and and but you know it was it was really awesome in that sense uh you know but it's I think it it was it's definitely a challenge and I think he knocked it out apart yeah and you're absolutely right because there were times when he was sitting in that chair that I wanted to go like this and you know have him stand up but it it must have been difficult that's kind of the beauty of it too right because like you know as an audience where you're just thinking like is he gonna adjust too much or is he gonna stand up I think that kind of creates the tension as well and part of you know what we were doing with like the magnetic fence on the ground too where like you know his wheel gets too close to it it's just ways to create tension in moments where there wasn't necessarily tension at that moment I thought that was kind of an interesting thing to play with as well so that at any moment you know the audience needs to feel like that bomb could go off if he just moves wrong you know yes yeah I I felt like this movie also had lots of Easter eggs from other films um how many of those did you add after the script was written or were they in the original script oh I had Easter eggs in my movies for for every movie I do is like you know everything I do is random Easter eggs for for certain things because you know I I grew up watching movies and and you know I love film and so you know for me it's just like oh I'm getting you know I get excited because I gotta go like oh that's my throwback to this shot or that's my list you know so I got to do stuff like that and that gets really exciting and I also plug myself into every movie so I'm I'm secretly one of the people in the park in the beginning of the movie I'm a guy who can't do it really it's a water fountain to work and now I gotta go watch it again and now every time I watch one of your films I'm gonna be like okay where is he where is he so I mean I mean every single one of my films randomly somewhere um usually without any dialogue because I I'm very bad at memorizing any lines well listen if you're ever in South Florida shooting and and you want somebody to stand in the background I'm here sounds good I'll hold you to it there you go uh Mel Gibson how did he get on board so Mel was uh Mel was involved with the project uh very early on and um uh he had a pre-existing relationship with the producers uh so I was uh I because they had done boss level with him um yeah uh so you know that you know I I definitely was uh excited to work with Mel I mean what a legend I mean the guy is unbelievably talented and he elevates everything that he touches you know he's he's just uh he's just a really really talented uh actor and director and so you know working with working with somebody like that it's uh it's it's really awesome to be able to collaborate with such a a brilliant uh you know performer I wanted to ask you about that because he is known as you know a very good director so was he giving you pointers along the way or did he want to do things a certain way no no no Mel is very collaborative he never overstepped in any way but like I mean you know I I will say like I'm you know I'm I'm a film nerd so like I'd be like hey you know Mel I'm thinking about doing this like this way uh you know if if he would say something but like you know like I I just thought it was really cool because like you know it's just such a talented guy and uh and uh and and he really cares you know he's he's and it was really cool uh you know because not only did I talk with Mel about um you know the character and the movie but like I gotta talk with him about like hey how did you stylistically do that in hacksaw Ridge like I was talking about like you know certain cool sequences that he did I was like you know what was the mindset of that and so I you know it was really uh it was really really awesome uh working with him and collaborating and uh you know he's he's just a very talented guy yeah it comes across in the film absolutely this is coming out limited release July 1st along with digital and On Demand that's a holiday weekend is there concerns for you or are you excited about being part of a holiday weekend I'm excited when we got a movie about a bomb and explosions coming out for Fourth of July it's not going to be the only thing doing fireworks right let's let's uh let's get it out there I'm excited um you know I I think that this is the this is a fun movie for people to check out nah and I think that uh I think that the the holiday weekend is is good for it so um you know let's let the fireworks fly hopefully everybody uh everybody wants to check this one out