Boondock Saints II Director Troy Duffy: 'If You Can't Take a Joke, Go Watch Another Movie'

What's up with all the gay jokes in these films?

That just happened on set. Flanery kept doing his impression of this New Jersey guy; one day he showed up at the location, which was wrecked because we'd just had this huge gunfight. And he shows up on set and he goes, "I hear the Saints show up, and one of 'em wreaks havoc and the other one's a queer." And everybody just started fucking dying. That was five minutes we lost of the day because we were laughing so hard. It just kind of made its way into the dialogue and became the vernacular.

Did it ever feel too easy, though?

What do you mean?

I mean too easy or dismissive -- "gay, fag, queer." Like in the first film Willem Dafoe blows off his lover in bed with the line, "Cuddle? What a fag."

No. I just feel like if you can't take a joke, go fuck yourself. I think with a lot of people, we take these things and beliefs and views we have in life and attribute them to film, almost forgetting that it's a goddamn movie. It's supposed to be fun and entertaining and something to fuck around with. It's not something you make political or moral decisions around. It's a goddamn movie. We're an equal opportunity offender. We even had a lesbian thing in the first film. It's just something that's fucking funny, and I figure if you can't take a joke, go watch another movie.

Fair enough. At the New York premiere, Billy Connelly referred to the directors of the documentary Overnight as "a couple of disloyal assholes." I know you disavow that film, but to what extent do you attribute some of The Boondock Saints' legend to the back story that film depicts, and just how difficult it was to get the first film out?

Well, the film doesn't really show you that. If you think about it, the one salient fact that the filmmakers of Overnight couldn't hide -- clever little devils that they are -- is the following: I started out as a nobody in this business. I wrote one script, got a movie deal and got a record deal. Lost them both, resurrected them both with new companies, and then we went and made our film and our album on our terms. That is a tall order for anyone being a newbie in the business. The film doesn't show you how I accomplished that. But that's what was being pitched to me by these guys: An educational thing that's the story of a complete nobody going and doing something that a lot of kids want to do these days, and going through the pitfalls of it. And maybe not make some of the mistakes you saw old Troy make. Or maybe doing some of the shit you saw him do right, because the fact of the matter is I must have done something right. You just didn't see it, because for "creative reasons" they decided not to tell you that part of the story.

I am proud of Boondock I. There were things that went wrong. I misbehaved sometimes. I said and did the wrong things sometimes. But to show it with that kind of agenda and not provide the context? Why is Troy angry? What's the situation? Who's he talking to? I still get people coming up to me asking, "What happened with Miramax?" This is a fucking question Overnight should have answered! It's a documentary! That's what they do! They show it! They simply didn't tell the story. Their anger at me overrode their judgment as filmmakers. That's the tragedy of it. And they stabbed everybody who ever helped them in the back. All those people you see in that film are still with me today, from the actors to my brother to the guys in the band. They never left my side. These guys were angered on my behalf when they saw this fucking thing. I had people calling me up wanting to do a class-action lawsuit. I was the guy who said, "Fuck it, leave 'em alone. It doesn't matter. We know what happened, we were there. I don't give a shit what the public thinks. As long as my friends and family have got my back, I'm OK with it."

And of course, you're still working. What's next?

I hope to do another film that's not Boondock. I've done two Boondock movies, I'm satisfied with that. There's the possibility for a third down the line. But during this 10-year period with all the bullshit that went on, I still managed to write five scripts that nobody's read yet except for my producer, Chris Brinker. The next one, hopefully, will be The Good King, which is a black comedy/period piece -- the 1500s. Couldn't be more different than Boondock.

Pages: 1 2