Ostensibly, the Tribeca Film Festival is about New Yorkers -- after all, it was started in the wreckage of 9/11 to bring a modicum of healing to lower Manhattan. With that in mind, what better place for a film like Roadie to premiere? If only because the film oozes with New York authenticity and attitude like a fresh out of the oven pizza slice.
Directed by Michael Cuesta (L.I.E., the upcoming Showtime series Homeland; above, center), Roadie tells the story of Jimmy Testagross (Ron Eldard; above, left), a career roadie for Blue Oyster Cult, who gets fired and has to return to his mother's (Lois Smith) home in Queens to reevaluate his position in life. Eldard (Super 8) shines as Jimmy, giving a performance that calls to mind Mickey Rourke's work in The Wrestler, but perhaps with a tad more likeability and audience empathy. Jimmy is a failure of sorts, but he also got to live at least part of his dream on the road with his favorite band. How he reacts when the dream ends makes up the crux of the film, which follows his first 24-hours back home to start the rest of his life.
Shot on-location in Forest Hills, Roadie isn't one of those "New York" movies pretending to be New York. Cuesta -- who co-wrote the script with his brother Gerald (above, right) -- and Eldard are from the area, and they infuse the film with subtle and pitch-perfect details: The way Jimmy's mother offers to make him lunch immediately upon his return home (despite mocking his weight gain); the way Jimmy's room is exactly how he left it; the way old neighbors can share butter with each other. It's not something you necessarily see often onscreen, but it's a love letter to the working-class borough of Queens without resorting to mockery or insulting stereotypes.
Roadie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday night in front of an adoring crowd of many local residents. On Monday afternoon, Ron, Michael and Gerald sat down with Movieline to discuss what premiering at the festival means, why Roadie is a true indie film, and how they managed to find such an authentic look.
Congratulations on the premiere. It really felt like a home team crowd on Saturday night. How much does it mean for you to have Roadie debut in New York?
Michael Cuesta: A lot of my family and friends were there. This is probably the most exciting premiere I've ever had of an independent film at festival, because I live here. And it's great. It's so exciting to be in New York -- New York film, New York actors, my brother.
After the movie, you said that it took two years for the film to debut...
MC: A year-and-a-half, actually. That's the thing with independent films. First, it has to find its footing at a festival. I did not want to think about presenting the film to the marketplace, I wanted to bring it to a festival -- that's where it belongs. We have a sales agent -- we have William Morris Endeavor selling it, all that crap -- but we wanted a festival. Tribeca took the movie, and they really embraced it, and gave it the right platform.
Ron Eldard: I'll just say it: I love Sundance; my very first film won Sundance. But, I was frankly disturbed and disappointed when Sundance did not [take the film]. This to me is the kind of film that I thought Sundance -- and film festivals in general, but particularly that kind of film festival -- is supposed to be about. This is not a film with a bunch of people who failed at having a real career, and now are re-auditioning; or people who blew it, and now are re-auditioning. [Pauses] Independent films, for the most part to me, are not so independent. They often feel like people auditioning for a big commercial career. They often do not have independent spirit to them. This is filled with people who make their living doing this -- everyone makes their living doing this -- everyone made a sacrifice, which is what people say they'll do and then often you'll go, "Well, why aren't you doing this sort of thing?" They don't because it's hard, and it costs, and it's not glamorous. This should be the type of thing you are saying, "No, this can still be done! Look, These people are doing what they say!" It's a completely independently spirited film, and it's high craftsmanship -- I love this film, I just love it. I love it. This is the kind of movie I would want to see. When it turned out that Tribeca got it, I was like, "Of course, that's where it was supposed to be!" Where else would you want it to be first? It's New York. We're all New Yorkers.
It is an obvious fit. When you were making Roadie, did you have Tribeca on your mind?
MC: One of the negative things for me, was that I had a film here two years ago at the '09 festival that I wasn't really proud of. [Editor's note: That film was the 2009 thriller Tell Tale.] The film got away from me, I didn't have final cut on it. I was a hired gun on the film. It premiered here because they took it -- not because of the producers, but because they knew my work, they gave it a nice slot. I didn't have a great experience with the film in general, so making this I wasn't really thinking Tribeca at first. As Ron just said very honestly, it makes complete sense. You make these films because you want to have fun making them and be able to go to the premiere. Call it freakin' vanity, whatever it is -- but, it's your art. We didn't make much money making this film -- not me at least.
Gerald Cuesta: No one.
MC: No one. Because it's very micro-budgeted. You do it for the passion.
RE: But you don't do it to watch it in your basement. In the end, you want the most amount of people to see it. And you need that help. I consider myself an artist, but actors and directors who act like people being involved in their work and audiences are beneath us. What the fuck are you doing it for? You want people to see your work. You're not a painter; they can't find your work when you're dead. You have to have people see it. So I wanted it at a festival, you wanted to have a big premiere.
One of the things I was most impressed with about the film was how authentic everything was. You shot it on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills. It had a real neighborhood feel.
MC: It's funny. Forest Hills. Gerald lived there for a while. It was written in the original script, but when I went to Forest Hills to go scouting -- or Queens, in general -- it was just about driving around, and I kept telling the location scout, "It needs to be a welcome mat."
RE: Oh, I like that.
MC: A welcome for Jimmy. Not gritty. It needs to be sweet. And it needs to be storybook. The neighborhood. It's like a great photo album. That was the approach. So finding that house -- this is when I knew the movie was clicking: the house was found.
RE: It's almost exactly as the house is.
MC: We did almost nothing.
RE: Photos, maybe a few things around, that's about it.
MC: There's a quaintness to Forest Hills. As soon as I was on that street, I was like, "This is the look." And then it became about knocking on doors, literally. When you're at that budget, you're like, "We're making a film, would you like $500-600 per day," instead of $2500 a day that a studio film would play. Actually, a studio film would talk them down to $500, then destroy their house. We didn't do that. The mother actually passed away, and the children were selling the house, and they extended the contract for us.
Ron, what made you decide to sign on for Roadie?
RE: This movie felt right in a million ways. When he told me he met Lois Smith and was going to use her as the mother, I was like, "This guy is not fucking around." Lois Smith is no joke. But that is not the person you put in there when you're thinking, who are you going to put on the video box. She is not going to sell that, but she is going to sell it once she's in it. She's great.
Did you guys think of Ron for the role when you were developing this?
MC: I wanted to make a small film. The experience I had before was the contrary. It was a $12 million movie -- not really with movie stars, but with a heavyweight like Ridley Scott, who was my producer. Who was very hands on. I wanted to make something small, and I wasn't going to cast movie stars. Oh, we gotta get Brad Pitt to play the roadie. Or Vince Vaughn. Or even Paul Giamatii, who would be the more cartoon-y, typical version of the schlepp-y guy. I just wanted to find the right actor. Then Ron and I met, and it was just a done deal.
Was the script furnished to his strengths?
RE: Kind of the opposite.
MC: Ron encouraged us to stick to the script.
RE: I changed my look, I gained a bunch of weight. The reason I liked -- loved it -- I think this is a great script. I think this is one of the -- I've read some great things, but this is as perfect a script as I've read. It just touched me immediately. And I would encourage them, "No, no, no, I want to do this because of what you wrote. I'm finding my way in here; let me get into your world." Because it's about a very specific world -- and some of that I know; I'm from Queens, I've lived in these areas -- and unless I couldn't make it work, I wanted to be in this world that you wrote.
During the Q&A on Saturday, you said the script took about six years to write. What kind of reactions did you get to it?
GC: When we first got the script done, I remember there were some industry people that I was talking to read it -- agents, some agents. And they were just trying to be helpful, but the notes were, "He can't be lying." [Laughs]
MC: It wasn't that he can't be lying, it's that he wasn't likeable.
GC: No, this is a direct quote from some agent that I spoke to, who was like, "The problem with the character is that -- your dialogue is excellent, there's something really good here, but can you make him more likeable?" One of the ways to do that was he shouldn't be lying, he needs to do something courageous.
RE: What does that mean?
GC: The person was trying to be helpful, but -- to what Ron was saying, I think what makes the script special is that the character has these flaws, and you can still empathize with him as a person.
RE: Everyone is lying! He's heroic because he's still alive and trying.
MC: The audience is right with him! They understand why he's lying. They empathize. They get it.
Definitely.
RE: He lies over and over, but you can see -- maybe that's how I tried to play it, but I think you also wrote it like that -- every time I started to tell that lie, mostly I just wanted to be quiet. But he's got to stand up for himself someway; he's sinking. I felt that every time the area came, I tried to do a version of it where I was close to the truth, where I would try not to embellish it too much. I felt that was in the script. "OK, I'm lying, but just a little bit, then I'll change the subject." I didn't lie to get something -- I wasn't doing it to get laid.
MC: You were like, "This is what I do."
Roadie takes place over the course of one night -- which is a conceit usually reserved for comedies. The "one crazy night." What made you decide to employ that with this film?
MC: What I was really interested in from the original script -- and it was different -- was the awkwardness of being home for the first time. That feeling in that first moment. It's like an itchy sweater that Jimmy wants off. I related to that. It's that reentry period, so that's what I wanted.