With I Am Not a Serial Killer hitting select theaters and VOD today from IFC Midnight, I caught up with the film's co-writer/director Billy O'Brien for our latest Q&A feature to discuss working with Christopher Lloyd, what made Max Records the right fit to play John Wayne Cleaver, filming in frigid Minnesota, and much more.
Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, Billy. Were you a fan of Dan Wells’ John Wayne Cleaver books before directing and co-writing I Am Not a Serial Killer? What made you want to tell this story on the big screen?
Billy O'Brien: Well, I read the book the summer of 2009 and loved it. But it was a paperback, so I thought the rights would be gone, so I was delighted to find they weren't sold. I wrote Dan a letter and was just honest in how much I liked it. Must have said something right, as he agreed to let us have the rights. That was the easy bit, it only took another six and a half years to write, finance, and make the film! Going back to the book, Dan weaved a story with a strong and strange folklore thread, but set it in a real world and with these amazing characters, real characters that leapt off the page. And the setting, this snowbound Midwest town. Coming from rainy Ireland, it was an exotic location and for me, fascinating.
Max Records is a perfect fit to play John Wayne Cleaver. What made him the right guy for the gig?
Billy O'Brien: Funnily enough, when we told Dan Wells about Max, he was gobsmacked as he'd been thinking of him, too. Max had been in a short film my friend and producer Nick Ryan had made. So although at that point Max was a bit young—he was 13—we decided to ask him to be in this test we were about to shoot in Michigan. That would have been the winter of 2011. Nick, his cousin Robbie Ryan (DOP) and myself, had decided by then that we had a very odd film on our hands and one that already looked hard to get funded! So as filmmakers, we decided to shoot this teaser on film and in a small town in America, show people how this film would feel. Max flew up with his dad, and in the middle of a blizzard we shot this beautiful and quirky test. And Max, even that young, was just amazing—so subtle and with such a strong instinct.
Where did filming take place and what did that environment add to the atmosphere of the movie?
Billy O'Brien: We scouted most of the Midwest and parts of Canada, as each year we'd get so far in the funding and then it would collapse. We finally came to Minnesota, and with my designer Jennifer Klide, I discovered the Iron Ranges up near Canada and the mining towns there. We based ourselves in Virginia, MN, and that became our home for the duration. It was great, away from everything, in the middle of winter!
Did filming in the winter add any additional challenges?
Billy O'Brien: Cold! We had to be careful on a couple of nights. After we came back, I saw all these stories on TV about how cold The Revenant shoot had been, our joke was we were filming in pretty cold conditions, too, and they had like $100 million? Yet we probably made our whole film on their hot water bottle budget! Chris Lloyd and Max were great in the cold conditions—no complaining at all even when we had Chris crawling around on one of the coldest nights when it was minus 25-30 Celsius! The man is 79 and he was up for it all. And the thing is, you realize the locals just get on with it, it's normal for them and so you just wrap up warmer and be sensible. And it looked amazing that cold. The 16mm we shot on really captures it, this paint-peeling town in the snow in winter light on film. Gorgeous.
Christopher Lloyd is tremendous in this film. What was it like working with the legendary Lloyd?
Billy O'Brien: I could see he was a bit worried when he arrived on location in the depths of winter with these three Irish guys all talking too fast and huge Back To The Future fans. Nick even had a DeLorean (they were made in Ireland, after all), but from my first conversation on the phone, I could see he really liked the script and his character. Also, I think stupidly, people often just ask him to play it like Doc Brown, and I talked to him saying that wasn't what this character was about, and he seemed to really like that. This role is quieter, sinister, yet it has a physicality that Chris and probably only Chris could get; a sort of otherworldly quality.
He has done such incredible physical acting from subtle like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Uncle Fester [in The Addams Family movies]. He's like a silent film actor. He talks with his body, and for me, that makes what he does unexpected and fascinating. It's a rare talent, and I think he gets overlooked when people don't realize the power that brings. It's pure cinema.
Looking back at your time on set, is there a favorite or funny moment that stands out?
Billy O'Brien: To be very honest, I loved the whole shoot. It was fast, madcap, and demanding, but the town and landscape and crew and cast all really got into it, isolated in the wilds, and that made it very focused. You'd get up in the morning, put on the fifteen layers of warmth, and walk to set down the street. That was freedom.
Is this a world that you would be willing to return to in a potential sequel?
Billy O'Brien: Oh yes. But not as serial-bait. Dan has written four more books and is finishing the sixth in the series, I think. Where he takes John Wayne Cleaver is dark and unexpected at every turn. There is loads there.
With I Am Not a Serial Killer coming out on August 26th from IFC Midnight, what projects do you have on deck that you can tease?
Billy O'Brien: I always make the mistake of promising producers that I'll be able to get back to writing once we get to post, during the chaos of the prep and shoot, editing in contrast seems like a calm oasis, in a nice warm room and it always looks like I'll have tons of time to scribble away at the next film(s). But it never happens like that! The post seems to be as full-on as the shoot. So I'm behind on my writing. I have a few projects, the one I'm having fun with right now is a strange adaptation of a classic 19th century novel called Lorna Doone; only in my version, set on the moors in England where I now live, there are cannibals and folk music and chases across the lonely moor on ponies, and yet it's really a love story!
Thanks for your time, Billy!
Billy O'Brien: Cheers and one thing—try and see I Am Not a Serial Killer in the cinema if it's on locally! Looks and sounds great up big. So far it's screening in NY, LA, and seven or eight other towns/cities. Look out for it!
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In case you missed it, check out our review of I Am Not a Serial Killer:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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