Joe & Anthony Russo Interview: Cherry | Screen Rant
Cherry is a story that’s near and dear to the hearts of directors Anthony and Joe Russo, not least because it takes place in their hometown of Cleveland. The semi-autobiographical drama from Nico Walker follows Cherry (portrayed by Tom Holland onscreen) and depicts his struggle with addiction after coming home from the Army.
The Russo brothers spoke to Screen Rant about connecting with the book and balancing its complicated tone when turning it into a movie.
You are Cleveland guys, and the setting of this film is in Cleveland. Can you talk to me about the authenticity you found in Nico's voice in the book, and how you connected to the material?
Joe Russo: We were blown away by it. When we read the book, it was a couple of things. Obviously, being from Cleveland, we ran in a lot of the same neighborhoods that Nico did. He was 10 years behind us, 10 years younger than us, but we actually worked at the same restaurant that he worked at 10 years apart. So, we had a very similar upbringing, and a very similar understanding of the city; a very similar fatalistic sense of humor. It just comes from being from a city that's tough-nosed, and in a dying industry. It's a city that, in a lot of ways when you're there and you're younger, you feel like you lack forward momentum.
We understand the mentality of being from Cleveland, but we also understand how that sense of existential blight fuels the opioid crisis there and what makes the industrial Midwest basically ground zero for this crisis. Because we have a lot of family members who are struggling with addiction, and others that have died. We've stood over the graves of relatives and laid people to rest over this crisis. It's very personal for us, and a very emotional issue.
When we read the book, he just captured the voice so clearly. We understood exactly what it was and how to execute it. That, to us, felt like a timely conversation to be having about a crisis that isn't going anywhere.
Can you talk to me about balancing Cherry's tone? Because obviously, it's a dark film, but it's a romantic story at its heart, and even has comedic moments.
Anthony Russo: Joe and I have, throughout our whole careers, really liked to play with tone. We think that's one of the most effective ways to excite audiences and challenge audiences and surprise audiences. By shifting up tone and skewing tone in a way that that may not be expected.
With Cherry, we knew we had a great opportunity for a very complex tone. Because like you're pointing out, the movie is very dark on some levels, but there's some really strong humor in it as well. We wanted to find a way to change things up to keep the movie accessible to people.
Because we feel like the movie's about important subject matter, and we feel like it should be seen. So, we wanted to make the movie watchable; eminently watchable by people. We didn't want to give them something that was so abrasive, that it would be too difficult an experience to even watch and enjoy. We want people to be able to see the movie and recommend it to other people.
We tried to come up with a balance to the tone, where we had a variety of things going on, so that it wasn't a relentless barrage of darkness and abrasiveness. We also tried to infuse the movie with a strong through-line of hope, because you don't want to go through an experience this complicated and difficult without being able to leave with a sense of hopefulness for a better tomorrow and for a better future.
Tone is something that we experiment with all the way through the process. From the screenwriting phase, we play with a lot of different ideas to test drive them in the script, when it's a lot easier to experiment. Then when we get to set, we work closely with all of our collaborators, especially the actors, trying to find what we can do on a tonal level and how far we can push it one way or another in order to find the sweet spot for us in terms of what the scene could be. And to be honest with you, a lot of these issues don't get sorted out until the editing process, when we really start to commit to the feel of a scene and how it comes across on a tonal level.
It's a really long process for us as filmmakers, but the goal is to make the movie feel balanced and accessible and fun and surprising as it evolves to the audience.
Cherry starts streaming March 12 on Apple TV+.