Brian Pestos Interview: Big Gold Brick | Screen Rant
The genre-bending, dark comedy Big Gold Brick is Brian Petsos feature directorial debut with an all-star casting including Emroy Cohen, Andy Garcia, Megan Fox, Lucy Hale, and Oscar Isaac. Big Gold Brick follows the tale of Samuel Liston, played by Cohen, and the mysterious, middle-aged father of two. Floyd Deveraux, who enlists Samuel to write his autobiography after a chance car accident.
Ahead of Big Gold Brick’s release, Petsos spoke with Screen Rant about directing the legendary Andy Garcia and the magic he brought to the role. He also explains the inspiration for Big Gold Brick stemmed from a friend's head injury.
Screen Rant: This film is hilarious. I feel this is a masterclass in character studies and character writing. First question, can you talk to me about where the idea for Big Gold Brick came from?
Brian Petsos: For sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for your kind words. That really, really means a lot to me man, so thank you. Yes, the initial idea, which is, again, just the initial idea, someone very close to me suffered a pretty serious head injury.
And of course, I found that darkly inspirational. The person is now fine, I should clarify that, but the process of getting back to fine was crazy. Watching that all happen, I just found it to be a terrific foundation for this. That was the cement laid out. Then obviously I throw a bunch of my own other garbage in there.
That might be the best origin story of a film that I've ever heard. That is so amazing. When you wrote Big Gold Brick, did you plan on directing it?
Brian Petsos: Yes. I started off, I was an "actor" for a bit, and at some point, I was like, “You know what, this directing thing I'm going to do when I'm like super old, it needs to happen now”, and I love performing, but I'm going to put it away and focus on trying to be some writer/director person. We did ‘Ticky Tacky’, the short with Oscar Isaac, and then we did ‘Lightningface’, which was a little bigger than ‘Ticky Tacky’, and I wrote this script, it's not my first script, but it was... We were really going to try and put this movie together. Having ‘Lightningface’ and this screenplay, we just got lucky and people started to gravitate towards it, and next thing you know, we're shooting a movie in Toronto.
That's amazing. So let's go down that path a little bit because you are a performer yourself. So how does your experience in front of the camera...
Brian Petsos: Was.
Was. How does your experience in front of the camera help you prepare and communicate to your actors behind the camera?
Brian Petsos: Absolutely. I think it's a really big thing and I've been told by my acting collaborators, that it's really big for them. I'm someone who's... I was an improviser, and I don't improvise really a ton on set, oddly, in a traditional way at least. I use my improv when I'm writing, really. I tend to get pretty involved in scenarios and communication between characters and stuff, just all me. In terms of working on set with actors, I think I know the type of environment and atmosphere and the type of place I would like to be brought, as a performer, in a perfect world, and I try to create that and foster that for the actors that I'm working with. It varies from person to person and just being in tune with what I think a particular person may respond to. I think it has been a big benefit to me in working with actors.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is your feature directorial debut, right?
Brian Petsos: It is.
Now that's a hell of a cast for any first-time feature director. Is there an intimidation factor that goes into that? I know that you are a frequent collaborator with Oscar Isaac, but Andy Garcia, Lucy Hale, Megan Fox, this is a star-studded cast. Is there a little bit of an intimidation factor going in?
Brian Petsos: Yes. It would be foolish and absolutely untruthful for me to tell you otherwise.
Emory and I hung a fair amount before shooting together. We had already established a very brotherly bond, which is a very similar bond that I have with Oscar. But Andy Garcia, who, as a kid, I worshiped.
Having Andy show up, I have to admit, I was having complications for a while and that does go away after a couple of days. The guy is also a director and he's worked with some of the best directors of all time, and I'm very aware of that as I'm working with him, but he is an actor and he is a presence and he is a personality, he's also a person.
When all that stuff falls to the side, it really becomes special and I look to him as a mentor and inspiration really, at this point. I'm not saying anything about the film. I don't want to make any judgments on the film, but I will say, I love Andy Garcia in this movie.
From your use of music to the way that you're pacing the film to the cinematography and the journey that the characters go on, I think this film is brilliant. Did you have any cinematic influences for Big Gold Break to help you develop your visual language?
I think if you watch, and I don't know that you have, but if you watch the progression from ‘Ticky Tacky’, the short film, to ‘Lightningface’ to ‘Big Gold Brick’, I shot all those with Dan Katz.
It has dreamlike cinematography to me at least, I feel.
Brian Petsos: For sure. I've said this a lot, there're so many filmmakers that I love and people have asked me who's your favorite filmmaker? That's an impossible question to answer because truthfully, I'm probably more into individual films than individual filmmakers. A lot of times people will spout off what they think references are for ‘Big Gold Brick’ and they're wrong.
I was just saying to someone, If I told you my biggest influence for ‘Big Gold Brick’ was a period piece, what would you say? And so I try not to ape other filmmakers as much as I can help it. I think a lot of times people would probably say., “Oh, this particular filmmaker here, A, B or C,” but it's probably true that I think a lot of us out there have similar influences, right, but getting down to the actual technicality of putting together the visual scheme on the movie, I storyboarded all of the big visual effects and action stuff and shot listed everything else over the course of about three to four weeks before shooting. Prior to that, on my short films, I had personally storyboarded literally the whole film.
This doesn't need to be done for the whole feature. We only storyboarded select sequences. Most of the shots that we called for, we got. Down to the spreadsheet.
Now your characters, like I said, are fantastic. Can you talk to me a little bit about Sam played by Emory Cohen and Floyd played amazingly played by Andy Garcia, and can you talk about their relationship a little bit?
Brian Petsos: Absolutely. I think, without giving too much away, these two very different gentlemen, from very different backgrounds and experiences, end up drawn together based on one particular experience. People say there's this whole fatherly thing there, which absolutely there is, but I think really what it is, both of these characters are really driven by a need for just one true, real relationship in their lives. I think by the end of it, and I've said before, this is not a religious film, I am not a religious person, but there is a faith element in terms of giving over and believing in something. There's a family element in the sense that we create our own family. That's, I think, what ends up happening with these two. Call it a buddy thing, call it a father/son thing, call it a cousin’s, uncle/nephew thing, whatever you want to call it, they do establish a really familial relationship by the end of the film.
Absolutely. Now, as I said, Andy Garcia is amazing as Floyd, and matter of fact, this might be one of my favorite characters he's ever portrayed before. What did Andy Garcia bring to the role that wasn't necessarily on the page?
Brian Petsos: I think a lot. I think a lot. It's funny if you start to try to imagine other people playing the role, which before we actually shot the film, obviously as a director, you go through that exercise. At this point, I can't imagine anyone other than Andy playing the part. I think we had talked quite a bit before actually shooting and ideas were bandied about, back and forth and I think after just a day or two, When Andy ended up bringing a lot more of unvarnished Andy to the role than I think he initially planned on. When that happened, I felt there was a singularity between the Floyd that I wrote and Andy that developed. I was just... I was mystified by how exciting it was to watch happen.
It's crazy because he disappears into the role and then it's just so fascinating to me because it feels like he's lived in that character, you know what I mean?
Brian Petsos: I know. I'm telling you there was. It was amazing to watch and you shoot for so long and by the end of Andy's stick with us, It was so sad to see the character and Andy leave because they just became this thing for me. The Andy and Floyd combo was very real to me and very sad to say goodbye to.
I can imagine, because when the film ended. I want to see more of this Floyd character because you just never know what's going to happen with him next. I loved it.
Brian Petsos: I think also Andy seeing the final film, I think seeing the fruits of his labor, he's definitely satisfied with what he tried to do when he came to play.
Right. And I also don't want to overshadow Emory Cohen's performance because he's brilliant in this also. What surprised you the most about his performance?
Brian Petsos: Emory... Obviously, if you take Brooklyn out of Emory's canon, I think people have a perception of Emory that is not at all what you get when you meet Emory. Emory is, first of all, incredible. He's so dynamic. He has the ability to do anything in a room. He's a true, true talent. Watching him really start to develop Samuel and watching it come to life in front of our eyes was incredible. I think it was geeking him out just as much as it was geeking me out. I think he got a chance to show how funny he is. It's not about selling the audience on how funny the character's supposed to be, it's about having the character be emotionally real and having the humor come off of that emotional truth and Emory just crushed that to me. He was just incredible.
I couldn't agree with you more. Well look, Brian, I don't want to take up too much of your time. The film is fantastic. What you got going on next, by the way?
Brian Petsos: Sure. I'm literally days away from finishing my next script, and I've been working on it for a few years now, so we're going to go and try to get that thing put together as soon as we can get this thing on the table.
A feature?
Brian Petsos: Yes. Yes, indeed. It's a little bit bigger than Big Gold Brick.