Read our exclusive interview with director Michael Cuesta and his brother, Gerald, with whom he co-wrote the new drama ‘Roadie.’ The film, which is now available on VOD and is scheduled to hit theaters on January 6, 2012, follows the title character, Jimmy Testagross, played by Ron Eldard, as his childhood dream and career of being a roadie for Blue Oyster Cult is cut short when he’s fired. With no other job skills, friends outside of the group he toured with or place to go, Jimmy shamefully returns to his mother’s house in Forest Hills, New York.

Embarrassed to admit his fate to his mother, portrayed by Lois Smith, Jimmy claims he is working as the group’s manager and songwriter. Jimmy continues his lies when he sees his old high school nemesis, Randy, played by Bobby Cannavale, and his wife, Nikki, portrayed by Jill Hennessey, whom he used to date when they were teens. Jimmy undergoes an emotional transformation throughout ‘Roadie,’ despite the events taking place over a period of 24 hours.

While promoting their in New York City, the Cuestas sat down with us to discuss the process of making the film. Among other things, the two spoke about how ‘Roadie’ features the ever-important message that the ghosts of our past shape our present. They also explained what it was like working together, and how they knew Eldard was the perfect actor to play Jimmy.

ShockYa (SY): The main message in ‘Roadie’ is that some people spend their adulthood living out their childhood dream, and don’t know what to do when the dream ends. Why do you feel this is an important life question many people ask themselves as they near middle age?

Michael Cuesta (MC): Well, I don’t think we ever set out to include a message, or to say any one thing. I think the film talks about a lot of things. I do think that theme you’re talking about is a universal theme that a lot of people can relate to it. Usually, when you write a script, then make the film, you hope that it makes a connection with people, and they can empathize with the main character, as in Jimmy, or the other characters.

It’s like when you read a great book, and you read a passage, you love it, because there’s something in it that you feel you have a one-on-one connection with. It’s only you and those words or you and that film. That’s what we hoped to do. I never, and I think Gerald can speak to this as well, I never go into any movie or script with a very specific message in mind, or the movie’s about this. It starts out with a feeling, it starts out with a character that grows. I know I didn’t answer the question.

Gerald Cuesta (GC): No, I think you did. When originally writing the character, there are pieces of both of us in that character. Also, I think this is something people can relate to. Sometimes, you get stuck. Sometimes you find yourself going back and relying on what gave you that jolt when you were a kid, to give you a jolt again, and it just doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s time to move on. I think it’s a human truth.

Like Michael said, we didn’t say we wanted to sell this specific message. It was just like, this is a character, this is his situation. It comes out of that.

SY: Where did you get the idea to write ‘Roadie,’ and what kind of research did you do before you began working on the script?

MC: Well, Gerald, you can start speaking of the knowledge of the roadie and Forest Hills.

GC: I lived in Forest Hills at the time, when I was writing it originally, when I wrote the original first draft. I was there for seven years, I got to know the neighborhood, the feel of the streets and everything.

In terms of the roadie thing, I just read, we both read stories about rock ‘n’ roll roadies, the arena rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. As far as the knowledge of the band, that really wasn’t research, that was because I grew up with the band. That was the band we loved to listen to. Also, our friends did too, through our junior high years. That knowledge was just there.

SY: Did you have any disagreements while you were writing the script, or did you have the same vision for it?

GC: We had a lot of disagreements.

MC: Yes, we did.

GC: All the projects we’ve worked on together, there are times where we disagree. I had originally written the script as a much broader comedy. Michael read it, and said you really have a good character here, you have a really good situation in the beginning. I want to take that, and get rid of everything else, and get to the truth. Through it all, Michael really pushed, let’s get to the truth, cut away all the fat.

Through it all, there were times where we may have disagreed, and said, let’s keep this, or maybe go this way or go that way. But that’s part of the process.

MC: Part of the disagreement too was that it was so hard to articulate what we wanted. Sometimes you can only do it by doing it yourself. You’re trying to collaborate, and you’re saying I want this, I want this, you know, just let me do it. So a lot of it’s that.

But I would say the main argument, and I was never articulating it, but now I see what it was, to always be inside Jimmy, the main character. See the film completely through his eyes. That’s a lot harder than it sounds, because my nature, the story is objective. You’re not in a first person, like a book. The camera’s not set inside his head.

I would say that’s the thing we argued about. It’s not that I was right and he was wrong, it’s just getting to that place. He had an interpretation of it, and I had an interpretation of it.

SY: Michael, was your job as the director easier since you worked on the script before you began filming?

MC: Again, Gerald had the first draft. I had decided that I wanted to make a small movie, for very little money, with no one looking over my shoulder. I had just gotten off a project that was the opposite of ‘Roadie,’ which is a small, personal film. I just wanted complete control over the process, and make it independently, in my backyard.

So I said what can I do? I found this old script, dug it out and said what can I do with this? Thinking like a filmmaker, I wanted to find a story, rather than having a story and saying what do I do with this? I like to think that’s how directors think. I’m not a writer by trade, I’m more of a director and I co-write. I always think visually, or I think, I want to make a movie, now lets find something.

So ‘Roadie’ fit in like that. I started adapting it into this completely different time-line. I said, let’s just do his first day home. What would happen, when he first comes off the road, that first day? It’s the first day of the rest of his life, basically.

That was the adaptation, from this first script, which was more about a roadie who wanted to get his own band together. He comes home, and it takes place over a six month period. That film was a much bigger, more Hollywood version.

SY: Like you said, ‘Roadie’ is an independent film. Were there any difficulties while shooting it, financially or otherwise?

MC: No, money seemed to show up everyday. (laughs) Mike Downey, my producing partner on this, he financed it. Where he got the money, I don’t know. Paper bags, maybe. (laughs)

SY: So what was the casting process like?

MC: With Ron Eldard, I believe it happened like this, we were all on the phone together, and we were on the Internet, and we saw a picture of him. We were like, what about that guy? We had a few other actors first in mind, and that didn’t work out.

I knew, I don’t know about in Gerald’s mind, but I knew it was Ron when I saw his picture. I’m like, that’s the roadie, that looks like Jimmy Testagross. He looks like the Testagross family that we grew up with.

GC: Yes, he does. Especially when you said you met him in L.A., and he showed up like the character.

MC: If you talk to Ron, he might not describe it like this, but he showed up to our first movie dressed like Jimmy. I told him when we finally moved ahead with him, you know what, don’t change a thing. He put on a little weight, which I did ask him to. He was a little reluctant to do it, but he did. He showed up on set 20 pounds heavier than he did to this meeting, which is still a head scratch of why he didn’t tell me. (laugh) Maybe he wanted to surprise me or something.

He was Jimmy. His passion for the project was exactly Jimmy’s passion for the music of the era and for BOC (Blue Oyster Cult). He clearly had it, Jimmy was in the room.

Then Jill Hennessey came into the room, and met our casting director (Judy Henderson). She sat down and sang some songs, and I didn’t know Jill Hennessey was a singer-songwriter. There were other actresses who came in, Rosanna Arquette came in.

GC: We were going back and forth, but Jill Hennessey brought so much, she’s so relatable. Being a singer-songwriter helps a lot. She just has a relatable, warm way about her.

MC: She’s so enchanting, you really wanted her to be the girl who got away. Then Bobby came in for the audition, and he called me a few times. He came in, it was audition. Bobby Cannavale, he’s a top-notch actor.

I was lucky to cast Lois Smith too. She did ‘Five Easy Pieces’ and ‘East of Eden.’ She’s one of the greats. She came in, she didn’t audition. We spoke for a good half-an-hour about the character. When she left, I said am I crazy not to hire this woman? I sent you the interview process.

GC: Yes.

MC: To watch her think.

GC: What I think Michael did brilliantly was that when I first met Lois, I thought she was more New England than New York. She felt a little more New Hampshire-ish. But then she kind of channeled our mother. A lot of the dialogue that’s written is words our mother would say to us at times about ourselves. Michael recorded our mother and gave it to Lois.

MC: Yes, that was key, for Lois to hear her speaking, to understand why the text is the way it is.

SY: The house you used for Jimmy’s mom was pre-decorated, and the family of the owner allowed you to keep everything in tact before they sold it. Did that help with the filming process?

MC: Yeah, I’m a big fan, as I learned on my first film, ‘L.I.E.,’ of found locations, and doing very little in set dressings and production designs. It always looks better. We were looking for a house, and we walked into that house. The person was moving, they were under contract, so it was a perfect production place. We never had to deal with moving people out. We had the whole house to ourselves. We were able to leave our equipment there at night. We did like a week of shooting, it was great.

So we went with it, and as soon as we walked in, I knew what Lois Smith looked like, and how she was going to walk, and how she was going to be dressed.

GC: She just looks perfect in that house. (laughs)

MC: It’s just so reminiscent of how we grew up. It’s very much like Aunt Connie’s house. Aunt Lena and Aunt Connie, with the perfect couches and the glass bowl with the candies in it. Literally, I went in, and there was a glass bowl with candies in it. I told the production designer, don’t move that. Leave it there, it’s perfect. Even ‘The Godfather’ DVDs. There was an old VCR, and one VHS, and it was ‘The Godfather.’ I was like, don’t change that.

SY: How would you describe the working relationship between the actors?

MC: All great. Ron was blown away I think to be able to work with Lois Smith. When he heard that I cast Lois, this is how Ron puts it, after Ron was cast, he called me and said “You guys are f**king for real.” Meaning I guess that he thought I did really well.

GC: He had worked with Cannavale before, too.

MC: Yeah, he and Bobby knew each other, so that was going to happen. They had their thing, that was great.

With Jill, seeing her and Bobby together was the perfect match. Bobby came up with this great idea, it wasn’t a directorial idea, it was Bobby’s idea. I think half of directing is letting the actors do what they want when they think it’s a good idea. He came up with this idea to always be touching her. He didn’t take his hands off of her. That was brilliant of him to do that.

SY: Going back to Ron coming in dressed as the roadie, did that surprise you at all?

MC: No. I didn’t think as soon as he walked in that oh, he dressed up as the roadie, I know what he’s up to. He came in in this outfit, I didn’t even have in my mind, and neither did you, how we were really going to dress him.

GC: No, no idea.

MC: He came in in this outfit, and the more I looked at him, and saw him in this outfit, I thought, this is the guy. Then, after I hired him, I said what you wore to the meeting is your outfit. Ron said yeah, it’ll be a version of that. I said once we got into our costume fitting and speak with Manuela (Harding), my costume designer, we’ll figure it out. His outfit ended up being exactly the same. The thermal with the T-shirt. Instead of his T-shirt being the gym where he works out, it was Blue Oyster Cult.

SY: It was interesting that ‘Roadie’ took place over a course of a 24-hour period, and showed how he dramatically changed. Was that your intention, to have him emotionally change?

MC: Yeah, a day, I think a day, that time-line is a perfect time-line to explore a full emotional arc. You know, a lot happens in a day. So that was our intention, yes.

GC: Yes, it was to show a full arc in 24 hours, but it wasn’t that easy.

MC: Really?

GC: No, I mean in terms of life, in general. The film makes it feel very real.

MC: I think more movies should be in that time-line. I think you can do so much, so much happens in a day that is interesting, that is incredibly human. Most movies are about not showing any of the in-betweens. They’re about the beats, the incidents in your life, rather than the in-betweens. This movie’s really about the in-betweens.

GC: It goes from frustration, resentment, fear to acceptance in a 24-hour period.

MC: Not a lot happens, and I’ve been criticized for that, but I don’t care.

GC: A lot happens internally, not externally.

MC: Yeah, turn on ‘Homeland’ if you want a lot to happen. Terrorists and bombs are going off.

Written by: Karen Benardello