Antihero, a locally filmed, full-length feature, will be showing as a private screening at The Byrd Theatre on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 7 PM. Antihero is a Joseph Weindl film, starring Brian Gartland, Joe Carlson, Nicole Carter and Ryan Asher, featuring Nick Aliff and Dallas Tolentino, with original music from Ryan Corbitt and Trey Pollard. It follows the story of Pork Rind (Gartland), as he transforms from a loser-alcoholic-petty-thief to a loser-alcoholic-petty-thief-with-a-streak-for-heroism. Oh, and he's psychic. With his best-friend, Weezie (Carlson) by his side, and the help of nerdy friend Jhoanna (Asher), this rag-tag trio has the opportunity to help a new friend, Lainee (Carter) out of a pinch. Expect plenty of jokes about boobs and farts, and a rollicking climactic showdown with bad-guy drug-dealers DJ (Aliff) and Todd (Tolentino). Tickets to the private showing of Antihero at The Byrd Theatre are $5, and are available here.
Antihero Teaser from Joseph Weindl on Vimeo.
I had the opportunity to converse with Antihero stars Brian Gartland and Joe Carlson over a few beers at The Camel. They gave me a bit more insight about the film itself, as well as discussing Richmond, community, and other random tangents.
April: All right gentlemen, let's get a little of your background. How did you get into theatre?
Joe: Snuck in the back.
Brian: Good one.
Joe: Ever since I was 10 years old I wanted to be an actor and a teacher, and I'm really fortunate that I'm actually living that dream. I'm finishing up my MFA of Acting Directing and Pedagogy, and I've been working as a professional actor in Industrials, in commercial, in theatre and film, for the past 5 years now.
Brian: By industrials he means industrial parks.
April: Of course, is there any other kind? And how about you, Brian?
Brian: I've been acting since my second year of middle school. I've always had an interest particularly in comedy. My dad used to manage the Comedy Cafe, a now-defunct comedy club in D.C. I got up there when he was managing and told knock knock jokes at 5. So that's where my interest has always landed. Came to VCU to study theatre and got more interested in comedy. Found the likes of Joe Carlson, who, in my first week here, befriended me and broke a zucchini over my head.
Joe: We thought it would be really funny. I asked him, "What if I broke something over your head?" And he said, "Yeah, that would be really hilarious."
Brian: I didn't even know if it [was] going to hurt. I was just like, "Yeah, good, go for it! I want friends!" Make people laugh around me, they'll think I'm cool.
Joe: I went and got a zucchini and broke it right over his head, and we've been great friends ever since.
Brian: No one thinks we're cool.
Joe: No one.
April: So how did Antihero come about?
Joe: We've been really fortunate that while at VCU studying theatre, we've met a lot of really incredible people. We've been in an environment where we all have a teacher that we really admire and look up to--that's Dr. T., Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates--and she introduced the idea of community in theatre and not community theatre. Like your local church that puts on Jesus Christ Superstar or whatever. Where artists support and nurture one another, where we're kind of all in this together.
Brian: And most successful artistic communities--or scenes, or whatever--are really just people that have a common interest, and each other's common interest in mind. So if there are opportunities, when you meet other people or something, that would be better for someone else, it's all available.
Joe: We've always wanted to make our own stuff, and we came from a bunch of actors that were also writers and directors and visionaries. So a group of them made a short film at the 48 hour film festival with the director [of Antihero], Joseph Weindl, and they won best writing and best acting, fan favorites. [Joseph] had this dream to make this film called Antihero. He had kept talking about it, his friends had heard about it for years. So he finally decided, "I'm gonna do it, I've saved enough money"--because he personally invested his money in this project. He paid the lead actors what we considered great money. It kept us out of our lousy day jobs.
Brian: Allowed us the ability to be professional actors. He paid our way. We were movie stars for that time. We were getting paid to film a movie.
Joe: We got paid to do things that otherwise would be considered a waste of time.
April: How so? Examples?
Joe: Drinking 40s of Colt 45, hanging out at Belle Isle...
Brian: Eating ribs...
Joe: Sitting around and bullshitting...
April: Hello, my summer!
Joe: Right! Exactly, exactly. Our summer is essentially on tape, within the given circumstances of these characters that we played.
Brian: By given circumstances he means haircuts.
Joe: Haircuts and slight changes of interests. So [Joseph] was going to make this film [with] two other actors that are really good friends of ours, [but] they moved to Chicago. Luckily, he asked one of the lady actors, "Do you know some people that can help us?" She said, "Talk to Ryan Asher, and she can set you up with a lot of people." So anyway, he contacted [Ryan], and she read the script. She immediately thought, "I know the two most perfect people in the world for it."
Brian: I got a call on I-95 coming down from dropping someone off at the airport.
April: So this was the moment!? This was when you found out?
Joe: Well, she had just read the script and thought, because we've been really good friends, that he's like the younger brother I always wanted.
Brian: Yeah, and he's like the older brother I never ever want…. No, I always wanted.
Joe: And you can put in the interview, "They started making out."
April: Insert "Tongue and heavy petting."
Joe: Incestuous genital petting.
Brian: "And fifteen minutes later, we rejoin Joe and Brian after they wipe each other's mouths clean of saliva."
Joe: Oh Christ, save us! So [Ryan] read the script, she got a hold of us, and we thought like, "Uh, yeah! We'll get paid a thousand dollars for four months to film during the summer." But when we got together and read the script, we were really struck by it's quality. At some times, it seemed a little bit like any novice script--it seemed like maybe there was too much going on. But he went back and edited.
Brian: There was some fat to trim, but there is in the early versions of anything, really. Once you see it, act it out, once you hear it, once you really get into it, you're like, "Maybe this isn't necessarily what should be going on." Or, "There's too much here." But when we read it, there was clearly something we connected to--not only as interested artists. There was a definite connection between ourselves, or parallel versions of ourselves, and the people in this. There are very similar relationships between the characters and things that we have done, or could easily, with the circumstances of these characters, be doing.
Joe: Like getting high and talking about things
[Everyone laughs]
Brian: Yeah, shouting and breaking things.
April: Wearing PBR boxes over your heads.
Joe: Well, we were playing Three Man. Have you ever played the game Three Man?
April: [laughs] No.
Joe: I learned this game when I was down in Arkansas during Arkansas Shakespeare. There's nothing to do in Arkansas--
April: I don't doubt it.
Joe: --but drink and attempt to not get arrested, because there are more cops than there are citizens in that city. I ran around butt-ass naked in the sprinklers and didn't really think about it until after the fact. That was probably the worst idea--my last night in Conway, and I probably get arrested.
April: Ah, because that sounds like the best idea ever.
Joe: It is, right? It's really hot there so it makes sense to do. However, there is a high percentage of you getting arrested, because there are so many cops driving around looking for people to arrest. But so they got us together and we read. She cast the rest of it according to the talent that was available. One of the main ladies in it was supposed to be a younger girl, supposed to be like 14-13 years old.
Brian: Ryan had originally seen that as being different and Nicole, who eventually played her, as being able to pull that off. And when she first met with Joseph, there was hesitation. because he planned on it being a 14 or 16 year old character, and Nicole couldn't really play that. But it became obvious that the character in the movie melded somehow, the [younger] character and [older actress], and that Nicole was who should play that part.
Joe: It made the whole thing a lot more believable too, with the plot of the movie.
Brian: A little less lascivious, the things we do around that person.
Joe: Yeah, it wouldn't really make sense really, a 13 year old girl running drug money… Unless you're in Japan.
[Everyone laughs]
Brian: No, please...
April: Yeah, explain that further.
Joe: one of my best friends grew up in Australia and he ran heroin for one of the Japanese Triads. He got his teeth knocked out in a bar once when he was like 16 years old, because he was running heroin and thought he was tough. He talked shit to a bunch of Japanese guys in a bar and they beat the hell out of him, so... But anyway, Three Man! That was it! that was the thing!
Brian: Moving on... [laughs]
April: The circle has come back to this!
Joe: The reason there's PBR boxes on top of PBR boxes is because the Three Man has to wear a hat. So the hat became PBR box after PBR box. That was also my birthday--the first day of shooting, my 26th birthday.
Brian: And we wrapped shooting on my 23rd birthday
April: Oh wow, That's kind of special.
Joe: I mean, what a great way to spend your birthdays. Getting paid to have summer fun for a month, and at the same time I was producing Theatre in Battery Park, so I was getting some money to keep me out of my lousy day job, so I could focus on making this community event happen.
April: Yeah, I mean, that's essentially all of our dreams… to not actually work. To do the fun stuff--
Joe: --do the work that we love to do right? That's the goal.
Brian: Its the balance between "when you love it its not work," and, "if you're doing it right it should be work." And that nuance, or whatever hoity toity phrase you wanna use for it, when you're saying you want to live the dream. Do what you want and get paid for it, whatever constitutes work.
April: Exactly.
Joe: Did we answer your question at all, of how this movie came to be?
April: Essentially, yes.
Joe: Essentially, I think when you look back through, it…
Brian: So Joe had an idea.
Joe: Joseph Weindl, the Director.
Brian: He knew people through the 48 hour film project that he had done, which put him in touch with Ryan, who gathered us together, and was in the film herself. And we went from there.
Joe: We were all friends from college, from our undergrad.
April: Was it all VCU alumni?
Joe: Actually, just about everybody in the film.
Brian: A very high percentage.
Joe: The majority from the theatre department.
April: ...and that's the creative community coming together.
Brian: Yeah. When we needed people, we reached out to our friends. If we needed people for a scene...
Joe: If we needed a house to shoot in... We did the worst things to strangers' homes. And our own homes, to be fair.
Brian: But mostly we found ourselves in someone's home that we met 5 minutes previous, that seemed respectable enough...
Joe: ...hearing us dance and scream.
Brian: ...weeks into characters that are slightly more deranged, less conscious of other peoples personal--
Joe: --less considerate.
Brian: Yeah, less considerate, exactly. And fully in character--in that, every once in a while we'd break through and look at each other as Joe and Brian, and think about what we were doing to peoples homes and to their things--
April: ...and that'd just be out of character.
Joe: We were just like, "What the fuck… What are we doing? Can we believe…" And we have those same moments just in our conversations.
Brian: And we were getting paid. So it's even more astounding. And there was documentation, like real documentation.
Joe: Which, for years, actually, our friends would say, "We would love to be able to watch the two of you, and film how you interact without trying to do anything."
April: Wouldn't it be difficult, because you'd know?
Brian: We're so self involved…
Joe: ...and we just make things up. We make up hypothetical situations in movies all the time, and essentially play make believe while smoking cigarettes on porches.
Brian: I think what he's saying is, we normally live in a world where cameras are following us. It's just nice to have them be real.
April: I mean, that's the way to live.
Joe: In an imaginary world.
April: "Joe and Brian exist… amongst themselves."
Joe: Do we really?
[Joe and Brian look at each other]
Brian: Do we really?
Joe: Let's answer another question before we make bigger asses of ourselves.
April: Is this your first film? Full feature?
Brian: Definitely my first full feature. I've done some internet short type things again with that same community, some of the people in the movie and some people who I've gone to school with. But this is definitely, by far, the longest film experience I've had.
Joe: I've done a lot of work with VCU cinema, as I did commercial and industrial stuff. And I've made shorter films, but this is definitely the first full length feature film I've done. It was nice how we shot it--the medium, when you shoot on HD and you shoot on digital... I've shot 35mm films where you have two takes to get it and there's such a time crunch for you to get it, you don't even get to rehearse with anybody. And being young, a younger actor in the medium of film, it's a new process. The stage and the theatre is a much different process than film. Sometimes you just gotta get it. But with shooting digitally you're really freed up to--
Brian: ...dick around--
Joe: To jazz and improv.
Brian: That is such a classier way of saying dick around.
Joe: dick around, jazz, dick jazz. That doesn't sound at all like improvisation on film.
Brian: nope but that's gotta be the headline now.
Joe and Brian: Dick jazz.
April: Dick jazz.... Has a nice ring to it.
Joe: So yes, this is the biggest feature film I've ever done and the only one.
Brian: And the only one. [laughs]
Joe: Quite possibly the last.
April: So you are going to be showing a screening at the Byrd. Is the movie going to be showing anywhere else? Or submitted anywhere?
Joe: The director is submitting to Tribeca and Cannes and Seattle and Utah.
Brian: This isn't a premiere, because--fingers crossed--if you get into any of those they have the right to premiere at the festival. So this is an invited screening, but hopefully we will have a premiere of some … I mean, you know, like Kevin Garnett...
Joe and Brian: "Anything is possible."
Brian: So why not us? Any other sports cliches we can fit?
Joe: I've been helping out with promoting the event, because we would like to get a lot of asses in seats. The goal--
Brian: Tushies in the cushions, so to speak.
Joe: Tushies in the cushion, tushions in the cushions, tushions in the cushions...
Brian: I should have have never said that.
Joe: Tushions in the cushions, tushions on cushions... The goal of the screening is that... Richmond is burgeoning. The NY times did that piece on this city and its arts culture, and the VPA just got the tax incentives passed through the state government to make major studios want to film here, to provide work for crew, for artistic direction, for talent here.
April: Which is great, because they film tons of documentaries here. Historical…
Joe: Tons of documentaries. We have so much open land. I mean you're right in the middle--
Brian: We've got land, we've got city, we've got water, we've got mountains, all within two hours.
Joe: We have a lot cleaner air than those places.
Brian: Come on, Hollywood, where you at!
Joe: So we're inviting a lot of local arts leaders to attend [the screening] in the hopes that they can get excited about what a crew of two people, two cameras and a boom mike--a group of crazy enthusiastic people--can create.
Brian: Because really, within a tank of gas of the city. you can get so many different things. You can get country, you can get beach, you can go to the mountains. The history around here is incredible, and you can film certain parts of the city like you're in a major metropolis and then go over to the suburbs. There's an incredible wealth.
Joe: The Industrial (police training videos) I was talking about take place in Chicago, LA, New York, and Richmond, but it was all filmed in Richmond. The visual artists, the sculptors, the architects... all that creative energy, that's what it takes to make a film. And it's all present here. We're saying, "Look what we did with so little. Imagine what we could do with funding and more support."
Brian: Not necessarily just for us. Imagine for people who really know what they're doing and really have the money. We'll definitely take it, and especially learning, moving, going forward, we can do that much more. But it's definitely a showcase of what the town has to offer, in terms of talent and just the town itself.
Joe: So this screening is really--at least personally how I look at it--a beginning. It's the first of what we know to be a long and fruitful relationship. We want to get more invigorated, talented and passionate people involved. Oh, and we're having an after party.
Brian: What is it, a cotillion? What's a southern belle's coming out party?
Joe: Our debutante.
Brian: Our debutante ball!
April: Where is the after party?
Joe: New York Deli. I called the owner, and I was like, "Hey, we made this film. We're showing it at the Byrd. We wanna have a place where people can drink and dance and converse afterwards. Can we do it? We have no money. Can we do it at your place?" He's like, "I'm a big film buff, I love films." irunrvaradio, a local online radio station that gets a listenership of 25,000 a day, is going to be there broadcasting live from the screening. Then they're going to be DJing at the after party, so they're going to do interviews on the red carpet--which, we don't actually have a red carpet. I was trying to think of creative ways to make a red carpet...
Brian: Why don't we just go around and collect carpet samples?
Joe: That's a good idea.
Brian: We just gotta talk to a local carpet company. Start selling out now!
April: Well is there anything else you'd like to discuss about the movie?
Joe: It was really dirty.
Brian: Yeah it was pretty foul.
Joe: But I think it strikes a balance between being a... It's like--take a Will Ferrell film, a good Will Ferrell film... Well, maybe a decent Will Ferrell film. And put it with a Kevin Smith film, and then put in some good acting.
Brian: Take that, established Hollywood superstars!
Joe: Not Will Ferrell, Will Ferrell's great. But a lot of Kevin Smith films have a lot of shitty acting going on.
Brian: Maybe.
Joe: Sometimes. That's not a good last thing to say.
Brian: I'm under the impression that everyone in the world is going to see this, so I'm not going to take shots at anyone. Except for the city of Philadelphia. Fuck Philadelphia.
April: …and we're out! [laughs] No, i'm just kidding.
Joe: It's a heartfelt comic adventure.
Brian: It's no dirtier than hanging out with people. Your friends...
April: A normal Richmond summer.
Joe: Exactly.
Brian: There's going to be a lot of people who don't talk like this and don't really appreciate it, but they can go fuck themselves in their assholes. See? See what I did there? I gave it taste. If you don't like being told to go fuck yourself in the asshole, then you probably won't like this movie.
Joe: I don't know if we should tell people to fuck themselves in the asshole…