Interview: Troy Duffy

The Boondock Saints is a film that splits fans and critics down the middle. Some love it, others don’t see the hype. Regardless, the story of the Saints is interesting from behind-the-scenes issues, to a documentary that portrayed the film’s director in a negative light, to a lawsuit, despite all of that, something happened to the film, that gained the cult status and rapid fan base the film thrives on to this day.

Killer Film sits with the film’s director Troy Duffy for an unedited chat about the film, misconceptions, and a possible third Saints.

Jon: Thanks for finding some time to do this interview, I know how busy you are taking The Boondock Saints city to city.

Troy Duffy: (sighs) Brother, you have no idea. It’s been a real kick in the ass. Even though I’m tired, it’s a good tired.

Jon: You do a lot of stuff just for the fans, but is this roadshow a sort of rebirth for yourself, considering how The Boondock Saints was mishandled theatrical in 1999?

Troy Duffy: Yeah, I guess it is a little bit of that, a little vindication. It didn’t get a theatrical release due to the Columbine Massacre, and now that Boondock Saints II got a theatrical release, fans are eating it up, it’s coming to DVD, we had this party in Los Angeles, where all of these fans are coming out, we’re riding it on a tour bus, it’s been a real kick in the pants, you know? Even the fan base feels vindicated by these.

Jon: What I would like to know is about some of the drama. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about the whole Duffy versus the Weinsteins and the Overnight documentary?

Troy Duffy: The whole documentary is a misconception. It’s an disingenuous smear job by two opportunistic assholes. If I may, with you or with somebody, just sit down and go through Overnight scene-by-scene, but we don’t have time here to do that. Basically, they were two friends of mine who I gave permission to do this documentary and had this idea that we all signed off on. We didn’t want to take their potential profits or had a contract with them, saying we would just slice them away, and because Boondock Saints didn’t get a theatrical release, they were hoping to bootstrap it to Boondock and said that their documentary was worthless now. We didn’t give them a chance for success.

They disappeared from our group, and by that time, we couldn’t stand them anyway, and a year or two later, out comes this f*cking thing. All of my friends called me fueled with anger on my behalf. How dare these guys. Having been there, I know about having misconceptions, but it’s really simple. Harvey Weinstein and I have always liked each other. I haven’t spoke to him in a while, but I continue to like him. There’s a lot of books and stuff written about how big of an asshole Harvey is, but I’ll be honest with you, have anybody name their top 10 movies of all-time, there’s going to be a few Miramax titles on there. For one reason only: Harvey Weinstein has excellent f*cking taste. We are all the better for it. Can he be a handful? I’m sure, I believe we all can. I believe it was his underlings that sabotaged our partnership.

I didn’t want to use big stars in the film and not because they were stars or celebrities, but they were the wrong stars and celebrities. Once I found Sean (Patrick Flanery) and Norman (Reedus) I knew I found my Brothers. I didn’t need to look at anybody else and I was pretty adamant about it. Instead of appreciating this kid who wants to do it his way, with his vision, they decided I wasn’t listening to them, and I had to go, since they were the experts. That’s what that was all about: pure casting differences. Harvey, in fact, came to a private screening I set up for him, and then called me and said nothing but complimentary things, even thinking Willem Dafoe had a shot at an Oscar. He was just happy, but at that time he couldn’t move on it because of that “history” we had together, it would have made it appear he made a mistake.

So, I mean it was all of this stuff that happened. Have you ever seen these featurettes on DVDs and it looks like everybody is shooting Gone with the f*cking Wind? It’s terrible. We all know it’s bullsh*t, people have a sophistication to them these days, and they know when they are looking at a blue screen and not real stunts, you know? These featurettes show everybody as best friends, working on this sacred project, and nine times out of ten, the film sucks. I know from personal experience that movies don’t go that way. There’s a lot of fighting that has to happen, a lot of disagreements, but also a lot of triumphs and things that go right. Those little devils that did that documentary didn’t focus on any of those triumphs. At the end of the day, I got mine as it is now a cult hit, but you wouldn’t know that by watching that documentary. Actually, it fuels more questions than it answers. So, to me a couple of guys can be smart enough to look at it and think, “wait a minute here, I got some questions about this”.

I am continually surprised at how many critics and journalists buy into it, without questioning it at all. It’s like they want to believe that story. It is not. If you show a guy looking like an asshole, and not show where, when, and why to allow the audience to make their decision on it, pretty much gets everybody thinking he’s an asshole, that’s it.

Jon: The media can portray things in a negative light, no matter if it’s critics like me, bloggers, journalists, who don’t know like you were saying, the who, when, and why. Norman Reedus, Clifton Collins, and others have nothing but praise for you. I’m finding them to be truer than the misconceptions, but people recognize Troy Duffy as a real Hollywood rebel, so what’s the biggest misconception in your opinion about yourself?

Troy Duffy: Wow…(pauses). I have to say first of all, let me address this. The fact that the entire cast, including Willem Dafoe, speaks louder than anything. If I was this huge asshole, would they have signed up for a second go-round of torture from Duffy? I have to say in terms of that Hollywood rebel thing, it’s weird, it’s like a slippery-slope. To me, Hollywood makes movies. There’s a few people grabbing a camera with friends doing something in the woods, like Paranormal Activity, we’ve seen those, and in my realm, the independent film, and hopefully in larger budgeted films, you can only be a rebel so much. You can’t be a rebel to Hollywood because quite frankly, they’re providing a infrastructure for you to make a movie. So in that sense, it’s fairly accurate. As far as rebels could exist in the frame work in Hollywood, Troy is a rebel.

It probably would be accurate. But, what I’ve learned in the last ten years you must play the politics of this business. You must preserve your relationships, you must compromised at the right times, for the right reasons. You must compromise to the point where if it’s starting to affect the creativity of the film, then you must draw the line. There’s lots of things that can work out in compromises and contracts. There’s other ways to free studios from compromising your artistic integrity. Once you become more educated on it, it really does help the whole situation better. The financiers, the studios, it gives them a twinkle in their eye because you’re doing a great job and putting out your own creative vision out there, and everybody is happy at the same time.

For the most part, there’s always going to be some compromise. When I hear the word rebel, it means you’re anti-everything, a f*cking anarchist. You need Hollywood to survive, to make movies. It’s a weird situation. (laughs)

Jon: From what did you learn from the experiences from the first film, in production terms, that made the sequel smoother in execution?

Troy Duffy: In terms of actual shooting, the first time around was fist-to-the-wall and like riding a bicycle the second time around. That’s the fun part, man, making the movie is hectic, frightening, and crazy. It’s funny; every tragedy is magnified on set. If one thing goes wrong, everyone is on it. It’s such an intense atmosphere. It’s like everyone just shot heroine! You have to control that. We all felt the pressure, but I was lucky enough to put together a right cast of guys who could show up and just grab a camera and start shooting like nobody’s giving a shit. Just guys who came to get the job done and have a good time doing it. The things I’ve learned in between the two films was learning about the industry and the politics. I had a long time to sit there and look at my mistakes and the bridges I’ve burned.

At times, it was right to do that, but there are ways now to understand how to walk away from that person and still preserve a relationship. Also, just learning the contractual side of the film world.

Jon: In your opinion, in ten years two Saints films, what’s your take on the popularity of the films and why do the DVDs continuously sell out?

Troy Duffy: If I had an answer to that question, I would bottle it up and resell it. (laughs) Fans love it for different reasons. Every person I talk too, the guys have reasons, then the girls have a different set of reasons. The seed is planted in our minds about how justice is preserved in America. Let’s be honest: the man taking the law into his own hands against the bad guys has been in movies forever. So I can’t say that’s it, but it’s the seed. It’s just must be some sort of magic shit that connects to people on a deeper level. The fact we got no theatrical release helped it. When fans find something like this on their own, and think about the films you found when you were a kid that nobody knew about, they felt like they were yours. Because it’s not advertised or the studios not telling you to like it, you showed your buddies to watch their eyes light up when shit happened. There’s just some sort of weird magic in movies that I can’t define it. It works and what has happened with the first film, there’s something undeniably there.

Jon: I think people really respond to the Christian aspects the characters have. Was that something you’re personally involved with, religious-wise, or was it something that you felt the characters needed?

Troy Duffy: Let’s be honest, I’m far from the first person to use religion as a device. It’s been used continuously for the last 80 years in film. That ritualistic aspect to The Boondock Saints isn’t a trick, it’s a way to show how deeply the characters feel about it. Connor and Murphy aren’t two cool Irish guys, killing people, cracking a beer open, and laughing about it. You show them ritualized the bodies, where we fade to black and white, shows there’s an important thing happening here. They aren’t taking this lightly, there’s a system to it, like with the family prayer. It helps to make things more dramatic and people plug into it. I hate to make the comparison, but I was asked about this yesterday, it’s the same thing when we made Smecker gay. It’s the drama and comedy of the whole thing. When he shows up on the crime scene and starts bossing the cops around, there’s immediate tension there. Then the payoff in the story with humor and flamboyance, all of these things are presented in his sexuality, making him more interesting. It’s the same thing as using religion as a device. It makes you understand how the characters are looking at it. Sometimes, though, it’s just cool. Get two guys putting guns to the back of some guys head, and f*ck man, I’m there, you got my ten bucks.

Jon: Well, finally I feel like I might be executed ritualistically from my friends and fans if I don’t ask you about the future of the Saints. Is there a third film planned?

Troy Duffy: I got some ideas on it. Let me try to explain what a beast that would be. If writing a sequel is like cracking a code to a safe, because it has to have the right ingredients, or you got to keen enough to hear those tumblers latch into place for the code to open up that safe door. It’s not like regular writing. So if I crack my house safe on II, III would be like cracking the code to Fort f*cking Knox. 95% of directors mess up sequels, and 99% of them mess op threequels. It’s a more exclusive club there. Look at some of our greatest directors. Look at what happened to Godfather f*cking III, man, it scares the living shit out of me. I worship Coppola, but I’m scared on messing the one up. I got some ideas, but it’s going to be a while.

That has to happen the right way, I can’t afford to fuck that one up. I’m going to try to do a couple of films under my belt before I try the third Saints. During that down time in between films, I wrote four other scripts and I’m tossing two up in the air now, although I don’t know which. I’m going to try to make a deal on one of them. They are very different from Boondock Saints, one’s a serial killer thriller and one’s a buddy comedy set in the 1500′s.

Boondock Saints II: All Saint’s Day is out March 9th on Blu-ray and DVD. Feel free to leave comments below!