Fantasia 2019: THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE writer-director Riley Stearns on his subversive dark comedy

The release of Riley Stearns’ The Art of Self-Defense couldn’t be more timely. A subversive black comedy about toxic masculinity and what it means to “be a man,” the film stars Jesse Eisenberg as the mild-mannered Casey, a reserved bookkeeper who is brutally attacked one night by a motorcycle gang. In order to boost his self-esteem and to protect himself, Casey joins a local karate studio, headed up by an intense Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), who begins reshaping Casey’s life from the ground up, including replacing Casey’s beloved adult contemporary music with brutal heavy metal.

What starts out as a typical trajectory of self-improvement quickly turns into something much darker and more nefarious as Casey begins attending Sense’s night classes, where he’s drawn into the secretive and violent world of the school. Also starring Imogen Poots as a vicious brown belt, The Art of Self-Defense skews our notions of hyper-masculinity and violence, in a unique tone that sits somewhere between Brazil and Fight Club. Jesse Eisenberg is perfectly cast as Casey, the awkward teetotaler who has his world-view twisted after his brutal attack, leading him down an increasingly hyper-violent path as he falls under the sway of the charismatic but unstable Sensei and his fellow students.

We spoke with writer-director Riley Stearns to discuss the origins of the story, how he achieved the right tonal balance for the film, what inspired him to include a subplot about underground grindcore in the film, and much more.

The Art of Self-Defense is in theatres now.

Bad Feeling Mag: What was the first kernel of an idea for this film? You had been developing it for a few years before its release, is that right?

Riley Stearns: Well, it’s funny, because I actually wrote it pretty quickly. It’s just that I wrote it back in 2015, at the very end of that year, and it really just has been, not necessarily a struggle to get made, but it’s had some hurdles. Mainly, the fact that it’s a dark comedy set in the world of karate. That doesn’t totally sound like a winner to most people. But I really believed in this, and it’s been really fun seeing it kind of find the right people to be involved, and make it kind of come together. It’s all happened for a reason, for sure.

I had been training Jujitsu for a couple of years, and I just really liked the idea of setting something in that space, but I also didn’t want to take that traditional route and do the same sports movie or martial arts movie that you’ve seen before. I really wanted to kind of subvert the expectations of what something like that could be. And I had also come to terms with the fact, and admitted to myself, that I didn’t really know if I felt as much like a man as society was telling me I should. And I was worried that these were ideas that only I was feeling. And these very personal fears and thoughts started seeping their way into the story. And to my manager and agent’s credit, they heard me pitch the idea kind of in a loose form prior to an outline or anything, and obviously were sort of confused, and concerned, but said, “You know what, take it and run with it. I don’t understand totally yet, but I trust you.” And at the end of 2015 I had the script that I had written, which was The Art of Self-Defense, and it’s been kind of just, a slow grind to put it together ever since. It’s been finished for about a year and a half now, and it’s just finding the right time and release, and all of that.

The film really subverts the audience’s expectations of what to expect with martial arts or even action tropes — were you interested in satirizing any of that at the beginning?

I never really wanted it to feel like any of those movies, because I grew up on them as well, I grew up on Jean-Claude Van Damme films, Jackie Chan films. I mean, my first Rated-R film, and I’m sorry mom, my first Rated-R film was Bloodsport, when I was 5-years-old with my dad. He definitely made me cover my eyes at certain moments, but that was the kind of movie that I grew up watching and loving. But I knew that I wasn’t going to do something like that, I’m not that kind of director. I wish I could stage an entire movie like John Wick, where it’s all action non-stop, but I really love dialogue and I love dark comedy, and subverting what kind of humour you can put alongside action. It’s fun to be able to play with the action, but it wasn’t about the action.

Jesse Eisenberg has played a number of these socially awkward, detached characters over the years; was there a certain role he was in or something about him that made you think he’d be the right fit for this?

Well, I’ve really just been a fan of his ever since I saw The Squid and the Whale. I think that he’s a phenomenal actor, and I’ve been following his career for years. And it’s funny, he’ll do something like Squid and the Whale, and then something like The Social Network, and then go off and be in a big action movie, I liked that he had all these kinds of tools in his toolbox. But I never really looked at one role and said, “because of that, he’d be perfect for this.” It was really more just being a fan of his, period. And I didn’t write the role for him, I really don’t like to put too much on the character, and if he ends up saying later on, “Hey, this wasn’t right for me, sorry, I’m not going to do it,” then I don’t want to be in the spot of being bummed and unable to think of other actors for it. Because I do think that too many young filmmakers envision somebody when they’re writing, and when they don’t get that person it kind of screws them up a little bit. But once his name came up, it was kind of a no-brainer for us. And I really was surprised that we could get him, and that people thought it was a reasonable thing to send it to him. He’s so smart and intellectual, and very picky about the things that he does, but everybody was like, “I think he’s going to get this.”

We sent it to him on a Friday, it was a long 3-day weekend, and then that Tuesday he sent me a personal e-mail just saying that he would love to be involved, and he would love to make sure that this happened, but that his schedule was going to be very tight. And we were able to figure out this really quick window to get him in and get him out. From when he said that he wanted to do the film to when we started shooting was three months. And that was an insanely truncated prep time. And Jesse is hilarious, because I remember him at one point asking me, “And you think we can make a good movie in that amount of time?” And I was like, “Yeah, of course.” It wasn’t even in a negative way, it was more like, “Oh, I respect that you can do that.” But we did, and I really am proud of the film, and I’m so glad that we were able to figure out the scheduling, because I honesty can’t imagine anybody else in the role.

How did you tie the heavy metal angle in? What was your approach to the bands you reached out to, who are basically the soundtrack to these out of-control characters?

[Laughs] Yeah, it was definitely in the original outline, I had this idea that since it was going to be introducing these things that are very literally masculine, so whether it’s a German Shepherd as opposed to a Doxon, or German as opposed to French, or one of my favourite parts, which is metal as opposed to adult contemporary. I’m a huge fan of metal and grindcore and death metal. That’s a style of music that I’ve just never kind of grown out of. If anything, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve appreciated really good grindcore bands more. And I found this band I guess four or five years ago called Full of Hell, and I had been a huge fan of theirs. I was listening to their album that they collaborated on with Merzbow, this Japanese noise artist at the time, and I was listening to that as I was writing, and I was like, “This is the perfect soundtrack for what Sensei says is the most tough music there is,” so I kind of just wrote that with that in mind, going against my whole tasking the movie before I finished the script sort of thing, which I don’t like to do.

But I did it with this music, and ended up reaching out as I was writing it to the band, saying, “You don’t know me, but I’m a huge fan, and if this movie by some miracle ever got made, I would love to use a couple of your tracks.” And a few hours later I got an e-mail back from Dylan, the lead singer, saying, “Oh my god, I just watched your first film Faults, I just watched that last week with a friend of mine and loved it. Of course, whatever you need, we’re happy to do it.” And since then, I’ve become friends with them, and some other bands that I featured in the movie. It’s just really cool, there’s this selfish thing where if you put stuff that you like in your script, and you get your script made, and those people want to be involved, you kind of become friends with them at the same time. There’s this mutual respect there, which I think is really nice.

Are there any plans to release a soundtrack for the film?

Yeah, we haven’t talked about it yet, you’re actually the first person to ask about that. We’re going to do a very small vinyl release for Profound Lore Records, which Full of Hell was on prior to their signing to Relapse. The most exciting thing about it for me, is that even though it’s not a score-heavy film, we’ve got some very interesting things going on from Heather McIntosh, and we’re going to be pairing it with those two Full of Hell tracks, and a track from Asterisk, which is this great grindcore band that has a 5-second song in our movie, and the credits track is a friend of mine who made a fake adult contemporary song under a fake name, and we played it at the end of the film because we all just loved it so much to not use it. So we’re going to have a fun little release on a very niche, indie-metal label. And all of us couldn’t be more excited to put it out on Profound Lore, because they’ve been so great in helping us get these tracks for the movie, and it’s kind of a fun thing to go back to them now and say, “Yeah, totally, let’s release it on your label, and so something a little bit more punk rock as opposed to releasing the album on some major label.”

In light of all the discussions about toxic masculinity these days, does it change the way you look at the film in any way? These things are being discussed more openly than they were in 2015 when you started writing this movie. 

I mean, it’s been nice for the film in a strange way, because I think that it’s more relevant than it would have been had it came out in 2015 or 2016. I don’t claim that this film has any answers, because at the end of the day, I just want people to be entertained by it. But hopefully it’s going to bring up conversations, it’s going to start a dialogue, or at least continue that dialogue, and maybe there’s going to be a younger man or boy who sees the film, and responds to it in a way that they wouldn’t have, or sees something in it that hasn’t really been something that they’ve seen before, in terms of what it means to be a man, and how it feels to have that pressure on yourself. And maybe just being yourself is more important. The conversations have been around forever, but at the same time, the dialogue of toxic masculinity, and the MeToo movement, has really been within the last two years.

I remember when we were on-set in Kentucky two years ago, and the Harvey Weinstein stuff broke while we were shooting, and everyone on-set was talking about it. And I remember thinking, “This is so crazy, that this was this personal thing to me, and it was more about the perspective of a man about what it means to be a man, and feeling that pressure from society.” And also, that it’s not just about men, it’s about women too, even though it’s predominately starring men. And all these things kind of wind up in a way that I didn’t expect, but also, I think we really kind of embrace, and have been running with.

The Art of Self-Defense is in theatres now.