Kevin James as Dominick in the thriller film “BECKY,” a Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment release. Photo courtesy of Keri Anderson.
If seeing The King of Queens with a giant swastika head tattoo terrorize a family in the woods seems like a good time at the movies, then strap in for Becky, a white-knuckle revenge thriller from directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion (Bushwick, Cooties).
Making his first dramatic role after decades of comedic success on TV and with films like the wildly popular Paul Blart series, Kevin James is suitably menacing in Becky as Dominick, the leader of a gang of escaped convicts trying to uncover something vital from a secluded house in the woods that just happens to be occupied by a surly teenage girl named Becky (Lulu Wilson), her aggrieved father Jeff (Joel McHale), Jeff’s girlfriend Kayla (Amanda Brugel), and her young son Ty (Isaiah Rockcliffe). After an initial confrontation between the parties turns deadly, Becky attempts to put a stop to Dominick and his crew, setting off an incredibly violent and thrilling revenge story.
A crazed combination of Home Alone and The Last House on the Left, Becky is a well-shot thriller filled with surprising performances, from James’ intense and eerie portrayal of a violent racist to Lulu Wilson’s incredible transformation from a snotty teenager to an out-and-out action star over the course of the film.
We caught up with Becky directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion to discuss the film’s head-turning casting, the outrageous bursts of violence and gore, filming in the Canadian woods, and much more.
Becky is available via all digital outlets and at select U.S. drive-ins on Friday, June 5th.
Bad Feeling: How do you settle on the tone for something like Becky? The premise can go in so many ways, but you really keep up the intensity throughout.
Jonathan Milott: For us, that’s probably the most important and hardest part, especially with a film like this, and I think all of our films walk that line of tone. You’re at this precipice, and if you push one way it gets too ridiculous, and if you push another way it gets too hardcore. So, especially with this one, it was something we were really focused on with the writers and the development all the way up through the casting. Every conversation with the actors pretty much started with a tone conversation. Kevin James immediately was like, “What is the tone you guys want to hit with this?” And immediately we kind of got on board with the idea that it’s fun, it’s kickass, but it also has some serious moments and elements. We hope to ground it enough that it gives the moments later in the film some meaning and purpose, and really have the motivation behind Becky doing what she does have meaning. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of nonsense and action. Even though ultimately, it still has to be a lot of fun.
Were there any films you were using as touchstones for yourselves or that you wanted the cast and crew to watch to understand what you were going for?
JM: We liked to reference revenge movies in terms of what motivated us for really getting involved with this movie, so there are movies like
Old Boy. In a way, it’s a lot darker than our movie and a lot more intense in ways, but also just that idea that it’s a really visual and intense revenge movie. But in terms of movies that we all really talked about a lot, we really liked
Green Room, tonally. There’s something about the tone of it that we really like, and I think a lot of people had seen it and could get on board with what that was. I think, in the end, we wanted our film to be a little bit more fun than that. That’s something that’s hard because you can always find a bunch of movies that you can kind of put together that make up the perfect tone for the movie that you want to make, but it’s always hard to find that one specific movie. So,
Green Room has a lot of the ideas that we liked, but it didn’t encapsulate everything.
Cary Murnion: It’s the premise of Home Alone, the tone of Green Room, with Hit-Girl in the middle of it.
Co-Director Jonathan Milott from the thriller film “BECKY,” a Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment release. Photo courtesy of Kieran Crilly.
How did Kevin James get attached to the film? Did you just send a script and say, “We have a Nazi murderer and you’d be perfect for it?” What was that process like?
JM: It was such a weird turn of events. He was coming on board to do the character of Jeff, which Joel McHale ended up playing. We had Simon Pegg for the Dominick character, and Simon Pegg had to bail out because of a scheduling conflict. So, we already had Kevin James involved, so when the dial started moving, Kevin was like, “What if I did that role?” And we were like, “Hmm, that is very interesting.” Because there are similar dynamics between Simon and Kevin, where they’re playing against type. They’re known a little bit more for their comedy. We liked the idea of that, of finding an actor that wasn’t going to just go over the top and just be immediately recognizable as “the bad guy.” So, we started talking to [Kevin James], and immediately he was like, “If you’re thinking of this kind of darker, more grounded tone, with a little bit of fun, then I’m on board.” And that’s exactly what we wanted! [Laughs]
That shifted it so we had an opening spot for the Jeff character, and luckily at the last minute, we were able to talk to Joel McHale and get him into that part, which was also kind of interesting, casting against type.
Did you have any conversations with Kevin or Joel about their public personas and how you were going to subvert or play with them in this film?
JM: Oh, constantly. That was also very exciting for us, with both of them, just how much trust they put in us. And how much of an open dialogue we continued to have from the pre-production, through actually on-set for every scene. It was a cool dialogue where at every moment we were exploring and making sure we were walking that fine tonal line. They were so generous, both of them were just willing to do… all of the actors were willing to do whatever it took to get the movie to the best place possible.
(Top-Bottom) Kevin James as Dominick and Lulu Wilson as Becky in the thriller film “BECKY,” a Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment release. Photo courtesy of Keri Anderson.
Lulu Wilson is incredible in the movie — she has to do so much, from being a surly teenager to being almost an out-and-out action star by the end of the film — what was the process of working with her? How do you work with someone so young who has to do so much in the film?
JM: We had been following her career and knew immediately that she was the perfect actress for this. As development happened, we were slowly getting her older and older, and we were like, “We have to get her before she passes that 13-year-old age,” because we really wanted to have a 13-year-old play a 13-year-old. We’d seen her do things in The Haunting of Hill House and Sharp Objects that are emotionally beyond her years. I don’t know if you’ve heard us talk about that first-day on-set, the first thing she had to do was let out a crazy scream, and she just blew everyone’s mind! [Laughs]
“…we wanted the kind of people that love this kind of movie, a hardcore, rated-R revenge thriller, to get what they’re looking for.”
Even before then, there was the first day we did a table read with her and Kevin James. I think Kevin James is used to doing table reads for sitcoms, so he’s just there with his glasses up on his forehead, thinking he was going to do a read-through, where you don’t typically explore the character’s emotions too much, you’re just reading it through to get the sense of the whole script. But right away, Lulu started…it wasn’t even like she was trying, she was just so intense that Kevin pulls down his glasses, tightens up his shirt, and got really serious, really quick because she’s just so intense and so talented. He realized that [she] was on another level.
Were Lulu’s parents involved on-set? Was there any hesitations from the family side about the intensity of the film?
CM: Not at all, the family was there the whole time. And a small, fun note, the mother in the video that Becky watches on her phone, that’s her real mom. Her mom and her dad were on-set the entire time, amazing parents. A funny way to describe their relationship, when we first met with Lulu up in Canada when she came to start filming and doing prep, we asked Lulu, and her mom was sitting right next to her, “What kind of movies are you watching?” And right off the bat, Lulu said, “My favourite movie I’ve watched is
Midsommar.” And we know how crazy
Midsommmar is, and her Mom’s like, “Yep, that’s her favourite movie right now.” As a family, they keep things open and they embrace what their daughters do, they’re an amazing, amazing family.
JM: And I think they’re doing a tremendous job of keeping her grounded and supporting her while not letting her head blow up with stardom. It’s really great to see, because the whole family is just really down to earth, and it makes the whole process easier for us.
Lulu Wilson as Becky in the thriller film “BECKY,” a Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment release. Photo courtesy of Keri Anderson.
When you’re filming out in the woods for so long — not that it was like, Apocalypse Now or anything — but were there any difficulties in staging these intense action scenes outdoors with all the choreography that goes into that?
JM: We were lucky that we started at the end of the summer, so it went from where you literally couldn’t step outside of your car without just getting swarmed and attacked [by insects] if you didn’t cover yourself with horrible chemicals. I had a welt on my arm from some sort of weird bug bite. Another funny story was one of the crew was walking back after getting some equipment and a snake just fell out of the tree on them, and there was a gigantic ball in it because it had just eaten something. I mean, we were in the forest there. We definitely had poison ivy, we had to deal with almost everything.
CM: There was a fire. We were shooting sparks to get some of the hits off the trees to make it look like bullet shots and a fire started on a tree. And we were there at that house for almost the entire shoot. We had a couple of days of filming outside, otherwise, we were at that house the entire time. In a good way and a bad way, everything was intense on those 25 days. I can’t imagine the stories of Apocalypse Now where they spent months in those places. We were in one place for 25 days and it was intense.
It really feels like you tried to push the envelope with some of the violence and kills in the movie — what was the process like of developing those scenes?
CM: When we’re referencing Old Boy, and he takes out every tooth of a man that’s kept him in prison, you kind of have to match that and go above that.
JM: That was one of the things that attracted us to this film. It’s a revenge film, so the moments of revenge have to live up to or exceed anybody’s expectations, or what’s the point? So, in the script stage, that was a big part of how we developed and had fun with it — how does this 13-year-old girl exact revenge against 7-foot-tall muscle dudes that just escaped from prison? So, keeping that somewhat realistic, and having it be through [her] intelligence and pure rebellious teenage anger. That was really important to us.
One of the things we were also thinking about when making it was, this is a very specific kind of film, targeted at a very specific group of film lovers. If you see the trailer for this or the poster for this and you think you’re going to go in and see something like Home Alone or even a comedy, you’re just going into the wrong movie. So, we wanted the kind of people that love this kind of movie, a hardcore, rated-R revenge thriller, to get what they’re looking for. And if that’s the kind of movie you like, it’s the kind of movie we like, it’s hopefully going to deliver on that promise.
Becky is available via all digital outlets and at select U.S. drive-ins on Friday, June 5th.