The director of "The Intruder", Deon Taylor, on his independent thriller and "Scary Dennis Quaid"



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A successful Bay Area couple buys a $ 3 million home in a California wine region. They are greeted by the eccentric former owner who does not seem ready to let the house go. He says he travels around the country to live with his daughter, but the date of his departure is farther and farther away. And one way or another, he always shows up somewhere in the house. This is the premise of Deon Taylor (Meet the Black people, Traffik) new thriller, L & # 39; intruder. The film features a charismatic cast including Michael Ealy, Meagan Good – and a frankly puzzling, Dennis Quaid.

"I thought it was amazing, man," Taylor told Geke.com while he was having his hair cut in a hotel room in Manhattan. Before this movie, Taylor says that he had no relationship with Quaid. He just wanted him to play the villain, Charlie Peck. "I wrote him a letter. I wrote a letter to his manager and his agent. I thought, "It'll do it!" It was not a shit. Nobody answered. "

Dennis Quaid in 'The Intruder' (Sergei Baschlakov / Screen Gems / Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Taylor did not give up, though. He sent another letter. Finally, another producer called to ask questions about the letters and these were forwarded to Quaid. "I heard my phone ring and it was Dennis Quaid. "Deon! It's Dennis Quaid, "Taylor said, giving me what I can only badume is an incredible impression of Quaid's phone rate. "I thought," Oh my God, it's Dennis Quaid, "you know, you're moving away, right? I thought, "D. Quaid, what's up, man? It was so fast, man. He was the nicest person, just the nicest guy. For me, when you're independent in Hollywood, you have to have a big name, a lot of stuff for you, or a giant studio. I had none of that, it's just me.

Quaid read the script and it will prove to be exactly what he was looking for. Quaid told Taylor that he was looking to do something on the crazy side. They spoke for 45 minutes of Taylor's approach to making the film, and Quaid was on board almost instantly. "The first call he was like," I'm doing the movie, "said Taylor.Quid was Taylor's first choice because he had never played such a role before." Every person I've thought of or that they had acted in this way, or that you had seen it well, you would say, "OK, it's the bad guy." "The authentic charm and the warm and warm smile of Quaid are what makes him work as the villain in this home invasion thriller. Anyone Taylor thought about, thought the characters would be afraid too much, too soon.

The only question for Taylor was whether Quaid could switch the switch and become the monster by the end of the movie. "We really worked on Charlie," Taylor said. "You do not want to go completely crazy, we just wanted to know what the right temperature was for him, for me, I wanted him to take it seriously, I wanted him to be what he was is at the end, not during the movie If you show how crazy you are at the beginning, they will not wait 90 minutes, so it became weird, funny, weird, a little quirky. all the things we wanted to play with at the beginning It took a lot of time and Dennis finally figured it out, man, that little smile he was practicing that kind of thing.

Taylor has been actively trying to cast characters for them to play against the guy. This has been true for the whole movie, not just for the bad guy. Michael Ealy was an actor Taylor did not know personally L & # 39; intruder although he has seen his work. Ealey, although he played the scary stalker in Perfect guy, has always been chosen as the bady guy that all girls love. Taylor wanted to give him something a little different with which to work. "There is something interesting about Straw dogs in it, "said Taylor, referring to Sam Peckinpah's 1971 home invasion thriller." I thought you needed a guy who could play with the technician, with the marketing you know, to put him on glbades, and he's removed guns. "And Michael Ealy to me was able to hit all those marks, and he looks good.

Ealy's character who retires from the guns is an important part of the film. It sounds like a small detail in the biggest story, but it was an important aspect of the character for Taylor. "Everyone who saw the trailer of this movie, even when I went on Instagram, said," Well, I'll have the cake! I am a BAP BAP BAP, shit would be over! Everyone goes there. We are so armed. I thought it would be cool if this guy had already had an incident with a gun in his family and had lost someone for using violence? He does not want to be part of it. We have never seen that. I had never seen that. Taylor wanted to see a character who did not want to know anything about guns, unlike the number of people who thought they could solve this kind of problem. With the irony of putting this character in a situation where he could use one.

In addition to the themes of gun violence, viewers might see another message in the film, even though Taylor says it was not intentional. The film follows a wealthy young black couple terrorized by an elderly white man wearing a red cap. It is impossible to ignore and difficult not to question the intentions behind this choice of costume. "I'm not trying to say anything," laughed Taylor, and all the other participants. "I thought it was cool, but it's really funny to see how this red hat goes off. He has a red hat with a deer on it. It just triggers energy, do you know? Seriously the man, black and white. I have never seen anything as heavy in energy in terms of what we are right now politically. You know what I mean? You might think … No matter what red hat in the world, if a white man wears a red hat … It could be a guy wearing a bading bull's hat, you could say, "Oh, I know what?" It does!

Taylor insists that reading is totally involuntary. "I put on this hat because I found it interesting that it was the world in which he is. He is a hunter. But it was not so hot at the time. The climate was not like that. Even with this unintentionally loaded imagery, Taylor is particularly proud of the fact that no sentence is related to race. Charlie Peck's hat can turn heads, but his actions are not motivated by racism at all. "I did it for a reason. I often feel, everything is so competitive in the world, "said Taylor. He mentioned a meeting at which someone asked what they were going to do about the red hat. "I thought, what do you mean? He is wearing a red deer hat! "It's crazy for me, man, but that's where we are." Although people are interested in this image, Taylor would prefer that people do not focus on it. "What I was trying to do with this movie was just going for a ride on hell."

Meagan Good and Michael Ealy in 'The Intruder' (Sergei Baschlakov / Screen Gems / Sony Pictures Entertainment)

One thing became clear during the conversation, that is, Taylor tackles the movies that he achieves as a fan. Although he has never undertaken to make a commercial thriller like L & # 39; intruder he was inspired by his fandom to perform this scenario for the thrillers of the late 80s and early 90s. He mentioned influences like Illegal entry and Fatal attraction. He also mentioned the older films that saw a renaissance in popularity at that time, such as The brilliant. And yes, there is a big bright tribute in the film. (He also begins with a tribute to Get out so Taylor really wears his fandom on his sleeve with this one.)

Taylor says that he made this movie for thriller fans like him. That's why he does not want people to focus so much on Dennis Quaid's red hat. "I wanted the film to last 90 minutes so you could go to the theater and get away. Move away from CNN and Fox, do you know what I mean? "I like all kinds of movies. I do it really, because I have been high on them. And I'm too stupid to know you're only supposed to do one genre because I love them all. What is more important than sticking to a genre is to explore a theme. Especially the themes of family, relationships and breakthrough after adversity ultimately, that's what L & # 39; intruder and his previous stabbing (heh) to horror, Meet the blacks, were on the point. People who come for their family.

Dennis Quaid in 'The Intruder' (Sergei Baschlakov / Screen Gems / Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Meet Blacks was a lot more of a comedy than L & # 39; intruder and Taylor likes the fact that he has been able to make so many movies in many genres, from Supremacy at Meet Blacks at Intruder, as an independent filmmaker. "I think we do it pretty well, I think it's pretty dope, and we do not do it without money," he said, "I think the film is a fan film, and we see it. The answers are innumerable in terms of population. "

Staying independent has allowed Taylor to make the movies he wants to see. Although a studio picked up L & # 39; intruder for distribution, it was done completely independently. That's why, says Taylor, the film can have the same end. And the reason he stayed in the movie after the studio intervened, is because the fans had such a reaction during a screening test. I'm not going to tell you what it is, I'll just let Taylor's words speak for themselves: "No studio would finish the film the same way as me … no one does it "

L & # 39; intruder plays in theaters now.

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