Juel Taylor on The Film That Lit My Fuse
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00:00 [upbeat music]
00:02 - What film or series lit your fuse
00:13 and made you have to tell stories on screen?
00:16 - That's probably one of the harder questions to answer
00:19 because growing up,
00:23 I wanted to do video game design, if you can believe it.
00:28 So, I, you know, like,
00:31 "Ocarina of Time" and, you know, "Chrono Cross"
00:35 and "Metal Gear Solid"
00:37 kind of really got me interested in storytelling.
00:40 More than any individual film,
00:42 only because I didn't know anybody.
00:45 I'm from Alabama and I didn't know,
00:48 I had no idea that, at least as a kid,
00:52 at least, you know, I guess intellectually,
00:54 I knew there were directors,
00:55 but I didn't know anybody in the film world.
00:58 I had no interaction with Hollywood at all.
01:03 So, it was so outside of the sphere of possibility
01:07 that it never even dawned on me
01:09 'til I was really in college that it was a career path.
01:13 That's when I started, I think,
01:14 really gravitating towards film.
01:16 So, like, a lot of movies that I loved as a kid,
01:19 you go back and you re-watch 'em,
01:20 then you start watching and adjusting other movies.
01:23 I know I, as a kid, I loved "Pulp Fiction" and Jackie Brown.
01:27 So, I know coming back,
01:28 like, by the time I was in college,
01:30 those were some of the first movies I was looking at
01:32 in terms of inspiration,
01:34 in terms of the kind of stories
01:36 that I was interested in telling, if that makes sense.
01:38 So, you know, once you start to kind of really dive
01:41 into film, then you kind of go back
01:43 and you start to try to analyze
01:44 why you like the things you like, you know?
01:46 And I think, you know, the movies
01:48 that really inspired "Necro and Tamron,"
01:51 you know, I think I tend to enter stories
01:55 from a tonal place, like, vibe, mood, tone first.
01:58 And I think, really, what I love about, you know,
02:01 Jackie Brown and "Pulp Fiction"
02:02 and "Boogie Nights" and "The Big Lebowski,"
02:06 really, it's that tone.
02:07 It's like, there's a very thin tightrope
02:10 that they walk between, like, drama and comedy, you know?
02:14 And for some reason,
02:17 I think just the specificity of those movies, you know,
02:19 really attracts me to 'em, you know?
02:23 Now, obviously, like, there's storytelling,
02:26 storytelling influences, like "The Truman Show,"
02:30 "They Live," you know, these are movies
02:33 that are more, like, plot-specific
02:35 to what Tyrone is, "The Matrix," you know?
02:37 Like, it's, Tyrone is really just
02:39 the "Truman Show" retold through a weirder lens, you know?
02:44 But at the end of the day, it's still a person realizing
02:49 that his world is not the world he thought it was.
02:52 And it's more of a journey of identity than anything.
02:57 So those are really the movies that kind of stuck with me
03:03 as it pertained to Tyrone.
03:06 And again, going back to, like, the mood
03:08 and the tone of those movies,
03:10 that's what really stuck with me,
03:11 like the idiosyncratic detail.
03:15 Like, they're so idiosyncratic, you know?
03:18 And that's really what I was inspired the most by.
03:23 - On your way up, as you were making your way
03:28 as a, first as a writer, and then as a writer-director,
03:33 what movie or series that you watched
03:36 that was so good it made you go,
03:38 "My goodness, can I ever actually rise to this level?"
03:42 - That was, that's an easy one.
03:44 I mean, it's very, like, specific.
03:46 It's not gonna have nothing to do with, like,
03:48 the plot of Tyrone or anything like that,
03:49 but it was "The Dark Knight."
03:52 I remember sitting, yeah, I went down to Orlando
03:56 to watch it, I went to, I mean, I'm wearing a UF shirt,
03:59 I went to the University of Florida, so.
04:01 But I went down to Orlando to see it in IMAX.
04:03 I was like, I love "Batman Begins,"
04:05 and, like, I was so excited.
04:07 I remember, like, sitting, and, like,
04:10 the hair on the back of my neck standing up
04:12 at the end of the movie, when it's like,
04:13 "A Watchful Defector, A Dark Knight,"
04:16 and the music is going, and he's like,
04:18 "So we'll have to hunt him."
04:20 [imitates music]
04:21 And the music starts hitting,
04:22 and, like, the dogs are chasing him,
04:24 and I'm like, "Oh my God, he's about to stick the landing.
04:27 "Oh, he's about to stick the landing.
04:29 "Oh, he's about, you know, I'm feeling like,
04:32 "so, I'm feeling like so much, like,
04:35 "endorphin burst in the back of my neck,"
04:37 like, as that climactic, like, final few shots happen.
04:42 And then he's riding on a motorcycle,
04:44 and the cape is [imitates motorcycle]
04:46 and it just cuts to black, and I was like,
04:48 "Well, so much for trying to be a movie director."
04:51 [laughs]
04:54 Like, this was, like, right when I was getting interested
04:57 in, like, all right, maybe I should really, you know,
05:00 pursue it, 'cause I didn't, I was an art student.
05:04 I was an art major,
05:06 and I was a pretty mediocre one at that, so.
05:10 I was like, "Maybe I should try to save some of my credits
05:13 "and say I'm gonna be a movie director
05:14 "and get an interdisciplinary major
05:16 "so that I won't have a completely useless degree
05:18 "that will make me no money and leave me destitute."
05:22 So I'm like, "All right, all right, all right,
05:24 "I'm gonna do it."
05:25 I had just, just applied to do interdisciplinary.
05:29 So I had just, like, formally said,
05:30 "All right, I'm going to take these two years
05:33 "of art credits that I have
05:35 "and make them applicable to a film degree
05:37 "by finessing my way into an interdisciplinary degree
05:41 "'cause Florida didn't have a film program."
05:44 And then, like, you watch the,
05:45 I'm watching "The Dark Knight" and then, like,
05:47 I was like, I just sat in this seat, like,
05:51 how could I ever?
05:53 Like, it seemed so inconceivably, like,
05:59 just inconceivably good, like, and unattainable, you know?
06:03 [laughs]
06:04 I'm like, "Man, I,
06:07 "oh, back to the drawing board."
06:10 [laughs]
06:11 Yeah, I saw it, like, four times in the movies.
06:13 Like, I was obsessed with "Dark Knight" for sure in college.
06:17 My boy, Chris, he's pretty good.
06:19 He's pretty good.
06:19 [laughs]
06:22 - So now, whether it was the success of something
06:26 that you did or approval from someone who mattered to you,
06:30 and I know when you did the "Creed II" script,
06:33 you got to work with Ryan Coogler and Sly Stallone,
06:37 what gave you the confidence that,
06:39 "Yeah, maybe I do belong here?"
06:42 - I mean, I think there's always gonna be
06:44 an undertone of imposter syndrome,
06:46 and it never goes away.
06:48 You know what I'm saying?
06:49 So it's like, you know, you still, like,
06:50 "Do I belong here?"
06:51 Like, you know, I'm asking that right now.
06:53 [laughs]
06:54 But, you know, obviously that was, you know,
06:58 just, you know, getting to, you know,
07:02 meet Sly Stallone and, like, sit in the trailer with him
07:06 and talk about his scene,
07:07 and he's so, like, down to earth as a writer.
07:09 You know, you don't, first time I met him in person,
07:11 like, you know, we didn't sit in a room
07:14 and do the draft together, obviously.
07:17 You know, I do the draft, he does the pass,
07:19 it goes back and forth, and, like,
07:20 you get the pre-production, like, you sitting down,
07:22 like, "I'm gonna go in this,
07:24 "I'm gonna go in this trailer with Sebastian Stallone,
07:26 "this is gonna be weird, like, he gonna be,
07:28 "he gonna be looking at me like, 'Who is this?'"
07:31 And it was, like, the exact opposite.
07:32 He was, "Oh, he's so cool," you know?
07:35 And he's throwing out lines, like,
07:37 "Man, what you think about this line?"
07:39 I'm like, "You Rocky, bro."
07:40 Like, I'm like, "Why you asking me?"
07:42 You know?
07:43 And just the fact that he was so,
07:45 he was so open and engaging in terms of, like,
07:48 with someone who was truly, like,
07:50 a random dude off the street, fresh out of film school.
07:53 And he's sitting here, like, really workshopping,
07:57 you know, a scene, and this is,
07:59 you're talking to Rocky, you know what I'm saying?
08:00 And so, like, there's a level of, like,
08:03 difference that I'm feeling, obviously, sitting in the room.
08:05 And I'm, like, hesitant to even, you know, throw it out,
08:09 but he'd throw anything out.
08:11 But he's so much like, "Yo, what you think about this line?"
08:13 "This line's stupid."
08:14 I'm like, "Ah, I don't know about that line."
08:15 He's like, "Yeah, you right."
08:16 Then I'm like, "Oh, man, it's a lot cool,
08:18 "like, it's a lot cool like that, okay."
08:21 So it's, the process is still the same,
08:23 you know what I'm saying?
08:24 So I had several moments like that
08:26 where it's not necessarily, like,
08:27 "Oh, I belong here," 'cause you never,
08:29 I mean, who knows if you belong, you know?
08:31 The world will tell you if you belong or not.
08:33 But I think there is something about the demystification
08:36 of the process where, you know, you sit down,
08:38 you're like, "It's so long."
08:39 But then it's like, the writing process is still like,
08:42 "Is this stupid?
08:43 "Are we like this?
08:44 "I don't know about that.
08:44 "What about that?"
08:45 You know what I mean?
08:46 It's exactly like it was before I even went to film school,
08:49 you know what I mean?
08:50 You're just, like, sitting and truly making
08:52 experimental films and, like,
08:54 have absolutely no formal training at all,
08:56 but it's still a process of, like,
08:59 even on set, like, in terms of, you know,
09:01 with Tyrone, it's like Jamie Foxx.
09:03 I mean, we shot the first scene, you know what I mean?
09:06 You know, I had done a few TV episodes,
09:09 and obviously I went to film school,
09:10 but I never worked with anybody.
09:12 Of Jamie Foxx's ilk, obviously.
09:16 And, you know, you have a backup plan to the backup plan
09:19 to the backup plan for that first day.
09:22 'Cause, you know, I met him, I've talked to him,
09:24 but I don't know him like that as an actor, you know?
09:28 And he comes on set, like, with a book bag playing music,
09:31 and he's like, "What we doing?
09:33 "Where we going?"
09:34 And I'm like, just like, I had blocked that scene
09:37 three or four ways, but I sent a photographer.
09:39 We walked through and had, just in case he doesn't,
09:42 he's not feeling the way I'm thinking about the scene,
09:44 I got another way to do the scene, got another way.
09:46 And he was not like that at all.
09:48 Again, he was completely like, "What's up?
09:52 "You tell me what's going on, man."
09:53 So, like, after that first five minutes,
09:55 he was like, "Oh, man, okay."
09:56 The process itself is no different than working with actors
10:00 when I was in film school.
10:01 He's just infinitely more famous,
10:03 but the process is still the same.
10:05 You never really know until you sit down with somebody,
10:09 you know, like, what their process is like.
10:12 And I think a lot of people's processes, you know,
10:15 they might be different on the surface,
10:16 but, like, at the core, they're very similar.
10:20 - What would you say was the biggest obstacle
10:23 that you had to overcome to allow you to turn the projects
10:26 that influenced you into your own language as a filmmaker?
10:30 - I'll go from a storytelling standpoint.
10:33 I think, like, I think the hardest thing really is, like,
10:38 it's kind of similar to the previous question,
10:41 is, like, leaning into, like, my specific tastes,
10:46 you know what I mean?
10:49 Like, having, like, faith that your idiosyncrasies
10:54 will be received, you know what I mean?
10:56 And so it's, there's an ethos to those films
11:01 that are, like, inspiring when you're, like,
11:03 making something, but, like,
11:04 when it gets down to the execution,
11:06 I think you're trying to lean into the thing that you like.
11:10 You know, the songs I like,
11:12 the style of cinematography I like, you know,
11:14 I'm distilling it through my own lens.
11:17 And I think that it's a bit of a leap of faith
11:20 to trust that your lens is cool,
11:25 if that makes sense, right?
11:26 It's like, it's, you know,
11:29 it's tough to distill the story, the storytelling,
11:34 and trust that the small deviances, you know,
11:38 that make you you and someone else someone else,
11:41 you know, are worthwhile, right?
11:44 And so it's like, you could recreate, you know,
11:48 you could try to, you know, faithfully recreate
11:52 what you love about everyone's work,
11:56 but, like, at the end of the day,
11:57 you still wouldn't be able to do it perfectly anyway.
11:59 Like, at some point, you have to insert yourself into it.
12:03 You know what I'm saying?
12:03 And I think that part is scary because, you know,
12:06 that's the part that you don't want to be rejected, right?
12:09 That you don't want people to, like,
12:11 push back against, you know?
12:12 So I think a lot of it is, you know,
12:15 going back to that sense of imposter syndrome,
12:18 going back to, you know,
12:20 you don't know until you do it, you know?
12:23 And I think a lot of it is like taking that leap of faith
12:25 that, you know, your taste, your specific taste,
12:30 and, like, you know, the amalgamation
12:33 of all these random inspirations will, you know,
12:38 congeal into something that, you know,
12:40 someone else might enjoy.
12:41 So I think it's more like trusting that something
12:45 is good, you know, to you, you know?
12:48 Now, you can't say if it's gonna be good to someone else,
12:50 but I mean, you know, trusting that you do, in fact,
12:52 like something that you've made, I think it's hard to do.
12:55 - And my last question, you know,
12:58 when I was watching the film, I thought about,
13:02 I'd seen a film about what happened
13:04 when the Tuskegee Airmen were injected with syphilis,
13:09 and it was basically used to find out what happens
13:12 when it's untreated, a scandalous, horrible thing.
13:16 And then I thought of, like, a more playful version,
13:19 "Three the Hard Way," which I remember real well,
13:22 you know, with Jim Kelly and Fred Williamson
13:25 and Jim Brown, and where they had to stop this stuff
13:28 from being put into the water supply
13:30 that was aimed to wipe out the black race.
13:34 Your movie has very much of a,
13:36 I was also reminded of the "Blackploitation" movies
13:40 that I grew up going to the theater and loving,
13:42 and I wonder what burned in you
13:45 to tell this particular story in the way you did.
13:48 - It definitely came from multiple,
13:50 and you mean, like, specifically,
13:51 like, with that "Blackploitation" patina
13:54 that's on top of it.
13:55 I mean, I think there's a history
13:57 of "Blackploitation" films being regarded as,
14:00 you know, B-movies, if that makes sense,
14:04 you know, even though a lot of times
14:05 the subject matter is really dense,
14:07 you know, if that makes sense.
14:08 So I think that there was some overlap
14:11 in terms of, like, the way we thought about the plot
14:14 that felt very much like a B-movie plot,
14:16 you know, in a Scooby-Doo way.
14:19 And I think that thinking about the design of the world,
14:24 you know, I think there was a lot of fun to be had
14:26 mining, you know, a lot of the presentation
14:29 of "Blackploitation," you know,
14:31 and I think, like, you know,
14:33 spiritually, kind of making a "Blackploitation" movie,
14:36 you know what I mean?
14:37 Like, it is a wonky ending, the way it goes,
14:39 and when we were writing, we were like,
14:41 "This is crazy," you know?
14:42 And I think we, like, living in that tightrope
14:47 where, like, this could go very, very poorly
14:51 if it's not, like, executed extremely specifically,
14:54 and if you don't, like, just 100% like,
14:56 commit to the premise,
15:01 this is gonna go, like, wildly sideways,
15:02 and I think, like, when you're leaning into
15:06 building out the world, and then we knew that,
15:10 you know, more inspiration was, like,
15:12 it follows, you know, Napoleon Dynamite.
15:15 It came to creating that sense of disorientation,
15:19 and we wanted, like, temporal dissonance,
15:21 but we also wanted, like, geographical dissonance,
15:24 so we wanted you to feel like you were in this, like,
15:27 hermetically sealed bubble that was outside of time,
15:29 you know?
15:30 And when you are pairing that with just, like,
15:34 a visual style that complements how wacky the plot is,
15:39 like, really, if you were to write down a piece of paper,
15:41 you'd be like, "What?"
15:42 It just seemed like "Blacksplotation" made a lot of sense.
15:46 - You put three actors in there
15:48 who are very enjoyable to watch,
15:50 and that's a great ally.
15:52 Do you wanna do more with this,
15:54 or was this a one-off, and are you onto something else?
15:58 - Yeah, I mean, I definitely think this is a one-off.
16:01 Me and Tony always joke, if we ever, like,
16:04 return to this world,
16:05 it's gotta be a completely different genre.
16:07 Like, it's like, the sequel is "Mystic Pizza,"
16:09 you know what I mean?
16:10 It's like, Charles, Fontaine, and Yo-Yo open up a bakery,
16:13 you know what I mean?
16:14 It's just, like, it had to be a complete non sequitur,
16:19 and, you know, in the first five minutes, like,
16:22 "Man, that was crazy what happened last year, right?"
16:25 "Yeah," and then no one talks about it anymore,
16:27 and, like, the rest of the movie
16:29 is a completely different plot,
16:30 completely different genre.
16:32 That's probably the way we would revisit it,
16:35 'cause, you know, it's somewhat of a, you know,
16:39 not that it's a closed loop plot-wise.
16:41 Obviously, it's left open-end,
16:43 but I think, like, his character's journey,
16:47 their character's journeys are at an end.
16:50 Like, you know, they've already learned what, you know,
16:53 if anything, what they need to learn,
16:55 they've learned it, right?
16:56 So, in a perfect world,
16:58 we'd be doing something completely different.
17:00 (electronic music)