Flickering Myth’s Robert Kojder chats with Roofman director Derek Cianfrance in this exclusive interview…
Perhaps best known for bleak relationship dramas, Roofman director Derek Cianfrance finds himself working with a far lighter tone than, say, his masterful Blue Valentine, but still within his wheelhouse. He also trades Ryan Gosling for Channing Tatum this time, as the film centers on a polite and sharply observant career criminal who finds himself in prison, subsequently escaping and hiding out in a nearby Toys “R” Us.
Cut off from one life, Jeff Manchester seeks to alter his identity and be free from law enforcement suspicion for good, while starting a new life, developing something sweet with Toys “R” Us employee Leigh (Kirsten Dunst). Expectedly, there is a winning streak of ludicrous comedy throughout, but this is also a sweet, sincere, and emotionally heavy experience that fits right into Derek’s filmography. Derek recently visited Chicago and sat down with me for an interview. As an admirer of his work for years, I was grateful for this exciting opportunity. Please enjoy below:
Hello, I’ve admired your work for a long time… Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, so this is a really exciting opportunity for me.
Oh, thank you. I’m psyched to be able to talk to you, too, Rob.
What I love about this movie is that even though it’s charming and lighter material for you, it also feels directly in your wheelhouse as another type of devastating relationship drama. And I feel like most other filmmakers would’ve squarely focused on the absurdity and the heists without exploring the human side of Jeff (Channing Tatum) and the relationships. So is that what drew you into this project?
Yeah, it was! It was absolutely that. You know, Rob, when I first heard of this story, I thought, there’s a lot of contradictions in his character, right? So he was locking people in the freezers of McDonald’s, but giving them jackets. He was an army vet who escaped prison and didn’t hide in the woods. He hid inside a toy store and ate baby food. He was a guy with a plane ticket to freedom in the car seat next to him, sitting by the off-ramp to the airport, but decided to turn around to say goodbye to his girlfriend because he didn’t want to ditch her. And I started to realize it was his humanity that made him a more ineffective criminal, and that if he had a colder heart, he would have been more successful. We probably wouldn’t even know his story. He would be somewhere in Costa Rica, living on a beach, because he got away. So I thought that the most interesting thing about him was his humanity. It was the thing that you root for, and the thing that, if you’re watching a crime movie, you’re rooting for the criminal to get away.
Did his relationship with Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) also draw you in?
Totally! Jeff’s story is pretty larger than life. I spoke with Jeff so many times, and I wasn’t sure at one point whether or not he was lying to me about what he had done. So I started talking to people in his life, and one of the people that I talked to was Leigh, his girlfriend, and I talked to the pastor of the church, Ron, and I was certain that they were going to be angry with him, that they were gonna say “he was a jerk. He betrayed me. I hate him.” But when I talked to them, they both spoke about him with such love. They spoke about him as if he were a unicorn that entered their lives, and Leigh said being with him was the greatest adventure of her life. I felt like that perspective was what I wanted the film to have. It became crucial… the movie then turned into a love story for me because I realized it’s all about how Jeff makes these huge mistakes and hurts a lot of people, but Leigh’s forgiveness, grace, and empathy were even bigger than his mistakes. And so that made it worthy of being a movie to me.
I agree. You and your team, you’ve either meticulously recreated a Toys “R” Us or you’ve modified one in Canada…
Well, I shot the movie down in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the events of the movie took place. I wanted to be surrounded by the real people. So Leigh is in the movie, she plays a crossing guard. Pastor Ron is the pawn shop owner and the sergeant of the task force that arrested Jeff. Catherine is at the Red Lobster. She’s the one who grills him on being undercover. The guy who drives the prison truck, Charles, is actually the guy who drove Jeff out of prison. The judge who sentenced him to 45 years plays the prosecutor. The guy who was in the car with Leigh at the end, when Jeff gets arrested, was the judge. The guy who was in the car at the end of the movie was the first officer who arrested Jeff.
You really went down the rabbit hole.
I did. I went way down the rabbit hole. I shot in the actual courtroom where Jeff was sentenced. I shot in the actual church where he and Leigh fell in love at the park. Freedom Park is where they had their first date. And I wanted to shoot in the toy store where he lived, but it has become a big church. So I couldn’t shoot there. I had to find another one. And I found one about 20 miles away in Pineville that was completely gutted. It was a concrete 45,000 square foot void, and people had stripped all the copper wire from it, and we had to build that thing back up, one tile at a time, one fluorescent light at a time, one shelving unit at a time, and one toy at a time to bring that thing back to life. The three most challenging choices I made for this film’s budget were shooting on film, filming on location in North Carolina, and rebuilding a toy store. The budget couldn’t handle any of these choices. But I had really good producers who made it happen.
Peter Dinklage playing a bully manager feels like such an unexpected, brilliant choice to me; the role is still playing to his strengths as an actor. Can you talk about why you chose Peter?
I just love Peter Dinklage.
Me too.
Everything he does is interesting. In Game of Thrones, his character was a bit of a tough guy, so I knew he had it in him. And you can’t push Peter around. He just came in, and I had met with him, and he was all in on being this guy. And I actually really relate to that character of Mitch in a lot of ways because, here’s a guy who’s trying to keep this ship afloat, like it’s life and death for him. He’s taking things very seriously and wants his employees to show up on time. When they’re on the schedule, they need to be there. So Peter and I talked about his character, and like Mitch, he can back up all of his claims. He’s running a business. That’s what he’s doing. That’s what’s most important to him.
You’re both leaders, too.
Yes, and sometimes people aren’t going to like the lead. Anyway, there was a quick moment in the movie where we were setting up a turkey, and I was telling my production designer where I thought it should go. She said, no, the turkey shouldn’t go there. It should go in this other place. And I was like, well, you know what? We’re gonna let the actors decide. And Kirsten decided.
One thing that came to my mind while watching this is life during the pandemic, actually, because Jeff is hiding out and he is isolated inside this Toys R Us, and he is cut off from his past life, but he’s also yearning for some connection. Did you ever think about that while making the movie?
100%. I think that since the pandemic, our society and culture are much more disconnected from each other than they were 20 years ago. I mean, we had conflicts and disagreements 20 years ago, but we weren’t as isolated or hunkered down in our factions. And 20 years ago, when you had a big box store, I remember being a kid and going with my family to Target or something, and my parents saying, “You can have one toy.” And just going through the toy aisles and loving that moment. It was something we did as a family before cell phones and before we were isolated. So I wanted to make a movie that was really about community because it’s truly a community that embraced this guy who was looking for a home. I mean, Jeff’s story is about a man who, like my father used to say, puts a roof over your head. I realized that Roofman is also about someone who’s trying to make a home, and he’s trying to find a home, and he finds one with these people in this community. So, yeah, I was thinking about how we’re disconnected and maybe looking back at a nostalgic time when we were a little more connected.
I love that. Thank you so much for your time. I love your work.
Robert. Thank you for your time. I can’t wait to talk to you again.
Roofman is out in theaters now, and you can read our review of the film here.
Robert Kojder
