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Gus Van Sant loves to work under pressure — even though you might not expect that from the soft-spoken 73-year-old director behind such idiosyncratic films as 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, 1997’s Good Will Hunting and 2008’s Milk, none of which would easily qualify as “frenetic.”
But when Van Sant’s producer friend Cassian Elwes came to him with a project last year that absolutely had to go into production within a matter of months, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker took that tight deadline and ran with it.
“It was so exciting to basically just leave where we were standing and go to Louisville, Kentucky, where we shot,” Van Sant told me and my colleague Christopher Rosen when we sat down with the director live onstage at the Denver Film Festival last week (Van Sant received the festival’s Excellence in Directing Award following a screening of his latest film, Dead Man’s Wire).
Set in Indianapolis but filmed in Louisville, Dead Man’s Wire recounts the wild true story of Tony Kiritsis, who, in 1977, took his mortgage broker hostage with a shotgun and became a national TV celebrity in the process. (The film draws its title from the device Kiritsis fashioned for his weapon and tied around the neck of the broker, Richard Hall. If Kiritsis were killed at any point during the hostage standoff, the shotgun would discharge, killing Hall.) When Van Sant initially received Austin Kolodney’s script, it included links to clips of Kiritsis’ actual 911 calls. Upon listening, the director was drawn in not just by the chaos of the situation but also by Kiritsis’ energy and surprising charisma.
“He was upset and he was angry, but he was also cracking jokes,” Van Sant told us, as you can hear in today’s episode of the Prestige Junkie podcast. When casting Bill Skarsgård (the It franchise, Nosferatu), 35, to play Kiritsis, even though he’s a full 10 years younger than the real person, Van Sant kept coming back to the actor’s “mysteriousness, which you see in all his films.” The fact that Van Sant had directed Skarsgård’s father, Stellan Skarsgård, in Good Will Hunting, didn’t hurt either.
In our wide-ranging conversation, Van Sant told us what keeps him coming back to movie sets after all these years (Dead Man’s Wire is his first feature since 2018), the deceptively simple primary job of a director and how he avoids “mutiny” among the cast and crew. As a director, Van Sant says, “Leadership is kind of given to you — unless you start yelling at too many people and making enemies. It’s not terribly hard. You just have to be obsessed with what you need to get. Everyone will share your obsession and wants to share your obsession. But you have to have the obsession.”
Hear much more from Van Sant on today’s Prestige Junkie pod, which also includes my conversation with Vulture’s Joe Reid about the Oscar season underdogs we’re rooting for and why it’s worth keeping the faith even if nobody else is predicting the same thing — something Joe routinely tries to do as part of Prestige Junkie Pundits. (Joe currently has Train Dreams in first place for best picture, so it’s no wonder we’re good friends.)
As a reminder, you can now watch full episodes of the podcast on YouTube (including my conversation last week with Sydney Sweeney; has she been in the news lately?), and for even more of where all this came from, subscribe to Prestige Junkie After Party. For just $5 a month, you’ll gain access to some great benefits, including the subscriber-only chat I’m hosting today about our hot takes from Oscar seasons past and present. Plus, you’ll also get to hear Friday’s exclusive bonus episode, an actual all-star effort (Chris! Joe! Kara Warner! Sean McNulty!), linking the two things Americans love to obsess over most: the Oscars and the Super Bowl. Don’t miss it!
