Kevin Asch
Kevin Asch makes his feature film directorial debut this week with his new movie Holy Rollers, which is inspired by true events.
I caught up with Asch to talk about the movie, the difficulties getting it made and what lies ahead for him as a filmmaker.
* Holy Rollers is set to be released in the UK next month so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
The movie is a New York independent movie about a little known true story of this Israeli drug smuggler who used Hasidic Jews from Brooklyn neighbourhoods to smuggle Ecstasy from Europe to the U.S. - this happened in the late nineties.
I’m telling a fictionalised version of that story, sort of like a fable under the umbrella of these true events, through the point of view of a young Hasid, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is innocently drawn into this world of international drug smuggling.
* As you say the movie is based on actual events so what was it about this story that initially drew you to the project?
It just felt immediately like something that I hadn’t seen on film, from two sides and the two worlds that this captures: through Sam’s journey in the Hasidic world in Brooklyn and the Ecstasy trade of the 1990’s and it felt like those two elements were hardly explored on film.
I immediately connected to young Hasid’s journey I kind of saw the story through the juxtaposition of his character - stuck between these two worlds and questioning his upbringing and getting seduced into this world and ultimately finding his own path back to his faith.
I’m not religious myself but I am Jewish, I grew up a reformed nit a Hasidic; which is the least religious form of Judaism, but I did grow up in a Jewish community in Long Island. I would take the train into Manhattan and got caught up going into nightclubs and taking Ecstasy - so I really came of age at the same time as the character did. I connected to the simplicity of that journey and the high stakes of these real events that happened. So the story hit home.
* The script is penned by Antonio Macia, so how did you end up teaming up with him?
Antonio was someone who I met through an actor friend of myself and I read a sample screenplay of his and it was beautiful. We just took what is called in Hollywood as a general meeting, and it is a perfect definition for that as they usually are very general, but this turned into something much more as Antonio and I really connected as film geeks.
I told him about this project, which was in it’s very early stages, and said that he was someone we may consider because of his sample - but I didn’t know about him and his personal life and that he grew up in a Catholic family but went on to choose Mormon.
And I just thought that that was fascinating and was relatable to the story that I was telling because I wanted to hang my hat on the idea of religion and faith rather than crime and drugs. That was something that you could personalise, seeing it from an insider or an outside, and there’s something very positive for him his faith and it’s something that he practises daily.
I just wanted to tall a positive religious story in the sense that it was not political it was personal and specific to the individual - so the marriage of his ability as a writer and his personal life made him the easy choice to write the script.
We went on to work on many drafts together and now we have become best friends in the course of working on this and we are hoping to work on many other projects - the Mormon and the Jews (laughs)… walk into a bar (laughs).
* I was reading that the movie struggled to get financed so how difficult a process was it to get backing for the movie and ultimately get it made?
It was so hard, and now I’m in the process of doing it all again for my next film; I hope that it is going to be easier (laughs). We put together Holy Rollers to be a bigger budget then we actually shot it for, not a big budget in terms of Hollywood, but it was close to about $5million the script.
And it read bigger than the movie in the sense that it captured much more of the operation and the genre elements in the crime genre - but the core of the story was always this man’s coming of age.
We had two years of trying to put the money together with Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Bartha attached they just weren’t in the place that they are now - this was pre The social Network, Zombieland and pre The Hangover - we had trouble raising any money on their names; I imagine it would be a lot easier now.
I believed in them and I knew they would be something, who knew it would be something this quick, but we stuck with them and they stuck with us and me and Antonio revisited the script and took an approach the focused on the character and the main characters’ dilemma.
We stripped down a lot of the bigger genre convention and the bigger set pieces that had to do with the drug operation - but it worked because it was a great lesson in storytelling and economically because we found what was really important for this movie.
We ended up making the movie for $1 million and my mother came in for 10% and Danny came in for 10% and then we had an investor who was coming in for close to half the money - a few other investors got involved before one of the producers, Jen Gatien, brought the last piece.
So it was about six private equity investors, including my mother and one of the producers, so it was a real home spun situation and it paid off. It has been a rewarding film I think for anyone.
It was a struggle and then economic climate hit in October 2008, that was when we were trying to raise all of the money, so it was crazy but we did what we had to do to get the movie made. We had the commitment of these great actors but it was life or death for me to do this.
* You shot the film in January 2009, two years after Eisenberg first attached himself to the movie, how difficult was it to keep him with the project?
I like to say that it was easy because working with Jesse is so easy and so enjoyable but I always felt the pressure personally on keeping his focus and interest in the project and trying to encourage him to make the film his own as much as it was mine - he is the leading man; he is every moment of Holy Rollers.
I wanted him to feel that responsibility and enjoy it and he did and we have gone on to become good friends and have spent a lot of time together working on the material making it stronger and more specific to out voices. He became a real partner in making this movie - he was an awesome collaborator.
* The movie is very much told through the perspective of Sam so what influenced the decision to tell the story in first person?
Well I love telling films from point of view and I love telling films through the perspective of character - for me as a director it tells with everything; where to go with the story, where to go with the scenes, where to go with the tone and the visualisation of the film.
It certainly may be something that I grow away from but my next film is that and the best of films are really from one character’s perspective.
So it was a personal choice of mine but at the same time it was the way to do this film on such a low budget that captures such a big world.
If I could always find where Sam was emotionally then I could keep the story economical and it would never feel too small because it would feel honest for the character - it’s like a cheat in a way.
* You shot predominately in New York and on a very tight timescale so what kind of difficulties did this pose?
(Laughs) I would do anything for more days - just like the economic of storytelling it’s the economic of shooting - everyday I had to reduce my shot list by 80% at least with my cinematographer as we reproached what we had worked on for months.
We made many scenes work in just one shot or just two shots - if I got two shots then my second shot would always be on Jesse; if I was able to focus in on Sam’s story then I am able to cut away. Some of the other actors were questioning why I wasn’t getting close ups of them… I couldn’t.
* Holy Rollers is your first feature length debut so how have you found the transition from producer and filming shorts to this?
Everything was about doing this one thing for me; everything was in training to do a feature film of this type. So all of that stuff was part of that journey for me to get to this place of telling stories this place and at this level.
* How have you found the response to the movie?
Oh it’s been brilliant, it really has. There have been some wonderful reviews and I think people walk away from it and want to talk about it and feel something from it - those are my favourite movies so if people got that from Holy Rollers then that is amazing. I have taken this movie to so many places in the world and it seems to translate really well.
* Finally what’s next for you?
I’m working on this film called Great Neck, which is a teenage Great Gatsby; it’s inspired by the Great Gatsby and set in the 1980’s.
Great Neck is a town that I grew up in in New York, and it’s where F.Scott Fitzgerald lived and wrote about in the 1920’s, so I have this personal connection to it and have always wanted to tell my version of it.
But it’s by no ways an adaptation it’s my own personal take - Antonio and I have written it and it’s inspired by true events, this book and our childhoods.
Holy Rollers is released 8th July.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Kevin Asch makes his feature film directorial debut this week with his new movie Holy Rollers, which is inspired by true events.
I caught up with Asch to talk about the movie, the difficulties getting it made and what lies ahead for him as a filmmaker.
* Holy Rollers is set to be released in the UK next month so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
The movie is a New York independent movie about a little known true story of this Israeli drug smuggler who used Hasidic Jews from Brooklyn neighbourhoods to smuggle Ecstasy from Europe to the U.S. - this happened in the late nineties.
I’m telling a fictionalised version of that story, sort of like a fable under the umbrella of these true events, through the point of view of a young Hasid, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is innocently drawn into this world of international drug smuggling.
* As you say the movie is based on actual events so what was it about this story that initially drew you to the project?
It just felt immediately like something that I hadn’t seen on film, from two sides and the two worlds that this captures: through Sam’s journey in the Hasidic world in Brooklyn and the Ecstasy trade of the 1990’s and it felt like those two elements were hardly explored on film.
I immediately connected to young Hasid’s journey I kind of saw the story through the juxtaposition of his character - stuck between these two worlds and questioning his upbringing and getting seduced into this world and ultimately finding his own path back to his faith.
I’m not religious myself but I am Jewish, I grew up a reformed nit a Hasidic; which is the least religious form of Judaism, but I did grow up in a Jewish community in Long Island. I would take the train into Manhattan and got caught up going into nightclubs and taking Ecstasy - so I really came of age at the same time as the character did. I connected to the simplicity of that journey and the high stakes of these real events that happened. So the story hit home.
* The script is penned by Antonio Macia, so how did you end up teaming up with him?
Antonio was someone who I met through an actor friend of myself and I read a sample screenplay of his and it was beautiful. We just took what is called in Hollywood as a general meeting, and it is a perfect definition for that as they usually are very general, but this turned into something much more as Antonio and I really connected as film geeks.
I told him about this project, which was in it’s very early stages, and said that he was someone we may consider because of his sample - but I didn’t know about him and his personal life and that he grew up in a Catholic family but went on to choose Mormon.
And I just thought that that was fascinating and was relatable to the story that I was telling because I wanted to hang my hat on the idea of religion and faith rather than crime and drugs. That was something that you could personalise, seeing it from an insider or an outside, and there’s something very positive for him his faith and it’s something that he practises daily.
I just wanted to tall a positive religious story in the sense that it was not political it was personal and specific to the individual - so the marriage of his ability as a writer and his personal life made him the easy choice to write the script.
We went on to work on many drafts together and now we have become best friends in the course of working on this and we are hoping to work on many other projects - the Mormon and the Jews (laughs)… walk into a bar (laughs).
* I was reading that the movie struggled to get financed so how difficult a process was it to get backing for the movie and ultimately get it made?
It was so hard, and now I’m in the process of doing it all again for my next film; I hope that it is going to be easier (laughs). We put together Holy Rollers to be a bigger budget then we actually shot it for, not a big budget in terms of Hollywood, but it was close to about $5million the script.
And it read bigger than the movie in the sense that it captured much more of the operation and the genre elements in the crime genre - but the core of the story was always this man’s coming of age.
We had two years of trying to put the money together with Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Bartha attached they just weren’t in the place that they are now - this was pre The social Network, Zombieland and pre The Hangover - we had trouble raising any money on their names; I imagine it would be a lot easier now.