Interview: Director Nicholas Jarecki (CRISIS and ARBITAGE)
This man was hanging out on the set of HACKERS with a 19-year-old Angelina Jolie. What else do you need to know?
Although he’s best known as a director, Nicholas Jarecki is someone who’s done a little bit of everything during the course of his time in the movie business:
He started out as a technical consultant on the cult computer-themed action flick Hackers
Then he wrote a book that also doubled as research into his future profession (Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start)
He directed a documentary about filmmaker James Toback (The Outsider), after which he produced one about a boxing legend (Tyson)
He co-wrote a screenplay with Bret Easton Ellis (The Informers)
All this took place before Jarecki ever stepped behind the camera to direct Richard Gere in the 2012 film Arbitrage, which earned Gere a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards.
Jarecki’s latest cinematic endeavor, Crisis, landed in theaters in late February, and it’s a crime thriller which revolves around the ongoing opioid crisis - talk about being all too relevant - and follows three stories: an architect (Evangeline Lilly) searching for her missing son while trying to battle back from an addiction to oxycodone; a drug trafficker (Guy Nadon) in charge of a major Fentanyl smuggling operation; and a university professor (Gary Oldman) who finds himself struggling to deal with what he’s learned about a painkiller that’s not nearly as “non-addictive” as has been claimed.
In the midst of continuing his press blitz for Crisis, Jarecki was kind enough to hop on Zoom and chat with me for this new newsletter endeavor of mine…or more specifically, he said, “Let’s Substack it up!” And so we did.
It's good to talk you. I'm a fan of your work, and let me just say right off the bat that I look forward to any stories you may have to share about Hackers.
Nicholas Jarecki: [Laughs.] That's so funny: I was just talking to somebody else about Hackers as well!
Well, we can save the Hackers talk until after we've discussed Crisis. But just know that it's on the table.
Okay, cool!
First of all, with Crisis, what were the origins of the film? What spurred your decision to make it?
So Crisis began... [Takes a deep breath.] You know, I'd had an idea for a long time. Many times these films comes from a personal place in some way, and I had a very good friend who a long time ago got involved with opioids and passed away. And we didn't understand it all, because he was such a bright guy. You know, a young guy, late 20s, good family. And he was taking pain pills, and all of a sudden it became heroin, and then he was gone! And it was sort of, like, "What?! How could that be?"
So we filed it away under "oh, well, life's tough," but then a few years ago I was reading more and more about this topic, and there started to be a lot of information coming out, and it was, like, "Hold on a second: maybe these drugs weren't as safe as people thought!" And they had really been prescribed for as little as a toothache. And there was some research that said, "An average person can take these pills, and they can just get addicted even taking them at a normal prescribed course." I thought, "That's interesting..."
And I'd read these articles in the L.A. Times, so I called the reporters and said, "Hey, can you fill me in?" So I hooked up with these wonderful journalists, and they started opening my eyes to how the pharmaceutical companies had played a role, and the drug trafficking, and they hooked me up with this undercover cop, Steve Opperman, who had just retired from the L.A. sheriff's office, and he had run the prescription narcotics task force. So with him, I started to do a bunch of research, go to the real places... I love research. It really always grounds a project. And so I started to understand these stories. Everything in the film is really taken from a true story. It opens up with that boy crossing the snow. That was right out of the newspaper: a kid had been caught crossing the border with half a million dollars worth of pills. So the wheels started turning, and I thought, "Well, this feels like a film!"
When it comes to casting projects, do you have a dream list? Or do you make a point of reaching out to people you've worked with in the past?
It's funny: I'm working on something right now, and we've got a casting call right after this. Every project is unique, so you make a list of who you could imagine in the part, and then also who's on the charts that day, so to speak. [Shrugs.] The silliness of Hollywood. And then it's sort of a matter of who's available and who's interested. Now, Gary Oldman was the first person into this project, and I had another historical epic I was talking to him about - I met him right around the time of The Darkest Hour - but I wrote this in the interim because the opioid thing started to heat up and all of this new information was coming out. And I brought it to him, and he said, "You know what? I think we should just do this right now, because this is very urgent. I know all about addiction, so why don't I come in as a producer? And then you can use my name and go get the other cast and the money." So he did. He was the anchor.
And then the other cast... Evangeline Lilly I'd always loved from Lost, so she was a dream idea, and I just sent her the script and she reacted to it really well. [Armie] Hammer I thought really fit that role, and I hadn't quite seen him do something like that, so that was exciting. And the rest of the cast... Some of it was friends - Michelle Rodriguez, Greg Kinnear, Lily (Rose) Depp - but then just people I also was a great fan of, like Luke Evans, Martin Donovan, and Veronica Ferres, who I'd seen in other films and loved. I mean, Donovan I'd loved since I was kid watching the Hal Hartley movies.
I'd just like to observe that when Martin Donovan hits the screen, you might as well have "The Imperial March" playing.
[Laughs.] He's a terrific guy. Brilliant, and a lot of fun.
As far as putting the piece together, you obviously secured some firsthand knowledge thanks to Steve Opperman, but what was your process insofar as doing additional research?
Yeah, so once I hooked up with the L.A. Times folks, then Steve and I got together, and we did at least a month of pretty much full-time work on the script. I was kind of developing the ideas and gave him some rough outlines, and then we would meet. He'd come over, and he'd bring a whole suitcase full of guns that he'd put on the table. [Laughs.] He's a big gun enthusiast, so we had a lot of fun playing with the Glocks. But then he showed me the case files and the Fentanyl labs they went to, and we went down and visited the pill mills with some of the actors. I went inside labs, and I have a friend who runs a biotech company - she's a doctor and a scientist - so she showed me the animal testing and really helped me understand all of that, which was enormously helpful. So from this stew, then, really, I started plotting out the film and then fleshing it out. And we had a number of science advisors and other technical advisors who really helped.
Did you find it difficult to find the balance between the action, the drama, and the facts?
Good question. [Hesitates.] You know, in the script it was a bit easier, because the script... It's an imagination. It's, like, "Oh, yeah, no problem!" But then, of course, once we shot, once we get into the editing room, that's when it really becomes an adventure, because there you do have to balance how it feels. So you go, "Okay, we've got Gary sitting in an office and he's talking politics with the dean or the lawyers or the scientists... Well, wait, Hammer's over here running around with a gun. Do those fit together, or do we need a transition or an interstitial sequence of some kind? How about if we use music? Can we bridge the gap with that?" So there are different approaches you find to like the footage together. And I had a really wonderful editorial team.
We did a number of audience screenings, and then I would bring in, like, Marc Forster or Taika Waititi or Tony Kaye - different filmmakers who I'm friends with - who'd watch the film and then give their notes. And then we'd be, like, "Okay, let's do Tony's notes, let's do Taika's notes... Boom! Okay, let's go out and screen it again. Are we going with friends and family? No, let's go with a recruited audience and see what real people have to say!" I love that whole testing process. You learn a lot from watching a film with an audience. The audience is the thing. That's why you're here. Can you reach them? Can you entertain them?
When you were getting all of the input from all of the different directors, did you ever have any concern that it could end up as a "too many cooks" situation?
You know.. [Long pause.] No. Because I'm the cook. I mean, ultimately, if you don't like the movie, it's my fault, because the decision gets filtered through me and the team here. I've been lucky as a director: I've always had final cut. So the buck stops with me. But I think the thing about having final cut is that in order to respect having final cut, you should listen to everybody. My father was a psychiatrist and a businessman, and he taught me, "You always want to hear from everybody, because if it's up to you, why wouldn't you hear from everybody? So I like opening that up. And we do that on the set, too: ideas can come from anywhere. They can come from the actor, they can come from the prop guy, they can come from somebody who happened to visit the set that day. If I'm busy, I'll say, "Quiet!" [Laughs.] But otherwise it's open season.
[Long pause.] No. In fact, pretty much everybody we went to came in, I think. I mean, there were maybe one or two actors we had an idea on that just weren't available. But I don't necessarily think they would've been better. It wasn't, like, "Oh, my God, I have to get Robert Redford!" There wasn't any of that.
Okay, now it's time to talk Hackers. I'm curious: how did you find your way onto that film the first place? As a...technical consultant, I guess your official title was.
Well, I was a hacker! [Laughs.] When I was a kid, I was a nerd, so I would stay up late and... First I had a Commodore 64, and then later on I had an Apple 2C, so I learned PCs and stuff, I learned a little bit of coding and administration. Unix. But I became part of this hacker group called 2600, and it was a loose collection of computer enthusiasts. We were never about stealing anything or making money. For us, computers were just a way of going where you're not supposed to go, and that was very exciting. So we would meet up once a month at the Citicorp Center in Manhattan, and there are these 2600 meetings that still go on today. Probably post-COVID they'll be thriving again.
So I knew the publisher of the magazine, and he said, "I've got some people coming down." We would meet in this public atrium in the building, a hundred hackers sharing red boxes, blue boxes, code... This was '94, '95. And into the Citicorp Center comes Iain Softley, film director, Jonny Lee Miller, and Angelina Jolie, who was 19 years old at the time. And there I was, 16, and...it was like the circus came to town. [Laughs.] And they said, "Hey, we're making this movie, and we need guys who know something about hacking. Can you guys help us?" And my friend said, "Well, what about Nick?" And they trusted him because he was the publisher of the magazine, so they hired me, and they said, "Okay, come on down." And I went, and basically my job was to hang out with the director and the actors and to teach them about computer hacking. "Okay, here's how you make a red box. You go to Radio Shack, you get this crystal, and you solder it into the auto speed dialer and program five tones... Now here's the CCITT spec for the blue box..." So it was great fun for them.
I remember Matthew Lillard called me up from the set one day when I wasn't there, and he was, like, "Nick, we're down at Grand Central. How do you put the tones into the pay phone again?" [Laughs.] He'd be, like, "Where's the hacking stuff? I need Nick here!" Actors love to do that with the tech advisors. But I got to see how a film was put together, and it was so exciting to me. Of course, a bunch of my time was spent hanging out with Miss Jolie...
And why wouldn’t you?
How could that not be a priority for a young man? [Laughs.] But I really got to see how a real actor puts a performance together, how a director puts a movie together, and... I got the bug! So from there I started going to film school and reading, and I started to make little short films and stuff. So I credit that experience with really giving me the opportunity to see firsthand that making films was possible, that it was something that people actually did.
I know that you made an attempt to try and make music videos. Did you really not find anyone who wanted you to direct their video?
Do you know I'm still trying to make music videos? [Laughs.] Because we shot 'em in film school. I did a few, and then we did a commercial or two. I did one for IBM. But it's like a whole world unto itself, so once I started having success in movies... Like, someone just showed up and said, "Wouldn't you like to direct some commercials? Why don't we make some money?" And I go, "Great! Put me in, coach!" And then inevitably it never comes to pass. I never get a job, because they always go, "Well, sure, he can do a movie, but can he tell a story in 30 seconds?" And I'm, like, "Yes! Yes! If I can do two hours, I can do two hours! Give me the fucking thing!" Excuse my language. [Laughs.] But listen: it remains my hope. But it really is a world unto itself, with incredible artists and a great energy put into it, so... I don't know, maybe one day before I go to my death bed, I'll get a chance to do a Hostess Twinkees commercial...and then I'll finally get paid!
Let's see, what's next? Um... Do you have any James Toback stories that you can actually tell?
Well, I made a whole movie about James!
Oh, I know: the documentary The Outsider.
Yeah, there are so many in there. I mean, James Toback is such a raconteur / crazy person... If you call him, I'm sure he'd tell you a hundred stories! I hear a rumor that he's doing his autobiography, so I'm very excited to read that. That should be chock full of stuff. But he's another complex figure I've come across. We did the Tyson movie together, and he's...definitely had his troubles of late. But he was a very interesting filmmaking force for a long time, and I think he made some very interesting films, so... I don't know, what do you do? Where are we in culture when someone is canceled? I mean, we experienced some of that ourselves on this film.
Obviously so, yeah.
Yeah, so what do you do? Can you look at the art or the artist? Is it true or not true? That's a topic for a whole other interview.
Oh, yeah, well, you're talking to someone who's a huge Morrissey fan, and now everyone wants to cancel him, and I'm, like, "I can listen to Morrissey without having the same political beliefs as Morrissey. It doesn't change the impact that the music had on me."
See, I didn't even know about Morrissey. Is Morrissey canceled now, too?
Supposedly.
Oh, no! I like Morrissey, too! [Laughs.]
Well, there you go: we’re both screwed! So I wanted to jump back a moment. You mentioned working on the Mike Tyson documentary, and I was just wondering about the experience of working with Tyson and what he was like to be around when he doesn't have to be, you know, Mike Tyson.
Totally fascinating. In The Outsider, there's a sequence with Mike Tyson, and that's the first day I met him. I was 23 years old, and I was shooting with a handheld video camera, and someone said, "Oh, there's Tyson! We'll get him in the movie!" And I said, "Wait, what? But what if..." "Just go up to him and film him!" "Without asking him? Really?! What if he kills me?" [Laughs.] They're, like, "No, no, he's a pussycat!" So I did, and that's our first exchange there. Little did I know that, years later, we'd be doing the Tyson movie about his life.
I was always struck by Tyson's sort of brilliance. He has this odd, introspective intellect, so when we first showed him Tyson, I remember the lights came up, and I said, "Okay, what do you think?" And he said, "I feel like I just watched a movie about a Greek tragic figure...and it's me." [Laughs.] I thought, "Wow." I mean, he's totally right, but who could have that kind of insight into their own sociopathy? So I just love Tyson. I'm a big fan. I think he's really an incredible survivor, to come from where he's come from and to go to the heights and the lows and to come back. He's always in the game. He's always fighting. To make something, to be something.
I like characters like that. In Arbitage, obviously I'd done a billionaire at the top of the world, but I liked with Crisis doing people who are in the middle of the world who are fighters, who are going after whatever they think is right, whether it's right or wrong. The anti-hero. I think I'm very attracted to those kinds of characters.
Well, that brings us to The Informers, which begs this question: how was the experience of collaborating with Bret Easton Ellis?
Wonderful. Actually, I'm doing his podcast tomorrow, so you're my last interview before his. We remain friends. We've been friends now for almost 15 years or so. We've written a couple of scripts together. One, obviously, was The Informers. That didn't quite come out the way we wanted, unfortunately, but we certainly had a lot of fun writing it. And I think he's another great American voice who's a complex figure. But, you know, he's such a kind and thoughtful person. I know him very deeply, and his family. He has a real love about him and about everything he does, and he's not afraid to speak unpopular views, either, or to ask challenging questions. He was originally canceled with American Psycho. When that came out, it was, like, "It's terrible, misogynistic..." It's funny: for a guy who primarily is only friends with women and couldn't be a sweeter guy to be labeled a misogynist. I mean, I think it's a complete misunderstanding of his work.
American Psycho is all a satire and a social commentary about consumerism and abuse. But he's far smarter than I am to speak about these things, and he's obviously continued on and had such a successful and storied career. I'd love to make another movie with him. I always think of him as a kind of Fitzgerald-esque figure...and I'm going to give him that today, because someone just compared me to Ibsen. [Laughs.] I think maybe they weren't talking about the great playwright...but I chose to take it that way anyway!
On Arbitrage, you had Richard Gere as your leading man, someone who - at least in my opinion - seems to fly underneath the radar more these days than he should.
I totally agree.
Was he easy to work with?
Well, you know, that was such a wonderful partnership. I've been very blessed with these actors. Richard especially, but Oldman also, and Pacino I was quite close with for awhile. These older guys who have come into my life and just sort of championed me for whatever they saw in my work or in my ideas. And Richard... It was really a partnership. He came in, and we worked on that script together for a month. He would come over to my apartment and we'd sit there and make tea and just go line by line, scene by scene. He just had boundless energy and was constantly [Speaking in a rapid-fire manner.] "Okay, what about this? Well, what if he didn't come in? And maybe we'll do this. Okay, we'll call the other..." And I remember he said to me before the first meeting, "I like to be there from the day the first assistant's desk is wheeled in until we're playing in the last theater." And he was true to his word. We met 10 years ago, and I spoke to him last week. We're talking about whether there's another movie we could do now, maybe to play a gambler or a hustler.
So he's still really got the fire, and I thought... [Hesitates.] I mean, I say it modestly regarding our film, but the idea that he hasn't yet been nominated for an Academy Award is scandalous. I thought he deserved it on so many occasions. We were lucky to get him nominated for the Golden Globes for Arbitrage for Best Actor, but... Well, look, he's a treasure, and I think it's because he works so hard because he really cares about the films. I mean, he has other things in his life. He has his Buddhist pursuits and the reform of Tibet and his charitable causes. He's a very charitable fellow, and he's encouraged me to donate to worthy things. Look, I can't say enough good things. We've never really drifted away from each other. It's one of the things that I like about film: the relationships that you form and the people who come into your life.
I mean, we're talking now, we might talk again in the future about another film. I've got other people I've met through journalism. I've had people who've worked with me on stories. The dialogue continues. We're all on this artistic path and, frankly, these kinds of films [like Crisis], if you're into them, they're not so in vogue right now, so we're trying to keep something alive. I think it's a continuum, and the sense of community, it takes on a lot of importance to me.
Before we leave Arbitrage behind, I just wanted to observe how much I enjoyed your use of character actors in the film, and of more than one generation. In particular, you've got Stuart Margolin, but you've also got Chris Eigeman.
I actually spoke to Stuart last week. He's just written a very brilliant screenplay. You know, he and Gere had done Days of Heaven together years ago, and I thought he brought that role to life, the attorney. And Chris Eigeman I met... Gosh, I don't even remember where I met him! But we quickly became poker buddies, and I knew I owed him one because he wanted to play cards in New York one day - you know, a little bit underground - and he said, "Where can I go?" I said, "Oh, I heard about this new card room on 14th Street!" [Pauses.] I probably shouldn't be telling you this story. [Laughs.] But he said, "Oh, okay, I'll go down there!"
So he goes to the card room, and they're, like, "Yeah?" But they open the door and let him in. And he's playing...and then all of a sudden the place gets raided! The cops show up, he runs out the door, they've got their weapons, and they yell, "FREEZE!" And they take 'em to jail, and basically they cited everybody for playing in an illegal game. I think they let 'em go. But I had basically gotten him busted by sending him to some bum card room! So I felt like I owed him one. [Laughs.]
But he's also such a wonderful actor. I loved him from all the Whit Stillman films. He's also a great director. He did Turn the River, which is terrific. He's such a great guy, so I was very lucky to work with him. I'm just sorry I got him arrested!
Well, you're in luck: he and I actually follow each other on Twitter, so I can run the story by him first to make sure I'm allowed to tell it.
Yeah, make sure I told it right, too! But definitely make sure everybody understands that we didn't know it was illegal! [Laughs.]