Directed byJohn Carroll Lynch,Luckyis a poignant and powerful look at a 90-year-old man (beautifully played by the lateHarry Dean Stanton) and the life he lives in his off-the-map desert town. As he finds himself at the edge of mortality, he is still fiercely independent while also seeking the human connection that we all need until our final moments. It is a film worth seeking out and it is a performance that will likely be thought of as one of the actor’s best.
During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, John Carroll Lynch talked about his journey to directingLucky, what he was most excited about getting to do with the film, what acting taught him about directing, working withDavid Lynch, as an actor, what it was like to have Harry Dean Stanton at the center of this story, what he’s most proud of and impressed by when it came to his performance, and how he wishes that he had been able to see the film prior to his passing. He also talked about playing Twisty the Clown inAmerican Horror Storyand what it’s like to see that character take on a life of its own.
Collider: When you made the decision that you wanted to direct, and then you set out on the journey to direct your first feature, could you ever have imagined that it would be this film with Harry Dean Stanton?
JOHN CARROLL LYNCH: Under no circumstances, did I ever imagine that. When I started the process of thinking, “I think I’d like to direct,” it went by more traditional routes, in my mind, like going through television to learn the process, as many actor friends of mine have done, and then finding a piece of material, after that, of some kind. I’ve been writing with my writing partner and we have some lovely screenplays, but they’re not really first feature screenplays. They’re a little too physically and visually ambitious, as well as business ambition. We were in the process of coming to a new idea when this came up for me, in a way that I couldn’t have imagined, which was through a guy, named Drago Sumonja, who I had done a short film with while I was makingThe Good Girl. A P.A. on that asked me if I would read something, and it was a little short film, calledDetails, and I agree to do it on a weekend when my wife was out of town. So, I did that and met Drago, and that was 16 years ago. Who knew that, 14 years later, he’d ask me to direct this screenplay. It’s how all first features come!
Luckyseems like a film that, if you didn’t end up directing it, it would be easy to see you acting in it, as one of the characters.
LYNCH: That was originally how they approached me. (Screenwriters) Logan [Sparks] and Drago asked if I would play Joe, the character that Barry [Shabaka Henley] plays in the movie, and I was perfectly happy to do four days of that. That was fine. And then, a couple of months later, they called and asked me if I would consider directing it. We had a discussion about that while I was in Atlanta and they were here in L.A., and we all agreed on where the script was headed and had agreed to work on it together, not really to change it so much as to get an understanding of how to show what they had written. Harry Dean was already going to do it, and so was Ed Begley. That’s how we started.
How did you get David Lynch to do this? He’s not somebody who just takes acting roles, so what was it like to work with him?
LYNCH: What happened was that we were looking for someone for that part. A few people had come up in our minds and we were working on how to get it to them. I don’t remember when it was in the process, but Harry brought David up. Logan asked, “Do you think he’d do it?,” and Harry said, “Well, ask him.” We all thought it was a good idea, and we found out that he was amenable to the idea. Michael, his assistant, was incredibly helpful, in that regard. He gave us two days, in the midst of post-production (onTwin Peaks), on the 4thof July weekend of 2016.
Is it scary, at all, when you’re a new director on set directing someone like David Lynch?
LYNCH: I was grateful that it happened at the end of the shoot and not at the beginning. I think that would have been a pretty intense experience. I was also grateful for the way David approached it. He simply approached it as an actor. He was very respectful. If he had had thoughts about what I was doing, he kept them to himself. He came so prepared and so ready to work, as an actor, that it was very simple to treat him as one.
Was it cool, on a personal level, to work with the actors in this, knowing that they’re the type of actors who wouldn’t have been there, if hadn’t wanted to be?
LYNCH: Including Harry Dean, himself. You don’t convince Harry Dean to do anything he didn’t want to do. With all of that, 100% of the attraction was to work with Harry Dean. Everyone was there to work with Harry Dean and to celebrate him. The script was very good. If the script hadn’t been good or if they had mistrusted me, I think there would have been other issues, but nobody seemed to have that. They were perfectly happy and willing to work.
When you started to think about this script as a director, were there things that you were most excited about getting to do, and were there things that made you the most nervous about being able to do?
LYNCH: I love the fact that the movie wasn’t simply talking heads and that it had visual ambition. I could see it, and I wanted to embrace that and work towards it. It wasn’t simply a series of scenes, shot television style, of great actors acting great words. I was very happy with that. It’s a film. It has artistic vision, in terms of its visual nature. I was very happy with that, and I was very challenged by that. While I have ambitions, in that way, I didn’t have any tape. This is my tape.
What did acting for all of these years teach you about directing, and what couldn’t you have possibly known, until you were on set doing it yourself?
LYNCH: I was confident in my ability to talk to actors about performance. I thought I could do that and I thought I could direct performance well. I also felt confident that I could learn what I needed to learn to shoot the movie that was on the page and get it onto the screen, and that turned out to be generally true. There were specific things that aren’t in the movie, partly because I didn’t shoot them well, but also they just had other problems. At the end of the day, they just weren’t needed to tell the story. The other things, I thought I could learn as I did, and that seemed to be the case. It’s like watching somebody fly a plane, and then you’re flying a plane. Every director that I’ve worked with has exhibited great weakness, in some areas, that I’ve learned as much from as the strengths that they’ve had. The masters – the people I’ve worked with who were just extraordinary at the craft – I wouldn’t say they had weaknesses, at all. I just think they had personalities and character. And beyond the place of talking about how to get something and really getting into the what and the why of it, there’s such a strong sense of purpose among the people who are excellent at directing. They have a strong sense of why they’re making what they’re making and what it needs to be to get across to the audience what they want to get across.
What was it like to have someone like Harry Dean, at the center of this story?
LYNCH: If Harry Dean had said, “Nah, I’m not interested,” I think that would have been the end of it. I don’t think we would have thought, “Who’s going to play this part, in this movie?” It was fully invested in his yes. That said, it’s the day-to-day and moment-to-moment process of working with an actor on a role, even if it’s so inspired by him that it has the cross currents of his personal life, his own ideology and his own daily habits. Both he and I had the responsibility of makingLucky, and not making Harry, and we did that.
There’s something about this film and the way that the story is told that you may really feel like you get to know Lucky in a way that you don’t typically get to know a character in a film. Was that something you intentionally wanted to do with this?
LYNCH: That’s exactly what the intention of it was. We wanted to give you the feeling that you’re in the room with him and in the town with him, and that you live in that place. In some ways, we all really do. I sometimes think about that town as the town of mortality. If it had a name, it would be called Mortality, and he’s just on the edge of it. That’s the way I thought about it. I thought a lot about this movie, obviously, so a lot of my thoughts probably don’t mean a lot to anybody else.
In watching this performance, now that Harry Dean Stanton is no longer with us and knowing that this will be one of the last pieces of his career that we’ll get to see, what are you most proud of and what most impressed you?
LYNCH: In all of his performances, he has a sense of just simply being that’s so impressive, so inspiring and so hypnotic. It’s so fascinating to watch him. And as far as pride is concerned, I’m most happy with the fact that his last leading role – and his second leading role in his career – is being fêted and he’s being recognized as the great actor that he was. That’s really part of the reason that it was so attractive to me to do the movie. I wanted to work with him and get to watch over that performance, and then to hand it off to people and see that they respond. That’s great. I’m really happy about that. It’s really amazing to think about how much he poured himself into that at 89, and how much he revealed of himself at 89, and how willing he was to take the risk to do that amount of work with that schedule at 89 years old. It’s impressive. And then, to have it be of such quality, it’s inspiring. It’s great that that’s out there for people to see that the vitality of what they have to say doesn’t end when they retire or when they’re of retirement age. People have plenty to say to us. That particular performance couldn’t come from someone without the mileage that Harry Dean brought with him. It wouldn’t be as poignant and powerful.
Is it bittersweet that he never got to see the film, or is it reassuring to know that clearly this is something that he could have been proud of?
LYNCH: There’s no sweetness in the fact that he didn’t see it, for me. I’m saddened that he wasn’t there to see people’s response to it. But, that’s me. Harry couldn’t give a damn. In Harry’s world view, he was nothing. He says it wouldn’t have mattered if people fêted him, but I think it would have mattered. I don’t think he would have turned that down.
Now that you’ve made it through the experience of directing your first film, have you already started to think about what you want to direct next, or do you want to take a break?
LYNCH: Obviously, there are people that go from feature to feature, and I admire them and applaud them. If your first feature is well received, people start to get afraid that their next one won’t be as well received. And if it’s not well received, then you don’t get the chance to do another one. I’ll know more about whether or not I’ll have the opportunity to do another one in the next few months, but I’m working on some things that I really like and that I’m passionate about. Hopefully, they scripts will come together in a compelling way, and we’ll proceed from there.
When you wrapped up your time as Twisty the Clown onAmerican Horror Story: Freak Show, did you have any idea that you’d be revisiting that character again, at any point, or was his return inAmerican Horror Story: Culta complete surprise to you?
LYNCH: Absolutely, it was a complete surprise! When they called me and said, “Would you come back and play Twisty?,” I was like, “How are you going to do that again?!” And then, they did it in such an ingenious way. That comic book motif was so smart. They continue to surprise me. I continue to marvel at the imagination of the writers and the cast of that show, and the way in which they continue to find material and mine new stories out of that genre. It’s extraordinary.
What was it like to learn that Twisty has taken on a life beyond his role inFreak Show?
LYNCH: We were driving through Glendale and I looked up and saw a billboard of my face on it, as Twisty the Clown. I get calls from people, all over, who are playing Twisty the Clown for Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights in Florida and also people who do cosplay. It’s amazing how powerful that image is. I’m gratified by it. It’s pretty cool. But, I never imagined that would be something that I would be known for.
I’m not someone who’s typically too bothered by horror imagery because I know it’s fake and I know that you’re an actor and not really a serial killing clown, but this clown and your performance as this clown has haunted me since you did it.
LYNCH: You’re welcome! I’m grateful to have disturbed you for four years now. Anytime!
Luckyis now playing in limited release in New York and Los Angeles, and is opening wider throughout October and November.
