Hollywood Anti-Semitism Summit
One fan drove all the way from Louisiana to Little Rock to see Austin Butler’s new movie Biker Men, hoping the Elvis star might make an appearance. Unfortunately, the ongoing actors’ strike prevented Butler from attending Filmland, a local fundraiser where the film, a raucous portrait of a 1960s motorcycle gang inspired by a book of photographs that New Journalism pioneer Danny Lyon made during built into Criminals. But Butler would would have been there if the labor dispute had been resolved in time, director Jeff Nichols told the crowd.
Nichols, who now lives in Austin, Texas, grew up in Little Rock and co-founded the Arkansas Film Society after discovering there was no organization for filmmakers and film enthusiasts in his hometown. For the past seven years, he has brought films and stars such as Adam Driver and Jessica Chastain to ACS’s annual Filmland fundraiser. Before Biker Boys, that’s exactly how long it had been since the director of Loving made a feature (four of those years were spent making the alien movie, in which Michael Shannon would play a bird-like alien). .
Now even the release date of the film has changed. Originally slated to open Dec. 1, Biker Boys is just one of several films whose fate depends on when the strike ends, as films like these — based not on comic books or pre-existing franchises but on an unconventional spark of inspiration — rely on actors showing up and advertising.
And what a cast! Butler plays Benny, a free-spirited biker caught in an unconventional love triangle between his wife Katie (Jodie Comer) and best friend Johnny (Tom Hardy). Johnny wants Benny to become the leader of the pack; Katie hopes he’ll park his helicopter for good and calm down.
On stage after the Filmland premiere, Nichols and I talked for almost an hour about the film. The director explained how he was able to attract such an ensemble, which also includes Shannon (Nichols’ muse since his 2007 debut Shotgun Tales), Boyd Holbrook, Emory Cohen and newcomer Toby Wallace (Babyteeth).
“The trick is to write a motorcycle script (set) in the ’60s,” joked Nichols, who was drawn to the environment depicted in Lyon’s book. “With Loving, another period piece based on a true story, I didn’t want to invent anything. I wanted to be so true to the story of Richard and Mildred Loving that I wouldn’t put anything in this script that I couldn’t prove. This is completely different,” said Nichols, who wanted to present his own story. “I hope I’m not offending any of the criminals. They still exist. This is the second largest motorcycle gang in the world. And I don’t really want to cross paths with them.”
On stage, wearing a button-down shirt and new jeans with the cuffs neatly rolled up, Nichols looked nothing like the greasy, leather-clad characters in the film. “I’ve never seen an episode of Sons of Anarchy.” I don’t even know what it’s about,” admitted the director, who credited Lyon’s book as his introduction to the motorcycle scene. Ever since he discovered The Bikeriders on the floor of his musician brother Ben’s house, he’s been obsessed with trying to recreate the feeling those black-and-white photographs ignited in him.
That meant tracking down Lyon, now 81, and convincing him to sign. Nichols gave him a “big, smart speech” on the topics he imagined – the rise and fall of subcultures in this country – “and at the end he looked up and said, ‘So you want to make a film about a photographer?’ – Nichols said.
Lyon does appear as a character in the film, played by West Side Story actor Mike Feist. He was seen taking photographs and interviewing members of the club, renamed the Vandals. (“It’s really hard to come up with a name for a motorcycle gang that doesn’t already exist,” Nichols said. “I’d come up with one, and then it’d be like, ‘No, there’s a leader here’ … or else it’s a punk rock band.” .) But in this microcosm the director was attracted by something more anthropological.
“I think it’s very real in our society that there are people who feel like they don’t belong, so they go to the fringes of society, and that’s where all the really cool stuff is created: cool music, art, style, fashion, everything. And because it’s so compelling, it attracts everyone else.”
These days, the bike movies that were once a Hollywood staple are so few and far between that actors have been lining up to take part in them. “In fact,” Nichols said, “I turned people away from being in this movie.”
Jodie Comer (left), Jeff Nichols and Austin Butler in the movie Biker Men
Kyle Kaplan / 20th Century Studios
Butler was the first to sign. “Austin Butler got a call, and my producer called me and said, ‘You need to meet this young guy, Austin,'” he explained. Nichols knew the actor had been cast as Elvis even though the Baz Luhrmann biopic had not yet been released. “I was in this restaurant, he came up and shook my hand. He is about 6ft 3in tall and his hair is blond and not like Elvis’s. I was immediately struck by the fact that he was the most attractive person I had ever met in my life.”
The real Elvis Presley wanted to be the next James Dean. He appeared in 31 feature films, but never developed his acting skills. Butler is a different story. He played Presley, and now, in Biker Boys, the rising star channels Dean’s call to the tortured rebel.
“I wanted a character that the audience would have no doubt that this woman Katie and this man Johnny would put so much effort into,” Nichols said. “He’s like an empty glass of water. They pour it all into him and he just can’t stand it. He doesn’t want to hold back and that’s where his acting skills come in.”
If Butler plays James Dean, then Hardy looks more like Marlon Brando. In a flashback inspired by one of Lyon’s photographs, Nichols shows Johnny watching “Wild” on TV.
To play Hardy, Nichols flew to London. “I went and met him at his house and he talked for four hours straight. He had, like, a blank piece of paper and he was making notes,” said Nichols, who remembers being jet-lagged and overwhelmed by all the ideas the actor had for his character. “I walked away feeling like I just took an AP college exam or something, and (Agent Hardy) calls about a few hours later. He was like, “Tom just loved you.” He said you’re a great listener.”
Still, the question of Hardy’s accent remained. Every time he plays an American, the actor comes up with an unconventional way of speaking. Nichols got his hands on audio recordings of Lyon’s interviews with the characters in the book, an excerpt from which he showed to the Filmland audience. Thus, Comer was able to transfer her character’s strong Midwestern accent to the real-life Katie.
“She phonetically broke down every word of the script according to that audio and according to the accent she created for the character, and it was just a tremendous amount of work,” Nichols said.
However, in the case of Hardy one could only guess about this.
“It was terrible for all of us. The financiers, the studio, they called and said, “Have you talked to Tom about what voice he’s going to use?” Nichols said. “I only heard this on the first day of filming. He came up to me and asked, “What do you think?”
Hardy’s accent is nasal and higher-pitched than one would expect from his tough-guy appearance, as if Johnny (who has a wife and a job but spends his weekends with the gang) is an impostor among the blue-collar bikers.
Hardy asked him, “Doesn’t that look a little like Bugs Bunny?” Nichols supported the star’s unconventional sound, admitting, “It takes some getting used to, though. It’s a choice. And I think that’s why people respond to Tom Hardy – because he doesn’t just make phone calls. This guy does weird and cool things.”