LAFF 2014: Deon Taylor Talks SupremacyBy Wilson Morales
June 11, 2014
Making its World Premiere at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival is Deon Taylor‘s race-based drama ‘Supremacy,’ which stars Danny Glover, Joe Anderson, Derek Luke, Evan Ross, Dawn Olivieri, Anson Mount, Lela Rochon, and Mahershala Ali. For tickets, visit www.lafilmfest.com.
Based on a true story, the story centers on paroled white supremacist who has just killed a cop, and takes a black family hostage. Within hours of being released from 14 years of solitary confinement in maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, Garrett Tully (Anderson) is on the run again. When he finds a house off a dirt road and takes a family hostage, he thinks the Aryan Brotherhood has his back–and his kidnap victims are black. The family’s patriarch, Mr. Walker (Glover), is a jaded ex-con who hates cops so much he disavowed his own son for becoming one. Seeing a familiar desperation in Tully, Walker refuses to call the authorities for help, causing familial tensions to escalate, and soon grave missteps are made. The film is a disquieting psychological thriller about race, family and loyalty in terms far from black and white.
Taylor is a former athlete who played professionally basketball overseas before starting a new career in the film business. His previous films were the horror films ‘Nite Tales’ and ‘Chain Letter.’
Blackfilm.com recently spoke with Taylor about helming this emotionally charged film.
How did you get attached to this?
Deon Taylor: As an independent filmmaker, I’ve had to fight and work very hard and I had to get my own financing for every movie I’ve ever done. I had taken a break after doing ‘Chain Letter’ and I was trying to find something that would spark a little more energy for me as a filmmaker. I didn’t want to do any more horror movies. I was looking for something that was real and I could sink my teeth into and a gentleman named Vincent Cirrincione, who’s Halle Berry’s manager, handed me this screenplay. I read it and was blown away. This was a ‘horror’ movie but worst than you can think of. Someone comes into your house in the middle of the night while you’re sleeping. This is something that effected me right away when I read it. I just kept reading and said to myself that I want to make this movie. It’s a dangerous film to make, because if you don’t do it right, you might not get to shoot another movie. I re-wrote the script, spent time with the family, studied the ins and outs of white supremacists are and how they move, and what they do and what their beliefs are; and went to get the financing to get this movie made and here we are today. I’m proud of it and probably the best thing I’ve made as a filmmaker.
Since this is based on a true story, were there any liberties taken?
DT: Yes. When you step into these types of films, there are some things you want to push a bit more and some things you want to pull out. It’s a give and take as a filmmaker. I wouldn’t necessarily call them liberties. There are things in the movie where we had to raise the envelop to capture what these people went through in 24 hours and you have to condense that into a two hour movie. You have to explain to the audience what these people were going through and the tragedy of home invasion. There were also things that I left out so that some of the darkness is not put on screen. It’s a difficult film to balance but I think we did a really good job in giving the audience a little bit of both things.
You have an amazing cast in the film. How did you go about in casting Joe Anderson and Danny Glover?
DT: It was fate. I could never get these people on my own. Our film was SAG and low budget. We had no money. I was being super creative. I wanted to shoot the movie in 16MM film and the producers are yelling at me throughout the production. I wrote an email to Mary Vernieu, who was the casting director who did ‘Training Day,’ ‘The Wrestler,’ and ‘Black Swan.’ She also just did ‘Noah.’ I was just a tremendous fan of every film she had worked on and wrote her email about working on my film. Just like a Disney movie, she actually replied back to my email and asked to take a meeting with me and met with me and agreed to cast my film. That was probably the biggest thing to happen to me in Hollywood in terms of having someone believe in you. She took the film on and the rest is history. She contacted Joe after seeing five or six actors, and I knew in the room that Joe was the guy. He was absolutely intense and worked very hard at the role. I also knew I wanted Danny in the film. I hadn’t seen Danny in a project like this in a very long time. This dude is one of the best of our generation. To me, Danny was one of the first to start the movement to have Black actors like Jamie Foxx and Will Smith come through that door. He was doing the Lethal Weapons films and doing the action films like Predator 2. The list goes on. When I thought about who’s older and would be brilliant, there was no question. I knew it would be Danny Glover.
All films come with challenges. What were some that you faced?
DT: I was a basketball player and had a thirst for films my entire life. I am self-taught. I had never been to film school or business school or any training in that nature. I just love movies and through hard work and determination, I’m promoting this film, but the ups and downs of being a filmmaker, 90% is money. You have live in a world where studios are not interested in you. No one knows who you are and no cares. You have to assemble a team and make your film so that it could be seen. When you talk about making a movie about a white supremacist who invades a black house, I don’t think any distributors are looking for that. You have to believe in yourself and ask yourself why you are doing it. For me, being an artist, I wanted to make a movie I felt was important. I had to sit down with Roxanne Avent, my producing partner, and Shannon McIntosh, who just finished producing ‘Django Unchained. From getting the money, to being on set and dealing with high racial tensions every day, and the use of the word “Nigger.” We had to not be emotionally invested into these words. There are always challenges but at the same time, I believe God is not going to put you in a situation that you can’t handle.
