- He's like, "All right, let's rehearse it.
Let's go through it right now."
I'm like, "Holy shit,
I'm gonna have to act against Benicio Del Toro right now."
- It's a real nightmare.
- [Grant Singer] The film deals with themes of deception
and when I think of the word reptile
and this idea of snakeskin,
I think of the shedding of skin, right?
Introducing a character as one thing
and revealing them to be something else.
That's something that we play within the movie
for all the characters.
(clapperboard clapping)
We're gonna talk through the creative process
behind my first feature film, "Reptile."
(ominous orchestral music)
I thought I wanted to be a film composer.
College, first year, in a film history class,
I remember watching Alain Resnais's "Hiroshima Mon Amour"
and it was something...
It was like in that moment,
I knew that I wanted to be a director.
And after college, I started directing music videos
for friends of mine who were in bands,
became a sort of career that I just pursued
and spent a good portion of the last decade
directing music videos.
When you make a music video, you usually have like a day,
maybe two max,
and I think that pressure to succeed,
that pressure to make something good
with a short amount of time, with a certain budget
that a lot of people are gonna see,
I thrived on that pressure.
You learn what your style is, what you're good at,
things that you can take to when you end up making a movie,
you'll be more comfortable
in the sort of role as a director.
I think I always knew that I wanted my first film
to be a sort of crime thriller.
I wanted to make something
that was more of a contemporary noir
that sort of paid homage to great films from the past
but also did something a little bit more modern
and just make something that was unique.
My producers worked with Benicio on "Sicario."
They said, "Listen, we can give Benicio the script.
Are you cool with that?"
I was like, "Are you fucking kidding me?
You wanna get a god in the movie?
Let's go."
- [Person] All right.
- [Grant Singer] I remember one of the first times
I met with him,
we were going through the script
and talking about certain things, and he's like,
"All right, let's rehearse it.
Let's go through it right now."
I'm like, "Holy shit,
I'm gonna have to act against Benicio Del Toro right now."
I'll never forget that experience for the rest of my life
because he's so disarming as an actor and he's so talented.
The way I like to work as a director
is I like to articulate what my vision is
as completely as I possibly can,
and then I allow the actors to get inspired
and let them sort of run free.
Certainly, working with Benicio
was one of the greatest experiences of my life,
someone who was one of the greatest living actors.
Justin got involved in the movie
probably six months before we shot the film.
Incredible guy, so much energy, so fun, so talented,
and I'm impressed by the way he inhabited the role
because he did it with a lot of nuance,
with a lot of restraint.
He's vulnerable and withholding at the same time.
I'd never seen him in a performance like this
and it was terrific to work with him.
Alicia brings such a wonderful energy to the set.
She comes to set, she knows exactly what she's doing.
You talk to her for like two minutes.
She's like, "Yeah, I got it."
She's in the scene and she just brings it to life
in the most magical, amazing way.
She really is, I think,
one of the emotional anchors of the film.
- What are you telling me right now?
- He's in on it.
- What?
- Working with great actors is like
one of the most rewarding and incredible experiences
that a director can have.
I wanted to make a film that felt like a card trick,
where as you're seeing it,
you're sort of changing your opinions
based on what's unfolding in real time.
The longer you can create a sense of
in real-time claustrophobia,
I think the more impactful it is for a viewer.
- We're with the Scarborough Police Department
and we're looking for Sam Gifford.
- [Sam Gifford] Okay, that's me.
- One of my favorite sequences in the movie
is when Justin is giving a tour to Benicio's character
of the house that's for sale.
- You're not afraid of guns, are you?
- Not if they're in the right hands.
- That sequence is shot pretty much with all oners,
one, which is the primary camera,
which just pans with them as they enter the house.
We set up a camera in the basement
and then the third camera was set up upstairs,
so I'm letting this entire sequence play out in real time.
That's just such a gift for a filmmaker,
where you just feel the...
really, the magic of what's happening on screen.
- Now, I think it looks a little dated,
but you could replace these countertops
with granite or some type of marble.
- I never intended to direct music videos.
I sort of just fell into that because of friends of mine
who happened to be musicians or in bands.
I have a deep appreciation and respect
for how music and image work together.
When you think of great noirs or great thrillers,
oftentimes those scores are just addictive
and they're mesmerizing.
There's sort of an internal tension.
Some of my favorite films
have very distinct singular scores
where you can almost...
when you hear the title of the movie
you can almost hear the film before you even see it.
I knew that when making "Reptile"
I wanted to have a very bold and original
and singular score that you would associate with the film.
(suspenseful orchestral music)
One of the things I learned was to allow myself to be free,
allow myself to not subscribe
like I have to shoot a scene certain way.
I just sort of submitted
to the experience of making a movie.
Originally, when I intended to make this movie,
I thought I was gonna shot-list the whole movie.
Mike Gioulakis and I got through the first week of shooting
in terms of shot-listing everything,
and then after that, we're like,
"Okay, we just have to wing it."
Committing to whatever your path is
and just refusing to give up is the most important thing.
You're never gonna be happy
unless you listen to yourself
and make sure you execute your own vision.
Obviously, you want to be collaborative
and you wanna hear other people's thoughts.
But at the end of the day, you have to trust your instincts.
If you have an idea about a scene or idea about a moment
or idea about the movie that you're really passionate about,
my suggestion is to follow that instinct.
Check out my first film "Reptile", only on Netflix.
♪ Slowly turn away ♪
- Interesting, huh?
(logo thumps)