Writer-director Alfredo Barrios Jr and co-writer Bill Keenan spoke to us about how the cast shines in improv for Vertical’s Bull Run & more. When director and writer Alfredo Barrios Jr read Bill Keenan’s Discussion Materials: Tales of a Rookie Wall Street Investment Banker, he knew he had to enlist Keenan to co-write the script and adapt it for the screen originally for television, a medium he’s already familiar with from his work on USA’s Burn Notice and the CBS remake of Magnum P. I., before it changed to becoming a film and title to Bull Run for Vertical Entertainment. The story follows a junior banker (Tom Blyth), who, in the wilds of Wall Street, discovers that the only thing more dangerous than billion-dollar deals are the men signing them. Barrios and Keenan spoke to Bleeding Cool about the ensemble cast, the gems that emerged from the cast’s improvisational skills, and how the weather nearly ruined wrapping up production. Bull Run Director Alfredo Barrios Jr and Co-Writer Bill Keenan Created Magic on Screen Thanks to a Resourceful Ensemble Cast BC: You got some pretty stacked talent on here as far as your ensemble. Can you talk to me about how Chris [Diamantopoulos], Ashwin [Gore], Alyshia [Ochse], and Jay [Mohr] fell into their roles and how it came out? Barrios: They were all phenomenal. We were lucky to have Chris join us. I mean, because we’re such big fans of his from his Silicon Valley days. He was so amazing to work with. The guy is a barrel of laughs, whether you’re taping or not taping, and a fun guy to work with, as is Jay Mohr, who is a legend basically from movies that I love, including Jerry Maguire. What was especially fun about them, in addition to Ashwin and Alyshia, was how great they were at improvising. They ran with the material in the sense that we gave them a screenplay, which we shot, and then let them add their own improv and dimension to it. They’re all such skilled actors that they took it in directions we never anticipated, and it rewards the audience for watching. We gave them space to do their thing, and they killed it. Some standout moments for me came from Ashwin’s Farouk, who had a lot of funny one-liners for me. I did see a lot of the improv at play. How much of that was improvised versus whatever was in the script that carried into filming? Barrios: I don’t know if I can break it down into percentages, but I would say there are always some key elements of every scene that had probably some improv at play. The entire Farouk and Peng (Larry Wang Parrish) dynamic was never even originally scripted. We saw those guys work together, and we thought, “Should we give Farouk like a manservant?” That was something we found while making the movie, and so we ran with it. You allude to this, I mean, in some ways, Ashwin threw Farouq’s manservant in the movie, but he said he became a memorable character. Again, we gave all our actors a space to expand on their characters in ways that we couldn’t even have imagined. Keenan: The other thing I’d add is for background, this was shot in downtown LA in two and a half to three weeks. We got shut down because there was a positive COVID test. It was during the height of the pandemic. We had a lot of things. an independent film. This was not something where we had money coming in left, right, and center, so when you have those constraints, you rely heavily on what’s on the page, and who the people are saying the words. We made the most of it, and oddly, sometimes the most fun and the most original material is going to come because of those constraints. Knowing how much needed to get done, shot, and Alfredo needed to get X number of scenes done every day, there was very much a team environment, which was like, “How can I make the most of this?” We don’t have a lot to work with here, and everyone there was so motivated to go above and beyond. That meant thinking more deeply about their character or what they might say or how they might act, and, again, we shot in two locations, so there was real resourcefulness to the whole production. What was your most difficult aspect of production, or was there a scene that was a little rougher to get through than the others? Barrios: I have two parts of that answer. One is probably the most challenging for me was not laughing during takes. I had to pinch my leg, because it was so funny watching those actors work. It was like a comedy show, pretty much on every take, but in a little bit more serious response, it had to have been our final day. We were shooting exteriors. It was going to be our beautiful exterior shots of a pool with our lead and his love interest, played by Jordyn Denning, who’s fantastic in the movie. We had it all planned out, and that was the day that not only thunderstorms in Los Angeles, it also hailstorms. We had to shut down for safety reasons, and it became a bit of a nightmare, but we ended up getting everything we needed. I have to say, we had like the most perfect shoot, except for the Covid situation that Bill alluded to. It felt like we were rolling along, and then that final day, like we had tested it. Bull Run, which also stars Zach Villa, Ashwin Gore, Helena Mattson, Trevor Gretzky, Troy Garity, and Sam Daly, is available in theaters.
https://bleedingcool.com/movies/bull-run-director-and-writer-on-ensemble-cast-improv-ingenuity/