Gringo, a Satirical Wild-Ride Comedy
Gringo is an entertaining and irreverent comedy. The talented cast was led by Joel Edgerton (Richard Rusk) and Charlize Theron (Elaine Markinson), as co-presidents of a pharmaceutical company, and David Oyelowo (Harold Soyinka), as one of their honest and hard-working employees.
Stuntman turned director, Nash Edgerton gave fascinating insights into the making of Gringo at an AFI/AACTA special screening and Q&A, held on 18th June 2018 at the Event Cinemas in Bondi Junction, Sydney. A man of many talents, Nash is also an actor, stuntman, stunt coordinator, writer, producer, editor and camera operator. Fellow director Greg McLean (The Belko Experiment, Wolf Creek) spoke to him about his experiences and they are the subject of this blog.
Script
Nash explained the origin of the script: “The idea for Gringo was originally from a spec script by a New York writer… the story was set in San Francisco and the lead was a chubby guy… a white guy who got kidnapped and his bosses didn’t care about bringing him back.” The spec script was “quite broad and more cheesy” than what Nash had in mind. Wanting to develop it further, Nash met with the writer who said to him, “Look, I’m not precious, you can do what you want with this.” So Nash worked with a different writer to “shift the tone of the film”.
“A lot of my films have the element of karma in them — both instant karma, when you do something wrong and something comes back at you straight away (like some of the characters who are doing the wrong thing for the first time) and the other type of karma where it takes a lot longer (like characters who are bad all the time).” With an oblique reference to a present-day leader, Nash elaborated further, “There are people who shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, but get away with it and those people have to live with themselves.”
Casting
Greg asked how the originally scripted “white chubby guy” Harold, came to be changed to a Nigerian character.
Nash explained that he had met with actors for the parts and had selected many: Charlize Theron, his brother Joel and American actress Amanda Seyfried (who played Sunny).
David Oyelowo was one of the actors that read for the part of Harold. A classically trained British actor known for dramatic roles such as Martin Luther King Jr in Selma, he hadn’t had the opportunity to do a comedy and wanted to meet with Nash. Already a huge fan of his work, Nash had dinner with David to discuss the role. They hit it off immediately sharing similar ideas for the film and halfway through dinner, Nash knew he would cast David as Harold.
Nash elaborated on the changes for Harold’s character further, “It was weeks later, after I had cast him in the role, that David came up with the idea that the character could be Nigerian. He told me about his dad’s experience of being a Nigerian in the UK. He started doing one of the scenes… it seemed right. I did a couple of other test scenes with him and my brother… once I had made the decision to change the character to a Nigerian, I realised I had to explain this change of direction to Amazon Studios… I probably couldn’t do this without asking them.” He continued, “So I had dinner with Ted Hope at Amazon and I think he thought I was joking — but he never said I couldn’t do it… so I just — did it. To this day I don’t know whether he knew if I was serious or not.” The audience laughed.
“They must have had a lot of faith in you as a filmmaker.” Greg smiled at Nash.
Nash shifted in his seat. “Yeah, either that or they were preoccupied.”
Gringo was Amazon Studios’ first production and he was given a great deal of creative freedom. According to Nash, Amazon Studios were still hiring for their departments at the time the film was being made.
Greg asked how he had managed to cast Charlize Theron, a big movie star, into an unflattering role where, “She wholeheartedly played a horrible, horrible person.”
Nash grinned, “I’ll tell her you said that…”
He paused briefly for the audience to stop laughing before describing the sequence of events that led up to Charlize starring in the movie. His agent called to tell him that Charlize Theron would like to meet. Nash responded in an incredulous tone, “Okay… sure!” They met at her LA office to discuss working together and the two of them “just clicked”, sharing a similar sense of humour and she had loved his short film, Spider. An opportunity came to work together when Brandon Flowers, from The Killers, recorded his solo album and asked Charlize to be in one of his music videos. Charlize, who liked the band, agreed to appear on the proviso that Nash direct the music video.
Co-producers on Gringo include Charlize, Nash and both writers. The Elaine character (originally a smaller part in the spec script) was enhanced specifically for Charlize to play the role and she was the first person Nash sent the script to.
Many of the cast members were Mexican and two of the actors, who played the main Mexican Cartel characters, were old friends having performed Othello on stage together.
Joel was originally to play both his character (Richard Rusk) and that of his brother (Mitch Rusk). However, Nash was concerned it would look like a “gimmick” as they did not appear in the same scene together, so he tested various actors for the part, (including himself) to play Mitch. He was very busy directing the movie and didn’t want to play the part, so all the scenes with Mitch were scheduled toward the end of filming until actor Sharlto Copley took on the role.
Greg asked if casting primarily dramatic actors in the lead roles of a comedic script posed any problems during filming.
“I explained to them the tone, timing and how I wanted them to play it straight. My idea was to hire dramatic actors playing all the situations for real, no matter how absurd they are and have the humour come out of the situations. There were no one-liners or gags they needed to deliver.”
He was aware, however, that the lead actors were quite nervous about their roles as they hadn’t done much comedy.
Filming
The actual shooting of the film was quite eventful and Nash elaborated on the dramatic events that unfolded behind the scenes.
Filming took place in Chicago for two weeks, LA for one week and Mexico for seven weeks. Key crew members had major personal issues right from the beginning.
Firstly, the cinematographer’s sister became very ill three days into the shoot. She was very upset about it. Nash said to her, “You need to go be with your sister. I don’t want you to go but it’s just a movie. If it was my brother, I would be out of here.” The cinematographer continued for another week on the Chicago shoot and it became apparent that a replacement would need to be found for LA, so a mutual friend covered for her. Finally, deciding she could not come back, Eduard Grau, (who had shot Joel’s movie The Gift) came on board. “He shot most of the movie — but knowing that he was getting married one week before the shoot was to finish. So that was another thing to be sorted out,” sighed Nash.
After that, one of the camera operators spoke to him at breakfast, two weeks into the Mexico shoot up in the mountains. “My daughter just called me to say that my sister is in the emergency in Sweden and I have to go.” Nash agreed. And that was the last he saw of him.
“A girl from Spain, came to fill the gap but she only lasted a week…she slipped in the shower, landed on her face and broke her teeth.”
Gasps from the audience as he calmly recounted this series of unfortunate events.
“People were dropping like flies,” he added wryly.
Describing the traffic in Mexico as “insane”, travel to locations invariably took an hour and a half each way. Due to multiple locations and long shooting days, complications were inevitable.
The language was an additional difficulty. All the Mexican cast were speaking Spanish in their roles with only a little English to communicate with Nash, so he was reliant on his assistant from Mexico City and would confer with her during these scenes.
“Do you speak any Spanish at all?” Greg raised his eyebrows.
“Si?” Nash was able to express his grasp of the language in one word.
When asked if there was much improvisation in the movie, Nash explained that improvisation occurred naturally between the lead actors as they all got on so well together. Charlize and Joel, in competition to portray their despicable characters, tried to outdo each other. In a few of the scenes, the Mexican actors ad-libbed their lines in Spanish, with little direction from Nash, and these ended up being some of his favourite parts of the film.
“Charlize was constantly apologising to the all-Mexican crew as many of the office scenes were shot on a set in Mexico. She would say some of her anti-Mexican lines and apologise to the all-Mexican crew, then do more lines and apologise again. Eventually, the crew were like, ‘You don’t have to bother, we know you’re playing a character.’ It was pretty funny.”
Directing
As far as directing style was concerned, Nash usually planned and shot a video or storyboard version of the scenes. While sometimes he would write a shot list; other times, with specific shots in mind, he would discuss the scene with the actors just prior to the shoot. Rehearsals were conducted on the day of shooting the scenes.
He explained that some actors work well early and wear out while others peak later. Some actors can sustain long performances throughout. Choices about which side to shoot from first (for example in a scene with two characters in conversation) depends either on the working style of the actor or tossing a coin. In the case of Charlize and Joel, both experienced actors, a coin was tossed for one of their longer scenes together. Joel won the toss.
As far as response to the movie was concerned, Nash said that, “US critics didn’t appreciate the irony of the movie although it has been enjoyed by audiences in the UK and Australia.”
My Recommendations
Politically incorrect, underrated and unfairly criticised, Gringo is definitely worth watching if you feel like a laugh. The twists, turns and shocks throughout the movie are in keeping with Nash’s style and amazing stunt background.
Acting performances are excellent, with many internationally renowned actors in the cast. Also making an appearance was Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris Jackson, playing Nelly.
To watch Spider and other short films by Nash, click here. And, in case you want to know, David Oyelowo has been quoted as saying the best way to pronounce his name is to put an “o” on either side of “yellow”.
