Josh Safdie shares anecdotes from the set of #GoodTime

Some of these stories sound familiar, I’m not sure if I’ve posted them before, but given the upcoming UK release, I thought I’d repost/post the Rob sections.  I do like this poster created by Josh Safdie (see below). Wonder if we’ll every see those deleted scenes *prays*. Here’s an extract from DAZED:

On Rob’s character Connie dying his hair | Deleted Scene

“One of the last deleted scenes from the film was a small one. A solemn moment where Connie dyes his hair in Crystals’ bathroom. It dragged the film down… so it was cut. But there was something great going on in it. This grown man trying to bleach his hair in an attempt to blend in. In the scene, Crystal knocks on the door and he pauses. That was reason we ditched it. We didn’t like their first interaction to be awkward in that way.” Josh Safdie

Connie Nikas’ Mugshot

As part of the film, we needed proper mug shots for Connie to show on the screen when he’s chilling with Crystal. A major pet peeve of mine is that when films show mug shots of characters they always miss the bureaucratic touch. They’re always too well done. We enlisted a photographer friend Kenneth Cappello to mimic as best he can the type of photography done by an NYPD officer late at night in a precinct. Then I went to town transferring and degrading the image.” JS

Research for Rob’s character

“We didn’t really watch any movies to prepare for the film. Maybe One Year In a Life of Crime by Jon Alpert, but that was for Rob to study the type of low-level criminal he was gonna play while he was shooting Lost City of Z. I had Rob read Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer and In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbot… both books that were wildly inspiring to the origins of Good Time. We screened the filmed version of the book directed by Larry Schiller starring a great Tommy Lee Jones and Rosanna Arquette a week before production as a movie night. Larry lent us his 35mm print and it probably had never screened on 35mm in America, ever. It was a TV movie. Tommy Lee makes some amazing choices with the romanticism of Gary Gilmore. Also, his psychotic mood swings. I made this poster as a wink to the family.” JS {see poster above]

Rob on first day of shooting

“Tim Barber took this on day one. Rob was so nervous. It was the ONLY day our financier/producer was on set. The power had gone out on all of Staten Island basically… except for this one mysterious outlet in this psych hospital we were filming in. We powered the ENTIRE scene with that one outlet. The shirt I’m wearing was a gift from the former commissioner of the Connecticut prisons. It’s a DOC of CT shirt. Got me into some heat where I live, but I love the shirt.” JS

Click on the link to read the full interview.