I want to ask about the character of the out-of-control cop. I don’t know if you wanted to say anything about policing or that person may have been the inspiration of someone you really came across? And did you want to make any statement about having that person be a woman? I guess I’m interested in what you’re doing with that character.
CF: Initially, going into that, you know, Maxwell and I, that just happens to be one thing we share is this deep and almost hyperbolic hatred for the police and it quickly worked its way into the script of this character, who was, Officer Williams. [She] was originally written as a man and Maxwell, do you remember how that shift happened?
MN: You know, there’s always a worry, like two guys, like Carl and I, it’s like, how much of just like a classic, boy movies, it’s gonna feel, you know what I mean? And we wanted to like lean into our immaturity and all that. But I felt like it was like a disservice to the story. It’s like, we’ve seen that cop before.
So we started thinking okay, so what if it was like, in [Bad Lietuenant]: Port of Call New Orleans, and instead of having Nic Cage, we had Jodie Foster, what does that look like? You know what I mean? Or Rachel Dratch?
CF: We know that person.
MN: Then we started leaning into all the things that we hear cops say all the time. It’s just like some of the stuff that maybe isn’t brought up. Like, we have a part of the film where she says “don’t panic” before this cop just shoots someone. And like, that’s what the cops really do say the minute [before] killing someone, but they’re always like, you know, yeah, I would say don’t panic. That’s a whole thing. Then you start panicking, you know?
Yeah, no, we hate cops. We don’t want to be like, ‘this is an ACAB movie. We’re moving to Portland.’ You know what I mean? We’re aware that they can be corny too. But yeah, we definitely don’t like them.
But you know, there’s a cop in the film that’s roasting Officer Williams. He says that she looks like Chucky meets a what’s her name? Sharon Osborne? And, that man was actually a former cop. So he really did bring a character and he was a nice guy. That’s probably the nicest cop I’ve ever met.
So I guess the bathroom fight – was that was it was that conceived of after you made the character a woman or was that before?
MN: I think we always wanted that.
CF: Yeah, bathroom fights are too much of a classic. It was like, it was high time to like, to do that to put to give our try of doing it like a good old fashioned bathroom fight.
MN: You know it’s not the first time.
CF: Yeah, shout out to our fight and stunt team, Brian Self choreographed that, Erica Buckland was Officer Williams’ stunt double and then Sarah Jack also has a martial arts background who plays the Olympian, kind of incredible. Yeah. Cause we had like three, maybe two or three rehearsal days for that. So there was not a lot of time to be super prepped for it. And kind of one, one straight day of shooting it on location, which ended up being really fun. Just shoot it chronologically as the blood splatters onto the walls and stuff. Just leave it, that kind of deal.
MN: There’s limitations. We have one day. Accidents happen or blood dries and you just kind of have to roll with it.
How long was the production? Overall, like how many days did you shoot?
CF: 15.
So, tell me a little bit about like, maybe not some of the more extreme stuff, but like, was much of the stuff inspired by you guys’ youth? Like, were there certain stories that lifted from real life?
CF: I will say I think anything in the movie you could point to anything and somehow even in an abstract way it will tie back to something real.
MN: As far as the opening scene in the jail, that’s extremely real from an experience being arrested, doing graffiti when I was a dumb teenager. All the way to community service, with the, not to spoil it, but for the big moment of community service, that was real too, that’s taken from a real experience.
Carl’s had roommates that were shady and just terrible. There’s been no full-blown murder around us. That’s not real, but we have been adjacent to violence in the exact house that we filmed the movie in. Always just like victim of the circumstance, you know what I mean? There’s a point in the movie where Raphael says, he gets asked, are these your friends? And at the crazy barbecue, and he says, no, this is just like my circumstance.
And that’s kind of how Carl had horrible roommates coming in and out of his place. So there’s such a rich history to pull from, and I’ve had horrible roommates before. I think it’s kind of like a universal experience. And even the officer working at a pancake restaurant in the film, which is the Salted Putter, there’s a woman in Pflugerville who works at the IHOP, who is a cop, and she literally seats you. So it’s like, that was just so funny. We had to do it.
Hopefully she washes her hands, and doesn’t get into knock-down drag-out fights in the bathroom.
CF: For example, real IHOP dialogue: Cop taking off the badge, putting on the table, being like, let’s take this outside.
The idea of pronouncing “hands” as “Hans” – where did that come from?
CF: We were just, we were just goofing on set. And that joke became a thing between us and our crew and eventually decided to lean into it halfway through the shoot. We had to go back in ADR.
A lot of things we missed, uh, the bathroom, “wash your Hans,” all that stuff. We had to redo the dialog for it because we weren’t committed to the bit yet. Just playing with it.
MN: We committed too late, like a relationship that didn’t work out, you know, we were able to mend it.
So what’s next, is there a streaming plan?
CF: The movie’s out on VOD, so people can rent it on some of the classics, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Google Play, and Apple TV. And then it’s going on another streaming platform later this summer for subscribers.
Do you know what you’re doing next?
CF: Um, yeah, we’re working on it. We’re trying to get our next movie off the ground kind of, you know, the screenplay is done. We’re sort of in the development early early pre-production phase right now.
Rats! is streaming on demand now via Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and Fandango.
