russell crowe
-
“These Guys Don’t Miss”: Padraic McKinley on Directing Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe in The Weight
When Padraic McKinley first received The Weight screenplay from producers Nathan and Simon Fields, he loved the atmospheric world it summoned forth. Original screenwriter Matthew Booi, along with Leo Scherman and Matthew Chapman, had created something special with this Western-adjacent Depression-era crime-thriller. But as a longtime editor across film and TV (Igby Goes Down, Dexter), as well as a producer with strong instincts about story and pacing, McKinley knew the screenplay still needed work. Ethan Hawke had a similar feeling about the original script. McKinley asked him to play lead character Samuel Murphy, an incarcerated man desperate to reunite with […]
by Tomris Laffly on Jan 27, 2026 -
Frank Cappello, He Was A Quiet Man
CHRISTIAN SLATER IN DIRECTOR FRANK CAPPELLO’S HE WAS A QUIET MAN. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Whether he’s writing, directing, creating special effects, playing music, or simply recounting anecdotes, Frank Cappello seems to have a compulsive need to entertain. He honed his storytelling skills as a kid reading out his imagined motocross adventures to classmates, and then spent years writing spec scripts while working in special effects. Though the first script he sold, Suburban Commando (1991), became a derided Hulk Hogan vehicle, it was a launchpad for Cappello to direct two genre pictures. American Yakuza (1993) and No Way Back (1995) both […]
by Nick Dawson on Nov 30, 2007
