A lot of actors who move into directing tend to put themselves in front of the camera, but Mo McRae – who audiences will know from his roles in Sons of Anarchy, The Flight Attendant, The First Purge, and Almost Family to name but a few – opted to focus entirely on his filmmaking craft when it came to his feature-length directorial debut A Lot of Nothing.
The biting satirical thriller stars Y’lan Noel and Cleopatra Coleman star as a married couple who get more than they bargained for when they decide to take action, after they discover their next door neighbor was involved in a police shooting dominating the news.
This Is Us alum Justin Hartley plays the officer in question, with Shamier Anderson and McRae’s wife Lex Scott Davis rounding out the central quartet of the smart, stylish, and subversive film executive produced by David Oyelowo. Ahead of the film’s release, We Got This Covered had the chance to speak to McRae and Hartley about A Lot of Nothing.
During our chat, we cover whether or not McRae ever envisioned himself acting in the project, the bold stylistic choices he made as a first-time feature director, Hartley playing against type, and much more, which you can check out below.
Justin, when we spoke last before the release of The Noel Diary, you named The Never Game as your dream project, so congratulations are in order for the pilot being picked up for a full-season order.
Justin Hartley: Thank you very much! Yeah. Good memory!
Mo, a lot of actors that move into directing tend to play major roles on-camera as well. Did you ever consider pulling double duty, or was your priority to always keep your energies focused on directing?
Mo McRae: The priority was always keep the energy on directing. I drew inspiration from myself in terms of writing, I think. But in terms of the actual portrayal, I always wanted to focus on directing.
The opening shot is one unbroken take that lasts for roughly 17 minutes, was starting the movie that way always in the script? Because not only does it set the stage and tone, it introduces the characters and lays out the plot, as well as instantly establishing some serious directorial chops right out of the gate.
Mo McRae: Let’s go! Tell me more. Talk to me nice! No, yeah, that was always a plan. I just felt like, the style I’ll admit is incredible and I appreciate you for noting that, but I felt like that was the best way to truthfully introduce the audience to the dynamic between these two characters.
It was a real-time experience. You’re in there, no cutaways, no hiding. And you can watch the escalation, and the way they traverse these varying emotions, and topics, and connection, and disconnection; the volatility, he insecurities; everything real-time.
Justin Hartley: That was really smart, too. Really, really smart. Because you feel like when you’re watching the film, you are in the room with them. And then that’s sort of an important element throughout the movie, when you’re back in that little room with all five of them, you feel like you’re in the room.
And you don’t have to do that in one cut. But because Mo set it up that way, you already feel like you’re like you’re screwed, just like everybody else, you were in the room with them. It was a really, really cool, cool way to open the film.
There’s a delicate tonal balance because it’s dealing with timely and important things, but it’s not afraid to throw some comedy and some more heightened elements in there, too. So as a filmmaker, do you hope or think everyone will be able to interpret the story in their own way?
Mo McRae: Yeah, I hope we all find ourselves in these characters. And we find people who we’re close to in these characters. And in finding that and those discoveries, we find empathy for ourselves and other people in our lives.
So by design, I want people to watch the film and look at what Justin Hartley did and what he portrayed with Brian, and put themselves in those shoes. And think about, “Okay, I understand that, I know what I would need.”
Or be the person that was looking at his character, and understand their perspective in a way that can be beneficial moving forward. And be entertained by it, is the other thing, which is to be really engaging and entertaining throughout at all.
It’s a different kind of role and performance than we’re used to seeing from you Justin, but it’s perfectly in sync with the film’s way of constantly subverting and upending expectations from scene to scene, so it’s both unexpected and logical casting at the same time, which is a recurring theme throughout the film because the things that you’re expecting to happen don’t necessarily happen in the way you think they will.
Justin Hartley: Like life! Yeah, you plan for things, and you see things right in front of you, and you’re watching them with your very own eyes, and you know the players, and then it’s not what you saw. Mo did a great job of writing that tone in the script.
And hopefully we pulled it off, I think we did, I really enjoyed the film. And it’s one of the things that I love about movies is just being entertained. And that’s part of how you do that right; you tell a story and you don’t trick an audience, no one likes that.
But that’s life. Life is never going to turn out exactly the way you thought it was going to turn out, so I love that about our movie, and I think we did a good job. Mo certainly did a great job of directing the film, so it was wonderful.
A Lot of Nothing is now playing in select theaters and on VOD. Be sure to check out our review of the movie here, as well as our exclusive interview with stars Shamier Anderson and Lex Scott Davis.