TROY DUFFY,
     NORMAN REEDUS,
    SEAN PATRICK FLANERY

With all the cards stacked against him, Troy Duffy didn’t give up. Instead, he knocked down those cards and moved forward. After ten years, his epic tale of fraternal twins who go on a crusade against evil on the streets of Boston return in THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY. 

Returning to the fold are stars Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, and Billy Connelly alongside co-stars David Della Rocco, Bob Marley, Brian Mahoney, and David Ferry. Joining the fold are Julie Benz, in a tribute to Paul Smecker from the first film, and Clifton Collins Jr as a Mexican bad ass who joins forces with the Saints.

The film premiered in New York on October 20th to a sold out crowd filled with loyal fans of the first film, and when the film ended and lights came on, Duffy and the film’s stars were greeted with a rousing ovation.

To promote the upcoming release of the eagerly awaited sequel, Duffy, Flanery, and Reedus spoke exclusively with the Crypt in a group discussion on the impact of the original, the length between both films, getting everyone back for the film, and the response to the previous night’s screening.

COLONELSCRYPT: How is everyone today?

TROY DUFFY: Good.

SEAN PATRICK FLANERY: Good.

NORMAN REEDUS: Waking up but good.

CC: I hear you. Congrats on the successful screening last night?

TD: Thanks.

SPF: Were you there?

CC: I was, I had a great time just listening to the fans react to everything that was put there in reference to the first film.

SPF: That was cool.

TD:  That was tough putting in the inside jokes for the fan base. You see the cat walking by in the dream scene with Rocco and you wonder if it’ll go off like a joke grenade.

NR: The rope joke worked.

TD: I think the fans were expecting that though. I was asked all the time “You’re bringing the rope back right?”

CC: How did that response feel from the audience when they gave it a rousing ovation?

TD: I think I speak for all of us here when I say that was the most incredible response we had so far. When we were in Boston, it was in a smaller theater and it was more organized in the amount of people who showed up to fill it. That was fucking crazy last night. I thought that line was for Michael Jackson.

NR: It was nuts because when I went to take a picture in the front of the theater like this (extends his middle finger) everyone in the crowd did the same. It was just a sea of middle fingers.

TD: I don’t know how you managed to make the most common gesture in the United States and make it your signature. It’s like, “Hey Norman!” (Extends middle finger)

NR: I don’t know how that works. I mean, on Facebook and all that shit there are hundreds of pictures from fans just doing that. Honestly, there are hundreds. It’s unbelievable.

SPF: It’s great.  We are warping the minds of our youth.

CC: So Troy, was the sequel always in your mind even when you were shooting the first one or was it something that came out of the response it received when it was catching on as a cult classic?

TD: Basically when I got done writing the first one it felt like there should be a sequel. I started having ideas almost immediately, even before we shot the first one, but actually doing it, because I did not begin the writing process until the BOONDOCK fan base started to assemble, I found out that writing a sequel was a very fucking difficult thing to do. Those fans know that movie inside out, up, down, and all the way around. You have to write a sequel that respects that sacred ground and never fucks with it you know? It’s almost like writing with cement shoes. It’s a very difficult thing to do. I went through around 7-10 drafts, some with Willem (Dafoe)’s character as the lead. When we finally decided to ditch that idea, it’s almost like cracking a code. It was cracked as soon as I took the one thing out of the mix that needed to be out which was his character as a lead because we did everything we could with him in the first film. I mean once he went to the dark side what the fuck else you got to do? We ran into that brick wall for the first five or six drafts and then when I took him out and made it just Eunice (Julie Benz’s character), it felt like this is the lunatics taking over the asylum now. There’s no real father figure here anymore. We don’t have to rely on the shoulders of the giant on this one. It just all kind of fell into place.

CC: Norman and Sean, you both kept in touch with Troy over the years, but did it get to a point where you were kind of pestering Troy on “when are going to do a follow up?”

NR: I wouldn’t say we pestered him at all. We heard rumblings of what was happening a couple of times. We’re all friends but there would be a couple of times where I would say “What the fuck, is this getting done?”

TD: We’d be close and I would send all the drafts to these guys. They got versions with other characters in it and stuff and were hoping it would get done and when it didn’t we were just like “Oh fuck.” I remember Flanery calling me up one time going “I got a bunch of fucking investors in Texas, let’s do this shit!” We were always trying to get it done.

CC: It’s a huge testament that you were able to make it and also that everyone came back which is a rarity in any sequel, not just Norman, Sean, and Billy, but all the supporting actors as well.

SPF: That’s the main thing I’ve been saying every interview because I get a lot of “What’s it like working with Troy Duffy? Has he changed? Has he fixed himself?” I don’t even know what that fucking means man.

NR: It’s bullshit man.

SPF: It’s like I always say, the true testament of a country is to see how many people are trying to get in and how many people are trying to get out. Same thing with this movie, every motherfucker came back. Everybody!

TD: It was kind of fun reading it on the internet. “Willem’s not coming back, he must still be an asshole.”

SPF: Dude, every time someone said that Willem’s not back, they immediately followed it up with that it must not be a good script. I wanted to go “Really? He wanted to be in it. He wanted a big part so fuck all of you!”

CC: You know I guarantee you that 100 percent of those critics have either never made a film in their lives and never want to make a film in their lives.

TD: You sound like you made a film.

CC: I have.

TD: So you know how it is. I totally get you on that, believe me. I got a buddy who refuses to talk to anybody who haven’t made a film themselves and they try to weigh in on a conversation on them, he’ll just tell them to shut the fuck up. I think that’s really a good way to avoid a bunch of bullshit.

CC: I’ve had one guy tell me that I’m not the level of filmmaker he is. I’ve made a few films, granted no features yet, but I know what it’s like. I just laugh it off and say “Where’s your film to prove it?”

ALL: Laugh.

TD: Right on.

CC: The film opens up with a character who died in the first film, Rocco, and what he says in that scene I think sums up what we are just saying about criticism. Rocco was saying how there are two types of people, talkers and doers, and it’s the doers who matter, not the talkers. It sets the tone the film and why did you decide to open it that way?

TD: That opening has been there as written from draft one and it has not changed. We had filmed it exactly the way I wanted to and it’s the one scene in the editing process that never changed. I just felt like A, seeing Rocco is the one thing fans don’t expect, so that’s the first thing I’m going to show you. B, that philosophy rolls out there just like what we were talking about with people that don’t know film. These are talkers. They like to sit down and talk about everyone who’s doing it and register their god damn requests and weigh in. They’ve never done it themselves. It’s almost like an analogy you can throw a blanket over virtually everything in life. You can either have some balls and get up and do something or you just sit at home, smoke some pot, and talk about it. That was the idea that I wanted to cast out there. It wasn’t that I wanted to get the youths of America to grab knives and guns and just kill everybody. If you actually look at it and listen to those words, he’s not specifically talking about the boys. It’s a much bigger analogy then just that.

SPF: It’s just a universal ideology, totally.

CC: How was it working together on set again for the second time?

SPF: I thought it was killer. It’s better this time because we know each other more. We’re more familiar with each other. We’re coming back to something that we know people liked. With films, in my opinion, you can start off with a script and say out of a hundred points, with a hundred being a perfect script, every decision you make after that can only take the number down. I’ll tell you why and anyone who disagrees with that is full of shit and they’ve never done that before. Anytime you say “the two most bad ass motherfuckers walk into the room,” it’s your idea of the two bad ass motherfuckers, and it’s yours and those are never the same idea. When you’re casting somebody, he starts to ostracize people one by one and the number goes down. When you read a script, you just want to keep it at that level.  If somebody writes a script at a 98, you want to fucking deliver a 98, you know? You never know if you’re going to make that film like the one you read. For example, you can write “the most beautiful special agent walks into the room.” Troy likes redheads, I like brunettes, and Norman likes blondes. I’m not making that up. I’m sure you like one of the three.

NR: I do like blondes.

TD: He does.

CC: I like whoever will fuck me. (Laughter)

SPF: So anyway, yeah, when you go to the first one, you just hope to go to that original number and level that it was. On the second one, people dug a good percentage of the choices that we made, so let’s just fucking have a ball.

TD: I’ll be honest with you Scott, we fought so fucking hard and waited so fucking long that when we got to do it, it was like a rock band rushing onstage. It was like “You get the roadies out of the way, I’ll get the guitar and play”! When we got up there, it was a god damn explosion.

SPF: We shot in Toronto and it was like (screaming) “Hello Toronto! Are you ready to rock!” (Laughter)

CC: Were there any moments during filming where you had it set one way but when you went on set and had to change it, it turned out better than you thought?

TD: Yes there was one in particular as a matter of fact. The greenhouse was a build. We had to destroy the place. We ended up building it off of the backer’s mansion that had a small, chapel like greenhouse that was attached to this old mansion. The way it was written in the script was that it was a suburban house and it had this greenhouse in the back that was almost a façade for the world to see in this normalcy within the neighborhood but when you went back to see it, this is what the character of The Roman concentrated on, only his flowers and plants. When we were up in Toronto doing location scouts we found that house and it had a small greenhouse attached to it that was way too small for us to shoot. I thought that if we could build a greenhouse onto this and make this a two stage environment where you have The Roman and Billy talking here in this Chapelesque smaller greenhouse and the bigger one’s reserved for the gunfight, now all of a sudden the idea of this guy having a Ms. Havisham existence in the woods, stealing the electricity in this broke down fucking mansion, it has a much cooler feel. For me, it was better than what we had on the page. Sometimes I just think that going through the creative process, yes things change. For me, it’s always a better idea. When we first went out there, I saw it and said “This is totally not what I asked for guys,” and they were like “I know but it’s the only place we got that had a greenhouse section attached to the house,” because that was a necessity. So I decided to take a look at it and I start walking around the place and got this vibe that this was just a way cooler idea. It was a way cooler idea to have this guy out there in that mystical area in this fucking broke down mansion living like some kind of gypsy king. Sometimes it evolves like that through production, thank God, and to me that’s paying attention to the possible benefits of pressure in not having a lot of money and not getting what you ask for. Sometimes better ideas come down the pike and you just really have to be open for that. It happened a bunch of times in little ways but that was the biggest way it happened, that this whole character, now everything he said came from a different spot. Now everywhere he was in that house almost tricked you throughout. We showed little bits of it until you finally saw the whole house at the end and you’re thinking “What is this fucking place? It’s all kinda busted down and shit, what’s going on here? Who is this guy?” and it just helped like a motherfucker as far as the story goes.

CC: Norman and Sean, how was it for you both the second time around and did he leave you room for improvisation knowing that you had the fan base from the first one?

NR: The first one was one of my first movies so I was scared shitless. I trusted Troy totally. When we started the first one, I was nervous for a day or two but was fine afterwards. For the second one, I know this sounds a little strange, but he has this Teddy Bear thing about him in that you feel comfortable around him. Troy is very giving as a director. He’s not about the improv. I’m sure if we changed it around in the car on the way to set and tell him, he’d go “That may work just fine.” He really knows what he wants and for me it’s more comforting to go in a situation where I can depend on the quarterback you know what I mean? For me the second film was actually much easier.

SPF:  The level of improv of any film is almost always universally proportional to the quality of dialogue.

NR: Absolutely.

SPF: But there were things like Norman said that if whenever there was something we would question, we could come up to Troy with it. It wouldn’t be the cameras are rolling and we would just making shit up and seeing what would stick. We would go to each other and say “What if we did this,” and we’d write it down before the scene was ever shot so we went there on the day knowing exactly what we were going to say.

TD: Sometimes Sean in a normal conversation would go “This doesn’t feel right.” For instance when they were watching their dad, it was written in the script where they were watching their dad doing the Russian roulette thing with Crewcut. Flanery told me that “I’d be up there and I’d want to shoot this fuck,” so we developed the scene where he grabbed his gun and he’s screaming “I’m gonna blow this motherfucker’s head off right now,” and all this bullshit happened there and that was right on the fly because they felt something wasn’t right in the room.  Sean felt that “With my father right there, I wouldn’t be sitting here doing nothing.” We developed it inside the box, along with that whole conversation inside the Crate with the fist up your ass…

SPF: Yeah but that’s different than improvising. Camera’s rolling and the scene says “Norm your hungry” and I’m like “Murphy, I feel like eating man, do you?”

NR: And I go “Yeah, let’s wrap special tortilla. A tortahula!” (Laughs)

SPF: Yeah, so there’s some things that we changed but it was pretty rare that we improvised in the moment.

CC: Between the release of the first film, which was ten years ago, to the release of the sequel, which comes out next week in theaters, there has been a rise of digital technology where on the good side it’s cheaper to make a good looking film but on the bad side any schlub can now call themselves a filmmaker and make crap.

TD: (Laughs) That’s true man. Just putting a camera in a corner, people are actually doing that shit.

CC: Well that answers that.

TD: It’s good and all but the good will outweed the bad.

SPF: I agree.

CC: It’s ironic I ask this being that you have Peter Fonda in the film and being that we’re on the 40th anniversary of EASY RIDER, the film that led to the independents taking over the studios for a while…

TD: For my money, EASY RIDER was the first independent film ever made and we came thisclose to not seeing it because these studio motherfuckers thought it was a piece of shit.

CC: Where do you all see independent films within the next few years, do you see it rise again like EASY RIDER launched it 40 years ago?

TD: It’s gotta happen. It sort of happened with BLAIR WITCH and with this PARANORMAL ACTIVITY thing. I haven’t seen it yet but there’s gonna be a bunch of kids out in the sticks that make a movie which will gross a hundred million dollars. We already know that’s going to happen, and just by the fact that more people are making films using that technology there has to be a few that are very good just by the law of averages. The thing that I hate now about independent film is that times are so hard on the economy so if you go to Blockbuster you see these amazing casts in movies you’ve never heard of. I saw a cover for a film starring Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas that I never heard of before. No theaters, no nothing, just on the shelves. It’s because actors are really hurting too and a lot of them are stepping down and do things that they normally wouldn’t. Other guys are coming up to finance because now they can get these actors. The guy with ten million dollars ten years ago couldn’t get Morgan Freeman in his film. Now he can. Now even actors are collaborating with certain financial entities to use themselves as a brand to attract producers to make four or five films at three million dollars each. These things are happening now. There’s a flip side to every coin and that flip side in this case is that it’s usually schlock, it’s usually bad.

NR: I remember going to an independent film festival where a Will Smith movie headlined it and I just couldn’t understand that.

TD: It is retarded when you have a Will Smith film at Sundance in general.

SPF: The thing about independent films is that my theory is that independent films have an ability to be a perfect ten but out of a hundred of those films, you’re lucky to get one that’s a perfect ten. Studio films are guaranteed to never be a perfect ten but then again they’ll never going to be below a four. They may be a five to eight. You’re guaranteed to get a four to eight but it’s never with that many opinions going to ever be a perfect ten. Having said that, back in the day there were so few musicians that recorded records that everything released in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s were solid. Everything was because they went through so much scrutiny. It’s like now with the digital age. Back when people were taking celluloid, they set up shots. They were like “Let’s shoot this… Nah, let’s shoot outside, it’ll look better.” Now you just take out a digital camera and go “click click click click click click click” and out of 300 pictures you just took, only two of them are worth keeping. The rest are just complete crap. Same thing with the digital on film.

Now Scott, you are right, everyone and their grandma is now going to make a film. Rest assured that 99.999 percent of it is going to be unwatchable bile. Now PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is an anomaly. BLAIR WITCH is an anomaly. I’m not saying it’s not going to happen. It is. When BLAIR WITCH happened, there were really like ten films made a year like that. Now there’s like ten million films including some backyard things out there and one of them struck gold so people are now going “Oh my God, I have to make a PARANORMAL ACTIVITY!”

TD: No, not really. It ain’t gonna happen like that.

SPF: No but realistically we can all go and shoot a movie on our iPhones right now.

CC: I’m being told I’m out of time.

SPF: Bastards!

NR: Nice to meet you man.

CC: Thank you all so much for your time and best of luck with BOONDOCK SAINTS II.

TD: Pleasure man.

NR: Thank you.

SPF: Absolutely, take care man.
 

BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY opens in theaters October 30th.

Go to www.boondocksaints.com for further details.

(Special thanks to Falco Ink)