An Interview with Director Brad Furman

In his first feature film titled The Take, Brad Furman weaves a suspenseful and gripping tale about an armored-truck driver who barely survives after being shot in a heist, only to emerge as the primary suspect in what the authorities believe to be an inside job. In an attempt to clear his name, the armored-truck driver (played by John Leguizamo) hunts down the actual culprit of the heist. The movie was well paced, exciting and never overdone. You felt emotionally connected to the characters. For some you felt empathy, for others disdain.

I had the privilege to interview Brad Furman last week. We talked about how he got involved in filmmaking, The Take, and what we can expect from him in the future.

Tell us a bit about yourself, your background, where you are from and how you got involved in filmmaking.

Brad: I was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for film school. I’ve always been a lover of films. I enjoyed going to the movies, but I never really saw it as a potential career path or future.

I actually went to Emory University my freshman year to play basketball and I hurt my lower back. I wasn’t playing and, at the time, was taking a film theory course and got very friendly with the professor. He began to show me that there could be a career in this (film). He had graduated from the AFI Institute and he let me know that if I wanted to be a filmmaker, it was probably never gonna happen learning or studying there because they just had film theory, they didn’t have production.

I decided to throw my hat in the ring and apply to NYU ironically that same year they had gone to the division 3 National Championship finals. Fortunately, I got in and I got to play basketball, as I had mentioned. That opportunity really opened my eyes that filmmaking and achieving my goals were possible, as I was just 19. Also my cousin passed away around the time I transferred. He was very young, only 24, so I kind of saw in life, as cliché as it may be, that you only go around once so I should pursue my dream by being a filmmaker. If I could do that for a living, then that would be the ultimate dream.

Who were some of your influences growing up?

Brad: Ironically, just because of my love for sports, it was really mostly athletes when I was very young. I was obsessed with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.

As far as filmmakers, I knew about Steven Spielberg, obviously. I loved all his movies and they were very magical for me as a child. But the filmmaker that changed my life was Spike Lee.

I saw Do The Right Thing and what the movie spoke to was equality. Spike Lee has an original voice. It’s interesting because if you look at the interview you’re giving me now, you’re asking who inspired me, I said Michael Jordan. There’s a very similar scene in Spike Lee’s movie (Do The Right Thing) where the two Italian brothers are talking to Mookie and Mookie says to them, “Who’s your favorite singer?” And they say “Prince.” Then he asks “Who’s your favorite baseball player?” and they say “Jackie Robinson.” Then he asks, “Who’s your favorite basketball player?” And I don’t remember, I think they said Wilt Chamberlain or Michael Jordan. And then he says, “those guys are all black.” (In Spike’s movie they use the “n” word.) The point Spike was making was that even though his “white characters” which were inherently racist, their idols were, ironically, all black. It was a profound notion for me as a white, Jewish kid whose idols were mostly black — the obvious difference being I was never racist like the film characters. It was definitely an influential and powerful movie for me.

Director Brad Furman with actor John Leguizamo

The Take is a gritty crime drama, what was your inspiration for the film?

Brad: Being from Philadelphia, I was a huge fan of the movie Rocky. It’s just a real, true love story, which I think people tend to forget. It’s not just a boxing movie. It’s about this one man’s struggle to find himself as an individual and overcome the odds and become his million-to-one shot. At least for me, Felix’s character in The Take tapped into the core of his own emotional journey. I felt like in films today we’ve lost touch with diving into the heart of the emotion of the character and I thought this movie (The Take) offered me that.

I thought that there was a real through line of heart, character and substance. I thought it would be interesting to flip the genre on it’s head and dive into the personal character aspect. And that can go back to Rocky, which is a classic character driven movie.

Rosie Perez

I think the cast was terrific. From the outset, did you intend to work with the likes of John Leguizamo, Rosie Perez, Tyrese Gibson and Bobby Cannavale, or did you have an open call audition?

Brad: On average, not including the main roles, I saw about 80 people. If you notice, Leguizamo, Rosie, Roger Guenveur Smith, who played the doctor, all worked with Spike Lee. What an honor to work with the actors of the filmmaker (Spike Lee) that inspired me to be a director in film today.

I had worked at ICM years ago as a talent assistant. That experience made me love New York theater actors, like Cannavale, Rosie, Yul Vazquez, Roger Guenveur Smith, Leguizamo. Many theater actors have been overlooked. This was my chance to find great actors.

I had a very longstanding, almost 10 year relationship with Tyrese. He was a young man, we sort of came up together, and he was the ideal first choice if we had to keep the role younger. I thought it would be interesting to have Tyrese play a bad guy because we had never seen that before with him as an actor.

The backdrop of the movie is LA, why did you choose LA over any of the other urban sprawls in the US?

Brad: Well the movie was written in LA, but being that I’m a New York/Philly guy the first thing I thought was moving (the movie) to New York because there are very big Latin communities there, as well. There was also a time when I wanted to do half the movie in Mexico, but nobody was up for the Mexico idea or the east coast idea.

At the end of the day it was done in LA because, and you’re probably gonna laugh at this, the producer doesn’t fly; he only drives places like John Madden does. I pitched him New York City, and I wanted to do it around North Jersey, right outside the city, in the Latin communities there. I thought that would have been cool because I had a predominant New York cast, but everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

Boyle Heights in LA is literally like a small version of Tijuana. I wanted to show the world “the other LA.” I spent a lot of time there. I basically lived down there for 3 months for research.

Are there any plans in the works to release The Take on blu-ray?

Brad: Funny you ask. That’s a Sony question that I don’t have the answer to as of yet. That would obviously be ideal for me as a filmmaker. I think it will definitively happen. It seems like sales are really climbing with the DVD, so I’m assuming that if that’s the case, then it will happen. They definitely have the ability to do it, so I hope so.

What projects are you working on and what can we expect from you in the future?

Brad : I have a really cool underground drug movie based on the true story of a friend I attended NYU with. It would be my Manhattan City of God. I would love to make that film.

Then something else that I’m really passionate about is my mother’s story. She was one of the first female litigators in Philadelphia. It’s a script we co-wrote together, my mother and I, and we’ve been in talks with Hilary Swank. She would be the ideal actress for the role.

Thanks for your time, Brad.

——————–

---

Brad Furman is definitely one filmmaker to watch, and I’m looking forward to his future films. Be sure to check out The Take, starring John Leguizamo and Rosie Perez, on DVD today.

Tweet This Post