David Gordon Green doesn’t always like to “blow sh*t up” in his movies.
The 40-year-old has had a varied career as a director, helming big Hollywood studio films like Pineapple Express as well as smaller indie movies such as Undertow. David doesn’t choose his projects on how big or small they’re going to be, but on what he feels like dedicating his time to.
“I really look to do a movie that peaks my interest. What’s something I can disappear into – a world I want to live in for a year'” he explained to flickeringmyth.com. “Sometimes it’s a movie with a crew of 15 people like Prince Avalanche, where I just wanted to get the world off my back and relax in the woods. It really only had one location and two actors in it. Other times, it’s something ambitious and comedic and big budget and we can blow sh*t up like in Pineapple Express.”
His latest production is Manglehorn, which stars Al Pacino as a lonely locksmith and Holly Hunter. While the premise doesn’t sound like your typical movie, the whole process of pulling the picture together was pretty unconventional.
“I was evacuating from a hurricane when I was working on a show called Eastbound and Down. I was in North Carolina, lost and confused, and trying to ask somebody what street I was on. I looked up and I said, “I’m on Manglehorn Street.” That’s where I was, in the middle of nowhere. I thought, That’d be a cool name for a movie,” he explained. “Then I met Al Pacino the next week, and I was just talking to him, and seeing this strange, very small, fragile, and funny guy, and I thought ‘This is a cool guy to make a movie with.’”
Soon after, David paid a visit to a locksmith to get his locks changed on his house. While there the final pieces of the movie fell into place.
“[I thought] I should make a movie with Pacino called Manglehorn here,” he laughed. “Then I gave that idea to my neighbour and he wrote the script. A little unconventional, but it worked out great.”
