These movies are really hard for Keanu and Chad, and everybody.
But I totally defer to Chad and Keanu to figure out what and if that story is.
It has been five years since his first solo outing as director, the prehistoric dramaAlpha.
Albert HughesGetty
Iwanyk said Hughes was exactly what the series needed.
How do you compete with that?
It was so different than anything we have had in the Wick world.
Just, nope, Im good.
Hes an idiosyncratic guy who does what he wants, when he wants.
Ive always admired those movies, great style and point of view, swagger, emotion and heart.
I always felt I was watching a real filmmaker.
We felt Albert would be perfect.
An underappreciated art of casting the director is casting the person.
Or be afraid of the challenge of the budget, period and comparisons to the movie.
Hed said he had been offered these things about race relations, dirty cops, corruption.
And the series came out nuts, in the best possible way.
Id get texts from him, I cant believe youre letting me do this.
But thats the great thing about the Wick world.
ALBERT HUGHES: I just love what Chad Stahelski did with those movies, the way they looked.
Its not necessarily the kind of style I would do, but I love watching someone do that stuff.
Noir, Greek mythology, and hes very much influenced by Bob Fosse dance movies.
He talked to me about his influences when I got asked to do this by the producers.
I said, what do you guys want from this?
Give me three things.
One was to open up more of the mythology but keep it grounded.
Chad was very supportive and said, do your own thing, make it yours.
I started with, I love 70s music and got to explore the two sides of my culture.
I grew up in a house with a white mother, and a black father.
Hes playing James Brown and Parliament, and shes playing Jimi Hendrix, Credence and Pink Floyd.
I got a wonderfully done script and completely connected with Kirk Ward.
We are same age and geeked out on the same commercials and music.
I come from a past of doing needle drops, my brother and I do it all the time.
And I go, okay, this is gonna be fun.
And then we got to doing it.
The John Wick films had their hyper-stylized impressionist take on New York.
We brought our own with a 70s feel.
For me, the industry, the world, everybody was feeling angsty after Covid, looking for escapism.
I wanted an escape, and this was it.
DEADLINE: No Keanu Reeves here.
Your way in is Winston, Ian McShanes character played in younger years by Colin Woodell.
HUGHES: Winston had been established by the writers before I came on.
What was also interesting about the script was a multicultural feel that wasnt cynical.
Youve got powerful women of different ethnic backgrounds, and thats whats great about New York.
Chad did this in the films.
It becomes by degrees how bad they are to determine who is our true protagonist.
HUGHES: The showrunner Kirk Ward and I talked in detail about it.
With Mel, Kirk and I decided he should be a little shabby on the edges.
His organization skills arent as tight as Winstons are later on.
It feels a little cheap.
Chew up the scenery if you want.
John Wick films do that.
He was like, oh, really?
I can do that [laughs].
DEADLINE: Had you worked with Kirk Ward before?
HUGHES: No, but hes like the third Hughes Brother.
We have a connection that is pretty hilarious.
He came to Hollywood in the nineties, and he was parking cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Hes sees TVs in the car and says, you mind if I watch?
I said, go ahead man, well be right back.
Whats the appeal and challenge of re-imagining New York in the grimy 70s?
Otherwise its been prehistoric, or 1880s London, or post-apocalypse.
John Wick was all world building.
It felt like somehow contemporary, but they were not hampered by the past.
Like that wonderful thing with those women in the mail room, typing out murder contracts.
Last thing I would want New Yorkers to do is say, that doesnt look like a New York.
But its not really supposed to.
DEADLINE: The John Wick films had very distinctive style.
Different from those great Hong Kong kung fu movies, where you could see how the moves choreographed.
How do you live up to expectations?
They do this stunt vis, as they call it, bring it to you and you make adjustments.
But its all that same DNA.
But you cant just go wall to wall John Wick style.
Also, not everybodys John Wick, hes a singular character.
So what kind of fighting styles do all these people have?
This ones into guns, this one, karate.
This one has a kung fu style.
Theyre very much different but of the same world and it is really crucial we service the fans.
And we weave it in, throughout.
Presumably this three episode series arc leaves launch the possibility for more of Winston and the hotels formative years.
What kind of seeds did you drop along the way?
HUGHES: There are Easter eggs and nods to the future.
These actors start playing, and they make great ad libs.
One would say, I just sawJohn Wick 2and this character said this.
So can we try this?
Try it on the next take.
I was surprised to see women make up a large part of the fan base.
Some of the Easter eggs are more apparent and some are buried pretty well.
But my brother and I never did one movie after another.
I didAlpha, which was a big movie, and the limited seriesThe Good Lord Bird.
It was fun to work on but dealt with trauma.
I got to the point where I said, I just want to have fun.
Two things came to me.
One I wont mention, but it was a generational trauma thing.
Like youre just using muscles you havent used.
The fun muscle, basically.
DEADLINE: Ive interviewed each Coen Brother about making movies together, and apart.
Ethan said there were points where he was looking through the camera, getting his shot.
Hed turn to say, what did you think of that?
And his brother wasnt there.
What is the biggest adjustment in you and your twin brother Allen peeling off and doing separate things?
Moving to Prague too…when twins separate spatially, I had to learn to do things for myself.
I found that I can play the role of extrovert very well, even though Im not one.
What I had to develop was how to better communicate with people and actors in particular.
I do come from the Hitchcock school of…theater when it comes to actors.
Theres a lot of weight, too much weight given to certain departments.
I think everybodys equal.
When I worked with my brother, I dealt with equipment, DPs, gaffers and grips.
I could go through a day feeling moody.
He said to me after a take once, I dont like acting by the numbers.
Takes could be inconsistent, but there were marvelous things going on.
Just me and him.
Using a made up language in that movie.
you could learn a lot.
In the past, Denzel Washington showed my brother and I a lot of things.
And onThe Continental,Mel was very clever.
He wouldnt go to his trailer, hed just sit on set and watch.
Hes watching everything and talking to everybody, PAs and extras.
And I realize what hes doing.
Hes seen it all, and hes trying to figure out what I know and what I dont know.
And doing it in this very clever way.
Hed feign ignorance about a lens.
Like, oh, what lens is that?
He knew exactly what it was.
I would go up and ask him questions about all my favorite movies that he did.
He knows his edit points because he is a filmmaker too.
And hell snap right in.
Then Ill turn it back on.
When you put it together, youre like, my God, this guys a genius.
He knows exactly whats going on behind the camera, in front of the camera.
He knows what lenses Im picking.
He came and looked at the monitor one day and he goes, thats your B camera?
Ill play to that.
Because its a better angle.
HUGHES: If youre an insecure person, that can feel like a bit of a threat.
Mel and him, theyre highly intelligent and rarely come with an idea thats not good.
But every idea isnt good.
you could deal with it with diplomacy or you could deal with it with directness.
And I prefer sometimes, ah, I dont know, lets just try it.
And they try it and sometimes youre like, oh, I was fucking wrong.
This guys, hes right.
You like those moments where someone comes and makes a scene.
Like, hey, I gotta shoot a bunch of fu*king close-ups.
I hate those days, hate em.
And she got hired that hire her.
Her name is Claire Cooper.
I said, you realize Claire, Ive never once directed you.
She goes, oh, well youre gonna direct me today.
Im gonna be sure of it.
Youre gonna direct me today.
I go, no, I dont think so.
Its still not working for me.
And then the next take, she does something with the other actor thats so surprising to me.
And Im like, whoa.
I ask the guy, was that your idea?
He said, no.
I said to Claire, you one-upped me again.
I tried to direct you.
You you had a better idea than I did.
So thats what I look for.
My brother and I would do the same thing during the movies, and auditions.
Like, whos gonna make this exciting for us?
Cause weve read this for a year and its not as exciting as it was at first.
You read all his interviews, you know, the happy accidents are the best.
Everybodys trying kind of get credit for something thats magical but wasnt meant to happen.
DEADLINE: Your brother Allen just directed a multi-part series on Tupac Shakur.
But Im like, no, this is yours.
I saw the first two episodes and it just feels like a love letter to a friend.
They had that little thing, for five minutes.
It didnt overshadow the deep friendship.
And I think this was lovingly done and fair.
And something I think that, the friend that we knew, Tupac wouldve been proud of.
That is mathematically impossible.
We were 200 pounds apiece and hes a hundred forty, soaking wet and holding a brick.
It just doesnt jibe, or make any common sense.
I was like, no, that wasnt what happened.
To my brothers credit, he didnt speak about it until a couple years ago.
He wasnt trying to defend his honor.
I thought he did a good job handling it in the episodes.
He didnt go into the weeds.
He didnt get into the blow by blow of what actually happened.
He just said, for the record, it was 10 guys [laughs].
DEADLINE: You were there.
What do you remember about it?
HUGHES: I remember.
My brother does a good job of couching it this way.
In hindsight, it was a couple of 19, 20 year old guys who were hotheaded.
We handled it wrong and he handled it wrong.
He was hurt because hed been fired from the movie for being a little disruptive.
A little, thats being kind.
My brother dealt directly with him.
My brother back then was 20 years old and I saw it.
He was a man about it.
But what my brother doesnt mention is they were in the room together by themselves.
In that room, my brother was thinking it was gonna be a fight.
And Tupac backed out of the room and said, call my manager.
Shooting two off-duty police officers.
That was pretty crazy.
But when it came time to confront a friend, it was a different story.
And also, like us, he was dealing with what we were dealing with, a lot earlier.
Nobody gave us all a guidebook on how to be young men.
It was, youre handed cash and a few cars and, figure it out.
Im saying it in hindsight, like my brother.
This is easy to figure out.
And part of its toxic masculinity.
Were coming out of the hip hop culture, like were gonna be blah, blah, blah.
It must be easy to put too much weight on perceived slights.
HUGHES: Youre onto something there.
Musicians or artists in that area deal with it and so do filmmakers and actors deal.
you might be quickly labeled as difficult and sometimes people dont differentiate between two types of difficult.
There are those who are completely disruptive and unhealthy.
There are others who have a method to their madness.
My brother and I dealt with that tag because partly because of our skin color too.
The angry Black men.
And we were like, no, we actually know what we want.
We want it this way.
Thats not the way I work, and were gonna do it this way.
And knowing that hes going into the music game and were going into the film game.
Already with the cards are stacked against us.
And then if we speak up for ourselves, then were labeled as something.
To this day, Allen is still dealing with it.
I still deal with it.
Tupac, if he was 51 right now or 52, he would still be dealing with it.
Its a frustration that that never leaves, especially with creative people of color or women.
HUGHES: We knew, driving up.
We saw Tupac in the corner, and we saw, I would say 15 guys.
Smoking and drinking 40 ouncers.
I was like, uh oh, we know whats going down now.
I dont know why we did.
But different, because were in the 70s.
Its good eye candy, escapism and fun.
Thats the one thing that drew me in.
I think they have fun with it because its something different than what you see on TV.
Its a longer form than the movies, but the challenge was, can you keep in the fun?
People can check out and go, oh, its not like the real world.
This is not, this is not the real world.
And I think thats whats so genius about what Chad and Keanu have done with that series.
Theyre winking and nodding to the audience.
We knew it was an old TV serial throwback with a good time to be had.
The last thing I would want is to leave people bummed out.
The 70s music needle drops, twists and turns that are unexpected.
We were like, how can we bring in all this stuff?
The lenses we used were MGM and Pathe and built in the early 1950s.
Theyre not great lenses by todays DP standards, but they were used to shootDr.
Zhivago, Cool Hand Luke, andThe Graduate.
Its because of these imperfect lenses that were made in 1950.
