Filmmaker Frank Peluso Discuses His Film Red Handed

Frank Peluso is known for Alpha Dog (2006), Red Handed (2019) and My Sister’s Keeper (2009).

indieactivity: Where did the idea for the film come from?
Frank Peluso (FP): One afternoon I was sitting at Nick Cassavetes kitchen table. He said we should make a movie at a ranch in Oregon that belongs to a dear friend of ours Mike Marvin, who had directed Nick in The Wraith. Because the setting is ominous, where the fog rolls in in the morning, we thought the film must be a psychological thriller or a horror film. I suggested a story of three brothers and then Nick said what if one of the brothers was taken when he was a child? That was the magic What if and then we just had to fill in the blanks after that.

What about the script? How did it change, if it all, in the time between that initial draft and the shoot?
Frank Peluso (FP): The old adage is you write the script, then you rewrite it in production and then you rewrite it in the editing room. That was certainly the case for us. I got great ideas from my actors who I listened to and then insightful suggestions from my editors which I took to heart. So the script and story were evolving right up until the last day we had a camera in our hands, which was in July, 2018 eight months after principal started.

Did you have your actors onboard first or did financing fall into place first? I guess it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg scenario, that one?
Frank Peluso (FP): We actually had the financing first. So unlike most films where the politics of casting comes into play, there was a lot of freedom in the casting, it was wide open. The actors who gave the best performance in the auditions, won the part.

Who of the cast do you think are closest to their characters?
Frank Peluso (FP): Michael Madsen is such a huge personality that it’s hard to get Michael Madsen out. But why would you want to? You pay to see that face and that personality on screen, he’s an icon.

Was it surreal getting to work with a couple of legends in Biehn and Madsen?
Frank Peluso (FP): I must admit that it was.

Is there a particular moment in the film you really, really enjoyed shooting?
FP: Christian Madsen and Owen Burke we’re bringing it so hard in the film and they had such a nice connection that I wrote a scene one day for just the two of them. So, I remember I woke up early that morning and I wrote the scene in a nice quiet place.

First of all it was nice to get away from the madness and just be writing something. After I wrote it, we walked over to the set, which was across the river. As we were walking over we snapped a picture. That picture is my Instagram profile and I always think of it as one of my happiest moments.

George Lucas was likely offered science-fiction movie after science- fiction movie after the first Star Wars, have you been approached to direct similar projects to yours since?
FP: I haven’t and I hope that’s only because nobody has seen this one yet. Strangely the next job I got was writing a documentary about historical women who have been either marginalized or left out of the history books entirely.

But women who have had an impact. Very different from this project but it’s been a lot of fun to research and we start production November 21, which is tomorrow.

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