Jackie Quinones and Andre Royo talk MILES AWAY

Andre and Jackie 

After watching MILES AWAY a couple of time I reached out about doing an interview with writer director and star Jackie Quinones and star and executive producer Andre Royo. Because I couldn’t fit in something on their press day, we arranged to do the interview the next day. We arranged a time and a couple of minutes before the scheduled time, right before I could park the car the call came in.  I parked and we began to talk. Since the film is about a ride share driver over the course of a day the fact that the interview was happening while I was in my car seemed appropriate.

I don’t know about Ms. Quinones and Mr. Royo, but I had a blast. Rarely have I smiled as much doing an interview. They we warm and charming. They made me feel as if I had been their best friend for years. We spoke for 25 minutes but I could have and wanted to continue speaking with them.  Amazingly we pretty much stayed locked on the film, with the result the almost all of the interview follows.

The interview was done on the speaker as I sat in my car in an empty parking lot while Ms Quinones and Mr Royo were in Austin for the weekend premiere of the film.

I want to thank Linda Brown for arranging this interview. I also must thank Ms. Quinones and Mr. Royo for taking the time to speak with me.

JACKIE: As soon as you're parked and ready, I'll merge him in. 

STEVE: I'm parked, I'm ready. 

JACKIE: All right, let me merge him in. Andre? 

ANDRE: Yeah, what's up? 

JACKIE: Hey, we're on with Steve Kopian.

 ANDRE: Hey, what's up my man?

 STEVE: How are you?

 ANDRE: I'm all right.

 STEVE:I heard that you were wild on Zoom.

 ANDRE: I was wild on Zoom? Yeah, I don't know. Now you'll never know. You'll never know my man.

 STEVE:  When I was trying to set this up and Linda was insisting that I had to do it on Zoom. But where I am I couldn’t do it.

 ANDRE: Next time, next time my boy, next time.

STEVE: Absolutely. How did you, I don't know where to start. You're an executive producer of the film. How did end up as an executive producer as well as in the film?

 ANDRE: I just helped out as much as I could creatively and she felt that, you know, she wanted to bless me and make me an executive producer. But it was really on this huge support and huge belief that this filmmaker has something to say if she's going to execute it the right way.

 JACKIE: Yeah, Andre is kind of downplaying his expertise in storytelling. He is definitely downplaying it. He is like an encyclopedia of film knowledge and just incredible with story, worked with the Independent Spirit Awards selecting the films that were going to be up for awards for about five or six years?

 ANDRE: Probably, yeah.

 JACKIE: So he is really, really great with story,. Really, really great with character development. Just a fantastic actor, as you know. And so incredibly supportive that it just, without him, this film wouldn't be where it is. He was so instrumental in the post-production process and just really a champion throughout. And I'm so grateful. I should tell you more often. I think I tell you pretty often. But I'm very grateful to have him on this team.

 ANDRE: I believe in you, I love you, so yes. It was the perfect combination and it was a joy to be a part of.

 STEVE: When you wrote the script  did you know who you were going to get for all the parts or did e have the basic script and then l I'm doing this film, do you want to be in it and we'll write you a role or did you write all the roles?

 JACKIE: The way that I usually write is I write around a theme and each character becomes a different sort of mouthpiece of a different part of the, the argument for that theme. I didn't do that with this one. This one, it was more about plot first, so it was about the Uber driver and the different rides. 

And then once I had the rides in mind, I knew that there were probably some actors that would suit other roles better, but I kind of gave them a choice. Andre,  I think I asked you which one you wanted to play, didn't I?

 ANDRE: I believe so. I believe the first time you sent me the script, you were like, you know, if there's any character that speaks to you, let me know.

 JACKIE: Right. So I wasn't really married to any one particular person and I knew as long as I had great actors, which thank the Lord I do, that they would be able to perform and bring something to the role that wasn't already on the page, which they all did.

 STEVE:I find it interesting because  you have actually the hardest role in the film, which is you have to allow all these crazy people to act around you and you have to hold the center. It's a brilliant. It's a brilliant performance  you get these towering performances hapening around you, Andre, Luis Guzman, everybody else and you have to stay normal, you have to stay a regular person. Was that hard?

 JACKIE: It was definitely intimidating acting with both Andre and Luis for sure. It's like, you know, Luis and I had worked together in the past, but ve worked in different capacities. I don't think we had been on screen together since the first time we met, which was almost 20 years ago now. So, it was very intimidating to work with two people that I just admire so much and I don't, I don't know that you know this, Andre, but I was so nervous.  I just tried my best to be in the moment with them and Andre's so grounded and Luis so grounded that immediately they kind of, they changed the energy, you know, so they made me feel comfortable.

 ANDRE: Yes, and I think Jackie is downplaying her theatrical, her background as an artist and an actor. She's very talented, she's very trained. Thank you. 

And listen, this is what you do when you're in New York and you're doing theater and you're doing movies, you make the other person better. We share the experience and we share the storytelling together so one can't overpower, if it's done correctly, one can't overpower the other one or it doesn't balance. She's good enough to know when to give, when not to give because she's receiving, she's in the moment. She's not something orchestrated. Right.

 And if you stand truthful and grounded, you know, you're going to meld and you're going to blend. You know, if you go outside of that, that's when you're starting to push and try too hard because you're not, you're not in the moment, you're trying to make a moment.

 STEVE: Well, it's one of the things that I love about the film is that you've got these moments, even when you're on the phone or in these wonderful two-handed pieces everything is grounded, you're together, you're in the moment. It remains real, nobody steals the scene. 

 ANDRE: Not if it's done correctly. Nobody steals the scene. I mean, the moment they steal the scene is the person, the lead, we're following.

 She's bringing us in and out of this world by sharing her car. Like, she's sharing her car with us and we're watching her, you know, play with these other artists and experience, you know, what you wanted to, you know, emotionally what you wanted to put in your scene.

 STEVE: I'm curious. I watched the film a couple of times because there was a point where I'm watching it and I'm going, okay, this is a great scene and this is a great scene and this is a great scene and then, and then all of a sudden you get to the end of the, towards the end of the film and suddenly you realize that there's a through line, there's more of a through line than you realize. It's not these great scenes. You have your phone conversations with your mother or whomever and everybody on the phone and what everybody's saying to you lfeeds into your journey, your arc, over the course of your day driving.

 JACKIE: Right. It's kind of hidden in there.

STEVE: And it's, there's this moment where I realized that  you've got all these great actors and you've got all these crazy things and then, as I got to the end and I knew have to watch this again. I have to see this again because I missed all these little things that were said.

 JACKIE: The little hints, yeah, yeah. I've heard that before. Thank you for watching it more than once. That's like a huge compliment. Really appreciate that.

 STEVE: I generally don't, but when when you get the "aha moment" and  I have to go back and rewatch the film. And I did, it was leven before I had said that I had wanted to do the interview. And  when I'm watching the film, the second time and part of a third time and it was like, wait, no, I have to talk to you because I had to know how you constructed it. Because you've got this perfect through line and it's almost like you clicked in pieces that amplify it. Does that make any sense? Does that make any sense?

 JACKIE: No, no, no, it does, absolutely. I think, honestly, I'm not sure. That's a bad answer, but I think, ultimately.

 STEVE: No, it's an honest answer.

 JACKIE: I think, ultimately, like, a lot, a lot of what was on the page didn't actually make it to screen and we had to figure out ways to work around that because in the original script, we realized maybe we had too much on screen with phone calls and things like that. Originally we were going to have an anxiety meter for the character to kind of give us more of a through line and we realized that wasn't going to work because it was a little too gimmicky and we wanted the film to be more grounded. I had to kind of go back through the script and just make sure that there were moments that would feed back to the end. It's, it's writing and rewriting and trying new things and trying different things and then, of course, you're also always rewriting in the post process and, like I said, Andre was super instrumental in the post process. The amount of notes he gave us and such great notes, too. For example there were some really cool shots and we had to get rid of those because, you know, they were artsy-fartsy and they didn't really work for the film. It was just really kind of like finessing the story as I went and, and as we went along and not staying married to anything and making sure that we made something that, that made sense and that was great, that wasn't just my vision, but our vision, if that makes sense.

 STEVE: How changed is the script compared to the finished film? Did you, did you lose a lot?

JACKIE: We did drop one scene and we dropped the, anxiety meter in place of her anxious tics, um, and then maybe some changes to scenes here and there with dialogue if something was a bit more fun on the day, you know, to make it more comedic or more dramatic, but ultimately, most of that stuff was there before we shot.

 STEVE: How, much, did you, did you improvise  or was it all just, was all on the page?

 JACKIE: I like to work with different actors however they work and if they choose to improvise, I improvise with them, but I like to make sure that we come back to the script as well, so if we do go off a bit, we come back to the original. For instance, Andre and I rehearsed. And Andre stayed very true to the material and what was on the page and brought something to it that was so grounded and beautiful because in my head, this character was kind of a jerk, but Andre made him so relatable and, and honest and it made him, I was like, dang, he's making me look like the bad guy.

 ANDRE:  As  the girl who left me, you were the jerk,  and it was my job to make it clear that it was your fault, we didn't make it. 

 STEVE: Andre, how much were you on the set?

ANDRE: I was on the set for one day. They call me one take Dre, baby.  

I Was there for a day but I'm the red phone you call me You need me you call me. When you want to talk it out, you call me. We were able to stay connected throughout the whole process But as far as shooting and being, you know hands-on on set, you know she had a great crew. And s I believe in her.

 STEVE: How big was the crew It almost feels like you were alone. It doesn't feel you like there was any crew theree. It's like you in the car and it's just like there's nobody around

 JACKIE: We wanted that, to feel we wanted it to feel like there's there is no camera. We did everything with natural lighting . We didn't use any artificial lighting except for, obviously, some of the night stuff. I would say it depended on the day but sometimes we would have six people, sometimes we would have 15 to 20 That was the most that we had on set any given day But yeah, we went from small to big depending on what we were shooting and what we needed people for

 STEVE: How long did it take you to shoot?

 JACKIE: We shot for 14 days, then we did 2 pickup days and we did a couple of days of extra B roll. So I'd say about 16 total if  because it wasn't full days.

 STEVE: Not full days? Were you doing other projects and shooting around them?

 JACKIE: So, we had a really cool schedule which allowed me to prepare. There were so many things that happened on this film that were kismet, that created an atmosphere where we were able to put things together in a way that you wouldn't normally. We were shooting on weekends only which allowed us every week before the shoot to put together whatever else we might need. And it gave us time in between to rehearse if we needed to. And then on those weekends we would usually shoot one to two scenes per day and because the scenes are you know, one-off.  They don't crossover. 

It was really kind of a blessing that we were able to kind to have the actors in for half a day or a day and then move on to the next actor. This is opposed to the typical film where you're kind of trying to track every day and track every character and figure out where in the story. They are the only character. I really had to do worry about on a bigger scale was my own, so it made it a lot easier for the production process.

 STEVE: How meticulously was this planned?  I've got a friend who does independent films and he shoots on ultra micro budgets, but every detail everything is planned down to the final detail. There's a little bit of room for improve but mostly it's what is planned. Did you have everything planned for every shot?

 JACKIE: But you know, obviously when you get on set there are things that go awry sometimes and you have to be able to pivot. Filmmaking is all about problem-solving because you have a plan, but it doesn't always work out So there was a lot of pivoting. There was a lot of meticulous planning that didn't pan out like on any film set 

STEVE: It premieres when?

 JACKIE: Premieres Sunday Sunday the 26th at 6 30 p.m at the galaxy theater 6 and then we have an encore screening on the 29th at 4 10 p.m. 

We're going to Urban World in New York right after that for an East Coast premiere on the 30th and then after that we have we've heard back from a few places I can't mention.