“Who are all these people?” Loren (Anthony Drazan) asks in “Bunny,” visiting his daughter Bobbi (Liza Colby) in the heart of New York City and finding himself in the midst of chaos in the cramped flat. It is the birthday of her partner Bunny (Mo Stark), leading to at least a few unexpected house guests including his best friend Dino (Ben Jacobson) crowding into the walkup in New York, but the couple, who could use the cash, has also opened their doors to an AirBNB patron named Happy Chana (Genevieve Hudson-Price) as their landlord Linda (Linda Rong Mei Chen) happily hangs around, simply because she enjoys the company. Inadvertently, Bunny has also welcomed someone unwanted after a work incident earlier in the day has led a mysterious man to follow him home though he won’t be leaving their place alive.
Even before a dead body turns up in “Bunny,” the film features the killer instincts of Stark and Jacobson, a pair of real-life buddies who turned their real-life residence into a film set and imagine a day that might be a little crazier than usual yet isn’t too far removed from a life that requires hustle on the daily to afford to stay in the city. Co-written with Stefan Marolachakis, the frenetically-paced film can’t help but disarm with its infectious energy as Bunny and Dino attempt to dispose of the corpse, repeatedly carrying it up and down a creaky stairwell as cops (Ajay Naidu and Liz Caribel) stationed outside, mainly to enjoy the nearby shawarma stand, prevent a clean getaway and the two must keep a lid on what they’re hauling around to everyone around, an ever-growing coterie that becomes equally unwieldy to deal with even if they could trust anyone else with a secret.
Although the comedy presents the endless amount of people piling into their place as an obstacle to overcome, Bunny and Dino’s exploits become a celebration of community when everyone may go about their lives differently from one another but cumulatively all those personalities keep things interesting and give a reason to stick around a city that can feel overwhelming. The film formally embodies the scrappiness of its protagonists when it finds plenty of action within its single setting and boasts a winning ensemble that runs the gamut from “The Wanderers” author Richard Price and street casting expert Eleonore Hendricks in rare acting turns to old pros like Henry Czerny and Michael Abbott Jr., feeling as if you’ve made it to the party that Bunny may not make it to himself.
After being buzzed about from its premiere at SXSW and subsequent bow at Tribeca, “Bunny” is now making its way to theaters across the country and Jacobson, who made his directorial debut with the film, spoke about presiding over a such a mad production, being able to harness the passion of friends getting together to make something into such an exuberant cinematic experience and going the extra mile to set up a shoot in their building that didn’t require anyone to ever leave the set.
How’d this crazy thing come about?
It was a long time in the making. A number of years just doing different projects here and there and putting up little plays with my partner Mo and Stefan. Then all of a sudden, I went to go make a movie with a friend and [could] sit behind her and watch her make a movie, so I saw how the sauce was made and I came back to New York and we all talked. We came up with this idea to keep it in all one location and we were able to get the script to Sarah Sarandos, who [said], “I can get this financed.”
From what I understand, this is actually Mo and Liza’s building where they live in real life. Did the idea actually start there or did you have to adapt it to this place?
The idea did start with we can shoot in the building and [asking ourselves] what if we had to hide a dead body and what would we do and where can we go from there? The building was the gift that kept on giving with all the neighbors because all those characters are based on real people-ish and it was just too much of a hub of insanity to not exploit it. We wrote with a couple people in mind and then we wrote with the idea of asking certain actors that we loved. Definitely Liza’s character was loosely based on who she would be in real life if she’s confronted with a situation like this.
I also heard you went the extra mile to involve Linda, the landlady, since she doesn’t speak a lot of English. What was it like to make sure she was a part of the mix?
We just thought we’d have to hire an actor [because] we didn’t think that Linda would ever do it. Linda lives two floors below. That’s her apartment that we shot in and we then went to her and [actually] her granddaughter first and one thing that they said that was actually quite meaningful to us is that they wanted to make sure we weren’t making fun of their grandmother. That isn’t something we’d ever want to do because we live with her and she’s just like us out here, just trying to get through the day and she really became who her character is. She built [the character] while having us translate through her translator who we brought on and was just incredible, conveying what we wanted to do. Over the course of making the movie, you could tell Linda was starting to be able to improvise and understand what the character might do next and started to take it and interpret it on her own. It was quite fascinating to watch that and she made that character who she is.
You aren’t generally an actor yourself, but you’ve got such great chemistry with Mo. Did you always know you’d be playing Dino?
I just kept thinking about all the silly movie references we wanted to make and all the dumb lingo we wanted to have back and forth with each other and to make sure it came across as believable, so I think that was why I wanted to play it. I’m not normally someone who wants to act or is an actor, but thought that it would be fun to play with my friend for the first time.
One of the things that was so great was how much you know of each character based on what they wear. You throw in these matching “Basketball Diaries” jerseys in the mix for you and Mo to wear and just in general, what was it like thinking about the costumes?
The one thing we knew for sure when we wanted to make this movie is that we wanted it to be very colorful. In our neighborhood in New York, in the summertime, it’s the most colorful place. Everybody’s wearing different stuff, showing their individuality. And we [thought] what could we do to make this stand out? We thought if we were wearing the same thing, it would be funny and “The Basketball Diaries” [jerseys] seemed fitting because, one, it’s a movie about New York, written by the most New York dude ever in Jim Carroll. And then, two, it’s just hilarious that we’re wearing this jersey that has the font of the movie, not just the book. It was the movie font that was what we really wanted to do. But everybody’s individual style was based on who they were playing. We had two costume designers named Kay and Nell, who were just lights out with this stuff. They made everybody come to life in that cool New York summer way.
A scene that sneaks up on you, but a cinephile would know how special it is is when you have Anthony Drazen, the director of “Zebrahead,” another ultra New York movie, Eric Roth, the screenwriter of “Flowers of the Killer Moon,” and Richard Price, the screenwriter of “Clockers” all sharing a room together. How did that come about?
What’s funny is that Tony [Drazen] came on very early in the process of creating the characters and making the movie. He was very supportive, pushing me and Mo forward in making this and doing it ourselves and when he came on to play the role, it turned into a whole new thing. Then Richard came in the process of table readings as a favor for us through his daughter and Stefan and as he started reading, he [said] “Yeah, you guys you have something here,” and then Eric Roth, Sarah reached out to him through her connections and he does this thing where he reads something you present to him and he invites you to come over and sit on his porch in Los Angeles and talk.
That’s not really an opportunity you miss, so we went there we talked to him for an entire afternoon about different scripts and got a wild hair and asked him to be in the movie.
The day they met on set, all three of them didn’t really know who each other were by face, but when they knew who each other were, they were kind of going back and forth in this nerd New York way about who’s the best writer, who’s a real writer and they were just praising each other to all ends. It was really cool because those are real New York dudes who have been in the thick of it forever and they were shining when they realized who each other were.
The creative firepower in that room, yourself and Mo included, just blew my mind. And I wonder did the building literally give this a structure as far as the story, just thinking about how you’d move from upstairs to downstairs?
The building was probably the third lead, and we were thinking, how do we not leave it, even if we do leave it? Even though Tony’s character walks around [outside], he’s only walking around one block radius. And the building really does look like that. It’s dilapidated. It’s a mess, but it has so much personality in those walls and in those stairwells and the way the stairs creak. It really was the gift that kept on giving and we just knew we couldn’t leave that.
What’s it like to throw a camera person into the action as you do when you have a 360-degree set like this?
We didn’t know what to do regarding cinematographers because this is our first movie and Jackson Hunt was recommended through a friend of ours Crystal Moselle, who had worked with him on “Black Sea,” which is a great film. And she came in and we talked with him and it was just kismet. We told him that we wanted a mixture between “Laws of Gravity” and “Husbands and Wives” and he got it right away. He shot [Crystal’s show] “Betty” for HBO, so he knew how to get frantic with the camera and never stop moving. He also operates his own camera and we knew we needed that because you’re running up and down those stairs and it was the middle of summer – it was 100 degrees. It was like a LeBron performance.
And you and Mo are carrying a body up and down those stairs too. Did you ever think God, why did we ever write this for ourselves to do?
It was one of those things where you’re like, “God, this sounded like such a fun idea until we realized we’re shooting it over 20 days in the middle of summer in New York.” Also the inside stuff, [the cast and crew] were sweating profusely and the outside stuff, people don’t care that you’re making a movie. It’s New York. We’ve also been in that position where someone’s trying to stop you on the street. Guys walk the other way and you’re like, “Get out of my way.” So it was kind of chaos both inside and out.
Was there anything that happened that you may not have anticipated but ended up in the movie and you now really like about it?
Yeah, a lot of the stuff with the cop car, going in and stealing the hat back was really improvised and getting the dude who we got who was contortionist to get inside the suitcase was something that we were really kind of hyped about after we realized we could pull it off. Then certain scenes that we need to get through that we weren’t working the first two or three times that we had to find on the fly that now I watch it and think like any other person that makes a movie, there’s a thousand things I wish I did differently.
It looked like it came out pretty well to me. The music is a great part of this and keeping the energy high. What was it like to work on that part of this?
When you write a movie, you dream about all the music you can use and we knew we had a limited budget, but we had some good connections to certain people that [a film of this scale] normally wouldn’t have, so we were able to reach out and get a Snoop Dogg song. He was the most gracious person in letting us use this song by him and Warren G that we were obsessed with. And then all the Dead Moon, the Garland Jeffreys and the Jonathan Fire Eaters [tracks], we just have loved certain music for so many years that we were infinitely lucky to get this stuff. And then for the score, Hamilton Lighthouser, who’s like the raddest dude on planet Earth – he makes you feel cool when you’re talking to him just by talking to him – and he’s a friend of Stefan’s and he really just was gung-ho to to put music behind all this anxiety-riddled, up-and-down [movie we had] and he said, “I’ve got like an ‘Ocean’s 11’ thing we want to play with. Do you want to do that?” And we were like, “Yeah, man, we do.” [laughs]
What’s it been like getting this film out into the world?
It’s really awesome because I’m obsessed with movies and I’ve always wanted to make one and being able to make a movie with people I love and adore and then also idolize [in many cases], whether it’s Ajay Naidu or Liz Caribel or Henry Czerny or Michael Abbott or Eleonore Hendricks, I’m obsessed with them as actors and it was so cool to be able to bring them into our world. And this morning, right before this [interview], I went to the first show [at the Village East in New York] and Sarah and I just sat there and you’re going to see other people are in there and you’re watching your movie that you made on the big screen with previews before it. It’s surreal and really, really rewarding.
“Bunny” opens on November 14th in Los Angeles at the Lumiere Cinema at the Music Hall and in New York at the Kent Theatre.