My Interviews With Crispin Glover and Nina Dobrev for LUCKY DAY in Theaters and On Demand Today, Plus an Opportunity to See the Film in Los Angeles Tonight With an Awesome Q&A!
I got the opportunity this week to watch the film Lucky Day, which was written and directed by Roger Avary, who wrote alongside Tarantino for Pulp Fiction, which this film felt like an homage or distant cousin to. The action/revenge flick stars Luke Bracey as Red, a safe-cracking thief who has just gotten out of prison, his beautiful wife, a french artist played by Nina Dobrev, their daughter, Ella Ryan Quinn, his best friend and literal partner in crime, Clé Bennett, their nanny, Nadia Farès, and Red’s hardened parole officer, Clifton Collins Jr., and Crispin Glover plays Luc, the assassin hellbent on a revenge mission that includes taking Red out for good.
Each portrayal was quirky, honest, and darkly funny. I was able to interview the actors Nina Dobrev and Crispin Glover about their experiences in portraying these characters, and we spoke a bit about what they each have coming up. Check it out below, and see Lucky Day in select theaters and On Demand starting today.
Also, If you’re in the Los Angeles Area, and would like a cool opportunity to see the film tonight, Friday, October 11th, followed by a Q&A with director Roger Avary and star Crispin Glover. Stick around, and I’ll let you know how to make that happen at the end of the post.
I tried to stay spoiler free, but did get into some themes and events that do occur at the end of the film, so in case you’re sensitive to spoilers, I’ll throw up at alert, and you can come back after seeing the film.
Nina Dobrev
Jessica Fisher: I was able to watch Lucky Day yesterday. It was such a crazy movie! I thought the best part was the love story between your character and Red. What drew you to the part of Chloe?
Nina: For me, it was a combination of things. It was Roger Avary, who I’ve been a fan of, because of Rules of Attraction and Pulp Fiction, and the script is really good, the tone is very Tarantino-esque, and films like that are so fun to be a part of, but are so few and far between these days. It’s like a 90’s throwback vibe. So that was appealing to me, but most of all, the character herself. She’s a strong woman who is just trying to get by and survive, take care of her family, make money, evade her boss, who’s like a mini Harvey Weinstein type, and just getting to speak in another language on camera and flex that muscle. There were a lot of challenges in this film that I was really excited to tackle.
Jessica: Yes! Your French was beautiful! Did you speak French before this movie?
Nina: Thank you! Yeah, I’ve spoken like a broken French, from my stepdad, who lives in France. And his kids are French as well, so I picked it up when I was younger, but like anything, if you don’t practice it starts to leave you. I used to be fluent, and I realized in making this movie that it had left me. So I had to do a lot of studying, and I was very hard on myself. I’m a perfectionist, and I wanted it to be perfect. I was very focused, and nervous about this whole film.
Jessica: Did you study art to prepare for the role?
Nina: My mom is a painter. So, I loosely based a lot of Chloe on my mom, and the way she was, and her struggles and the stories she’s told me about what she goes through. But she’s a painter, and it felt a lot like playing my mom.
Jessica: Yeah, that’s so cool.
Nina: But in actuality, I was playing Roger’s wife, the director’s wife. It’s a little autobiographical in a few ways, like, not fully, but, it’s a really interesting story. Roger was actually in prison when he was writing this script, and he would write it on napkins, page by page, and then send the napkins to his daughter, who was like 14 years old at the time, and she would transfer them from the napkins to the computer and put it into a script, and by the time he got out, they had the full script. It’s kind of a crazy story.
Jessica: That is seriously crazy! So, in the movie, Chloe’s art became popular because of the blood from the shootout. So how do you think she would be able to create art in the future that would have a similar impact?
Nina: Oh dude, she’d be screwed. (Laughs) She’s clearly not that talented. No, I mean, I don’t know. I’m kidding. I think that she’d have to find a different purpose and meaning, a different depth, because, I mean, it’s not that it was bad before. It was just not that unique and the blood made it more unique than it could ever be. What could be more unique than human DNA? And that was what was going on in her life at that moment. Crazy, hard, and deeply personal to her experience in that time. The next thing would have to be just as deeply personal to whatever she’s going through next, so if there’s a sequel, then I will be able to answer your question more specifically.
Nina was delightful, and a pleasure to speak to. She will next be seen in the films Run This Town, and Sick Girl.
Crispin Glover
Crispin Glover: Hi Jessica, how are you today?
Jessica Fisher: Hi there, I’m great, thanks. I’m a big fans of yours.
Crispin: Oh, thank you.
Jessica: I’ve been binge watching Family Ties on Hulu, and I just recently saw the episode you were in, and my husband and I were just saying that you look exactly the same!
Crispin: (Laughs) Well, let’s see, I was 19 when I did that, and that was… how many years ago was that? That was like 36 years ago I think.
Jessica: Well you’ve aged well.
Crispin: Thank you, thank you.
Jessica: You’re welcome. So, I was able to watch Lucky Day yesterday. It was a pretty dark, crazy, action-packed film. You played a pretty dark character with Luc. The thing that seemed to be running through my head throughout the movie was that your character seemed to have little regard for human life, but he seemed very attached to the brother that he was avenging, so why was that relationship so different?
Crispin: Well, you know, when you’re exploring the psychology of a character, it’s very important not to be objective in the way of what would be culturally acceptable, but what would be psychologically understandable and what one can relate to about the character. So if someone really cares about someone or something and that’s been a great benefit, and to have that brutally taken away, it could be seeming to be justified, or to that particular character, of Luc, to be justified to do whatever is necessary to avenge that situation. So there is a logic to it. Part of what I liked about the writing of it by Roger Avary is that there was actually very clear logic.
Jessica: Yeah, that makes sense. In the scene in the bar where the guys are talking about your character, calling you The Terminator, and kind of talking about the lore of your character, they said that you weren’t even really French. So, what your character really French?
Crispin: What I think is best to call my character is an international man of mystery. I think it’s just easiest to leave it at that. (Laughs)
Jessica: (Laughs) Sounds good. And what was the significance of your line, “Lucky Day.”?
Crispin: Well, you could analyze is from a lot of points of view. From my character’s point of view, I don’t really want to do spoilers, but from the psychology of the character, by doing what the character is just about to do after saying that, the concept is that what was set out to be done will be accomplished. Whether he knows that or not. You know, if what he was determined to do would be accomplished just after he says that line, it would be a “lucky day,” meaning that not even Luc’s own life was of importance. The most important thing was the avenging of the brother. So it makes sense on that level, and then there is a slight play on the word Luc and lucky. So I would say those things.
Jessica: Great. So, you seem to play characters that stand out from the crowd. I loved you as Thin Man from the Charlie’s Angels movies, and of course, you stole everyone’s hearts as George McFly. Is there a favorite character that you have played, and is there still a character that you would like to play?
Crispin: I can’t say that there’s a single favorite character that I have played. There are some, you know, I make my own films as well. Next year will be the fifteenth anniversary of touring with my first film, What Is It?, and I tour with that, and my second film called, It is Fine! Everything is Fine. I perform two different one hour, live shows for each one of those films. Also in 2020, next year, I’ll have a new film I’ve been working on ever since they premiered Everything is Fine back in 2007 at Sundance. I’ve been developing this film that is for myself and my father. My father is an actor named Bruce Glover. He’s been in films like Diamonds are Forever and Chinatown. And he and I have never acted in a film together before, so this was specifically developed for he and I to act in, and I will have that ready for distributing in 2020. And there are other productions that I’ve been developing that I would act in, and those are the things that I want to do for sure.
Jessica: Finally, I was just going to ask if you had anything else coming up that you were excited about. You’ve covered a lot, but is there anything else?
Crispin: Well, yes, there’s also a book that I’ve been writing for many years. It will probably be coming out later than the film next year. And it has to do with how propaganda functions within entertainment media in the United States. I’ve been working on it, and right now it’s over 450 pages, so it’s a dense book. But I may be very well cutting down on it. I still have a lot of work to do on it, but it will be coming out next year. So yeah, and I know I also have a show booked, I think it might be January 15th at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, and it’s a bigger show because it’s part of something I think called Sketch Fest. I’ll just be showing my first film, a fifteenth anniversary showing of What is It? So that will be pretty soon, just a few months from now.
Jessica: That’s great. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. We hope to get to talk to you again.
Crispin: Yes, you too, I appreciate it. Talk to you again soon.
Jessica: Have a great day, bye.
Crispin: You too, bye.
I’ve done a handful of interviews now, and talking to someone whose voice you’ve heard in a favorite movie of yours since you were a little kid is a pretty surreal experience. Crispin Glover is a class act, and it was a highlight and honor to interview him.
Check out the flier below if you’ll be in the Los Angeles area tonight and you’d like to see the film alongside the actor, as well as the director of the film, with a Q&A to follow. You can buy tickets for the event HERE.
