‘Descendent’ Director Explains Why He Was Told to Make the Film “Way Weirder” [Exclusive]

Summary

• Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with Peter Cilella, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, and David Lawson chat about the upcoming theatrical release of Descendent.
• Cilella’s directorial debut, Descendent, explores themes of alien abduction and fatherhood and has an ambiguous ending.
• The team discuss the limited budget, the film’s pandemic origins, and other exciting projects, including Daredevil: Born Again.

The Resolution and The Endless star Peter Cilella has made the switch from the front of the camera to behind it, as he makes his directorial debut with Descendent. A tale of alien abduction and fatherhood with plenty of sci-fi and horror elements. Descendent boasts the acting talent of the likes of The Walking Dead‘s Ross Marquand and Stormbreaker‘s Sarah Bolger in lead roles, alongside Charlene Amoia, Brandon Scott, Alexandea Barreto, and more.

The movie is a product of Rustic Films, an indie production company with a proven track record at making quality stories on a shoestring budget. Founded by Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, and David Lawson, the team is one of the most exciting small production companies in the US, with Descendent proving popular when it debuted at the recent SXSW festival 2025. In attendance was Collider’s Matthew Donato, who wrote in his review, “Cilella’s debut is confident and composed, prying open wounds that are sustained through everyday existence.”

Ahead of the movie’s theatrical release on August 8 and its digital release a week later, Collider held a screening of the movie hosted by Steve Weintraub, which was followed by a Q&A with the aforementioned Cilella, Benson, Moorhead, and Lawson. From the journey of making this movie with a limited budget to some of the team’s involvement in Daredevil: Born Again, here’s what the makers of Descendent discussed.

The History of ‘Descendent’ Dates Back to the Pandemic

“COVID hit, and I was not in a great place mentally.”

COLLIDER: I want to start by saying congratulations. This is your directorial debut, and it’s really hard to make a movie. It’s really hard to make a movie that’s fucking cool.

PETER CILELLA: Thank you. And I just want to shout out one guy who’s not up here, Alex [Chinnici], our DP, because the movie looks as beautiful as it does because of him.

DAVID LAWSON: And Caleb [Ward].

CILELLA: Oh, wait, Caleb doesn’t have a chair. [Laughs] Hi Caleb!

[Caleb joins the team on stage]

I’m obsessed with getting more people to see movies in movie theaters. So, for each of you, do you have a favorite movie theater?

LAWSON: The one that’s closest to my house. Which is South Lamar Drafthouse in Austin.

JUSTIN BENSON: Originally, it was the Ken Cinema in Kensington, San Diego, but it recently went out of business. Now it’s the Vista, probably.

AARON MOORHEAD: I’m an East Side boy, so I’m at Vidiots a lot with my wife.

CALEB WARD: I’m going to say the Si Film Center in Denver, Colorado, which is a movie theater I worked at for a very long time, and I love it very much.

LAWSON: He still works there. Concessions. [Laughs]

With Rustic Films, which is the company you guys have, you sell a lot of stuff on the website. I was looking yesterday, and how are you sold out of personalized and signed The Endless Blu-rays, and also Something in the Dirt posters. How are these sold out?

LAWSON: They’re not actually sold out. There’s a whole bunch of them. I have them at my house. We mark them as sold out when I don’t want to go to the post office. [Laughs] So there’s several. And then whenever I feel like, “Oh, I could probably go to the post office,” I’ll put however many I have up, and I’ll keep them up until the dopamine runs out.

Did you guys know all this?

MOORHEAD: Oh yeah. I think I came up with that plan. I was like, “We cannot be going to the post office that much.”

LAWSON: When we started selling merch, that was the first rule. As I was like, “I don’t want to go to the post office if I don’t want to.” And so if you buy like shirts or whatever, it comes directly, we don’t have to touch them, which is nice.

CILELLA: Dave works a lot harder on set than he does selling merch. I just want to say that.

BENSON: He just doesn’t like walking.

LAWSON: I’m so lazy. I don’t want to go to the post office. Who likes going to the post office? Not a single person.

I do think they have a new system where you do all the mailing at home, so all you have to do is just drop it off.

LAWSON: Nope.

How did this project actually get off the ground? How did it happen?

CILELLA: I had just had a movie fall apart at the beginning of 2020 and wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And then COVID hit, and I was not in a great place mentally. And this came from that. And I’d always wanted to do an alien abduction story, and the fatherhood framework of it kind of just bled itself into it naturally. And I sent these guys a one-pager, and I knew I wanted to make a Rustic film. You know, I had done Resolution with them as an actor, The Endless, Justin and Aaron and I had done short films. I mean, we’ve known each other… I’ve known Justin for over 20 years, I think, and I knew that I’d be supported. And so I just started sending them stuff, and they said, “Yeah, this is great.” They gave me notes. And we kept going and kept evolving the story. And then, we eventually got it to Caleb, and there’s more to it than that, but it’s a much longer story.

LAWSON: And then it fell apart and then it came back together.

CILELLA: And five years later, here we are.

What is it Like Making a Sci-Fi Tale on a Small Budget?

“That’s the key is just don’t pay yourself.”

How did this project actually get off the ground? How did it happen?

CILELLA: I had just had a movie fall apart at the beginning of 2020 and wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And then COVID hit, and I was not in a great place mentally. And this came from that. And I’d always wanted to do an alien abduction story, and the fatherhood framework of it kind of just bled itself into it naturally. And I sent these guys a one-pager, and I knew I wanted to make a Rustic film. You know, I had done Resolution with them as an actor, The Endless, Justin and Aaron and I had done short films. I’ve known Justin for over 20 years, I think, and I knew that I’d be supported. And so I just started sending them stuff, and they said, “Yeah, this is great.” They gave me notes. And we kept going and kept evolving the story. And then, we eventually got it to Caleb, and there’s more to it than that, but it’s a much longer story.

LAWSON: And then it fell apart and then it came back together.

CILELLA: And five years later, here we are.

One of the things about Rustic Films, and I commend you guys, is you make a lot of high-concept, cool movies, but do it on a fraction of a budget. How do you do it?

LAWSON: So, we have a very unique setup in that the three of us are really good at a lot of things, and we don’t pay ourselves. So that’s the key is just don’t pay yourself. It’s not a business model. It’s more a hobby that we’ve fallen into. But it’s turned into a wonderful company that people can trust when they go to indie cinema.

How do you find those scripts and projects that you know are going to be able to deliver on a movie screen? Because, if you look at the resume and what you guys have done, there are a lot of really good movies.

LAWSON: Thank you. I don’t even know how to answer that.

BENSON: A big part of it is just you, Dave. Like you’re the one. You’re kind of like the great filtration system of the company.

LAWSON: I think it’s all three of us. We don’t make a movie if all three of us can’t get behind it. So for us, it starts there. If all three of us don’t say, “Oh, we can definitely do this movie,” and I think that between the three of us, our combined taste, it kind of filters into really great stories and really great storytellers. And we’ve been very fortunate that we’ve had a bunch of directors who have trusted us with their vision and have been able to create awesome movies.

What Did ‘Descendent’ Director Peter Cilella Learn from His Directorial Debut?

“Not having an ego about it, I think, is crucial.”

Peter, this is your feature directorial debut. And I’m curious, what were some of the big lessons you took away from this experience that you wish someone had told you in advance?

CILELLA: I would say the main thing is to be open to being wrong and to bring people together around. I was very fortunate because Dave and the Rustic guys and Caleb have an incredible ability to bring the best people to the team. Visually, like I said, Alex, my DP, we were meeting for, I mean, it felt like years.

LAWSON: It was a year and a half.

CILELLA: Yeah. Just going through the shot list. I come from an acting/writing background. I don’t know anything about lenses. I don’t know anything about lighting. But that’s okay, because I know how something should feel. And the big lesson for me was that’s how you communicate to your different departments. So you might not know how they’re going to achieve that. But if you tell them “I want this scene to feel like this,” then that opens the dialog, and then they go, “Okay, I know what to do now.” And I learned so much from my different department heads. And so just being willing to listen and to adapt.

If an actor comes to you and says, “Hey, I don’t think the scene is working.” We had a blocking issue that ended up being a rewrite of a scene, and it was because the actors were struggling with it, and it was not something that anyone had recognized on the page. And we didn’t realize we had an issue until the day. And being an actor, I could actually understand what they were experiencing and the problems they had. I knew how to pivot and just really being open to the best idea in the room and not having an ego about it, I think, is crucial. And then I hope that everybody involved felt like they had agency and that this movie is ours. It’s not mine.

You’re blending alien abduction with fatherhood. What’s it like in the writing process when you’re putting this thing together, knowing you don’t have Marvel money?

CILELLA: Taking a page out of their playbook, I remember them telling me, “What are some locations you know you can get?” And so that house in the desert, that was my buddy’s house. The school, that’s where my kids go. So, I wrote what I knew and the world I knew. I think merging the fatherhood anxiety with the alien abduction story, it just sort of naturally found its way because I’m a father, and I don’t know if any of you are parents or expecting, there are times when you feel like you’re losing your mind. And it was also COVID. So I feel like no matter whether you’re a parent or not, we all kind of felt like we had lost control, and what do I do to regain control in a world that feels uncontrollable? I also just have always been fascinated with alien abduction stories, and I wanted to explore what actually goes through your head when you’ve been abducted. What is that like? And it became a giant therapy session, essentially. So that’s how the two came together.

Did you have any ideas that you really wanted to do that were in the script for a long time, until you finally realized you really don’t have the money for this?

LAWSON: I feel like when we all got together with all of the department heads, the nice thing is when you can figure out, “Okay, cool, we’re going to be doing this on a budget,” you can figure out where you want to put that budget. And this is where we spend the money, and this is where we try to scale back and figure out where we can… what’s the cost-effective way to do it. And we had a really great crew. Alex was probably the spearhead of that. The abduction scene for us was always where we wanted to really spend the money and make it really pop, and everything else is like, “Okay, how can we still make it look good, but maybe do it on a more of an indie budget?”

How did your first drafts change to the final product, and what was it like getting feedback from these guys?

CILELLA: Well, I think the biggest changes happened the week before we shot the movie, because I was lucky enough to have a week of rehearsal with Sarah [Bolger] and Ross [Marquand], and we realized very quickly that the first act was humorless and it had no levity. Ross’s character was just kind of a bummer to begin with. And if that was the case, then nobody was going to be on board with the relationship. We needed to see the levity and the love. And those changes, we rewrote a lot of the first act, based on our rehearsals. We did improv sessions, and I was sending the actors drafts of scenes.

That scene with Sarah in the bed when she breaks down, and she tells them that she’s also afraid, which is one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, that was something that Sarah was heavily involved in as far as collaborating. I wrote it from the father’s perspective. Obviously, that’s what I know. That’s my lens. But it’s about a relationship. I felt like if her voice didn’t come through strong enough, and her struggles didn’t come through strong, then I’d be missing a huge chunk of this movie. And so I’m really so proud of that scene. And Sarah’s performance in that and Ross being completely checked out, I feel like that was a huge contribution that Sarah made.

MOORHEAD: I was just curious about the blocking change that caused a rewrite. What scene was it? Can you talk about that?

CILELLA: That was the scene where he has come back from the beach, and the Laurie character confronts him in the house, and Robin is in the bedroom. Originally, what happened was he learns that she had fainted and fallen at the top of the scene. And Ross was like, “Well, if I know that I’m going to run back there right away, there’s nothing preventing me from going back there.” And I was like, “Oh shit. Yeah.” And then it’s just an actor doing the thing because it’s written. It doesn’t make any sense. So we had to scramble and rework that scene to make it make sense.

It’s so interesting because you talk about the rehearsals and how the rehearsals informed the script, and you made changes. I speak to so many people, and they talk about how, “Yeah, we met on set. We started filming. There were no rehearsals.” To me, as an outsider, those rehearsals seem like you would gain so much knowledge about what you’re about to make. Why is it that so many more projects don’t do rehearsals when they can be so informative to the final project?

LAWSON: I don’t know if anyone on this panel has an answer to that. [Laughs]

CILELLA: We rehearsed Resolution for three months.

BENSON: Yeah, it seems like the reason why it’s so prevalent, and also it comes to other things of like a fear that you’re going to spend some magic moment before the cameras rolling, which I don’t believe to be true personally, but maybe it could be true in someone’s case. But the biggest thing that we probably observed is that we’re in an industry where if someone’s a lead in your movie, they’re probably someone who has a certain amount of fame and they have value as an actor from job to job to job. So their reps are always trying to window that time so that they’re spending as little time with you as possible, because so then they get to the next job and get paid again. I think it’s the culture of that. It’s just the business side of it.

Surely at some point, and you’ve demonstrated it with this, people will realize that rehearsals are time well spent.

CILELLA: Yeah. Because we would have lost days if we hadn’t rehearsed. Because you don’t want to be there on the day, figuring this out. You have to have it ironed out. And then, because it’s an indie film, we don’t have a lot of time. We don’t have a huge budget. We got to make our days. I mean, there was one day we did, you know, 8 or 9 pages, and it’s like we need to be dialed in. So you deal with that ahead of time, and it’s way smoother.

MOORHEAD: And also, the definition of rehearsal can be fluid. You know, people think that rehearsal means necessarily that you’ve memorized your lines and you are going through each line and trying to see how it sounds coming out of your mouth against another actor. And I think that that’s the most valuable version of rehearsal, because they’re already in the nitty-gritty. But you can just be having big conversations about your character and about what you’re trying to do, and just making sure that you and character are aligned and trying to present the same story. And that’s rehearsal too, you know, that can be a few dinners, you know, and that’s still rehearsing. The idea that the first time you ever try something on set is going to be the best way to do it is… It’s possible, but it’s just less likely, I think.

LAWSON: Webster defines rehearsal as a practice or trial performance of a play or other work for later public performance.

MOORHEAD: I think what I said stands.

LAWSON: Does it, though?

The ‘Descendent’ Team Made the Movie in a Surprisingly Short Amount of Time

“I’m going to ride this and I’m going to not take any moment for granted.”

What was something you fought for, that might’ve been tough to pull off, but you were adamant had to be in the movie?

LAWSON: I feel like we were all pretty aligned on what was important an what we can accomplish. And again, we had a phenomenal crew. Everybody was dialed because this movie fell apart a year before we actually shot it. Most department heads had a whole year to think about this film. Without knowing that we were going to shoot it again. We had started prepping it, and then we had to like throw the brakes on it. So I feel like when we came back to it, everybody already had really good ideas.

CILELLA: And also just not be married to certain scenes. I mean, there were scenes that were cut out that I loved, but they just didn’t work for the the movie in its entirety. And I think that’s also a big part of it. You know, you were asking about advice I could impart. Doing this, you service the film, it’s not about you or you can’t be precious with it. And so if it’s a bad idea for the film, take it out. Really just you can’t be precious about any of it. And if there are bumps along the road in the film, you know, you got to pave the way.

MOORHEAD: I got to say though, I find you to be a fighter too. And not like stubborn or anything like that. But when you’re sure, you’re sure as hell.

CILELLA: I think in editorial there were some things, but I’ve forgotten about them.

MOORHEAD: No, it’s a good thing. You’re like water. You crash against the rocks, or you move around the obstacle. It’s great.

Do you want to share how many days you had to actually pull this off?

LAWSON: It was 20. On the dot.

WARD: [Whispers] 22.

LAWSON: It’s a good thing Caleb’s up here. Thank god.

For people that don’t realize, that’s not a lot of time, but there’s a lot of movies made nowadays in 25 days. I’ve been hearing that from a lot of filmmakers 25 days, that’s what you get to make certain movies. So how scared were you at the beginning of the shoot, knowing you at 22 days or 20/22, and how much were you sort of like looking at the schedule and you’re like, “I got this.”

CILELLA: For me, I wasn’t scared because these guys have been doing it for over a decade, so I knew I was in good hands. I was overjoyed and so fucking relieved that I actually got to make a movie. I was driving to set. I was not worried about today’s or any of it. It’s so hard, and I didn’t think it was going to happen. And for it to actually happen, I was just like, “I’m going to ride this and I’m going to not take any moment for granted.”

LAWSON: The first day of shooting… I don’t know if anybody remembers the start of last year when we had the torrential downpour that happened at the top of 2024. That was our day one of shooting and we were on the beach. So our day one of shooting was in the middle of the atmospheric river that came over Los Angeles. And that was us restarting after a year’s hiatus.

WARD: It’s worth noting that that’s how we got the Santa Monica pier for free. Was because no one wanted to be there. it was incredible how it all worked out, because it was absolutely pissing rain for nonstop. And I was like, “Well, we’ll be fine it’ll stop eventually.” And then it rained for eight days, which famously Los Angeles, known for its rain. So that was great for an LA movie.

In the past few years, you’ve done a lot for a little. What were some of the DIY lessons you’ve learned along the way?

MOORHEAD: I’ll give one that’s not very heady and inspirational. It’s just very, very practical. If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, just learn After Effects. It’s going to help you so much. They bought me a computer so I could do the VFX on this. That was that was how the VFX got done. And it’s just so valuable to be able to expand your toolkit. I know it’s not inspiring, but it is definitely the number one like skill that… because whether or not we’re doing our own visual effects or something like that. Even if you’re not doing your own visual effects, it just helps you think that way. And it helps you figure out the way that makes sense, that you can talk the talk with a visual effects artist at the very least. That’s something we definitely do a lot is that it’s like, “Oh, we we understand what’s going to be $100,000 shot and a $5,000 shot and a free shot,” and it makes a huge difference. So you just don’t write $100,000 shots and there’s no quality difference between them, it’s just it’s just a comparison of ideas.

We did a Q&A actually in here for Godzilla Minus One, and I don’t remember the director’s name, I can’t pronounce it right now, but he was talking about how he did VFX and Gareth [Edwards] did VFX and all these different filmmakers are doing some of their own VFX. It’s just a revolution what you can accomplish at home now.

MOORHEAD: I completely agree. And same thing with the Everything Everywhere [All At Once] guys. You know that was a seven person team. Did they win the Oscar, get nominated for an Oscar?

I think they won.

MOORHEAD: It’s a tiny team of young YouTubers basically. It’s crazy. And it doesn’t mean that you should make VFX movies. That’s not it. It just programs your brain to make the right choices around visual effects.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but a lot of times the reason VFX get expensive is because a director will change what they their mind in the middle of the shot and one of the reasons why those recent Godzilla movies is that they go in and they know exactly what the sequences are going to be, so they’re not re-fixing them.

LAWSON: Beyond that, there’s also a way to shoot it, if you don’t have to go into 3D and you can just do a 2D comp, that is cheaper than having to build a full 3D model. So how you shoot the shot that will eventually become 3D or that will eventually become a VFX shot also contributes into that and I think that’s what Aaron was saying.

So how did you decide on the title and was it almost something else?

LAWSON: It was almost so many other things.

CICELLA: Well, it was originally Josiah Road, which was going to be the street instead of Aster Road. and then we went through a bunch of different things.

LAWSON: Why did it change? Be specific.

CICELLA: Because Josiah sounded too religious. I didn’t want it to feel like too sci-fi. I wanted to feel… I don’t know, I just it was random. I think titles are the hardest thing. Then I was searching a bunch of different titles and and brainstorming some different ideas, and then I came across the spelling of Descendent as the adjective rather than the noun. And to me, that is when it kind of clicked in, because it’s all about his downward spiral and his need to come back down to earth. And also it’s about your descendants and the things you pass on to your children and that fear that you are going to pass on something terrible. And that’s the fear that he has that drives it. So I felt like it worked on multiple levels and so that’s where we landed.

What cameras did you end up using and why?

LAWSON: Let Alex answer that. [Laughs] He was he was in COVID and trying to test every fucking camera that exists. Where did you end up, Alex?

[From the audience] ALEX CHINNICI: Alexa 35.

LAWSON: There you go. Alexa 35.

[From the audience] CHINNICI: It’s good!

LAWSON: Alexa 35. It’s good, says Alex Chinnici. [Laughs]

I have one more thing. A lot of people change the lenses based on the camera. What lenses did you actually decide to use and why?

[From the audience] CHINNICI: Canon Rangefinder lenses that are old and look pretty. We had a debate about going with something a little sharper, and we decided to do something a little softer because it’s a story about the humans.

LAWSON: It looked pretty.

A lot of times people will use these modern cameras, and then they’ll use these crazy old lenses and it’s amazing. And I don’t think people realize it’s it’s everything in the movie. The lens you choose is everything.

LAWSON: Yeah. We got really lucky because Alex just happened to have a whole bunch of free time before we shot this movie. And so he literally tested every lens that Old Fast Glass had in its inventory. And he was like, “This is what we’re going to use.” And we’re like, “I don’t have enough information to debate you, nor do I really want to, because you seem very convinced.” So we just did it.

The Original Cut of ‘Descendent’ Wasn’t Weird Enough

“You guys need to make this way weirder.”

I’m obsessed with the editing process. It’s where it all comes together. You get in the editing room after you’ve shot. Are you ready to jump out a window, or were you like, “Oh, we got it.”

CILELLA: At moments, yes. So our editor, Jordan Goldstein, the first cut he turned in was great. The assembly was like, “Oh, this is a movie.” And so then we talked about it with the guys, they’re like, “You guys need to make this way weirder.” And so we’re like,”Okay,” and the deer eye, that was Justin. So it’s in the script. It’s the story of the deer, and we got a note during this process because we sent out screener to some filmmakers to get feedback, which was also a difficult process. And there was a note, because in the script I had just put in, they have black eyes, because it was just a placeholder. I know it’s a trope, I just didn’t have a better idea at the time, and I was hoping I’d come up with something better. And then we got this note that we shouldn’t do the black eye.

So that’s how that happened, where I was like, “Oh, well let’s use this deer eye,” and now it’s on the poster. And it became this visual motif throughout the film. And it’s one of my favorite things in the entire film. So that was a huge discovery in post. So it ended up being a great process, but it is it is really hard because there are so many times where you’re just like, “I can’t believe I just made this, and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, and it’s very depressing.” It’s peaks and valleys and you’re just not sure how it’s going to turn out. But yeah, you find these wonderful things along the way.

How did it possibly change in the edit, or was it pretty much what you imagined it was going to be?

CICELLA: We reworked the third act quite a bit, because we realized that the father/son story was the most important piece of that at the end, and there was a scene that was cut between Sean and Aunt Robin, like a confrontation during his surreal trip to the house in the desert. And then the live birth, you know, when they had the eyes, that was all part of the same sequence. And the father son thing was at a different point in the sequence. Then we got the note back that, ‘I don’t think these scenes are servicing the story.’ And then it was just like, “Okay, we gotta rework that.” So that was kind of a big shift in from script to what you see up here is that third act is is definitely a lot different. But I’m happy with it. I love that scene between me and Ross. I loved filming it.

LAWSON: You didn’t when we filmed it, you were so cold.

CICELLA: I was very cold.

LAWSON: You kept complaining about how cold you were.

CICELLA: It was very cold. Landers, California, in February. It’s very cold. It’s windy. And there was a party going on too. There was a VFW so they were partying pretty hard.

One of the things about the film is you have to decide where and when you want to release information about what could or could not be happening. So, what was that like in the scripting phase, and in the edit?

LAWSON: I don’t think it changed from script to edit. How we like to devolved information was pretty consistent to what the script was.

MOORHEAD: I want to know more about this VFW party. Did you consider just leaning into a bit like where this whole scene has a party next door. “Now we’re going to do it with like just with Veterans of Foreign Wars.”

CICELLA: We got it in right before it got really loud. And then everything else was MOS inside, but there was definitely a ticking clock. And also we had to get Ross to the airport that night, so we had no time, and Alex was incredible because he had all the shots planned out and we move through it really fast.

What is it like for you guys in the edit? How often are you watching cuts? Talk a little bit about what it’s like as producers in the edit.

BENSON: If we are not ourselves, sometimes we’ll be on jobs where it’s just like, literally we almost go to day 100. And during those times we just are basically absent partners at this company and Dave does everything, and then we take the credit on days like this. But this was one where we definitely… luckily we had finished season one of Daredevil just in time to get back to participate in the edit a bit, but at the same time, it feels weird even wasting everyone’s time us talking about it because Aaron and I did very little in this movie.

LAWSON: That’s false. Aaron did a whole bunch of VFX shots in this movie.

BENSON: That’s true. That is right. I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t say anything.

MOORHEAD: Yeah, I think we watched something like 3 or 4 cuts of the movie, but I’m sure there were probably a dozen. We genuinely prefer to take time down between cuts so that we’re not just getting caught up in the minutia and the best thing we can offer is fresh eyes.

LAWSON: I will say, that’s one of the bonuses to Aaron being VFX and Justin being a fucking brilliant writer, and Aaron also being a great writer, is that the three of us can not read drafts or watch cuts of things and trust someone else in the group to have a collective opinion for all of us, so that when we go back we can be like, “Oh wow, that really worked. I don’t know what it was that you just did, but whatever it was, it really works now or doesn’t work and here’s why.” and so that’s really nice to not have to watch. I don’t know how many people here have made a film, but when you get to a certain point, you’ve watched the movie 100 times and you’re just like, “I honestly don’t even know what I’m watching anymore.” And you’re just like, “Sure, it’s great. I don’t care.” But not really. But it’s like, I don’t know anymore if it’s good or not.

MOORHEAD: Raise your hand if you’re a filmmaker and you’ve felt that before? [Hands raise] Alright, round of applause.

I’ve spoken to some directors who’ve talked about how they have almost cut out some of the funniest jokes because they no longer think it’s funny, and because they’ve seen it a thousand times. Which shot or sequence in the film was the toughest to get? And why?

WARD: I would say I actually do want to highlight Pete’s performance at the end, which I think is incredible.

LAWSON: Brilliant directing.

WARD: Dave directed it, that’s why he’s saying that. No, I do want to highlight that scene because, yes, there were a lot of external elements that were sort of filtering in, but that is such a crucial moment that if you don’t land, the whole movie falls apart. And I think it’s absolutely nail between Ross and Pete. I think it solidifies what’s at the heart of the story. That was tough because of time elements, crew, timing with the crew, and trying not to time things out. But getting that in and having the time that we had to pull that off, I’m very proud of that sequence. It’s funny because it is the least amount of VFX. There’s no big scary monster, there’s no big sting, but it nails me every time I watch it still, and I was there and I was absolutely like bawling my eyes out watching that. And I’m still incredibly proud of it to this day.

BENSON: I have a question Pete. Acting in scenes, you’re the director of the movie. Do you find that easier or harder? And I’m asking because I think for Aaron and I, when we are acting and stuff that we’re directing, it’s easier. Cause you just kind of know everything as the performer.

CILELLA: Yes and no, because of everything Caleb just said. I was freezing and I knew we didn’t have a lot of time, and I knew I needed to get it right, and I think I felt a lot more pressure because also that was my one scene. I mean, except for me dead on the slab, that was really my one scene. So I think I had built it up. And it was the last day of shooting, so I think I built it up a little bit in my head and I haven’t done a lot of acting sinc… it’s been a minute since I’ve been in front of the camera. So I think I felt like I had something to prove. So I think I it was a little tricky for me, you know, but I had a wonderful director [gestures to Lawson] helping me through.

LAWSON: I will say, so obviously we have a long history together. Pete was in the first movie that the three of us ever made together, called Resolution back in 2011 we shot that. And I remember specifically, I don’t know if I told you if I told Caleb, but I left that scene and I was like, “I forgot how fun and fucking glorious it is to watch Pete act,” because you’re so good and I’m so happy that you made this transition. But it’s really fun to get to watch you and I go back to the first time I ever made a movie and it’s you and Vinny [Curran], and that’s most of my memory. And it’s such an amazing memory of mine. And to get to be part of that again, was great.

WARD: It’s worth noting he said that after the first take. Actually, I remember that specifically. You said that after the first take.

LAWSON: I did. And it’s just I loved when you acted in Resolution and I loved watching you do it again. And I hope that you get to direct a whole bunch more movies, and I hope that you also act in stuff because it’s fun.

BENSON: You know what’s really interesting that I just realized is, in 2011, on Resolution, you were also cold all the time. All the time, complained about it constantly.

MOORHEAD: I remember that. So you’re nervous. You’ve got a scene coming up, you’ve got to clinch the movie, and you hear Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” playing louder and louder at the Veterans of Foreign Wars party, and it’s like an oncoming train and you’re like, “This is going to get too loud for dialog. It’s coming.” And then it switches up to Daft Punk and you’re just freaking out.

CILELLA: That just gets me pumped up.

MOORHEAD: All right. So that’s actually what saved the scene.

CILELLA: I just ride that.

The Team Gives a Coy Update on ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2

“If you liked their episodes of Season 1, tune in for Season 2.”

I’m not sure if you guys caught this, but there’s a line near the end in a car where someone tells us Sean, “Reentry is no joke.” How much did you debate that line? And what would you like to say about it?

CILELLA: I mean, we’ve got a whole backstory for that truck driver. I actually have a whole short story about that truck driver in their life.

LAWSON: There’s a whole script about that.

MOORHEAD: Hang on. Yeah, that was a huge difference from one script to another.

CILELLA: It’s been five years of process, I forget things. So that was a much more expository scene and when you’re writing to sell the script or to get somebody to write a cheque to get your movie made, you do tend to share more on the page, to explain these things. Then when you’re actually shooting the film, you realize, no, I need to pull back. So that was the interesting thing about the draft process is because there’s always a draft that you send to the powers that be that…

LAWSON: The suits.

CILELLA: The suits, that’s way overwritten. And you do that to just communicate clearly what’s happening. Knowing, but I didn’t know because this was my first film that I directed, that you’re going to pull all of that stuff back, and then it’ll continue to pull back that information — some may say the ending is ambiguous, but that was intentional — but you keep pulling stuff back. And so there was a lot more information, a lot more dialog between the truck driver and Sean. At the end, we had a time we had no time to actually film that, because it was driving from the school to his house as the sun was coming up, and I think at a certain point, Sean gets out of the car and has to barf, and there’s just two pages of dialog and just basically wrapping up and explaining what happened. So we went back and forth in the edit process, and that was ADR actually, figuring out what are the key lines that we need to communicate what actually happened to him? So that was how that came to be.

How much did you debate the ending itself? How much did you debate what you wanted the audience to feel as they were walking out?

CILELLA: I mean, the ending was always him ending up in bed with her, and his hand on her stomach. Because, I mean, the whole point of it is he’s expecting this child, and he feels like he needs to earn more money, needs to be a better father. There’s all this pressure on him when really he just needs to show up. That’s the point of the movie. That’s it. You just show up no matter what. So there was always that. And then with the drawings on the wall, that was a note I got, where someone said, “Well, what if when you pull back, you have all the drawings on the wall?” And I was like, “Well, what would that mean if the drawings were on the wall?” And I’m just going to leave that up to you guys.

LAWSON: There is an answer.

It’s better if you let them debate it for themselves. You can tell me when they’re not listening.

CILELLA: I will say there are some key parts that are significant. He’s wearing the same outfit.

Hopefully you’ll spot it when you rewatch it in theaters on the 8th of August and digital on the 15th. When you rewatch it, maybe you’ll pick up on some things.

LAWSON: The information is there. Can you figure it out?

What else is coming up at Rustic Films?

LAWSON: We have two more movies coming out this year. We were really fortunate; we premiered three movies this year. Descendent was one, Touch Me premiered at Sundance, Man Finds Tape premiered at Tribeca. Both of them have distribution that will be announced soon. And then we’ve got a lot of other stuff that we’re not going to mention.

Do you have things that are going to be filming this year?

LAWSON: Yeah.

Just not announcing yet?

LAWSON: Real Gs move in silence like lasagna. [Laughs] I believe that was Lil Wayne that said that.

You obviously do a great job with this as your as your debut. Have you written other scripts?

CILELLA: Yeah, I have a crime comedy set in the rural south against the world of the illegal reptile trade, with an imaginary friend character. It is, tonally, it’s a stark departure. I was in a bad place when I wrote this, and then I got in a good place.

LAWSON: Go back to the bad place.

CILELLA: No. I thought you liked the script.

MOORHEAD: I’ve read it. My only note was that it’s just exactly The Shawshank Redemption again.

CILELLA: I’m from South Carolina, and there’s a lot of weirdness, and great stories out of there. And it’s very much inspired by my love for Danny McBride. Everything he does and Coen Brothers movies, and I like the weird. I like things that feel normal on the surface, and then there’s something off. So that’s the next thing I’d like to get going. So it’s it’s out. I’ve been taking meetings. We’ll see what happens.

We’ve all seen like 10,000 movies. And one of the things that I really dug about this is I really didn’t know what the next scene was going to be. And I think that’s what’s refreshing about showing what you guys can do for not a lot of money. And I wasn’t lying when I said my favorite episodes of Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 were the ones you guys did. So, I know you wrapped on Season 2, but what was it like actually having the keys for the whole season, and what do you want to tease about Season 2?

MOORHEAD: Man, I don’t think we can talk about it. I don’t know, they’d kill us.

LAWSON: No, I got it. If you liked their episodes of Season 1, tune in for Season 2.

That is crazy.

WARD: I have tons of answers, but I’m also not going to say them.

I’m not trying to get you in trouble.

LAWSON: That apartment fight with Punisher was maybe one of my favorite things. And by the way, I will say this because, I get to say this as a friend of theirs and somebody who’s worked with them for years. The Marvel stuff is one of the only times I get to watch their stuff as a pure consumer, and I fucking loved that season. That scene particularly is maybe one of my favorite things that they’ve ever done that I wasn’t a part of it, but I’m fine with it because it’s so fucking good.

BENSON: Will you take heartfelt sincerity in the place of anything that might get us sued?

Yes.

BENSON: Genuinely, that show for us, Daredevil, that we just finished Season 2, and we did a lot of Season 1. There’s this really interesting thing where you go out in the industry large from doing these indie films, that you’re currency is being bold and doing something different. But when you go into the world at large, you have to find a middle ground. You have to meet a different audience halfway and all that stuff. But to get to do a show as cool as this, given that, so grateful for it, and it brings me to we love the show, and we wish we could say so much about it. And we also realize that it’s probably, especially right now, one of the cooler things that we could be a part of that’s at that scope. That’s one of the many things we love about it.

Descendent is now playing in limited release in theaters and expands nationwide and is available on VOD on August 15.