‘Freaky Tales’ Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck On Crafting An Impeccable Vibe
Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are fresh off the Marvel machine after directing Captain Marvel. After dipping their toes in more whimsical and action-packed stories, they decided to tackle an idea that Fleck’s been sitting on for 30 years: Freaky Tales, inspired by Too $hort’s song of the same name from 1987. With Too $hort on board as an executive producer, Fleck has finally made his childhood dreams come true.
In the film, “Set in 1987 Oakland, Freaky Tales is a multi-track mixtape of colorful characters—an NBA star, a corrupt cop, a female rap duo, teen punks, neo-Nazis, and a debt collector—on a collision course in a fever dream of showdowns and battles.“
We spoke with Boden and Fleck about Fleck’s encounter with Too $hort in the back of a cab and the incredible work poured into crafting the film’s vibe.
Dread Central: Congratulations on Freaky Tales! I had such a blast watching this movie. So how do you feel now that it’s going out into the world?
Ryan Fleck: Awesome. Yeah, it’s fantastic. We made it a few years ago, so it’s just been a long journey and I’ve been thinking about it for 30 years before that. So finally we got to make it and then people get to see it.
DC: First off, I have a very important question. Do you actually like bubblegum ice cream?
Anna Boden: Does anybody really like that flavor? [Laughs]
RF: I used to, until it got nasty. The gum is never good.
DC: I just love that detail about him being a sociopath because he’s eating bubblegum ice cream. What a great little character moment. Freaky Tales has so many of those moments. In preparing for this movie, actually filming it, how much time did you guys have to prep to get that vibe and aesthetic right for the 1987 Oakland setting?
RF: Never enough time. I don’t know how it was an indie film. This is a big movie. It’s a big indie film, and there are action set pieces. It’s a lot of fun, but it was incredibly ambitious. I think when we sat down to write it, we were like, “Oh, we’ll just break it up into four short films. That should be easy, right?” No, it was incredibly challenging to pull this thing off. It’s miraculous that no one died.
AB: Our department heads did an amazing job capturing the period of it all. And I mean, our costume designer, Neishea Lemle, our production designer, Patti Podesta, they did amazing research. They worked so hard with few resources, and they totally nailed the 1980s in Oakland.
It was so fun being on set every day and seeing [the actors] come out with their hair. I mean, their hair, oh my God. I had so fun watching our creative collaborators do what they did with what they had. Then, working with our DP to kind of get the different looks for the different chapters and create the different vibes made this feel like this 1980s mixtape of a movie.
DC: That’s such a good way to put it. There are so many cool, little details like the Ishtar shout out on the marquee. Were those kinds of things from your department heads, were those things that you wanted, was it a mix of both? Then, going off that, is there a favorite Easter egg you placed in Freaky Tales?
RF: The movies on the marquee mostly came from us, but I will say ish Tar did come from Patti Podesta. It was a practical reason because we could only clear certain posters. .
AB: Yeah, and I think somebody actually went up and tried to buy a ticket for Ishtar on the day that we were shooting. They were disappointed.
But I love Scanners as an Easter egg. As they’re walking in, you can see the Scanners VHS and hear Tom Hanks say that some jerk lost the entire collection. But Scanners you can rent, they have a copy of Scanners, which is basically the same thing, which I love because it sets up the whole head-exploding thing
RF: This is for you. Nobody else will know this, but he’s getting a call. Someone’s asking for the Psyoptics instructional videos and he’s saying, “No, some jackass stole our entire collection. But have you seen Scanners? It’s the same thing.” You’ve got to see the movie four times to really understand that level.
DC: It must’ve been so fun for y’all to craft all of the film’s levels, especially as movie nerds.
RF: It’s a movie nerd’s dream of a movie to make, and I hope to watch it too, but certainly to make.
DC: Just looking at your filmography, it must have been a very different experience than your previous films.
RF: Yeah, they’re all different. And that’s something not by design. I think it’s just because the way we’re feeling from year to year is like, “OK, what’s going to interest us?” We tend to not want to repeat ourselves. I’ve been trying to make this movie, like I said, since I was a kid, because it’s all my obsessions as a child. Over the years I’ve pitched Anna different versions of what Freaky Tales could be, and eventually, we landed on the one in theaters now!
DC: So wait, how did it start? What was the kernel of the idea 30 years ago for you, Ryan?
AB: Well, the first thing you pitched me was an Almost Famous version with a female journalist following Too $hort around on tour.
RF: That’s right. But it all comes from the song “Freaky Tales”, which I heard when I was too young. Basically it was sort of like, “Whoa, this music can do this, too.” Then it was the Sleepy Floyd game, hearing that on the radio and learning about the Gilman over the years. This is just all the stuff that I was obsessed with.
AB: And also, I don’t know if we’ve actually never mentioned this the entire time that we’ve been doing press for Freaky Tales, but remember when you hopped in a taxi with Too $hort once 15 years ago to talk about this with him?
RF: Yeah, yeah. He doesn’t remember that. I was like, “Hey, we’re going to make a movie called Freaky Tales, and I think it’s about this.” And he was like, “Cool”. That never happened, but then we made this version.
DC: Did you just happen to run into him??
RF: That would be fun, wouldn’t it? No, it was a meeting, but he was running late, so he said, “Quick, hop in a cab with me.” So I hopped in a cab and I was trying to talk to him about what this movie could be one day, and he was like, “Come to my hotel”, but I had to go.
DC: That’s so weird but lovely.
RF: It seemed like it was going to get weird that night, and I wasn’t quite ready for the freaky night that was ahead
Freaky Tales is out now in theaters and on VOD.
Categorized:Interviews
