(Episode 175) "Burden" Director: Andrew Heckler.
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Welcome to Monday Morning Critic Podcast. Here is Derek Thomas. You're about the best thing that's ever happened to someone like me. What's it doing now? Oh, you know, just spend some time. I know Mike Burge. We used to hang out just like these two. And things are different. Why's that? We're Klansmen. We're in the midst of an epidemic right here in Lawrence.

Done a lot of bad things in my life. Things I now regret. If you truly want to leave the clan, then your first step is admitting what you've done. He needs to go back to where he belongs. One of these people are my family. Mm-hmm. Look where it got you. Can't get rid of hate. They should replace it with something else. They got no food. They're living out of the car.

Am I understanding that you would like a room for that man? I'll do it, Reverend. So what you gonna do? I'm praying for some kind of sign. If this ain't a sign, then I don't know who it is. How could you let that man in this house? You out of order, Klansman. I ain't no Klansman no more. You don't lead a clan, Daddy. It's in you. We ain't ever gonna stop.

They may set crosses burning in the middle of the night, but we will fill the night with a different kind of fire. But maybe one day y'all can forgive me.

My next guest is the writer and director of the new release, Burden. Please welcome Andrew Heckler. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Hey, thanks for having me. So before we get into your acting, before your directing and your writing abilities here, you have some interesting acting credits that I thought I'd touch upon quickly, if you don't mind. Oz, Armageddon, Frasier, Ally McBealy. So you certainly know your way around a set. Those are pretty impressive.

Yeah, you know, I was mostly a theater actor out of New York and did a lot of downtown theater. But, you know, I started working more as an actor in Los Angeles and New York towards the later part of my career. And, you know, it was great. I mean, really, Frasier, you know, I loved all the shows that I did. And I really had a good time on the movies that I was able, fortunately, you know, able to do.

How much did you pick up from just even being on a set to the smallest of parts? Did you learn a lot from your experiences, or did you learn it from other places? Did you find that early acting experience early on served you well as a writer and a director? Yeah.

You know, I would say that absolutely. I mean, I did a lot of independent movies as well. And a lot of times you're sitting around a set thinking to yourself, I can do this. I can place the camera here. Boy, I can move this much faster. I see things very clearly. You know, and so that's when you start feeling like maybe you're more of a director at certain moments. But I will say that, you know, from the kind of movies that I...

especially Burden, you know, that my acting background was invaluable because Burden, you know, at its core is an actor's piece. And it really helped me understand, you know, and I was...

I was dauntingly gifted with amazing actors who are at the top of their field. So the ability to make them feel comfortable, to trust me, to feel heard, is something that I always wanted as an actor and something that I made sure that I imparted on them as actors in my movies.

Yeah, and that certainly serves you well coming into this because, you know, we talk about Burden, you know, 228 release. We're looking a week from today, right? Is that correct, Andrew? Uh-huh. A wide release. So, I mean, that's got to be really exciting for you. I mean, I was really fortunate to screen it, love the movie. For this to be your first, you know, directing credit, if I'm not mistaken, is pretty impressive. I mean, do you feel like you've accomplished something pretty special here?

Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes you don't know how ambitious you're being until you're sort of finished with the project and people go, oh my God.

But it was an incredibly ambitious project. And, you know, that can only happen with the help, passion, and commitment of an equally ambitious and brave producer. And I had one in Robbie Brenner. And so, you know, many people don't talk about their producers as first-time filmmakers. But I can tell you that, you know, she was relentless in getting this made. She was...

incredibly supportive on the set when we had problems and difficulties, which you always run through in independent film. And, you know, it was a really heavy movie to be making for my first film, especially with, you know, tons of characters, tons of locations, big set pieces. And then, like I said, you know, Academy Award winning actors. So it was daunting. And thankfully, you know, thankfully I had all of her support.

Well, you know, the producer is really the one that puts together...

Right. Right.

Talk to the agents and the casting directors about how you cast the movie. Put together the pieces of the movie well enough that it starts to get made. Then you hire all the department heads and the line producer, and you sort of pay the bills. All the way through, not only the onset experience of finding where you're going to shoot and shooting, but...

the after part, which is, you know, things that I never even knew of. I'm sure, you know, how do you, where's your editor, your editing room? What then you have to take and make to deliver to a distributor to get the movie put on a screen somewhere. And that's tons and tons and tons of stuff from contracts,

to, you know, what's called the deliverables, there's all sorts of different kinds of things that you have to do other than just make the movie and get it out there. That's, you know, writers and directors are somewhat, you know, challenged, but they're lucky in the regard that all they have to do is write the movie and then direct the movie and sort of oversee the edit of it. But in terms of the nuts and bolts behind that, that,

That's the producer. Right, right. And you mentioned the word ambitious and ambition. I don't think that word fits. I mean, it fits you perfectly. I mean, you started this in 1996, and here we are speaking in 2020. So I would say to call you ambitious might be an understatement, but you go to South Carolina in 1996, Andrew. Obviously, you don't have to read the whole story, but take it from there. You

you hear about this pretty unique story and in 1996 you kind of go to South Carolina for a month so I'll let you take it from there if you don't mind. Yeah, no, I mean look, you know, I heard a story, you know, I heard the story in 1996 and the story was essentially that, you know, a Klansman opens a

a redneck shop in KKK museum in a small Southern town square. And I just thought it was, you know, incredible, like incredible that 1996, which feels very present day, um, that this could possibly have this kind of overt bigotry and racism when, you know, the Klan also is supposed to be very secretive and here's this store. So I thought that was insane. And then subsequent to that,

About eight months later, I read another article that said Plans and Shells Redneck Shop and KKK Museum to Black Baptist Ministry. And I almost fell off my chair, so I called them, and I went down there, and, um...

I ended up spending a lot of time with the reverend and the church and the congregation and the town and really got to know the place. And once you meet these people, they're filled with so much joy. They're dancing and singing. But you feel like you're hooked into the story. You have an obligation to tell it now. And then it got kooky because I really felt that if I was going to tell a story about, you know,

how you wrench someone out of a family built on hatred, you better understand and get to know the family built on hatred. And so I ended up posing as sort of a white supremacist and going to spend some time with the Klansmen just to get their perspective. And as much as I had to put aside my personal beliefs and everything that I thought was vile about that ideology and philosophy and bigotry,

I had to look at them, and they were people. And that really informed how I made the movie, because once you see someone as a person, you can figure out how to change them, you can figure out how to have a conversation with them, and hopefully that's what the movie suggests, is that we're too busy labeling people these days, we're too busy closing our eyes and closing our ears and not wanting to hear anything, but establishing hate and polarization and vitriol.

And in the movie, you know, it just takes someone to open their eyes and look deeper behind what they see in order to get underneath his skin and pull him out of this family that's built on hate and bigotry. Yeah, that's well said. You know, in 1998, you start your first draft. How many revisions do you think, Andrew? Hundreds? Thousands? I can tell you that, you know, it's not just...

As a screenwriter, and I know that this is mostly filming, but as a screenwriter, I can tell you that my favorite thing to do is just vomit out a first draft. And I love that because that's just the emotion of the story and that's you just sort of getting it out there. And yeah, I had to do thousands of rewrites. I would say, if you ask me really honestly, it would probably be 80-ish rewrites.

rewriting the script and sometimes it's because you know we were set up to make the movie in 2006 we had an amazing all star cast in 2006 anchored by a young fellow named Forrest Whitaker

Forrest had a lot of ideas about the movie and I took them all and I incorporated many over the years into the story. So I don't think he understood that when signing on in 2006, it would be a 10 year wait in order to get him on set in 2016. But he stayed with the project all the way through. He was, you know, great that way. But yeah, you take a lot of input.

And I was going to say, you know, when an actor like, you know, an Academy Award winning actor says, you know, well, I would probably do this and maybe this is a good idea. I mean, I'm sure you're all ears at that point. Yeah, I mean, you know, of course I am. But, you know, he was amazing when I met him. He was on his way to...

to win an Academy Award and I thought that was pretty special that he even stayed with the movie after that but yeah you take his opinion but I'm always you know I think that stylistically for me I really have a strong vision of what I want to say and the way I see a movie and the way I see my world that I create I'm

I'm a very slow reader because I visualize everything. And when I write, I'm actually seeing the characters and I'm hearing the characters. I think that's also a little bit of acting background. But on the other hand, I always tell people to bring what they have and bring it all. And I'm not offended by any of it because between what I think I know and what they bring to the table, you find really great stuff. And so over the years, I've had a lot of great input and was able to sort of

trim and hone the screenplay also according to the era. You know, remember that a black president was elected in 2008. And so, you know, I got a lot of condolence calls for Burden. Sorry, Burden's dead now. We have a black president. And I said, boy, I hope so. And a lot of people said, well, you at least have to write it in and acknowledge it. You have to sort of make a present. And I didn't do that. I had tried it for a second and thought, you know what?

I'm not going to modernize this movie. This movie took place in 1997, 96, 97. I'm going to keep it there. Right. Right. So we stayed true to the movie. But yes, I took the input. I thought about it, but no.

So you have a very eclectic, talented cast. For those listening, Tom Wilkinson, Garrett Hudlin, a headland of amazing performance, Usher, Forrest Whitaker. I'm starting to think Forrest Whitaker might have a future in acting, Andrew. I don't know. That's my first impression on him. But I have to say there's a lot of...

We know about Forrest Whitaker's ability, but there's a lot of great acting in this movie outside of what Forrest does. Garrett Hedlund, what a risk he took. A lot of risk taking here. When you assemble a cast like this, is it all your decision? Is it a collaborative decision? How does that work? Okay.

You know, again, you know, I think that for the most part on most movies, it's more collaborative. On this movie, Robbie Brenner was there, my producer, supporting me in whatever. She'd always say the same thing. Look, here's my input. She would give it. And then she would say, but this is your movie, so do whatever you want to do. And I mean, she, you know, it was insane because I realized I may never have that experience again, but that's what she allowed me to do. And so,

You know, sometimes by necessity, like for instance, just to give you a little backstory, we were casting this movie during the run-up to the 2016 election. There was a lot of hate going on. Right. And a lot of vitriol. And so the Tom Wilkinson character, the Klan leader, we were out to... You know, we'd been out to a couple of American actors that I really wanted to play the role. And they just wouldn't do it. They wouldn't have it. You know, they... I kept saying...

You're not, just because you're playing a racist in a movie that's clearly not racist means you're planting a flag on the side of tolerance, you know? I said, no one's calling Ralph Fiennes a Nazi for being in Schindler's List. But it wasn't just that, you know? As they so eloquently said, it's not that, it's not just that. I don't want to inhabit the skin of a Klansman right now in the current environment. The European...

a Brit, Tom Wilkinson, didn't have any of that stigma. Tom literally, we sent out the script and he literally read it and said, I'll do it without ever talking to me or meeting with me. And then when I got him on the phone, he said, what you'll realize is that the script is 90% of a movie. And this is a damn good script. And I will do this. And I said, great. Um,

And so it was, it was pretty much, that's the way that Tom, you know, fell into the movie. And we were, you know, I was over the moon to have a guy of that quality in the film. So it was pretty stunning to me. But yeah, I mean, you know, others are foist upon you. We had Boris for 10 years. Andrea came on at the last second, you know, and she really, you know, we met all of the real people. That was like the big scramble at the end was,

I picked Andrea up from the airport as she came to shoot the movie and we drove up to see Judy Burton, you know, and we taped all of the conversations that she had with Judy and she literally listened to that and sort of became Judy Burton. Garrett and I went and met with Mike Burton and, you know, let me say this about Jared Hedlund for those of you who don't know him or don't know his work. He's unreal. In an era of less is more,

Less is only more if you can't do more. And Garrett can do more. And he did. He took so many risks. I mean, it was such a brave performance because he was so out on a ledge, you know. And him and I worked together very closely. But really, he brought so much in all of the actors. I just felt very, very lucky and fortunate to be a part of the production with those guys. Many times I would sit back and watch them play.

Yeah, and he is so good in this movie. One of the really good things that this movie does, it does a great job of...

throwing out and showing you what poverty looks like. I mean, there's a scene where he lends a sweatshirt to his girlfriend, and just the sweatshirt alone just screams of poverty and what's going on with these people and how really poor they are. I thought that was a really kind of powerful scene, Andrew. You know, it's just little things like that, I think, really add up in this movie, and I think it really works for a lot of reasons, and that's part of it, I think.

Well, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it really is. There's so many different elements to the movie, but so many different stylistic actors and so much creativity that was brought in. I mean, I just felt like every, there's a certain thing that I always joke around about, and it's because I've been after this movie for so long that I believed in the story so much. And after I introduced the actors and the crew and cast to the real people,

I felt like we all shared the same obligation to tell this story and to put in all of our effort into a small movie to tell the story. And one of the coolest, so a lot of times I thought to myself, yeah, either that or they feel sorry for me. So they're willing to go the distance with me. But yeah, it was 16, 17 years from inception to the set. So everybody sort of gave it their extra

extra, extra, extra effort, which is what it takes to make a really good independent movie. But here's the real compliment, Andrew, that the average filmgoer will not see. Tom Wilkinson basically says you've written a fantastic script. Forrest Whitaker has stuck with you for what, 14, 15 years? I mean, I think that's a compliment to you, don't you? That screams compliment to me when I look at it on the outside. That speaks volumes about what they think of your work.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it was definitely not only a huge compliment, you know, daunting, honestly. You know, they're...

They're the top, top, top echelon of actors in the world. And so the fact that they would sign on to do a movie with a first-time director, albeit I'm not a young man anymore, I was when I started the process. I was single and I had no kids, and now I have three kids. My oldest is driving. Wow. But, you know, it's a huge compliment. And obviously, you know, it's humbling in many ways.

for those guys to sign on. But the biggest compliment, to be honest, the biggest compliment was not only that the real people when they saw the movie really felt good about it and felt like I told the authentic story and told it as earnestly as I could. It's not a documentary, it's a movie, and they understood that. But even Mike Burden, the real one, he said, man, I watched that movie and I gotta tell you something, my whole time

that I was in the Klan, I thought those people all respected me. And now I watch the movie and I realize that, you know, they didn't respect me at all. They just feared me. But they didn't respect me at all. And so for me to enlighten him on his own journey is really the ultimate compliment. And then the other thing was, honestly, we went to Sundance and it wasn't just that Garrett showed up at Sundance and, you know, that we, when we premiered the movie there,

Garrett showed up and Forrest showed up and Andrea showed up and Usher showed up and Dexter Darden showed up and Austin A. Bear showed up and I can go on and on and on and Crystal Fox showed up who plays Reverend's wife and she's a wonderful actress but then we had extras showing up we had guys it was a horrible moment where someone called me and said hey I'm here and I said I don't even know how to tell you this but you're not in the movie anymore you got cut out um

But the fact that that groundswell of so many people feeling so, you know, sort of invested in this movie that they came to Sundance on their own dime.

It's pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and without giving away too much for those of you listening, the movie really focuses on removing hate and transforming that into love and intolerance. So, you know, like I said, I don't want to give away too much, Andrew, but I have to say at the end of the movie, you know, we see Mike go through redemption and a baptism and owning up to the error of his ways. Can we call him a good person at the end of the movie? You know, that's all depending on where you're sitting. You know, I mean,

I call him a changed person. Is he 100% clean? Is he, you know, a saint? No, but nobody is a saint. That's sort of the point of the movie. We're all so quick to point fingers at people, but everybody is complicated. Everybody's a gray area. So, no, I do not wrap this movie up in a nice, neat bow where everybody goes, you know, riding off into the sunset. I try to show an honest struggle

not only Mike's struggle, you know, the movie's called Burden and his name is Mike Burden, which is crazy. But, you know, the burden's shared. Mike's Burden

Also, it's the burden of Judy Burden and the Reverend Kennedy, because this is not an easy, this is not, you know, sort of a quick stream into, you know, enlightenment. This is a slow, painful pulling and crawling of someone from tolerance, you know, hate and bigotry to tolerance and love. I mean, it is brutal what I put these guys through, and I didn't want it to be easy.

Yeah, and I got to tell you, Reverend Kennedy, I mean, that is an insane act of kindness. Like, we need more of what he's doing. It's easy for me to say, but I mean, if you told somebody that actually happened, they wouldn't believe you. It's like, it's because the kindness is so out of left field. You don't see that nowadays, and it's just such a beautiful gesture on his behalf. You know, Andrew, it's just so beautiful to see something like that.

Well, thanks. You know, it wasn't, and you know, it wasn't easy for him at all. You know, this is the point, you know, honestly, and I've heard this so many times. We don't need another movie like this. Well, I see a movie like what?

Because I don't know many movies like this. I know the Hollywood version of this movie. But I don't know a lot of these people. And so when people are like, I ain't seeing this anymore. I don't want to forgive anybody. And why are we humanizing extremists? Why do we have to forgive them? Well, I'll tell you why.

Yes. Good point. Yes.

then watch the movie. Don't watch the trailer. Don't look at the poster. Go see the movie because the whole movie is steeped in their ideology. Yeah, phenomenal movie. And I have two quick questions for you. Wrap it up. I read, and if I'm mistaken, I'll be embarrassed, that the KKK memorabilia shop, the redneck shop there, that at night on set, people were actually there shopping. Did I read that correctly, Andrew? No.

That's correct. Get out. I mean, go ahead, tell the story. Yeah, I mean, that's true. You know, the first night we had to recreate authentically, like, the absolute, you know, KKK museum and redneck shop. And on the first night that the production designer, Stephanie Haas, had finished the shop, it was late. It was 10, 10.30, and the shop was coming together for the next day's shoot. And she called me and said, you have to come back here. And I said, why? I'm going home. I'm exhausted.

And she said, no, you have to come back now because people are shopping. Wow. I wish I could say that that was a unique experience. But all throughout the movie, the week that we were shooting the KKK Museum, during lunch breaks when the cast and crew would disappear and we would be alone there, I had people coming in all the time shopping. So we all think we're, you know...

we all think that maybe this is, this is not over. This is, you know, as bad as it's ever been. This kind of hatred and vitriol and sort of bigotry. And so we, you know, the movie shines a bright light on it because there is a shadow on our society and, you know, shadows can only be expunged with light. So,

I think it's best incarnation burden to give you that life. Yeah, and the five-minute standing ovation at Sundance would indicate to me that we need more movies like this, not less. Just a quick question, Andrew. Why was it completed in 2018 and released two years later? Why not the immediate release? Is there any reason for that? Is that not my business? I just wanted to throw that out there. Because a lot of the promotion was done in 2018. Is that just part of the movie-making process of getting things finalized?

You know, it is and it isn't. This movie's had a very, very tumultuous journey from the moment I found the story to, you know, Friday's release. It just seems to have a life of its own. It doesn't... It's not as smooth... Just like Mike is not an easy transition out of the clan into love, this movie hasn't been easy in any way, shape, or form from inception to, you know, screening. But also, you know, we've stuck with it every step of the way. Yeah.

And hopefully the same thing that happens at the end of the movie, which is, you know, a man finds love and tolerance, you know, over hatred and bigotry. Burden will find light of day and catch fire with audiences and hopefully, you know, spark a lot of box office and people to go see it.

which is really the most important thing for me. But, you know, it took a long time. It was a perfect start at Sundance that year, which did not help burden in terms of, you know, there's tons of problems at that year's Sundance with distributors. And then, you know, what was funny is that the guys who eventually picked it up, Studio 101,

They had seen it on opening night at that standing ovation. They were there. Their company that they were working at at the time fell apart during Sundance. And they all reformed. And when they did, a year later, one of the first things they did was reach out to us in an email and say, hey, we loved this movie. Is it possibly still available? And it was. And so, you know, Robbie Brenner, we never gave up on the movie, and here they are. They

They're releasing it Friday. Friday is a limited release in New York and L.A., and it's going to expand out from there to 12 cities and 12 more after that in the next three weeks. So it's an old-fashioned platform release. Last question for you, Andrew. Is there any scenario ever where you would invest over 20 years into a project again? You know, I don't know if I have 20 years to invest in a project. Oh, stop. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You have more than that.

But I can tell you this, I'm working on two movies right now that are extremely challenged. And what I thought would be easy after Sundance, especially with the finance, because of, you know, burden, it's been a struggle already. And we're two years into one movie. I wrote it two years ago and two and a half years into another. So let's hope that it doesn't take 20 years to get these two meaningful stories on the screen. But, you know, I'm still with them.

I'm not giving up. Yeah, the movie is called Burden. It has a February 28th release date. Please, it's a fantastic movie, guys. Go out there and see it. You'll absolutely love it. He is director and writer Andrew Heckler. Andrew, thank you so much for giving me a few moments of your day today. Hey, I really appreciate it. Thank you. ♪♪♪

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