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Tom McKeith

Beauty in the Beast – An Interview with Tom and Sam McKeith

October 14, 2015 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment


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In Beast, writer/directors Tom and Sam McKeith tell the story of Jaime Gray (newcomer Chad McKinney), a young boxer in the Philippines. After his father (Garrett Dillahunt) convinces him to cheat in the ring in order to win cash from a local bookie, Jaime ‘accidentally’ kills his opponent. Riddled with guilt, he desperately attempts to make things right by protecting his opponent’s family. According to Tom, this scenario is not uncommon in the world of underground boxing overseas.

“We heard stories about boxers wrapping their hands in plaster and taking out the padding,” Tom reassures. “[In particular, we heard a story] where an opponent lost their eyesight as a result of someone doing this in a fight. We thought that was a compelling idea. If you do that, you [would] have to carry around a lot of guilt. How do you make up for something like that? That was the starting point.”

As first-time filmmakers, any writing/directing team is bound to face challenges. However, the fact that Sam and Tom are brothers might lead one to assume that communication could be more difficult. According to Sam, the fact that they are family isn’t an obstacle for them.

“We’ve always worked together on the short films that we’ve made so we kind of developed a bit of a system as we’ve gone along,” Sam says. “On the writing side, we kind of write treatments and pass them back and forth between one another. Then, when we get to the script, we do the same thing. When we get onto the set, one of us will watch the monitors, one will watch the set. Then, we’ll switch that around.”

According to them, some of their greatest challenges lay in their decision to shoot in the Philippines. While both men show a great appreciation for the team they were working with, they quickly discovered that one of their greatest challenges would be the weather conditions.

“We worked three shorts in Australia but, after working in the Philippines, it’s a whole different ball game. It’s a great place to film but it has it’s own unique challenges from a production standpoint,” says Tom. “We were there during typhoon season—which wasn’t an ideal time to be filming—[and we were] hit by a strong hurricane and an earthquake while we were shooting.”

“We wanted to shoot everything in the real locations because we wanted that sense of realism,” Sam adds. “[Once] we went to set and [the whole area was] totally flooded because there wasn’t drainage so everyone had to leave the area. We finished the shoot later that day but when we turned up and it was chaos. You wouldn’t have the type of insight unless you got to go there.”

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Featured (L to R): Chad McKinney, Tom McKeith, Sam McKeith, Garrett Dillahunt

Despite the challenges of the shoot, Tom and Sam transform Beast from a simple ‘boxing movie’ to an indepth character piece. By choosing to film entirely close-up on McKinney’s broken Jaime, Tom and Sam focus their attention on his emotions, rather than his actions. Given that this was McKinney’s first role, Sam admits the decision was a bit of a risk—but one that definitely paid off.

“We were just lucky as directors,” he says. “Garrett was the professional but with Chad, as a first time actor, he’s a bit of an x-factor. We were just lucky that we could tap into a lot of his family history and life experience to motivate his performance in the film.

“We’d originally thought that element [of] Garrett being from America and Chad being half-Filipino, half-American would be more central but, as production went along, it became more focused on the Jaime Gray character,” remembers Tom. “We shot more wides and other scenes [in order to] make Garrett’s character more ‘beastly’… that didn’t make the end cut. So, as it went along it became more focused [on Chad] as we thought it was really the core of the story. He’s really the most interesting theme so [we said] let’s just stick with the one theme. The real question is “Is he a beast?” In the beginning, you meet this guy, who lives a certain lifestyle. He seems like he’s a beast.”

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Frankly, it’s this challenge between appearance and reality that makes this film so compelling. Whereas many films set in the sports genre choose to emphasize ideas like ‘the triumph of will/human spirit’, Beast opts to explore how someone grapples with the ramifications of their actions.

“You do something wrong, it’s always with you. You can’t run away from it,” Tom points out. “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. You can’t try and make up for it by being nice to someone and helping out because it’s yourself that has to carry it with you. The only thing you can do is take responsibility for it. That feeling follows him until he does the only thing he can do which is accept it, confess and accept responsibility. That’s the only thing that gives him some kind of [peace]. I think he tries everything but it’s going to follow him.”

In light of this, it is also important to note the spiritual heart beating beneath the surface of Beast. While definitely examining the ideas of our sin and guilt, there is also strong message of spiritual burden as well. For example, in one of the most interesting moments within the film, Jaime drops to his knees in prayer, looking for God’s help.

“We originally had a different kind of prayer but we rewrote it because Chad is protestant. [Even so,] the film is so observational,” Tom explains. “You see the characters doing what they are doing. It’s not like another film where the characters might speak what he’s feeling or the style might help to understand what’s in the characters minds by what they’re saying. We felt that we needed a bit of a sign post to help clarify what he’s going through internally. Also, there was this idea that, sometimes, when you’re dealing with guilt, it’s your own sense of being damned or forsaken. Those feelings that have a spiritual kind of quality to them and it felt right to tap into that, given the nature of the story.”

It’s this spiritual heart that truly gives the film its soul. By choosing to focus the narrative on Jaime’s battle with his inner demons, writer/directors Tom and Sam McKeith have truly created something unique and powerful.

Without question, they have shown that there is beauty within this Beast.

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Filed Under: Film, Interviews, TIFF Tagged With: Beast, Chad McKinney, Garret Dillahunt, Sam McKeith, TIFF, Tom McKeith

Facing the BEAST: An Interview with stars Chad McKinney and Garret Dillahunt

September 21, 2015 by Steve Norton 1 Comment

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[The team for Beast (L to R): Chad McKinney, Tom McKeith, Sam McKeith Garrett Dillahunt]

Starring newcomer Chad McKinney and veteran actor Garret Dillahunt (Winter’s Bone, Raising Hope), Beast tells the story of Jaime Gray (McKinney), a young boxer in the Philippines who is managed by his father, Rick (Dillahunt). After getting involved with a local bookie, Rick convinces his son to tamper with his gloves in order to win a match. However, when the end result of the fight is not what he expected, Jaime must wrestle with his own guilt and whether or not to come forward with the truth.

The first feature by directors Tom and Sam McKeith, one might think that an experienced actor such as Dillahunt would be phased by joining a project with relative newcomers behind the camera. In fact, however, working with the two young men was something that interested him about the project.

“They’re pretty impressive young men to me, especially to keep that vision in the midst of that sort of chaos… My favourite projects generally are with first time directors because they’re so prepared… They have this story that they want to tell and they have the whole thing in their head. It’s kind of what filmmaking is supposed to be… There was a time where people told stories.”

Having said this, one of the most striking aspects about Beast is its commitment to realism. For instance, while one might assume that issues like tampering with gloves couldn’t happen in today’s highly regulated world of boxing, McKinney says that things are entirely different in the Philippines.

“The boxing theme worked in the Philippines,” he claims. “Any other boxing arena, they check the gloves. They’re watching you. But in the Philippines, I’ve fought 14 fights that are not on my record because they weren’t part of the American Boxing Association. I actually fought in a place down the road [from the arena in the film] and it looked exactly the same.”

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Through it’s close-up, documentary-style filmmaking, the film manages to draw you into the drama by giving it a personal feel. An excellent example of this commitment to realism through the film’s opening boxing match. As the camera holds relentlessly on McKinney’s face, we can sense his intensity in the moment. While one would rightly assume this was due to the strength of his performance, it’s also interesting to note that this scene included actual boxing.

According to McKinney, “We’re the only film I know that used actual boxing. I love Southpaw and those other boxing movies but you can see they’re missing with their punches. We had to pay [the other guy] extra because it was real fighting. He was one of my trainers—he’s a former world champion. I had told him to knock me out because I was going to try to knock him out too… And he was scared for a couple of rounds because, you know, you might not get paid. And I said, no. It’s just you and me—we’re friends. Knock me out. For the camera angles, I had to keep my hands down.”

“I was overly concerned,” chimes Dillahunt. “I didn’t think they were gonna get three rounds out of this. They were really going at it. We were concerned because of all the swelling and we had other things to shoot.”

“I didn’t know we were shooting,” McKinney recalls. “That was real.”

Ironically, as a boxer playing a boxer, McKinney originally feared that he may be typecast in the role for future projects.

“Will James is the one that found me for the movie. I was in a boxing gym, training amateur boxers,” he remembers. “I was there—not boxing—just getting the amateur boxers ready for their fight. He came up to me and asked me to come over. I got a callback two days later. They pitched me the story and I thought it sounded kinda like my own story. I wasn’t thrilled to be typecast as a boxer—I thought ‘Great, I’ll never get Cruel Intentions or 12 Years a Slave but the film itself, other than the beginning, really isn’t about boxing itself. It’s really about one man’s journey and I enjoyed it as a movie-lover. I was a lot more satisfied than I thought I’d be.”

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For McKinney, Beast is also more than simply a movie in that it also connected deeply with his own story as well.

“The funny thing about this movies is that I grew up as a jack-of-all-trades guy. I lived in a lot of places,” he shared. “I was a missionary pastor’s son but the rebellious one, the black sheep kind, the prodigal son type of guy. We moved to 9 different countries by the time I was 15. Born in Seattle, made in the Philippines but lived everywhere. Every time we moved, we didn’t have Facebook or MySpace yet so, every time we’d leave, I’d lose friends. I’d make friends and we’d leave the next year. So, I decided to create new personalities when I showed up there. And then, I got into martial arts because I said what’s the point of meeting people if I’m just going to be all broken and leave? When we lived in Thailand, I spent a lot of time in Muy Thai, got into the MMA circuit and I was fighting by the time I was 14 or 15. It brought me down. I eloped and got married against family will—and got divorced… I was literally homeless for like 5 months before I swallowed my pride and called my family. That’s a long time to be homeless in San Diego, doing dishwashing in a restaurant and found myself in a boxing gym. They wouldn’t let me fight right away and I needed money so I found myself in Mexico underground in Tiawana. I fought with no gloves. I fought guys I probably shouldn’t have fought because I had to get blood tests later but I was able to bring those different attributes to this. I’ve always been one to live by ‘never have a dull moment’. I could walk out of here and have a stroke or get hit by a car. Live every moment. If I die on the corner, I want people to be able to say that this guy knew how to live. He’s got a smile on his face.”

In terms of his character’s dysfunctional relationship with his parents, McKinney says that his life and Jaime’s differ strongly in that area.

“I’m closer to my father. My mother is a great woman. She lives in Chicago and I haven’t seen her in two years but we talk all the time. She loves the movie. In the States, I was doing well as a boxer, spending more money than I was making. Then I went back to live in the Philippines… and I ended up on my dad’s couch. He’s a pastor and a missionary for the church. He doesn’t earn a wage doing that—he gives it all to that. So, really, Beast is the opposite with my father. I came to the Philippines, I partied, I slept on the couch—and pretended that I wasn’t sleeping on the couch—and pretty much used my dad for two years. I had to apologize to him after that. I sort of found myself and, in this movie, I found myself even more.”

In light of this, when asked about his feelings towards Rick’s actions, Dillahunt doesn’t judge his character, viewing him as an ordinary man broken by immeasurable poverty.

“I don’t know why I don’t mind people like that,” he begins. “I mean, we’re all sort of shades of gray. I’ve done things I’m not proud of and I feel like I’m an okay guy. How is that a possibility? The circumstances are so interesting – this entire world is foreign to me. That level of poverty… Here’s this American and how did he get there? He’s not a very successful dude and he seems like he’s full of shame himself… He loves his kid… I remember being so broke, in school, that I raided my roommates penny jar and I was racked with guilt. I mean, I’d stolen a bunch of pennies. That’s what fear of having no money did for this privileged white boy. What if it’s worse? [My character] probably had big dreams of being a fighter… and here [he is], pimping out [his] son.”

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“Not only that,” McKinney echoes, “but Will James comes in and slams me up against the wall… The son is just, you know, not looking at his dad but at the same time, he’s looking at his dad and saying ‘this is what is going on’.”

“There’s this discomfort and pacing that’s going on [between Rick and Jaime]”,

Dillahunt explains. “The fact that he allows somebody to do that… the kid is sort of abandoned by both parents. [My character keeps] more than half of that money and his mom doesn’t want to see him either and [Jaime is] still is ultimately driven to do the right thing.”

With this in mind, McKinney also states that the element of poverty expressed in this film reveals a very present reality that most of the people in the Philippines experience daily.

“They say that Manila has 7 million people but it’s 20,” says McKinney, seriously. “I have a heart for the Philippines. I still love it but you see a level of poverty there that, when I came back to the States, I was just thinking ‘Wow’. Thank you for options and choices… There’s basically no middle class in the Philippines. There’s a small middle class. My dad would be in the middle class in the Philippines where he was well off but, if he was back in the States, he’d basically be broke… There’s a really, really wealthy part of the Philippines and there’s a dirt poor side. [Directors Tom and Sam McKeith] didn’t even get to see the wealthy side until after we were done shooting and they were like, ‘Woah. Wait, are we still in the same place?’ Just to help those families and people, [like child actor] little Myo. The movie changed their life. They were telling me behind the scenes. They took me to where they lived and it was not so well. And they’re doing a lot better now. It was humbling. It made me actually miss the couch again.”

There is an overwhelming sense of reality in this film that makes it something to watch. Whether it’s the authenticity of the situation or the honesty in the performances, Beast draws you in and begs the question of what really defines the quality of a person.

Says Dillahunt, “There’s that great scene where [Devina] calls him a monster. You start thinking, at least I did, about how you can be perceived like that. He’s not and… it’s the most heartbreaking thing, what that sort of thing can do to you.

After watching a film like Beast, one can’t help but ask the same question.

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Filed Under: Film, Interviews, Reviews, TIFF Tagged With: Beast, boxing, Chad McKinney, Garret Dillahunt, Sam McKeith, TIFF, Tom McKeith

TIFF Hits: BEAST

September 16, 2015 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

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What do you do when you’re hunted by the truth?

In Beast, Jaime Gray (newcomer Chad McKinney) is a boxer in the Philippines. After he and his father (Garret Dillahunt) make a costly error in judgment in order to win big with a bookie, Jaime is torn between running in fear and doing what is right. Beast is gritty, honest, and realistic as it takes us into the heart of the underground world of poverty in Manila.

But don’t think that Beast is just another ‘boxing movie’.

The directorial feature debut of brothers, Tom and Sam McKeith, the film uses the world of boxing as a backdrop for the characters and their emotional journeys. Demonstrating genuine chemistry between them, both Dillahunt and McKinney are up to the task and offer honest performances. Still, while Dillahunt’s work here is very strong and reveals a loving father (albeit one who is willing to compromise morally), it is McKinney who absolutely owns this film. While it’s common for a main character to dominate a picture, it’s another thing to spend virtually every second of the film with them, not only within the frame, but close-up. As we look constantly on his face, there is a heavy emphasis on his emotional well-being. (This would be a challenge for any actor, let alone a relative newcomer.) Despite the challenges, McKinney’s performance is remarkably believable and carries the film.

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What’s more, Beast also serves as a powerful spiritual narrative as well.  While faith is not directly addressed within the film, there is a strong sense within the film that guilt can only truly be dealt with wholly in the form of repentance and ownership of our actions. Here, Jaime is both ‘beast’ and ‘angel’, trying to find redemption while running from the truth. Throughout the film, we–and Jaime–are always fully conscious that he cannot erase the consequences of his actions without humbling himself. (Incidentally, there is even a solid prayer scene that might be the first one I’ve seen in a film that doesn’t come across as awkward or out of place.)

In the end, Beast is a film is actually less about sports and more about reaping what you sow. Filled with solid performances, the film is a strong character piece about a young man who is battling his own demons and taking responsibility for his actions. Although the film doesn’t currently have a release date set, I highly recommend you take note and check it out when you hear of it.

After all, it certainly packs a punch.

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NOTE: STAY TUNED OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS FOR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH STARS CHAD McKINNEY, GARRETT DILLAHUNT AND DIRECTORS TOM AND SAM McKEITH…

Beast

Starring Chad McKinney, Garret Dillahunt

d. Tom and Sam McKeith

**** (out of 5)

Filed Under: Current Events, Film, News, Reviews, TIFF Tagged With: Beast, Chad McKinney, Garret Dillahunt, Sam McKeith, Tom McKeith, Toronto, Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF Hits: Shooting Stars

September 15, 2015 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

 

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At ScreenFish, we’re very conscious of those moments where faith and film collide… but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun as well!  Here are some exclusive shots of the celebs around the city as the Toronto International Film Festival enters it’s second half.  Pics will be updated as new sightings occur…

Black Mass premiere:

Johnny Depp

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Joel Edgerton

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Peter Sarsgaard

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Kevin Bacon

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John Morris                                           Dakota Johnson

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Freeheld Premiere:  Michael Shannon, Ellen Page, Julianne Moore, dir. Peter Sollett

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Sicario Premiere:  Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, dir. Denis Villeneuve

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Forsaken Premiere: Donald Sutherland, Keifer Sutherland, d. Jon Cassar (24)

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Team from Beast:  Chad McKinney, dir. Tom and Sam McKeith, Garret Dillahunt

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The Man Who Knew Infinity:  Jeremy Irons; Dev Patel; Devika Bhise

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Other Celebs:

Penelope Cruz

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Sarah Silverman

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Susan Sarandon                                  Rachel McAdams

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Nick Robinson

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Rob Reiner                                           Carey Elwes                                         Michael Moore

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Filed Under: Current Events, Film, News, TIFF Tagged With: 24, Benicio Del Toro, Black Mass, Carey Elwes, Chad McKinney, Dakota Johnson, Denis Villeneuve, Donald Sutherland, Ellen Page, Emily Blunt, Forsaken, Freeheld, Garret Dillahunt, Joel Edgerton, John Morris, Johnny Depp, Jon Cassar, Josh Brolin, Julianne Moore, Keifer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Michael Moore, Michael Shannon, Nick Robinson, Penelope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Peter Sollett, Rachel McAdams, Rob Reiner, Sam McKeith, Sarah Silverman, Susan Sarandon, Tom McKeith, Toronto International Film Festival

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