Celebrity Interview | Entertainment & Film Industry - Film Director Brendan Gabriel Murphy on Navigating Hollywood Dreams and Indie Film Realities.

Greg Staffa 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host, Greg Staffa. My guest this episode is the visionary director behind the indie film Flux, currently in theaters, and stars Tyrese Gibson and Shelley Hennig. Brendan Gabriel Murphy thanks for joining us today.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 0:25

Thank you so much for having me Appreciate it.

Greg Staffa 0:28

Tell us a little bit about your childhood and how you grew up.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 0:31

Yeah, I grew up in Suffer, new York, which is about a half hour outside of New York City, in the suburbs. It was great because most of our parents grew up in the city but we still had trees and woods and all that good stuff and the city was still in arm's reach away. So you had the best of both worlds. So it was a great upbringing.

Greg Staffa 0:54

Were you a creative child? Were you kind of a shy, imaginative child? What kind of child were you?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 0:59

I was one of those kids, that was, I was always constantly humming in class when I was doing things like artwork and stuff like that and my teachers would call my parents to complain and say I was disrupting the class because I was always humming. But meanwhile I was like, oh you know, when I think about it now I was just kind of in my own head and my imagination. So I was pretty creative. I got into acting and doing a lot of theater since I was a little boy, about seven, eight years old. So I kind of grew up on the stage doing different plays, musical theater, dramas. That was kind of my my outlet at the time. You know I really enjoyed performing. That whet my appetite for just what I was going to do in my future career.

Greg Staffa 1:42

At what point did you realize this was not just a hobby or a passion, but this was something that you could potentially make money off of?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 1:51

Well, it was weird. I actually wrote a story that in third grade they made you do like an autobiography of your life at eight years old, and I actually wrote down that one day I want to be a producer and director. Old and um I, I actually wrote down that one day I want to be a producer and director see my name on the marquee and and make movies. Which is kind of surreal. I still have it. My parents saved it, so that kind of you know, I always loved film and tv shows and whatnot.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 2:16

But what really made me like fall in love with movies was that my parents brought me to a drive-in when I was no-transcript. They brought me to go see Goonies when drive-ins were still rocking and rolling in the 80s. Now there's barely any left in the stage, which is such a bummer. But I got to see Goonies and it blew my mind and then I didn't realize it was a double feature and my parents fell asleep when we were in our old station wagon and I stayed up for the double feature and it was a never-ending story, so it was like back-to-back. I saw both these movies and they kind of traumatized me in a good way. I think that's really where I got excited about where cinema can take you in these imaginative worlds and just let your mind race, and I became

Childhood Creativity and Theatrical Beginnings

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 3:02

obsessed with films ever since.

Greg Staffa 3:04

Two great movies to fuel imagination.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 3:09

They're mind-blowing films. You know both very different stories, but both centered around children and basically you know they're imaginative, you know worlds built around, you know kids as the protagonists. So it was to me I was relating to these kids and they were adventure stories. So, yeah, just after I saw those I was like, wow, this is what cinema can do, this is what movies or movies can take you and I just became obsessed. And then from there was like back to the future star wars, all of that you know, and uh, and I still love all those films to this day.

Greg Staffa 3:43

One of the things that I love about film and you mentioned it yourself is seeing that marquee and seeing your name up on there. And recently I did a red carpet with Ethan Hawke for a documentary that he filmed. And he has starred in some great movies, but he directed a documentary and it wasn't a huge production. It wasn't anything that can going to be this blockbuster, but I remember seeing him kind of sneaking out early before the red carpet to get a photograph of him, his name on the marquee and he had had hundreds of marquees with his name on it before but each time seemed special and I was really caught that someone as famous as him still had that kind of joy in seeing his name up on the marquee. What's that like as a director or an actor to see your name up there?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 4:35

Well, it's either my name or just the project that I birthed, you know was Flux. You know I wrote it, produced it, directed it and edited it, so co-wrote it with my writing partner, keontae Mayfield, who's a really brilliant writer. But just even seeing the name because I came up with the name and having it up there, that to me is just as good as seeing my name up there. So when we just had the Flux premiere, we screened it at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. That theater dates back to 1927. It's got so much history, such a beautiful theater, and just seeing the big Flux logo up there, it's surreal. I got a photo of my wife and my kids in front of it.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 5:16

You know you're at your movie premiere and you're there's your. You know your, your pedal your film and people are there to see the film. It's just, it's very, very awe-inspiring and uh, it's, it's, it's completely surreal. You know it's it. When everything comes together like that, at that moment, you, I don't know man, it's just like it's like a pinch yourself kind of feeling. You know it's uh, it just never goes away.

Greg Staffa 5:48

So you mentioned your family. You have a lovely wife and two young children, including what looks to be a newborn. Has that changed your style of directing at all? Being a relatively, your children are relatively young. Has it changed how you direct?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 6:05

and it hasn't changed my style of directing. I've been working on my style and building my style for quite a while now, but it has changed my perspective of how I treat my work, whereas you know, uh, the entertainment industry, especially if you're a filmmaker, is very, very ego-driven. You're trying to fulfill this void in your life, you're this artistic void, and you want your voice to be heard and it's all about you and your vision. But now, since I've had children, it's really curbed my ego and now I'm working for another vice, which is to provide for my kids. So it's put a lot in perspective for me.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 6:50

I actually feel like I'm doing my best work now because of my children. Even though raising two small kids is a lot of work, to me, it's very therapeutic. I enjoy the stress of raising children because my work life is so stressful that to me it's like a it's. It's like a nice break in, an outlet from dealing with the, the work stuff. So I don't know, it's just I, it's just it's I. I think curbing your ego is a beneficial thing because I feel like once that's kind of put aside, you can really explore and and not be as stressed and anxiety-induced when you are making your art.

Greg Staffa 7:29

Does it change the stuff that you choose to do? I mean, I doubt that your kids are going to go out and see Flux. Maybe they have, but does that change some of your creative desires? Do you want to make something for them, or is the money that movies like Flux provides? That's how you take care of your children.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 7:50

That's actually a really great question Right now. Flux is a psychological thriller. It's not rated, so there's some violence in it. I just made a modern-day Western called Blood Behind Us that will finish in September. It'll come out next year. That one has a lot of shootouts. It has some violence in it as well, and then I'm going on to do a psychological horror film this summer which is very violent as well.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 8:13

So no,

Family Life and Filmmaking Balance

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 8:14

it hasn't changed my perspective of the films I want to make currently. But do I want to do a family friendly movie one day? Of course I do. I would love to do a movie that's in the uh, the pg range, where I could explore, like a story with children and uh, I do it my own like version of a goonies or a never ending story or something of that nature. I would, I would love to do that and have my kids on set or who knows, maybe one of them will want to be an actor or director or who you know. I don't know. You know where they're, where they're headed, but that'd be a lot of that, would be a lot of fun and I would definitely love to do that. But right now I'm making very stylistic choices and these are the projects I've been working on and lining up for quite a while now, and I'm still kind of sticking to my guns of what I want to do and what I plan to do for the next couple of years.

Greg Staffa 8:58

Going back to your younger days, what were the first interaction with video and creating things did you find yourself doing?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 9:05

well, besides doing all the theater and and the plays and stuff which uh was acting and I studied acting in new york with uh this one of the best acting teachers for kids at the time, her name was flo greenberg. She was like working with all the kids from all the 80s movies kerry green, it was in goodies, and all these other people that had been in big stuff and they were older than me and I got put into the New York City class with them and I was much younger. So it was super intimidating because I was with these kids that had already done a bunch of movies and stuff and I hadn't done any of that. So I didn't know if I was going to start doing that stuff early or not. But I stuck with the theater stuff.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 9:41

And then it wasn't until high school that I got a little camcorder and I started making like ridiculously short you know comedy uh films with a couple of my buddies and that's where I kind of I got my taste of making you know short films that were funny at the time to us this is way before the youtube and tiktok generation world of social media, uh. And then at the end of high school I wasn't sure if I was going to go into acting school or film school and I decided to take a break from acting and go into film school and I went to Hofstra University in Long Island, got a BA in film production there and that really being in film school with other filmmakers and stuff and watching all these crazy movies and stuff just got me really into the process of what goes into really putting together a movie. So and I I enjoyed being behind the camera so much and uh it and then and how a movie gets taken from script to through post-production. And I also fell in love with, uh editing because I was, um, one of like eight kids that was uh picked to take the winter online editing course on avid and at the time kids were still using flatbeds. You know there's the very tail end of like transitioning to non-linear ending for all schools, so we were kind of at the forefront of it and I actually I did put a film on a flatbed one. So I'm happy I even did that because they're like you know now they're in museums.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 11:12

You know, the tape to tape, reel to reel. So I actually got to do that. But then, uh, once I learned the ad and I saw a non-linear editing could do on computers. That was it for me, and I was able to take that knowledge into post-production and because that I've been a professional editor for 25 years.

Greg Staffa 11:29

So wow, and then Did you do some advertising as well.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 11:33

Well, I did promo work, basically advertisements for television shows and networks and whatnot. So I did a lot of that. I've done some commercials too. I was very lucky enough to do for a watch company based out of Amsterdam where I got to shoot a commercial as a short film. In Amsterdam, I got to shut down the canals and shoot on the Skinny Bridge, which is the most famous bridge in Amsterdam. I got to shut down the canals and shoot on the Skinny Bridge, which is the most famous bridge in Amsterdam, and I got to do this epic, cool short film. And then we did another one with that same watch company in Japan, which was awesome.

Greg Staffa 12:00

How does that fast-paced world of advertising compare to the storytelling demands of a feature film?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 12:06

Well, I was fortunate enough to be able to work with the owner of the company for the watch company and pitch him my ideas as short films. So they were less about you know advertising you know your typical advertising, you know spot and more about there was a story with a beginning, middle and end. That to me was really appealing. But I've done the promos were on the advertising side. I mean, I, I edited promos for 15 years or so.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 12:36

I worked for god knows how many networks, including disney, you know, fox, nbc, um, so, uh, I understand both worlds, but to me, to me, the, to me, that's the story. No, no problem. To me the storytelling aspect is way more appealing. And just being able to make a little movie out of selling a product, which is now becoming kind of the norm that they're starting to do now A lot of content creators are building these little short films now out of these products and it's kind of starting to become the standard in many ways. So I don't know. That's the difference I find in both. I guess they both serve a purpose, but if you get to tell a story around it, I think that's a much cooler approach.

Greg Staffa 13:24

Now you do a lot of writing. You co-wrote Flux and other things. Is there any strange

Editing Career and Commercial Work

Greg Staffa 13:30

or unusual habits that you do to break through a creative block?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 13:34

if I do have a creative block, which happens to all writers. I kind of do this thing where I can uh, go to sleep, but not really asleep, I'm like half asleep and I kind of lucid dream, and so I'm like half asleep, half awake, and in that time period I can work out a bunch of the problems I'm having with a script. So I actually get most of my ideas from sleeping or from dreams, and then I'll just wake up and I'll have my phone next to me and I'll just type it all down as much as I can remember. Sometimes you lose some of the thoughts, but if you can force yourself to wake up and get those ideas down, it's a very beneficial tool because the mind works in mysterious ways. So I've been able to work out a lot of ideas by going into this lucid dream, half-asleep state, and that's a weird thing that I've taught myself to do now for a while.

Greg Staffa 14:32

So now with a newborn, are you able to find time to sleep? Because I would imagine those little naps that you're talking about are few and far between.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 14:40

Yeah, that's very true. Yeah, she's nine months now. She actually just started crawling. But yes, she is a baby. So, yeah, a lot less sleep. I'm actually going to bed a lot earlier than I used to. I don't know, your body just adapts and changes. It's just about budgeting time.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 14:58

I'm thankful I got a really awesome wife who supports what I do one another with our businesses, because we both have our own businesses so we can be as present as possible with the children and still be able to do what we got to do for money and for work. For obviously, you know, a lot of my writing now I have to do at night because of the kids, so a lot of the heavy lifting I'll have to do sometimes, uh, after the kids go to sleep so I can really focus and concentrate. Because my son, every time he sees me, all he wants to do is play toy. That's the first thing he wakes up in the morning. He's right in my face play toy, daddy. So he just wants to play toys and I get it and that's his form of creativity expression right now and I want to play with him as much as I can. Well then, I'll just budget the time so I can get my work done, nice.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 15:52

What kind of advice would you give to your younger self starting out as a filmmaker? I guess the one thing well, sorry, I mean. I mean, yeah, you have to make lots of mistakes and I've made tons of them and you know I've also worked with a lot of people where you know, I've learned from the mistakes of working with certain people and and just readjusting my, my mindset of how you know how the hierarchy works in the film world. But I think the biggest overall lesson that I've learned in my career is that don't start a production without the financing in place. At least what you have and what your budget says, because you might have to do raises later on and whatnot for financing, but at least what the budget says. Have that money in a bank account and in place. Do not start the production

Creative Process and Writing Technique

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 16:41

without the money, because that was a major lesson I learned on Flux because we got one of our investors completely screwed us for half the money of our production.

Greg Staffa 16:51

We were already filming.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 16:54

This is six months of negotiations with this person. We had signed contracts and everything and we were filming in Hawaii and the money just never came and we got completely screwed over and because of that it threw the production in chaos and it took a year and a half to get the production back on track. And it was hell on earth for me, for everyone involved, and because I was a producer. It was my first feature producing. I produced with my producer partner, lance Paul, and we brought other producers on to help us as well and it was just brutal. But we finally got the movie back on track and now it's done, which is crazy, surreal and I don't know. I'm still shell shocked from it all. It just it doesn't feel real because it was just five years of ruling work to to pull this film off.

Greg Staffa 17:45

And it just released, and so have you had time to sit back, pause, appreciate it, or is it still that new?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 17:53

I'm gonna be honest with you, I really haven't yet because, uh, I'm still, you know, you know it's, it's, it was just, it was just so hard and put so much stress and anxiety on me. That's been tough. I mean, yes, the, the, the premiere was an amazing event and it was awesome. I tried to take awesome. I tried to take a step back and look at everything and be like, wow, we got here. But I'm still shell-shocked from it and that will probably carry over for a while. I'm just trying to make more educated and smarter decisions moving forward on other projects, because the uh, you know, the only way you learn is by making mistakes and you have to make lots of them. You know that's the way you, that's the way you learn. You're constantly going to be fighting these, these battles. Each project comes with its own set of challenges.

Greg Staffa 18:44

So, you know, I just I think it's just making me a better producer, a better director, a better writer and, uh, I'm just learning as I go and that's all, that's it Just going to keep on trucking and I think and let me know if I'm right or wrong about this One of the misconceptions I think people hang of is that when a film comes out, it's almost like summer vacation, where you're done with the film, it's released and now you're on vacation. But how deep are you into your next project already, given that Flux just came out?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 19:17

Oh yeah, I'm really deep. So I'm actually working on three others right now. So one we just picture locked and is going into finishing for post. So color, sound, design, mix, foley, foley, all that. So that's about to start this summer and, uh, the score will be written.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 19:37

So I already filmed that while I was dealing with getting fuck sold and and and out and and all that good stuff. So it's almost going to be like back to back because flux was had so many hiccups, it was so hard to keep it on track that I was able to do this other film while while I was dealing with all of that. So I'm going to have like two films coming up, almost back to back in a way, and then at the end of the summer I'll be heading to Eastern Europe to shoot my next film, which is a larger budget, biggest budget I've worked with to date, but it's a psychological horror film which I'm really excited about. Script's done, we're doing polishes on it now, and then I've been pitching now a bigger film.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 20:20

That has been that I wrote the treatment for and we're already on to our third or fourth meeting on that one and that one could be a game changer for my career, but I can't say too much about that one because it's still so early in the whole process, but I'm working on all of this simultaneously while raising two kids, so it can be done. It can be done to other artists that are worried about having kids and getting the work done. You can do it. You just got to budget your time, I guess.

Greg Staffa 20:49

You kind of ruined one of my questions, but I'm going to ask it anyway. You may have hinted, or maybe there's even a bigger answer, but if it's the one that you hinted, don't feel compelled to reveal anything.

The Troubled Production of "Flux"

Greg Staffa 21:00

But if Steven Spielberg came to you with Steven Spielberg money and kind of said you know, I've done a lot of work, but now I want to hand it off to someone else here's Steven Spielberg's money to tell a story that you want, uh, you said that you're doing some projects you've created that you're financing. But if you have, like the steven spielberg type of money, is there a story that's you feel is kind of out of your reach, or are you able now to kind of start doing those projects that you're talking about?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 21:28

um, I feel like I could tackle anything. Um, I'm I'm a big supporter and fan of the independent world because I just like that kind of guerrilla style diy of putting these things together. They're extremely difficult, but I'm sure the studio films have their own challenges as well, as they just have a lot more money and a lot more pna to spend marketing dollars to get these films out there and get eyeballs on them, you know. But I would love to do a studio film. I have no qualms with that at all. I feel like I could handle it. I could handle the stress of it.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 22:01

I would like to do, you know, my, my dream, my goal, my brothers, my brother's my, my business partner and he's my, you know, he's my ride or die. And my colleague through all this, kieran's a cinematographer, so he shoots all of my films. So we have that shorthand. We've been doing this together for God knows how many years. So we've always wanted to attack a Star Wars project. That's one of our dreams and our ultimate goals is that I would love to do a Star Wars project and I know I could handle it, but not saying that I can't. I think I'm taking the right steps. Each project's getting bigger and bigger. But could I handle one right now? I think I could, yeah.

Greg Staffa 22:38

Is things like streaming, uh social media, impacting filmmaking? I mean, right now we have TikTok stars that get millions of views for videos that they create. We're back in the days it used to be Steven Spielberg in his garage, you know making stuff. The original Star Wars that you mentioned was filmed, you know, in the back. You know of a warehouse where they set up stuff outside to do some of the explosions. Nowadays you can use AI and people on TikTok are creating amazing videos. You have streaming platforms everywhere. Is that kind of diluting talent? Is that allowing talent that would have been undiscovered in more conventional time to flourish? How do you see it?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 23:25

There are several questions there. I think it's like yes to all of them. I think there's benefits of it and disadvantages of it. Yes to all of them, I think there's there's benefits of it and disadvantages of it. Uh, I think, uh, the idea of the movie star might be diminishing and there's only going to be, you know, when you think of the movie star, there's only going to be a handful of those people now where there used to be a lot more, because now there's these tiktok stars and you got to remember, like the kids and the teenagers they kind of control you know what's going on, in a style of free spirit, and I was a 90s kid, so now that generation is kind of, uh, you know that like style has come back and kids are now listening to all the music that I was, I grew up listening to.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 24:09

These these kids are, are embracing all the new technology which they're supposed to do. So now they can, they can be their own stars. They don't need the big budgets and you know all the fancy lighting and all stuff to make their own films and get noticed. Is it? Is it? I mean, it's very saturated, so it's very hard to do that now, but there are. There are these kids that come out and become stars and they're getting agents and they're getting deals and that's its own living, breathing thing, the social media star. And I, you know, I'm all for it. Like, if you're going to do that and that that technology is out there for you, go ahead and run with it. I wish I kind of was able to do that stuff and make these short films with no money, but it was expensive to make short films when I was coming up, you know. And now kids can edit these things on their phones and everything it's. It's mind-blowing to me. So embrace it, run with it.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 25:01

Um, but that experience of the one-man show is not the same thing as the communal effort that goes into making a movie like a cinematic experience. There's a big difference between the two and I don't think cinema is going away. It's just that now we have these two different iterations of consuming media and it's fine, but the cinematic experience is always going to be there. Um, dwight, but I think the budgets are going to come down, I think they're going to pay the actors less, which I don't think is a bad thing, because, you know, I feel like exuberance amount, exuberant amount of money is being spent on frivolous shit that you know people really don't necessarily need. Like you know, you're below the line is you're below the line when you're making a movie. You know the rest of the money is going towards cast, p&a, directors, producers' salaries.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 25:51

And yeah, I want to have a nice life and a nice living, but you know I want to keep the budgets down as much as possible and so that you know everybody gets a return and more bang for your buck. You know

Social Media's Impact on Filmmaking

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 26:18

and you know, so I'm all for it. You know technology is technology. If you don't embrace it, you're going to get run another tool, just like the internet was using a tool, just like when nonlinear editing came out and nobody was cutting tape anymore. That was a huge tool that changed the industry. These are just tools and the thing is it's not going to stop. Technology has the upper hand and we just have to embrace it, adapt and just try to make cool shit.

Greg Staffa 26:46

You mentioned that the cinematic experience will always be there. Has it changed drastically enough that we need to reevaluate how we view cinematic success? I mean, I don't want to blame COVID entirely, but I think pre-COVID and post-COVID a lot of things changed. I think some of it is the length of time. I mean I remember when a movie was out in theaters and you'd have to wait almost a year for it to come out on video. And now you know Captain America is already out on streaming for free if you're a Disney Plus member. Does that change how you view success? I mean, movies like the Fall Guy I think should have been a blockbuster. The Thunderbolts should have been a huge success and I think pre-COVID it probably would have been. How does something like that, when those are bombs or viewed as box office bombs? How does a movie like Flux survive?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 27:42

So you bring up a really interesting point here, because it's like a churn and burn now, because the films come out, they go right on to digital right away, whereas back in the day it would take forever and it would be word of mouth. These films would spend more time in the theater. By the time it got to VHS, where you can go to a blockbuster and rent this thing, the film was being talked about forever. So these films from yesteryear, if you want to call it, they had a longer lifespan. Now, with the churn and burn stuff, it's really hard to make a mark with films because of how fast people are gobbling up content and spitting it out. So, yes, it is much different than it used to be. That's a tough part.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 28:26

But a film like flux, which is obviously an independent film and it cannot be compared to a studio film at all, but it's still an indie and I think we did a great job, you know, um, making something that actually looks like we had a lot of money for which we didn't. Um, the these kind of films are really word of mouth type films, you know. Uh, I think flux is is a cult film and I think it's going to have this life on its own. As I do more films, I think people will start discovering it as well. So I feel like it will have a nice shelf life as a cult film, and it was always designed to be that way.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 29:04

Do I plan on getting rich off flux? No, do I do. I do. I want flux to be a success, of course, but I it's. For me, it's really getting the word out, getting, uh, getting you know, getting my name out and um, showing that I'm trying to do something unique and different in a marketplace where everything is so saturated and everybody's following the same agenda and just remaking every single film they can remake, because the studio system is scared and they don't want to take risks. So that's where the indies come in and we're the ones taking the risks. So the independent filmmakers.

Greg Staffa 29:40

Now you're still a relatively new director for film. I don't mean that as a put down or a negative or anything like that, yeah, but you've also been lucky with getting people working with like pierce brosnan, who is one of my favorite interviews that I've done. Uh, tyrese gibson, what was the the key or what was it about you that made them want to jump on your projects?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 30:05

well, the the good thing is that when I came on to history's Greatest Heist, pierce was already attached and it was the first time he was doing a TV piece like this, because he does. You know, the guy's a moving star and he's actually having a major resurgence right now. He's like back on top, which is awesome, but that's what attracted me to the project. But also doing those types of docu-series type shows. My brother and I in our company we usually handle all the recreations, so we do the cinematic aspects of the docu-series, so we will handle doing all the recreations which were.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 30:38

This was a show about bank heists, so we recreated all the heists and it was a blast. And then what we did was that we we used um technology at the time which is still pretty new, um, and we used um, the led walls, the volume, uh we call it and we were able to integrate pierce into the heist, which was really cool. So the heist would happen, would stop, and pierce could walk in in the middle of the heist and talk about it and break it down. So it was a really cool experience and he and I got along. You know, really really great. He's obviously irish, um, I'm a dual citizen of america and ireland. His middle name is brendan. My name obviously is brendan, so we got along great. He was. He was awesome and I hope to work with him again because I have another script. I want to get off the ground and he would be perfect for the antagonist, but because of that relationship I'm hoping now I'll have a chance and a shot to get him in one of my future projects.

Greg Staffa 31:36

I've done hundreds of celebrity interviews and interviewing him was the one time where I kind of geeked out a little bit.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 31:45

He's a great guy right. He's super nice. He's an amazing artist. I went to his art show.

Working with Hollywood Legends

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 31:50

He's an incredible artist. He's just an all-around good guy. He's a living legend.

Greg Staffa 31:57

He was my James Bond growing up.

Greg Staffa 31:59

Oh yeah, mine too I always viewed him as James Bond. I was doing a red carpet for a show that he was doing and I'm on the red carpet and I'm a small outlet and I have this mini camera that is half the size of a soda bottle. And so here I am, on this red carpet with all these people with cameras that are bigger than their heads and you know these massive cameras and stuff like that and then I have a stick basically a stick tripod and a half a soda bottle and that's my camera. And pierce walks up and he looks down at the camera and says so you're the gadget guy. Huh, well, in my mind all I heard was james bond referring to me as q, which was his gadget guy. And so I'm you 15-year-old in me is just squealing going. James Bond just called me Q.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 32:51

So that was a fun little moment. That's awesome. I love that.

Greg Staffa 32:55

It's always good to hear that the people that you admire or you look up to, it's good to hear stories about them, that they are the good people that you admire and look up to. I think often we worry about that.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 33:08

Well, not all of them. There are a lot of assholes out there. But the good thing is that the majority of talent that I've worked with because I've also did a lot of the image campaigns for the big networks like Fox, cbs and whatnot. So I work with a lot of big celebrities and most of them are great. But then you get a few, which I won't name, that are just really awful people and a couple of them I work with a couple of times and they're just not nice people. But I've been pretty blessed in my film world to work with some great, great stars.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 33:43

My new film stars Jamie King and Michael Madsen. Michael Madsen to me is I love Michael Madsen. I'm first of all a big Tarantino fan. Michael is one of Tarantino's guys. Michael and I got along great because Michael's a big personality. He can walk all over you if he doesn't believe in your vision and you don't have your shit together. But he and I just hit it off and I think in my new film Behind Us I think it's some of his best work he's done in 10 years, and he says it too. You know he's constantly calling me to check in on a film How's it going? And he delivered a phenomenal performance. So I'm really excited to get this one out, because it's nothing like Flux, it's a complete 180 from what I just did with the psychological thriller, and I think that's what's so amazing about Hollywood.

Greg Staffa 34:36

And yeah, there are a few bad apples and I've dealt with a couple myself, but for the most part, hollywood loves to promote within. And I remember I mean I've been writing reviews since 2012 and I would write a review on how so-and-so was one of my favorite writers for a tv episode and I would write in the review that I always look forward to when so-and-so writes an episode. Well then, that person became a head writer and then he became a showrunner and as a showrunner, he'd reach out and say, hey, greg, I loved all your reviews about me. Do you mind taking a look at this?

Greg Staffa 35:10

This is something I've created and I'm the showrunner and the the camera guy is all of a sudden this, you know doing the cinematography for a major marvel film, or this and that, and so, exactly, I think relationships people don't understand the way that the relationships are created in Hollywood are so important. I mean the adage of it's not what you know, it's who you know, and the way that you treat the bottom people, the bottom writer. Next thing you know they're writing on the top show or they're a showrunner on the top show, and so that forces a lot of people.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 35:51

We keep receipts, Greg, for the shitty people that treat us bad. We keep those receipts. You're so spot on, because

Upcoming Projects and Support for Indies

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 36:01

don't burn bridges the old guard way of doing things, of being an asshole that's out the door now. Now it's. People want to just work with good people that treat them well, because it's hard enough to get these projects off the ground. Lots of people are involved in them, so people just want to work with good people. You know the way of just treating people like crap on set. I think that's going out the window because you get a bad name for yourself. It's actually a much smaller business than people think, and word gets around fast.

Greg Staffa 36:32

So now Flux is out in theaters. Like you said, you've barely had any time to kind of breathe. What's one of the biggest takeaways that you're looking forward to the people seeing in it?

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 36:44

Well, you know it's doing its limited theatrical run, but it will be on um for for the masses, because, uh, but AMC and Regal picked this up for a limited theatrical, which is great, but for the masses it will be on VOD on August 2nd and it will be available for pre-order on July 22nd and then it will be like out pre-order on July 22nd and then it'll be like out. Then everyone can have access to it. So I just want people to see it and and dig it and, you know, spread the word and support independent cinema, because it's so important that we all rally around indie films, because there's such a huge divide between the studio system and, uh, indie artists trying to get these projects off the ground. It's, it's, it's a fight for your life.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 37:26

Many times and you know a lot of people just stream a movie or go and see it and take it for granted. But, like you know, people put blood, sweat and tears into these things and I'm just hoping that people enjoy the ride, because it's a wild rollercoaster of a ride type film it's got. You know it is a psychological thriller but it's blanketed under subgenres. It's about an actress who kind of confuses her life with the movies. So there's a little bit in there for everybody. But the thing is, I try to do something unique and different, and I don't think it's what everyone will expect the movie to be, which is what I wanted, because I wanted it to stand on its own. I took a very odd, different, unique approach to the way I did this film.

Greg Staffa 38:15

Perfect, brendan. Thank you so much for coming on. I look forward to checking out Flux and encouraging others to do so. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for you. You mentioned a Western that you are working on and some other projects, so it looks like your name will be out there for many years to come, and I wish you all the success.

Brendan Gabriel Murphy 38:35

I hope so, Greg, and thank you so much for having me on. This has been awesome. And yes, people please go see Flux. I appreciate it. Support independent film and, yeah, look for Blood Behind Us coming out next year too.