5 Questions with Max Roux
The new short from Max Roux, “Auxiliary Man,” is an even split between crime thriller and bumbling comedy, carried by a great, sweaty performance from Roux himself. We asked the director/star how the project came together, what the biggest challenge was, and a recent film he’s loved…
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking
I grew up in Los Angeles, mostly in the San Fernando Valley, and I was sort of just obsessed with movies from an early age. I don't think I ever really had any other interests, which is maybe sad, but movies always brought me a great deal of comfort growing up. It was weird growing up in Hollywood, so close to the world I wanted to be a part of because none of my family were involved in the industry and I didn't really have a way in. I was pretty bad at school and ended up getting kicked out of a couple of high schools, so I spent my teenage years working at video stores and movie theaters, eventually becoming a projectionist at an art house theater.
My first loves though were early Tim Burton movies like "Beetlejuice" and the original "Batman" series. I was obsessed with his stuff and also being a 90s kid, grew up loving a lot Adam Sandler movies like "Billy Madison," which I think informed my sense of humor in a lot of ways. But seeing "Magnolia" at an early age kind of sealed the deal for me. I didn't obviously completely grasp everything going on in it, but I think being so young and growing up in the valley around very big, dramatic personalities helped me connect so much to the emotionally visceral quality of the film. My local video store got me really into the kind of gritty, "edgy" stuff you respond to as a teenager and introduced me to guys like Larry Clark and Todd Solondz. "Happiness" definitely had a major effect on me and continues to, as it really endeared me to darkly comedic portrayals of loneliness.
I made a lot of small short films with my friends growing up that were silly rip-offs of other things we liked, but I didn't really start seriously making things until my 20s when I made a series of short films revolving around the LA transit system and then a 10 episode digital series about my experiences working at a movie theater. So I think that's when my "voice" or "style," whatever you wanna call it, started to develop more.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
For "Auxiliary Man," the initial idea sprang up after my writing partner, Nick Laskin, and I went to see a screening of Elaine May's "Mikey & Nicky" at the New Beverly. It had been a favorite of mine for a while, but I remember paying more attention to the specificity of the Ned Beatty character. He's just this kind of average, schlubby hitman who can't keep track of his mark and I thought that was so interesting and funny. So Nick and I just kind of took our love for Michael Mann movies and the kind of neurotic, temper-prone characters Sandler played in his early comedies and "Punch-Drunk Love" and wondered what it would be like if you combined those worlds.
I think it really came to life once we thought about it from the perspective of a struggling millennial who's essentially a freelancer looking for work, but if he was just a hitman. It's essentially contract work, so it made it a lot more personal for us to imagine a guy who just wanted to prove himself so he could make a steady living doing something he thinks he's passionate about, only to find out he's not very good at it. There's also the LA specificity of like, a hitman who can't find parking, is constantly in traffic, and having to move around a sprawling city to get to his final destination, being driven crazy by the most mundane anxieties we all feel.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the best, and the least?
The biggest challenge is always time and money. I'm constantly struggling to think of something that's just like "two actors and a room." It's always slightly bigger, and this was something that was mostly taking place in a car, so I think the biggest challenge for myself and my cinematographer (Marshall Douglis) was coming up with ways to shoot a guy having a slow motion panic attack in his car that didn't feel overly repetitive. Of course, part of the repetitiveness is intentional and honest to what this guy's night would look like, but I think shooting in a car can make you feel literally and figuratively boxed in, so you're constantly trying to think of what you can do to subvert that. I think also when you're acting and directing and you're in pretty much every single frame, you start to wonder if you're getting everything. I luckily have a very talented DP who I've been working with for years and we have a pretty solid second hand, so that was extremely beneficial.
As far as the creative process, I definitely enjoy being on set the most. I love collaborating with everybody and the energy of having a group of really talented people with different backgrounds and ideas to bring to the table. I love working with actors and being surprised by the choices they can make and how it helps reshape the way you look at the scene. I also really loved collaborating with my costume designer Brittany Pires on this one specifically. I'm very specific about things like wardrobe and title design and aesthetics in general, but it was really fun to find the wardrobe for these characters.
Unfortunately, I enjoy writing and editing the least. Even though both have tremendously rewarding moments, they're both similarly the most painstaking creative aspects of the process for me. They're where I'm most in my head because I'm constantly feeling like I'm not articulating what I want well enough, or just feeling generally insecure about the work.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
There were two films I've seen recently that blew me away for completely different reasons, but both because I couldn't believe how well their directors pulled them off. "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" because I had never seen any of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's films before and wanted to dive into his work, and it just floored me. The confidence behind the camera, the way he allowed so many different tones to seamlessly blend into one another, and the ending just crushed me. On the complete opposite spectrum, I was really surprised by Lorene Scafaria's "Hustlers." I think it's so hard to pull something off that's that entertaining, crowd-pleasing and funny, but also so tightly constructed and politically complex. I think there's been a habit recently in movies to let the political or sociological subtext overwhelm the narrative and preach to the audience as if we're stupid, and "Hustlers" was one of the first things I've seen recently that worked on all fronts. I think both movies are sort of magic tricks, for very different reasons.
5) What’s next for you?
I've been developing a project with my writing partner that we're hoping is a first feature for me to direct. It's something we're both very passionate about, so we're just trying to get the right person equally excited about it, or attract the right attention. That's my main focus, but in the meantime, I'm sure we'll be trying to shoot more smaller projects in the upcoming months.
—
Instagram: @forthehungryboy
Twitter: @frthehungryboy