After being privileged enough to watch the special screening of Stealing Cars, I was allowed to listen to some of the films cast be interview given by Terry Winters, writer of “The Wolf of Street” and husband to Stealing Cars producer Rachel Winters. As I result I got to learn some really cool things about the movie I got to review.
When writer Steve Mackall was asked about the inception of Stealing Cars, he informed us that the film was inspired by an article co-writer Will Aldis read in the LA Times, in 1999, about a boy in a detention center. The boy had Crohn’s disease and was neglected by the staff which led to his death. From this article came the concept of the Al Calderon’s character of Nathan.
“We thought it was a compelling story to tell and thought it could be an important story to tell,” said Mackall.
While there were many “happy accidents” described by the cast like the entire stone moving scene which director Bradley Kaplan called “a clusterfuck of a day” which turned out great, there were also some bad ones.
Kaplan told the audience about Jeff Lima, who played Carlos, actually getting hit with an elbow in the big fight scene but fortunately shrugging it off. Kaplan also described accidentally damaging the car that belonged to the warden in the movie, calling it “a not so happy accident.”
“I promised the owner, I got on my knees ‘Dude I promise nothing will happen to your car,’” said Kaplan adding that “as fake as it might have looked, the car really did hit the gate.”
After the formal interview, there was time for the cast to take questions from the audience.
The first audience member asked about this length of this process “from concept to now” to which Rachel Winters answered that the script was written in 1999, she read it in 2001, and they began filming in 2013.
Winters said that they almost made the film at Warner Brothers for $19 million dollars with Chad Michael Murray.
Terry Winters added that he had “hair and hope” back then.
Kaplan informed us that they had 17 days to finish this movie, “102 pages of script in 17 days, rock star stuff,” he said.
The next audience member asked if there was a specific center this was based on. Rachel told us that the Arizona Boys Ranch, which had a Nurse Tina who was much less sympathetic in real life than in the film. This was the ranch where the inspiration for Nathan the character, died.
The night ended with John Leguizamo, who the played the warden, informing us about GOSO (Getting Out and Staying Out), an organization in New York City, which helps former detainees recover properly.
“It actually really works and it’s a beautiful program. It’s one of the thing you can do,” said Leguizamo.
The post-screening interview was extremely enlightening as it put the film in perspective. All in attendance gained respect for the hard work of the entire cast, and most importantly, awareness about an important issue.
