The Knockturnal sat down with actor Nicholas Baroudi and filmmaker Tracy Lucca about their new film ‘Dark State.’
Actor Nicholas Baroudi stars as Rusty in the Indie film and said, “If you’re into a psychological, intellectual narrative to ride with some real substantive characters – but you don’t have to skimp on the action – this is your ticket. It’s nice to see there’s a little room for something unique out there.”
This psychological thriller follows a local reporter who’s writing an article about a car accident and the deceased passengers: a retired Army intelligence officer, an heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, and a self-confessed serial killer. As she begins to investigate why these seemingly unconnected people would be together in the same car, a complicated and sinister picture begins to emerge.
Baroudi said of his character Rusty, “The cool thing about my character is he kind of gets to be the perspective for the audience. As he’s learning he’s introducing the new information to the audience. He’s never really ahead of the audience, you’re going on the journey with him.”
The brain behind the film is writer and director Tracy Lucca who said she found inspiration from the real world.
“It’s very timely. The genesis was really my interest in these topics. Every time I wanted to write about politics – which I love – or psychological thrillers I kept coming back to this subject matter and that’s where my interests were,” she said.
Lucca said it’s been a five-year journey from the time she had the idea for the film, wrote it, got the production going and then its release was halted due to Covid.
“There’s a whole bunch of things in the film like Deep State – things you’ll see once or twice on the news and they’ll go away. We talk about subjects in the film and kind of delve into a lot of different issues like the Me Too movement. There’s a lot of relevant, timely issues.
The movie opened in select theaters on March 19 and will be released on On Demand on May 4.