American Spirit, directed by Christopher Yates is a walk-n-talk romantic drama in the vein of the Before series. It stars Yasmeen Fletcher, Cooper Roth, and Mackinlee Waddell. Brian Taylor sat down with them at this year’s Austin Film Festival to discuss their film.
Brian Taylor: So, Christopher [Yates], as I watched your film, I couldn’t help but think of the Before series.
Christopher Yates: Of course.
Brian: Where did the idea for this story come from?
Christopher: I was very interested in making a feature and I think it’s certainly inspired by something like Slacker or the Before trilogy where it’s like what do I have access to, what locations are familiar to me and that are right here, and I can film in them. And so looking at something like Shithouse too, Cooper Raiff’s film, which is very Before trilogy, and just seeing what he managed to do with $15,000 bucks in his college campus, I was like, “well, I could do that, but tell my own story.” And I think I was really interested in this connection between the past and the present. And, like in the Before trilogy, and in Shithouse, these are two people meeting for the first time. So I was interested in, what does it look like to have somebody know a past version of you and now they’re meeting this new version of you, and maybe you can see through the other person, oh, I’ve changed so much, or I haven’t changed much at all. So, I thought that would be fun to explore and it’ll be a new twist on that. I don’t know if you can call it a genre of the walk and talk. But certainly films like Hong Sang-soo’s films as well, he makes like three features a year, a hundred thousand dollars each. And it’ll be like two people sitting in a booth like this, and the same shot will hold for 30 min. I’m like, “oh, a movie can be that.” And so I was just inspired by maximizing minimal resources to tell a compelling story.
Brian: And I remember hearing Robert Rodriguez talk about El Mariachi having the turtle in the film because it was his turtle, you know. In the nineties, I was in my twenties, so the Before series always kind of felt like, you talk to me, you know, because it was like conversations you would have with people. Did you write this film with that in mind, meaning talking to those people and the characters in the age group that draw in your age area?
Christopher: I mean, certainly we wanted to speak to people our age and people on this stage of life. I think we live in a different world than like what was in the Before trilogy and I think there’s always something for young voices to say. I think that that perspective isn’t necessarily super present in film. So, we really wanted to tell an authentic story with that voice in mind, and I think we achieved that. I think everything they talk about, and maybe even more importantly, the way they talk, is relatable, and it’s authentic to people our age. And I think, you know, they talk a lot about things, and they don’t arrive at an answer or like a conclusion, it’s just like, “well, I feel this way,” and that’s it, and I think it’s important to put a name to certain feelings and I think this film does that.
Brian: Oh, I agree. That was actually something that I noticed when I was watching it, I felt like it talked to a Gen Z group, those people in their twenties, like the Before series and like Shithouse is the same thing, talking to a certain age group. But you still feel the beats of the movie so you can be any age to enjoy it and resonate with it.
Christopher: And that’s something that struck me is that I have had much older people come up to me and be like, “this was so relatable,this is what being this age felt like, this is what college felt like.” I talked just now about how much has changed, but it’s interesting to know that things haven’t changed that much either, no matter what the world looks like, this time in people’s lives is always gonna be so transformative and so so uncertain.
Brian: And confusing.
Christopher: It’s very confusing.
Brian: And this is for Yasmeen [Fletcher] and Cooper [Roth], I wanna talk about y’all’s characters. They felt pretty natural. So I was curious, what helped kind of find Melody’s and Jonathan’s voice?
Yasmeen Fletcher: I’ve said this time and time again today, but I feel like so much of Melody’s voice was so beautifully displayed on the page that it was so easy for me to see her fully as a human being standing in front of me. And I felt like I got to know her in that way. Reading the script really felt like she was telling me exactly who she was and I just happened to understand what she was saying. So, I felt like I got to implement little parts of myself, of course, to make it feel authentic to me and implement past experiences and memories and all these things to draw from. But, Christopher did such a wonderful job conveying what he wanted out of her that I felt like I understood what she needed and I was able to just step in and bring myself just enough to convey her current situation in the past.
Cooper Roth: When you have a script that is as good as this and also as deeply rooted in people’s past lives. I think a lot of Jonathan’s work, especially there’s a lot of trauma that he’s kind of trying to get over that he’s experienced in the past. And so, I tried, at least to find the voice part of it. I did a lot of work off script and did a lot of work on just sort of like, who is this being? And what does he feel? And what is he trying to figure out? And at the same time, when he’s talking about these things, what is he talking about? What does this mean? When he’s talking about his girlfriend that he had for two months, and she shipped out Etsy packages.
Like, what did that feel like, you know, what was the drive like? There’s certain things that I think I wanted to be able to really feel when I was talking about it. So, I try to do a lot of work off script to find the voice of those memories, because that’s all he’s speaking through for most of it, he’s so nostalgic. They’re both very nostalgic people, they really do enjoy their memories and telling stories. And I think they haven’t seen each other in so long, they’re just trying to catch up on that. And I’ve experienced that even recently with an ex, going over new stories that you guys both don’t know, and being like, “whoa, this is so weird. Like, we used to just tell each other this shit every day,” you know. And so I think finding that voice was a huge part of it. You’re right, it’s such an important part of how we found that naturalism, I think, was first being, like, okay, well, who are these people? Like, what do they mean to us?
Brian: Well, I think each individual sees themselves in both the characters, in both Melody and Jonathan because I think we’ve all been in those exact same scenarios on both sides.
Cooper: It’s also good writing having two different sides of two very different people.
Christopher: I’ve seen many people read this script. Many, many people. It is not as easy as simply what’s written. These two are just so performative and natural, so talented.
Brian: So, this is a question for all of y’all. Talking to enough filmmakers, there always seems to be movies that influence them when they’re going through the process. I find a lot of people kind of have a movie playlist, per se, that they tend to watch, they kind of get into those movies, they kind of get into maybe the roles they get into, you know, what kind of mood you’re trying to set. So can y’all talk about some of the movies that y’all watched to kind of get into this.
Yasmeen: I think, like Christopher was saying, obviously the Before trilogy is a huge one, watching Past Lives actually during filming. I had watched it just before we started filming, and it came out during filming, and we all watched it.
Christopher: Yeah, the three of us went and saw it a couple of days before we shot.
Yasmeen: And honestly, that felt like a big influence for me.
Christopher: Even on the cinematography, we were like, “oh, they did the shot in Past Lives , let’s do it.”
Yasmeen: There was a level of naturalism to all of the characters that really felt like I could implement bits and pieces of what Celine Song did so beautifully. Shithouse was obviously a really big one, watching that.
Cooper: I re watched Normal People before. That was one that I re watched just because they have a lot of bits in there where they’re talking about stuff that they remember, or stories that they’ve had, or things that they’ve done. So, I kind of just wanted to check out how they navigated that. But then it was funny, because I felt like everything I’d watched that was good, like Past Lives, were like that. It would all just like dawned on me. Finally, I was like, “I gotta stop. I gotta stop watching it.” And just know that I’ve gotta do the work, it’s not just gonna come by watching someone, you know?
Yasmeen: I don’t know if you did too, but I made a playlist for Melody too, and I watched movies for Melody. And the same thing every time I was like, “I think I just gotta know what she’s talking about, I gotta know her family.” That’s not helping.
Brian: Past Lives completely destroyed me. It was one of my favorites last year.
Yasmeen: It’s one of my favorites now, it’s in my top four.
Christopher: It’s also in mine.
Brian: It’s an incredible movie. Christopher, I wanna know how long did it take you to write the script? I know you were able to shoot it on UT’s [University of Texas] campus, which looks like with very little pedestrian traffic. How were you able to film in those areas when obviously a lot of students go there?
Christopher: So, I wrote the script in about a month. I got the first draft, so that was like December to January, 2022 to 2023, and then I made some really small changes to be honest, the second draft was very similar. And then the second draft is what we sent out for the casting call in March of 2023. So, it was kind of a stupidly fast process, which is not the norm for how I write; I’m by no means a fast writer, generally. But I think this one, because it’s so conversational, it just flows, it goes back and forth, it has to. In terms of filming on campus, we filmed in the summer, it was June of 2023, so all the students were at home. It was also the middle of the night, so there’s no students to party, and it’s the middle of the night anyway. We were able to avoid pretty much entirely any disruptive people.
Brian: How many days did y’all shoot over?
Christopher: Eleven days. It was pretty fast.
Brian: And speaking of scripts, what was your toughest scene to write?
Christopher: I rewrote the scene in Kerby Lane a million times.
Yasmeen: I feel like the phone call scene was one.
Christopher: Oh, yeah, that’s true. Me and Yasmeen rewrote that together like the day before we filmed it, something about it just wasn’t flowing.
Yasmeen: Something wasn’t clicking. I feel like it was the one scene in rehearsals that I was walking away from going, “something’s not working, and I can’t figure out what it is.” And we weren’t really able to pinpoint what just wasn’t clicking the way that every other scene was clicking. So, at some point I think I texted Christopher and was like, “hey, can we figure this out?”
Christopher: And it’s great to work with people who aren’t afraid to be like, “hey, this doesn’t work.” And I don’t wanna film something that doesn’t work just to save my ego. So, working with people who I was so creatively aligned with and who understood the film well enough to be like, “hey, this isn’t flowing like the rest of the film is flowing, something’s wrong.” That was really rewarding.
Yasmeen: I think we all felt the same way.
Christopher: And no offense was gonna be taken if we brought something up.
Cooper: It was also that act of translating something to just always something there always gets either lost or you find something and you’re like, “I want more of that.” I mean, the script got tossed around everywhere, there weren’t many projects that were going down also around that time, too. So, I think you just hit on the perfect moment of people who were looking for good writing. I just remember everyone’s reps [representatives] were sending it their way, just being like, “script is really good, like, you should check this out.” And that’s how I got it, from my manager being like, “hey, this is kind of a small indie, but it is really, really, really well written.” And I was like, “okay, if you’re saying that, l might as well check it out.”
Brian: I agree, it is really well written. This is also kind of a question for all of you, what was the toughest scene to shoot?
Yasmeen: I felt like, maybe it was more me, but I think the argument was the most emotionally exhausting for me. Also because it was the last night and we’ve done 11 nights at that point and it’s just me crying for however many hours in a row. I wouldn’t even say that that was hard. I don’t think I had a scene that I was like, well, maybe the phone call, actually.
Cooper: That was a hard one for you.
Christopher: That one was really hard.
Yasmeen: I don’t know. I think everybody made it so easy for me. I’ve said this multiple times to them, I think that they did so well that they made my job inexplicably easy. I feel like I didn’t do a dang thing because I wasn’t taking all of the weight off my shoulders. So, I never really had a night where I was like, “this scene is hard.”
Cooper: Mine was the long walking one, which is funny because I kind of felt like shit doing that scene. I don’t remember why, I was just tired or something.
Yasmeen: We were trying to go over it before.
Christopher: It was also the night it rained so we were rushed.
Cooper: And there was a lot going on. It was funny. In my notes I just wrote “best scene.”
Mackinlee Waddell: It’s like when you’re so tired and can’t even be conscious of what’s really going on.
Cooper: Yeah, I felt like I just let it go. It was so nice. I don’t know, there was something about it. I was like, “this might be my favorite scene,” which is hilarious because I easily felt the worst.
Yasmeen: That’s crazy, but you killed it.
Mackinlee: The scene where I peed in the garage was too explicit to include.
Christopher: They had to cut it.
Brian: But you know it’s in spirit, so that’s the only part that matters. And who hasn’t peed in the garage?
Cooper: It’s a cutscene at the end. It’s like the Thanos thing.
Yasmeen: Yeah, we took a page out of Marvel’s book because they did so well.
Christopher: Riley will return.
Brian: In the next story.
Christopher: That would be fine. I’d love to make a movie for Riley’s [Mackinlee Waddell] character.
Cooper: That’s why the movie is rated R because we didn’t censor it.
Mackinlee: You see everything, full bush.
Yasmeen: We had to cut it for the AFF [Austin Film Festival] because it was a family screening.
Christopher: Apparently, they labeled our movie a family friendly screening.
Yasmeen: She’s going to have it in the blu-ray.
Mackinlee: And then I beat Jonathan to death at the end.
Cooper: I know. We didn’t know each other and then it was like, Ow!”
Brian: I felt bad for you.
Mackinlee: I hear he made her cry, naturally.
Yasmeen: She beat his ass, rightfully so.
Brian: Thank you for y’all’s time
