ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Pain Hustlers director David Yates and producer Lawrence Grey. The duo discussed the dark subject matter of the Netflix movie and Chris Evans’ rap scene. Pain Hustlers is now streaming on Netflix.
“Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) is a blue-collar single mom who has just lost her job and is at the end of her rope,” reads the movie’s official synopsis. “A chance meeting with pharmaceutical sales rep Pete Brenner (Chris Evans) puts her on an upwards trajectory economically but dubious path ethically as she becomes entangled in a dangerous racketeering scheme. Dealing with her increasingly unhinged boss (Andy Garcia), the worsening medical condition of her daughter (Chloe Coleman), and a growing awareness of the devastation the company is causing forces Liza to examine her choices. Pain Hustlers is a sharp and revealing look at what some people do out of desperation and others do out of greed.”
Tyler Treese: There’s a comedic element to Pain Hustlers. It’s quite funny at times, but it’s simultaneously tackling these very real problems of the healthcare industry and addiction. Was that kind of balance necessary because the reality is just so depressing? What was the approach here?
David Yates: The approach is to bring as many people to the movie as possible. It is a huge topic. It’s a serious topic, and my fear is if you’re too earnest with your approach, people just switch off. They just see it on the news; they’ve seen it in other dramas. People feel they know it. So you get a couple of big movie stars, you craft a really entertaining and immersive script that moves at pace, and you deliver a really exhilarating experience for the audience, and it brings people to the subject. So that is a “Trojan Horse “approach to storytelling. Make it fun, make it entertaining, but leave them with a message. So that was our approach.
Emily Blunt and Chloe Coleman are both great in their roles. That mother-daughter connection that they have is established early on and really gets viewers invested in the journey. Can you speak to that core relationship that drives all of Liza’s actions throughout? It really shows how even with good intentions, things can get twisted very quickly.
Lawrence Grey: Yeah, I really think that you hit the core of it. The relationship of these three generations of women was really the sort of “Eureka” moment for us when we knew we’d found the soul of the film. We’d spent a lot of time observing the world of pharma, the criminal corruption within the industry, and the way that that system operates.
But it wasn’t until we had amalgamated and composited these characters together and our writer had brought some of their own personal stuff from his own life and imbued that into the characters that they really came to life, as we would watch this story of these three women doing pretty much anything because she’s this mom who is struggling to go and support her daughter — it’s such a unique relationship. They almost have more of a friendship than they do of a traditional mother-daughter role, which has shadows of Liza’s relationship with her own mother, played by Catherine O’Hara. Those characters are just really vivid and really interesting and fun to watch doing pretty much anything.
Chris Evans’ rap performance later in the film is such a highlight. How was it filming that? It’s just incredible that Evan’s charisma still shines through even when he is playing the scummiest of characters.
David Yates: Credit to Chris. We gave him the lyrics for that at the last possible minute. We were noodling the lyrics, and we were noodling the music for several weeks. I kept saying to Chris every day, “We’re going to get you the lyrics. We’re going to get you the rap, don’t worry.” And every day, we still wanted to noodle it some more. So literally, on the morning we shot it, I said, “We finally got the lyrics, Chris.” [Laughs]. “And we’ve finally got the music.” And there are so many actors — many of them not movie stars — who would just go, “I’m not doing it mate. I need another day to prepare for this.” I can’t just do this now you’re just giving me this piece of paper with these lyrics on. Forget it. But Chris said, “Man, leave it with me.”
And he was literally pacing up and down in that ludicrous suit that Colleen Atwood designed, looking at the lyrics, reading them over and over again, and we’d wait for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, I’d pop my head in, “You ready Chris?” “Give me a minute.” We closed the door. It was literally right on the cusp. Then he just came out, and he did it. He did it really brilliantly and with, I have to say, a degree of dignity, because anyone wearing that costume … it is sort of obviously absurd. But he just went for it and [was] very entertaining. The crowd didn’t need much encouragement to go wild. They really went wild. It was wonderful.
