[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] "On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

"On Story" is also brought to you in part by the Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers based in Clarksburg, California.

Makers of sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the their family values since 1968.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story," a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators and filmmakers.

This week on "On Story," acclaimed filmmaker Jeff Nichols explains his approach to adapting a journalist photo book from the 1960s into a character-driven dissection of American subculture in his heart-wrenching film, "The Bikeriders."

Starring Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler.

- Nostalgia is sometimes a hard term to define, I guess.

But the idea that you're looking at these photographs and you're like, "This is no more."

And it was amazing.

The clothes and the hair and the bikes, and this was people expressing themselves in a very organic way, and it's kinda gone.

And that's what I define nostalgia as, that feeling.

And that's really what the movie's doing.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] - You said something while you were introducing that I thought was really interesting because it's how I felt after I watched the movie the first time.

And you said it gave you a feeling, the book gave you a feeling.

So can you talk a little bit more about that?

Like what struck you about that book?

- It's a collection of photographs.

And it's not just, not just, you know, the bikeriders in the sense of the guys that look like bikers.

It's dirt track races.

It's kind of the whole world of bike riding at the time in Chicago.

But the only text in the book, 'cause Danny Lyon was really into new journalism at the time, were just these interviews that he did.

One with a real woman named Kathy, and a few of the other riders.

And when you combine the photographs with the interviews, you get this full portrait of a subculture.

For a writer, it was really like an ingredient list, or a recipe of like, okay, this is how you describe a subculture.

Because you start to get their psychology, you start to understand why they live this way, really how their brains work.

And like nostalgia is sometimes a hard term to define, I guess.

But like at the end there, when they're looking at each other, they shared this moment in time that is gone.

And that is kind of sad, but it's also enjoyable and beautiful.

And that feeling is really it.

The idea that you're looking at these photographs and you're like, "This is no more."

And it was amazing.

The clothes and the hair and the bikes.

And this was people expressing themselves in a very organic way and it's kinda gone.

And that's what I define nostalgia as, that feeling.

And that's really what the movie's doing.

[motorcycle revs] ♪ She'll do nothin' but kiss and hug me ♪ ♪ My baby, true little baby, she's my baby ♪ [upbeat music] [motorcycle revs] [upbeat music] - Whoo!!

[upbeat music] - Danny Lyon's still alive, right?

- He is.

- How much did you involve him in your idea?

- It's this really strange adaptation.

Because all the awards people were trying to corner me.

They're like, "Is this an original screenplay or an adapted screenplay?"

'Cause it's all kind of positioning for the Academy Awards which is all silly.

And I was trying to give this political answer.

And then this really interesting thing happened, and I'll get back to your actual question about Danny, but we screened in Chicago, which I was very nervous about.

And like a week before we screened, a man came up to the box office with a letter that said he was Kathy and Benny's son, which we had never been able to find Kathy or Benny, or knew what happened to them.

And so it went to Disney, and then they were trying to find out if it was real or not.

So we gave it to Danny, and Danny reached out to this man.

And I remember Danny saying something like, "Well, you should get him into the screening, 'cause you based the movie off of his parents' life."

And I remember very quickly saying, "No, I didn't."

Which is really weird 'cause probably 60% of what Kathy says is from the book, her dialogue.

But this is not that woman's life.

I have no idea where she went or what she did or who she fell in love with or didn't.

All that was made up.

This love triangle, really who she was as a person, a lot of that was made up.

And it kind of brought into this kind of stark reality of like, no, no, no, this is not based on these people.

This is a romanticized version of what information I had in the book.

So back to your actual question, Danny Lyon is fascinating.

He was in his early 20s when he rode with the Chicago Outlaws, which is the club that the book was based on.

And at that point, at the age of 19, he had traveled down from New York, he was the son of a dentist.

And he became the staff photographer for the Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and became John Lewis' roommate in Atlanta.

And by the time he was 19, he'd taken some of the most iconic civil rights photographs that you've probably seen.

And then he decided to go to the University of Chicago and he was looking for a club to photograph, just kind of outsiders.

And that's when he found the Outlaws.

He didn't know that they would eventually become the second largest motorcycle gang in the world.

So in 2014, I reached out to him.

At that point, I had directed a couple of films.

I flew out to New Mexico where he lives part of the year.

And I sat down, I was very nervous, and I explained, "Hey look, I think there are cycles in society, and I think the bike riders represent one.

I saw it in the punk rock community in Little Rock in the '90s, where this thing, people feel like they don't belong.

And so they move to the outside and that's where all the interesting stuff happens.

That's where music, fashion, style, all these things are created.

But then, because it needs to be formalized, 'cause that's who we are, and because we're social creatures, we form groups, then we have to formalize it, then we make rules for it, and then inevitably it falls apart.

I was like, "This is a cycle."

And I blathered all this out.

And he listened.

"So you don't wanna make a movie about a photographer?"

[audience laughing] I think he called them morons.

[laughing] "These guys are morons."

I was like, "Well, their photos are cool."

But then he was very supportive.

And what he did actually that was so incredibly helpful is he kind of opened up his archives.

He showed me a ton more photographs that were never published, and he gave me all of the audio recordings, which were hours and hours of audio recordings.

Actually I have, do you guys wanna hear one?

- Yeah, let's hear it.

- This is a recording of the real Kathy.

[Danny] Hey Kathy, remember once you were telling me about when you first met the guys?

[Kathy] Yeah.

[Danny] How you - [Kathy] I changed.

I have!

[Danny] Tell me about that.

[Kathy] In a year, well, last year, what, from the beginning?

[Danny] Yeah, well.

[Kathy] Last year my girlfriend called me up and she asked me to come down to Grand and Division.

She needed some money.

And she said it was a bar.

And she says that the guys were having a meeting there.

Well, I didn't know the guys or anything, so I went there, and I never felt so outta place in all my life.

Who's the good-looking guy over at the pool table?

- Oh, Kathy, you don't wanna go out with him.

- Why not?

He don't look like the rest of these animals.

- Because nobody wants to go out with him.

- Why?

- Because he cracks up on his bike.

Every time he gets up on his bike, he has an accident.

- Oh, okay.

- Lemme get you a Pep.

[jukebox music plays] - Hey.

I'm Benny.

- He would do weird things like just set a microphone up in a club meeting so you can't really hear anything but you can hear what's on the jukebox.

You can hear just random conversations kind of float through.

It was an incredible resource.

[typewriter dings] - It is an interesting structure.

And honestly, kind of a risky structure.

So how did you kind of settle upon that?

- I can say this was the most complex and difficult thing I'd ever written.

The first kind of crack was figuring out, okay, Kathy's gonna be the narrator.

And that was kind of easy because her interviews were the most interesting.

And I knew, I'd kind of, out of just reading hers, I was like, it would be interesting if, if there was this love triangle between her and Benny and Johnny.

That was all fiction.

But in order to kind of get the scope of this, from 1959 to 1973, I realized I needed three interviews.

We only put dates on two of them.

But the truth is, in the laundromat, it's 1965.

In her bedroom and on her front stoop, it's 1969.

And then in Florida it's 1973.

And once I had those anchors, I realized I could go back and forth anytime I wanted to.

She would always be talking about the past.

But you could have 1973 Kathy in front of 1969 Kathy, and kind of go wherever you needed to go.

And that kind of broke the whole thing open.

I really wanted to feel like the first hour of "Goodfellas."

If you look at the first hour of "Goodfellas," no other film is structured like that.

If I were to ask you what's the plot of "Goodfellas," you probably would not say, "Oh, it's about the guys who pulled off the Lufthansa heist," which is technically the plot of "Goodfellas."

But the first hour is just about falling in love with a mobster.

And I was like, if I could do that for an hour, I'd be happy.

- Clearly you did, with Benny.

'Cause I think everybody falls in love with Benny.

And that great scene where Tommy falls in love with Benny.

When Benny goes, I mean, just like outta the blue, goes to beat the [bleep] outta that guy.

[Gail] Boyfriends are getting into trouble.

- [bleep] [punches smack] [Johnny] What the hell were you thinking back there?

- Nothing, I saw you screwing off with them guys.

What do I need to think for?

- Yeah, you and me, kid.

- That whole thing out at the car show, right?

It's kind of right in the perfect spot.

So can you talk about that?

- There was a story about the real Benny getting into a fight and missing a punch and punching through a storefront window.

And he got glass in his hand, but he just kept fighting.

I was like, "Well, that's cool."

[audience laughing] And then I had this brilliant monologue by Zipco about pinkos, which was so bizarre and strange and funny.

And I knew if I'm building, so those are the ornaments, right?

But then to get to my structure, I knew I had to start to build a love triangle.

And we spent the first 20 minutes of the movie showing why Kathy fell in love with Benny.

Now I needed to show why Johnny fell in love with Benny.

And that felt like a pretty good reason.

Because I remember actually shooting that scene.

It was our first day of filming.

Well, our first three days was that sequence.

And so I think on the second day, we got to the aftermath, where Tom and Austin are sitting there after the fight and he's wrapping a sock around his knuckle.

And Tom did his first take and he was kind of out here, I was like, "No, no, no, you have to look at him.

You have to, you think he's beautiful."

And then the second take was perfect.

And that's when, I don't know, I think we were all understanding the mechanics of what we were doing, you know?

Like you have to fall in love with him.

I think I've made a lot of films about fathers and sons and I really wanted to resist making this a father-son thing.

It would've been easy and maybe with a different actor, or actors, that could have happened, or would've happened.

But I'm really glad this happened, because it's not that.

It's really about an older man looking at a younger man and wanting to be him, which is different.

- Yeah, I mean like, and they sort of break up there at the end.

It's kind of heartbreaking, you know?

- Oh yeah.

He tears his heart out.

- I mean, the other thing I think is really phenomenal is that you've created these two very quintessentially American characters.

I mean, they are, I look at them as very American.

And you have so many other characters and they're all great, you know, but at the same time, you sort of have to keep following this track with these two.

And I'm curious, did you ever get lost in how many great characters there were to make out of this book and this world?

- I mean, it was kind of fun, it was like the actors.

Anytime it was time to go visit with another character, it was just, it was fun.

It was fun on set because I would go visit with Boyd Holbrook or Damon Herriman or Michael Shannon, and on the page, it was the same.

It was like, "Oh, I get to go listen to Cal talk about building choppers."

Like, it always felt, I don't know, enjoyable.

Because it would have been a real shame, and I wrangled with the studio a little bit on this.

'Cause they just wanted to stick with a storyline.

In the edit, they're like, "Make it shorter, faster, shorter, faster."

And people always say that about my films, 'cause they meander because they don't follow a plot.

And I was like, "No, no, no, no.

If we lose too much of these side characters talking, then you're gonna lose the point, which is to paint the picture of a subculture."

With Benny's character specifically, it was interesting, so there is a Benny in the book, he's never interviewed.

Only Kathy speaks about him.

And then the few photographs of him in the book, you never see his face.

His head's down, like at the pool table, the first photograph you saw at the end.

Or there's a shot of him from behind on his motorcycle.

So Benny, even in the book is kind of mythic.

The truth is, I found it interesting that if you create a guy who, a character that is honestly a little empty, I compare him to a glass of water with no bottom.

People keep pouring things into him and he can't hold their aspirations.

He can't hold the weight of what they want from him.

And that was really the trick to Benny.

The truth is he's, there's not much there.

And it was difficult with a guy like Austin, where there is so much there.

I mean he's the most charming human being on the planet.

And I kept saying, "Oh, you need to be emotionally unavailable here."

And he's like, "Okay."

Like, "Stop smiling, stop smiling."

"Okay, okay."

"No, you did it, did it again.

Stop."

And then Johnny's something else.

And Johnny's whole fiction, pretty much.

The thing, and I love about, this about Tom's performance.

One, he's an imposter.

He is playing the part of Marlon Brando through the whole movie, which is how Tom built that voice, and everything else, which I thought was smart.

- You can't have him.

- Who?

- You know exactly who I'm talking about.

Benny, you can't have him.

The club can't have him.

He's mine.

You know, and if he keeps riding motorcycles, he's gonna die, one way or another.

It'll kill him and you know this is true.

- What am I supposed to do about it?

You know, I don't run Benny.

Just like you don't run Benny.

Ain't nobody can tell that kid nothing.

He's grown.

He wants to ride a bike, he'll ride a bike.

- Well, not if you tell him, Johnny, not if you tell him he's out of the club.

- Come on.

- Nah, he's mine, Johnny, mine, I'm his wife, not you.

- [bleep] is that supposed to mean?

- Well I know you love him.

I love him too.

That's why you gotta do this.

- And the thing is, he's just trying to find a way to explain himself.

And he's one of the most inarticulate people on the planet.

I just love that scene after Brucie dies, where he's in the bar.

And rather than talking about that he's sad about his friend being dead, he talks about some random story about another guy's dad who wanted to keep his bike.

And he's almost there.

Like, he almost gets to the point, and then retreats.

And it's the same thing on the steps with Kathy.

She knows he's there for a reason.

Just say it.

Just say you wanna see Benny.

Say you wanna see me.

Say anything.

And he can't.

He comes up with this kind of very strange thing that he says.

- That's a great line.

- Thank you, I wrote it.

[audience laughing] But, his inability to really say what he wants to say, it's always just behind.

And that's why it's amazing to have a guy like Tom, who wears, like his emotions are, they vibrate off of his skin.

But he can't seem to grab them out of the air and enunciate them.

So yeah, that's those two guys.

- Can you talk about the theme song you had in here and then the timeline for how this all fit together?

- My brother would be real mad if he heard that called a theme song.

[audience laughing] So my brother is in a band called Lucero.

He had an album called "Nobody's Darlings," and "Bikeriders" is a song off that album.

In fact, he was the first one to give me the book.

And that was his version.

I made a movie, he made a song.

And in fact the cover of "Nobody's Darlings" is inspired by that photograph of Benny at the pool table.

And he was the first one to reach out to Danny Lyon 'cause he wanted the album cover at the time to be that photograph.

And so Danny gave him permission to do it.

And then the stupid record label was like, "No, we need you on the cover."

So he kind of recreated the photograph in a less cool way.

And so Ben was the first one to give me Danny's email address, actually.

But that song, it's interesting.

It was just on my playlist for yeah, 15 years, 18 years.

And so it would just always come up and it would be like this constant reminder, like, you should really make that film.

Yeah, I love that song.

I love Lucero.

- That whole party scene, that whole thing where they-- - The red dress?

- Yeah, the red, yeah, the red dress.

- So that happened.

That was in the book.

- Really?

Yeah, it was, that was, - Yeah, I couldn't believe it.

Like, you can't make that [bleep] up.

This woman put this dress on.

And I thought it was terrifying and frustrating, and kind of one of the beautiful things about Kathy, is in the book, she would say things that just sometimes they were funny and sometimes they were insightful and sometimes they were confounding and frustrating.

And that was one of 'em.

And it felt like a very necessary thing to include.

[typewriter dinging] - How did you go about finding those character traits that made these people so real to us from those photographs?

- Just to use Boyd as an example.

So Boyd Holbrook plays Cal.

He looks just like the Cal in the book.

And Boyd Holbrook is an incredible actor.

And he... awesome.

And he's been a lead in movies, like in big action movies and stuff.

And he was in "Wolverine," and he got all jacked.

And we've known each other for a while.

He was gonna be in "Midnight Special," but got a better part.

And now I'm in another movie.

And so we've been friends, and he's from Kentucky.

We have a lot in common.

But I was resisting calling him, even though I knew he looked like the real guy.

'Cause I thought he was all, like a beefcake, you know?

And he was like, "No, you should, let's get on a Zoom."

He's like, "I'm in this movie where I'm on a hunger strike.

So I've dropped like 30 pounds."

And I saw him and immediately was like, "Oh, that looks great."

[audience laughing] 'Cause I, it's true that in a 1960s biker film, you got a lot of male actors that wanna show up and they all are very attractive.

And you're like, "I get it."

But Boyd and what I talked about was, like he's actually not a fighter.

Cal's kind of a thinker.

He likes to tinker with bikes.

And so I can't have him be real aggressive.

And Boyd picked up on that immediately.

And there's just little things he does with his body language and other things.

When Norman Reedus' character, Funny Sonny shows up, like the way his body posture works and everything else, I mean, that's just an example.

Like every character kind of had their thing.

And a lot of that obviously was brought from the book.

Corky and Wahoo were kind of amalgams of different characters.

I mean, everybody's kind of an amalgam in some ways, but just everybody had kind of their thing.

And you didn't wanna make it too pat or too simple.

And you wanted to support it then with real words from the book.

That's kind of how I did that.

- Can you just overall talk about how you really thought about the casting with this film?

I mean, rich characters, and then of course really great actors.

- Well, I have, Francine Maisler is my casting director, and she's the best in the world.

And she has the same fascination I have, which is for faces.

You look in this book, and the way that Danny photographed these people, you really, you got to see their faces, other than Benny's.

And so we just wanted to populate this film with characters.

I think it's real easy to just cast, like I said, good looking humans.

And that's boring.

'Cause that's not the way the world is.

And so that was kind of the first mandate, was like, let's get this kind of constellation of faces.

- Are you the man in charge?

I'm Sonny.

I was hoping maybe to, little food, a little to drink, camp out for a night or two.

Wanna show a little class, contribute to the party.

- All right, help yourself.

This here is Brucie.

It's Benny right there with the boot.

And I'm Johnny.

We're the Vandals.

- Well... it's nice to meet you proper.

- I should talk about Tom and Jodie and Austin.

The first one to come was Austin.

And the script had kind of gotten out there and so there was an incoming call and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, my producer, was like, "Hey, you should meet Austin.

He's gonna play Elvis."

"Elvis" wasn't out yet.

And I flew out to LA to meet him.

And I was meeting a few other actors at the same time.

And the trailer for "Elvis" had just come out and I was able to watch that and I was like, "Okay, this guy's done some work."

Like he did some work in this.

But I had that look, the dark hair and everything else.

'Cause I hadn't really seen him in other places.

And I was downstairs at this hotel restaurant and he walked up.

It's this six foot two guy, blonde hair.

He looked just like this.

He holds his hand out to shake.

And I just was like, "This is the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life."

[audience laughing] And then he was real nice.

And then I was like, "Do you want to be in this movie?"

And he said yes.

And then he lied to me.

'Cause I was like, "Do you ride?

Do you ride motorcycles?"

He's like, "Yeah."

He didn't.

But, because he's Austin, before us, he was on the set for "Dune Two."

And I think quite illegally, he had a Harley waiting for him, like at the end of every workday, and just rode around Budapest all the time, like just training.

And then it was Jodie.

And I wasn't familiar with Jodie's work.

And before I got on the Zoom with her, Francine called, my casting director, and was like, "Just get her to say yes."

And what really caught me on the first Zoom that I had with her, she spoke about Kathy with such love.

I think it's really easy when you're playing a character from a lower socioeconomic spectrum, or maybe different education background to look down on them or judge them.

And she didn't at all.

She spoke about Kathy the way that I felt about Kathy.

I love this Kathy, I love her to death.

And I needed somebody who would carry that for me.

And Jodie was the right one.

And then I found out she's the greatest actor in the world.

Because I was traveling through London, to stop off to meet Tom Hardy for the first time.

And I got to see Jodie's one-woman show "Prima Facie," which she just won a Tony for on Broadway.

It's her on stage for an hour and 45 minutes, one-woman show.

And I walked outta there like I'm the luckiest director in the world.

Like this woman is incredible.

And I just knew the whole time.

'Cause we started off with a bunch of the guy stuff and I was like, "Just wait till Kathy gets here.

When Kathy gets here, this movie's really gonna work."

And then there's Tom.

Who doesn't want Tom Hardy in their movie?

I was friends with his manager.

So I got him the script early and Jack called and was like, "Well, Tom's gotta play this."

I was like, "I agree."

And he just doesn't say yes to a lot.

But he liked this.

And so I stopped off and I had this four-hour meeting at his house.

And at some point he was like, "Look."

Well, first he said, he was like, "Can I play Kathy?"

And I said, "No."

He's like, "Well, she's the best written character."

I was like, "Yes, she is, but you can't."

And then he said, "Well, I just can't imagine letting anybody else do this."

And so then he said yes.

And that was it.

[typewriter dings] [Narrator] You've been watching "The Bikeriders" with Jeff Nichols on "On Story."

"On Story" is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story Project that also includes the "On Story" radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about "On Story" and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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