So, how influential were mob movies to you when you were growing up? The Birthday Cake is definitely an homage to them.
Very influential. From Mean Streets… well, basically all the Scorcese stuff. I love all the early Scorcese stuff; I think it’s great. Sean Price Williams, the DP, told me about some Japanese Mafia movies, and I watched a lot of those. Yakuza Suicide was one I really liked. Dude, those movies were so punk rock. They were just whipping the camera around. They were doing things where you could see that they did it first. As a kid, I always watched the mafia stuff. More importantly, I always liked New York set productions. The two together just seem to really work.
I think this is a really great New York story. I think people who watch it who live in New York will notice many landmarks in it. I think that makes it really special.
Shooting on location was very important for me. I wanted to shoot down in Bensonhurst and around Brooklyn. I didn’t want to show the Empire State Building or anything like that. I wanted to keep it in the neighborhood. Show the authentic New York, which is most of it.
“So many people have slept on my couch, and now they have 1,000 couches, you know?”
Going on with that, when you guys shot in the bodega and the bar, they were open. I think that’s really cool, and I wanted to know how that worked out. Did it go pretty smoothly?
It went well. You can’t fake that energy. When we were there, we had an option to close down the bodega, but we kept it open. When we went into this bar in Bensonhurst and were talking to them, asking if we could shoot a movie, they gave us a look like that said, “Get outta here.” Then I explained to them that I had been living in New York for the past 15 years. This is the idea; this is the concept. Telling them on a real human level that this is not a big-budget movie. We’re doing this because we love it and are artists.
Really talking to the bar owner on a human level about being passionate about this and what we like about the bar. And that is everything. Talking in a real way to these guys and gals really worked. We didn’t go in there with some Hollywood bullshit. They didn’t care about that. They’re like, “Are you guys gonna be cool?” We had a great locations guy too, and our line producer, Greg Butta, knew the area. He’s from Bensonhurst. So he understood the etiquette and everything.
Something I’ve noticed that you do, whether it’s in music or film, is that you give your friends a platform to do their own thing within the framework you set up, which I appreciate. I just want to know what your feelings are in regards to working with friends.
The reason why I would give opportunities to my friends is not that I’m like, “Yo! You’re my friend, you should do this!” It’s because I believe in them, and they’re great at what they do. Whether they’re successful in the industry or not there yet. So many people have slept on my couch, and now they have 1,000 couches, you know? And they’ve been just as talented the whole time.
Even for music, I put one of my friends, Nigel Harris, with who I made a lot of music…I think he lives up in Harlem now. I put one of his songs in the film, and I don’t even know if he knows it yet. He doesn’t even care. He’s just out there hustling, doing his thing — real-life s**t. But, if it’s right, I want to collaborate with whoever. It doesn’t matter. It feels good; it’s always fun to work with friends. Because when you go to work and your friends are there, whether we’re doing a small project or a big project, that’s everything.
