THUNDER ROAD

Distributing his own film, Jim watched 'Thunder Road' develop a significant following worldwide, particularly in France. “The French love it,” he said. “It hits those problems in French cinema right now, where movies are either strictly comedies or they are strictly dramas, and our movie does both at the same time. So a lot of French audiences were like, 'This is a breath of fresh air.' We opened in 130 cinemas across the country, like 12 theatres in France or in Paris, which is crazy. We doubled the budget in French ticket sales alone in the first two weeks." There were other countries, however, where Jim was surprised by the feedback he received from audiences. "[In] Germany, we screened in the Munich Film Festival, and they hated it. They said, ‘You should take the comedy out.’ They had no sense of humour for this guy. They didn't find that character funny at all. And they're like, 'How dare you put comedy into this movie!’”

Writing the screenplay for the film, Jim took a unique approach to make the dialogue as authentic as possible. "I wrote the short film in my car on the drive to work, and it was just me doing it out loud, the monologue, so that was easy. I was able to play 'Thunder Road', and practiced the monologue a thousand times over on my drives to and from work. I would come up with something and be like, 'Oh it's good,' and I recorded that in my voice memo app on my phone. To write the feature was the same thing. I just sat in my buddy's basement and put on the 'Nebraska' album by Bruce Springsteen and hung out and acted it out by myself. It was workshopping each scene as it comes out of human vocal chords, not me sitting with a screenplay software open, writing down how I'm imagining characters speak. I found that to be incredibly freeing, and I've written almost everything since like that, just talking it out and finding the things that are funny and finding the things that are heartbreaking."

The film has received rave reviews, but to get to that point, Jim had to push through a lot of discouragement. "Every fucking day! Every minute of every day. The industry is based on discouraging you to prevent people from being able to do it themselves, because if you can make your own movie you are no longer the industry subordinate, you are their competition. I spent years imagining that I was a terrible filmmaker and I wasn't going to make anything of myself, and I should pursue something else. I guess that's how it is in every industry, but in the film industry it's really damning, and it can prevent people from actually making anything. I wasn't a real artist for a long time. I realise all that shit's imaginary and in-your-mind bullshit, and you just have to work hard. If you just keep working hard and you're persistent and you challenge yourself, anybody can be anything."

The creative challenges weren't the only issues Jim faced - he had his share of physical problems too. "I had kind of resolved to the idea that this movie was going to kill me, and that I would be okay with that. Saying it out loud, I realise that I'm mad, I never said that before, but that's true. This was a self-sacrifice movie; I'm going to put everything that I have into this film, emotionally, physically, and if I die before I'm able to make my next one, I'll be happy. Months after shooting, and I had a knee brace, I couldn't lift anything above my left shoulder. I'd cut my artery open on my left arm when I broke the window. And still I was like, 'Oh, it's fine, no, I'm fine. It's totally fine,' and superglued it shut on the car ride to the next set. That was the point of the movie - to make something impressive and to do each scene in these long takes and have it be really difficult to perform."

Far from resting on the success of 'Thunder Road', Jim has been working hard on a number of exciting new projects, proving he’s no one-hit wonder. "I just shot and I wrote, directed and starred in my first studio movie. It's called 'The Werewolf', which is pretty cool. Then I'm running a crowd equity campaign on the 28th and 29th [of April 2019]. Kind of like a Kickstarter campaign, except the backers own [a] percentage of the film, and so they'll be able to collect on it in perpetuity, like an investment. And then the big one, the one that's more in line with the emotions of 'Thunder Road', is another father-daughter story about movies and how they can be life-affirming, and that's a kid's adventure film that I want to make soon."

'Thunder Road' hits cinemas in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart on the 25th April, and is screening in Melbourne and Perth cinemas now. Click here to read my 4-star review of ‘Thunder Road’.