In his feature debut, Mo McRae directs and produces a thrilling and chaotic film called A Lot of Nothing. To anyone in the world, James (Y'lan Noel) and Vanessa (Cleopatra Coleman) would seem like the picture of a perfectly happy couple. Married, successful in their careers, and living comfortably, they seem to be people to look up to. But when a tragedy is reported in a news, a child is killed by a cop, and they find out the cop is their next-door neighbor (Justin Hartley), their lives soon take a sharp turn.
A Lot of Nothing tackles a lot in its 104-minute runtime. From race to class to family to trauma, the film weaves a complicated web while keeping the energy high as the stakes keep getting raised higher and higher for James and Vanessa on a night when they are hosting James' brother Jamal (Shamier Anderson) and his pregnant fiancée Candy (Lex Scott Davis).
We spoke with Mo McRae along with executive producer David Oyelowo during SXSW about the film. We discuss McRae's short film and how that inspired him for this film. And we talked about how he became involved with Oyelowo on this project. We also discussed his partnership with Sarah Kelly Kaplan who co-wrote the script with him and what the process was like working with her. The film has an amazing one-shot cold open before the credits that sets the stage for the story and we talked about how McRae shot that as well as what it was like working with his leads Y'lan Noel and Cleopatra Coleman.
Watch what Mo McRae and David Oyelowo had to say in the player above, and below is exactly what we talked about.
- What is A Lot of Nothing about?
- Where did McRae come up with the idea for the film?
- How did Oyelowo meet McRae and how did he get involved in the project?
- What was the writing process like for McRae working with Sarah Kelly Kaplan?
- How did McRae get inspired by his previous short film?
- What it is about producing that draws Oyelowo to it?
- What part of this project did Oyelowo and McRae really respond to?
- Where did the inspiration come from for the one-shot opening scene?
- How did McRae find the cast for this film and how did casting director Leslie Woo him with the proces?
- What character is based off of people in McRae's own life?