Exclusive interview: Writer and director John Swab talks ‘Little Dixie’

Writer and director John Swab has been carving out a niche for himself in the crime thriller genre over the last few years, with Little Dixie the filmmaker’s latest feature to put a fresh coat of paint on the familiar stylings, tropes, and trappings of a revenge-fueled rampage.

Frank Grillo stars as Doc Alexander, a fixer of sorts who maintains a tenuous truce between a drug cartel and local government. However, when the delicate balance is shattered, and the nefarious narcos kidnap his daughter, Doc is forced to take matters into his own hands in an effort to regain his child at any cost, leaving a trail of broken bodies and destruction in his wake.

Little Dixie comes to select theaters, digital, and on-demand this coming Friday, and ahead of the movie’s release, We Got This Covered had the chance to speak to Swab about his latest foray into the world of hard-boiled throwbacks that seek to drag the old school kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.

In our deep dive, we cover the origins of Little Dixie, his personal and professional partnerships with many regular collaborators including leading man Grillo and producer Jeremy Rosen, as well as what’s coming up next, and you can check it out below.

How does it feel to know getting closer and closer to the release of your latest feature?

It’s good. And it’s exciting. We love all these movies, but I feel like we love Little Dixie a little bit more. It’s a lot of fun, and we’re very proud of it, so I’m excited to share it with everybody.

The film gives off serious old school vibes, so was it always envisioned as your homage, tribute or nod to the classic hard-boiled thrillers of the past? Because there’s also a timelessness to the setting and technology that means you can watch Little Dixie a decade from now, and it’ll still play the exact same way.

I mean, that’s flattering that you’re saying that. This is very much a hard-boiled film. You know, who better than Frank Grillo to be the number one in such a story? And yeah, I mean, we make no secret about it. It’s very much influenced by our favorite films of the past that don’t seem to get made as much anymore. So it’s important for us to champion those a little bit with references here and there, but also to make it our own and, hopefully, bring it up to speed a little bit. You know, that little modern touch. So yeah.

Little Dixie is a throwback thriller, but there were some twists and turns that I was fully expecting to happen that didn’t pan out. It’s a great example of how you can tell an old school, classic revenge story that still manages to surprise by not sticking to formula.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, like Rolling Thunder, or The Friends of Eddie Coyle, or The Getaway. Things like that, those are the kind of movies that this story was influenced by. Favorites of mine, favorites of Jeremy [Rosen], my producer who I make these movies with.

So yeah, it was important that it felt kind of fresh in a way, but really just fresh in a way that those films felt back in the day when they came out, where it wasn’t so predictable what was going to happen around every term. I feel like some of the other hard-boiled movies that come out today are very formulaic, and don’t really take those turns that we really, really wanted to take.

Doc is a million miles away from being what you’d call a white hat hero, seeing as he’s forced to do some horrific things to get his daughter back. Were there every any concerns on your part of taking him down a path that was so dark as to be irredeemable, or was it always reliant on Frank’s performance as much as it was your writing to ensure that couldn’t happen?

I never really worried about that. I mean, again, like the beauty of these hard-boiled stories, is they are very simple. In the case of like a John Wick, for instance, once his dog is hurt, he kind of can do no wrong. That won’t make him irredeemable, and it’s kind of… Not to compare this in any way, but if you take a man’s daughter, kind of anything is on the table to happen to get her back.

So I never really worried about that. I also know Frank, and Frank is one of those people, even in real life, you’re like, “I don’t know if you’ve killed people or not. I have no idea. I wouldn’t put it past you. However, you’re one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, you know, but you could kill me with your bare hands.”

So it’s kind of this weird dichotomy of he is not a white hat hero. In fact, he’s a very flawed hero. And those are my favorite kind, the kind of guys that you feel bad rooting for, but you can’t help yourself because there’s good in them.

Frank’s work ethic could generously be described as unstoppable, and when I spoke to James DeMonaco a while back, he joked that he’d probably made three movies in the time we’d been talking. Does having that sort of presence and drive set the tone for the cast and crew, especially in a movie like Little Dixie where he’s the focal point of the story?

Certainly. I’ve learned a lot about making movies with Frank, because of the… not the pace, it’s not like a careless pace, that he makes films or the way that he works. It’s very tactical, and it’s very thought out, and it’s without wasting any time. So I think, when there’s somebody like that on set, who suffers no fools, and who shows up prepared ready to go, if anybody’s unprepared, they’re quickly going to run back to their trailer and get prepared. And the same goes for crew, everybody, you know.

It’s a culture thing now, especially on Jeremy and I’s sets, it’s kind of grown to be this thing, where we expect people to show up and work and work hard and not waste time. This isn’t summer camp, we want people to enjoy themselves, but we’re also here to execute a job. And to do it at the highest level we’re able to, and a lot of the times, punching way above our weight class, financially.

And I personally can say that I’ve learned a lot of that and gleaned a lot of that mentality from Frank and working with him, because he shows up, and he’s ready to go, and you didn’t waste any time.

There are a handful of recognizable names in Little Dixie who – without going into spoiler territory – don’t factor into the story as heavily as you might think. Was that a deliberate sense of unease to create the expectation that anything can happen, or were their scheduling elements in play, or a combination of both?

No, it was all… the script was the script, you know. I kind of liked trying to deviate from where, as we discussed, stories like this in the past became predictable. The first act of this movie has a lot of characters, and then a lot of people that you know, if you watch films, or TV, or whatever you recognize, but I wanted to kind of completely collapse that story, collapse it on itself, and just leave these two things standing; Doc, and Cuco, on this kind of warpath towards each other. So it was written that way. And luckily, we got good, recognizable, very talented people to come in and give us just a little bit of their time to, to play those parts.

If you read the official synopsis of the film, and you’ve seen similar movies before, you might have an idea in the back of your mind as to where it’s going to go, and who ends up where by the time the story finishes, but Little Dixie isn’t like that at all.

Yeah, again man, you’ve said a lot of things that, that are very flattering, and I have no delusions that this film is going to be for everybody. I mean, it’s very violent. And it’s really, unapologetic. But the people like you, and like myself, and like Jeremy and Frank, that love these kinds of movies, I think are really going to appreciate it.

It isn’t some new genre we created, we were very much leaning into his very specific kind of film. But I feel like we took chances and did things that aren’t done as often. So I think yes, you might have an idea who ends up where at the end, but you’re never gonna get how the fuck they get there, you know?

It would be an understatement to say Beau Knapp disappears into the role of Cuco to the point of being unrecognizable. Was the character fully-realized on the page for him to get to grips with, or was there collaboration between the two of you to settle on the best approach?

It was definitely a collaboration. Beau became Cuco in our story pretty quickly, or at least in our casting process. So Beau and I got to talk a lot about it. And it was exciting because he, I remember he asked me, “Do you have any descriptions for the character or anything you’re thinking?”. And I sent him a screenshot, I sent him a video of Kevin Spacey in K-PAX, when he eats the banana without unwrapping it, and just chews the whole banana without. And Beau’s like, “I totally get it.”

We wanted Cuco to kind of feel like this alien, you know, just completely different from his brothers, his family, kind of this man who is without a country and without, really, a home. And we felt like if we did that, and achieved that, it would kind of free him up to really be capable of anything. And he really went there about it. So I’m excited for people to have the Cuco experience.

I’m a sucker for someone dramatically saying the name of the movie out loud, so I admit I punched the air when Cuco said it on the phone with Doc, but did the title come first or was it settled on later once the story started coming together?

The title… I’d say on half my films, they have the title. I title them while while I’m scripting and writing. The title is a big thing. For me, the title kind of gives the movie an identity. And in a way, I can’t really write the script until I have a title a lot of the time, because it’s this umbrella that I need to fit the movie under. And Jeremy and I discussed a lot, we’re big on the identity of where the film is taking place.

And again, to talk about Ida Red and Little Dixie, they both take place in Oklahoma where I’m from, so we wanted the title to have something that set the film there. And you know, Little Dixie is actually the term for Oklahoma, it’s like one of the slang terms for Oklahoma in terms of, there was a very prominent Dixie mafia that that kind of governed the state for a long time, and left it one of the nicknames: Little Dixie.

Little Dixie is the latest of your films to shoot in your native state of Oklahoma, so I wanted to ask if you write with locations you know already in the back of your mind, knowing that it gives you a sort of logistical advantage when your in full prep mode?

Yeah, I mean, this one, more than any script, up until I wrote this, I actually location scouted before I wrote. So I went to most of these locations. As I was kind of thinking about the story, I would go around and look at places that were interesting that I knew I could get access to.

And then I went in and wrote specifically for each space. So I do that a lot. Now on on all my scripts, I kind of go out and get a vibe and a feeling for the kind of the topography and different places we want to film, and then I try and incorporate that because it just makes it that much more seamless. And then that much more real when somebody reads it on the page. So yeah, it was it was pretty premeditated, I would say, this one.

Thrillers are your bread and butter, but you always find a fresh spin on the formula, whether it’s Little Dixie’s revenge story, Candy Land’s grindhouse-style horror, Ida Red’s family drama, or Body Brokers’ view on healthcare, is it always a conscious decision of yours when you start writing to make sure you don’t walk over ground that you’ve covered before?

I guess I just try and make it first of all, “What movie would I want to see?”. It needs to be a movie Jeremy and I would both want to go see, if we’re going to invest our lives into it. I mean, we make no secret about it. We make films in genres that are well played, and have a lot of hits and history.

But I don’t want to make a movie that I’ve seen before, and I try as I’m writing to always, never force the story anywhere, and always let it go somewhere that naturally is to go. And hopefully that’s somewhere that I haven’t been before, and haven’t seen before on another film.

For the most part, your filmography has broadly speaking taken place in the crime genre, or thereabouts. Do you have any interest or ambitions to tackle anything like sci-fi, comedy, the supernatural, or is it a case of sticking to what you know and love?

Yeah, I mean, we’re actually in prep on a movie now that’s got, I would say sci-fi… it’s an action thriller with some heavy sci-fi elements. Pretty excited about that, because it’s a movie that I’ve been conceptualizing in my brain for a long time, and trying to figure out how to write while also trying to get the chops to be able to make it.

Because, when you start incorporating sci-fi elements, specifically, it’s kind of a whole other set of tools that you need when making a movie, just in terms of craft. You need to be aware of things. A standard crime film, it’s pretty simple; bad guy, good guy, and then a resolution. But when you introduce sci-fi, there’s kind of this whole esoteric thing that is incorporated into the movie that you’ve got to be aware of at all times.

So yes, we are excited about this one, we’re prepping it now. And we should be shooting it in March and April. Beyond that, we have a more, I’d say, true crime, real-life, based on real experiences film we’re prepping that will hopefully shoot by the end of the year. But yeah, those are kind of our two things on the horizon right now. And outside of that, we’re always open to looking at things. But we find it’s best when we keep it in-house and do what we do best.

One Day as a Lion is up next, which of course has Scott Caan starring as well as writing the script. Was that a different challenge for you as a filmmaker, having built your career and reputation on creating your own stories from the ground up?

Yeah, I mean, it was certainly a new experience. And something that I wanted to try, I wanted to try working with somebody else’s material. Where it got more interesting is that I’m working with somebody else’s material, and they’re also the lead in the movie. And Scott has been working a long time, and he’s been working a long time on this script.

So a lot of the time, he didn’t necessarily need me to tell him how to emotionally approach the role, because he lived with the script for 10+ years. So it was new in a lot of regards. And, yeah, I don’t know when or how I would ever be in that situation again, where the writer is also the lead, and I’m the director between the two.

But I’m glad I did it. And we had fun. And it’s more of a comedy than than I’m used to doing. And there’s some good laughs in there and some great performances by Frank and J.K. Simmons and, and George Carroll. But yeah, I mean, it was the challenge that drew me to it and the new experience, that’s for sure.

This marks your third film with Frank Grillo with another on the way, while Beau Knapp, Peter Greene, Melissa Leo, Thomas Dekker, Mark Boone Junior, and George Carroll are among several other names you’ve worked with multiple times. Without being modest in the slightest, what is it about a John Swab film that keeps them coming back for more?

I don’t know. You’d have to ask them! I guess if I were going to try and guess for them, it would be that they appreciate what we’re doing, and I think what that is, is where we’re trying to make elevated content for a modest budget. And I think that’s a rare thing. On a personal level with a lot of those people, I mean, they’re friends of ours, and they appreciate the way we treat them.

You know, I mentioned culture. And I pride myself, as Jeremy does also, with kind of the culture we’ve created and associated with our films. We are collaborators. We know people are taking a haircut financially to come down and do these things with us. But it’s a give and take, because they’re getting to really dig into roles and characters with the freedom they wouldn’t have on bigger projects.

And they appreciate us for that, and so I think that would probably be maybe a couple of their answers. I don’t know about the rest, but we certainly appreciate them all being repeat customers.

I thought I said don’t be modest!

Was I modest? I don’t know, man. That’s just the truth, though. I think so.

If you could make any project of your choosing without restrictions, what would it be and why would it be that?

Good question. To be completely honest, I’m really excited about the two movies we’re planning on doing. And the script I just finished I think, would be the one that I would say if I could do anything with any amount of money, that would probably be the one I would ask for the money for, or the complete freedom.

So I feel pretty good about where we’re going, and the trajectory we’re on, and the movie we’re prepping now. And I’m super excited for that, and the one we’re planning on doing after, so I’m pretty content.

Literally living the dream.

Yeah, I mean, it’s certainly what I’ve always wanted to do. But it’s a lot of hard work. And I’ve talked with a few actors, and they deduce that 7 percent of it is bliss. The other 93 is bullshit. The other 93 is the stuff that nobody sees. But I’m proud of these films.

And I get to make them with my best friends in most cases, but Jeremy and I get to make them all together, which is good, and he’s become one of my best friends. But occasionally other friends of ours join. Sometimes nemeses, but we got each other. And at the end of the day, we always have a good meal. So that’s what counts.

Little Dixie comes to select theaters, digital, and on-demand this coming Friday, February 3, and be sure to check out our review of the movie here.