Eenie Meanie writer-director Shawn Simmons: "I connect to the blue collar world of people"

Eenie Meanie writer-director Shawn Simmons's movies are inspired from his own life. Coming from a blue-collar background himself, Shawn says he always drops his characters right into that gritty, working-class world he knows so well. He revealed this in a recent virtual interview.

Shawn Simmons says he has "a lot of affection" for people from the blue collar world

"I do a lot of stories about orphans from poor communities like I was from. I connect to the blue collar world of people. I have a lot of affection for those people, and understand their struggles. This is what I try to show through Edie, John, Wayne or any of the people I write about," Shawn said in the interview.

This time, the creator of Wayne and the John Wick spin-off The Continental shines the spotlight on Samara Weaving’s Edie, a former getaway driver who thought she’d left the fast lane behind. But when her hot mess of an ex-boyfriend John, played by Karl Glusman, lands in trouble, she’s dragged right back into the chaos she tried to escape.

Even Wayne revolved around a good-hearted 16-year-old vigilante who sets out with his new friend to get back his dad's stolen '79 Trans Am.

The director said the script was conceived as a teaser centred around the character of Edie. Shawn explained that he writes teasers, not knowing how they would end.

"I had written this teaser about a young girl who drives her parents around because they're alcoholics. And I thought, what a wonderful kind of origin story for either a hero or a villain," he said.

The writer-director said the toughest character to write was of John, Edie's good for nothing boyfriend, who he described as a "classic John Cassavetes s** up".

John is an actor-director himself who often brought complex, troubled characters to life in his films, from A Woman Under the Influence to The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

"In the end, it always came down to how we were treating John, in both Karl's great acting work, and writing the script, I kept saying, how are we going to make people like him? There is a back and forth that Edie does throughout the story and her feelings for him.

"And at first, you're asking yourself, 'why this guy, why this maniac?', and then (you) have to understand why he was so important to her, and that he was the only family she ever had," he said.

Shawn shared that he grew up in a “tough town in Brockton” in the US, which made the theme of family especially meaningful to him. Unlike Wayne, Edie in Eenie Meanie is not an orphan, but she still finds herself alone without John.

He explained that he liked exploring the different shapes families take in poverty-stricken towns, where sometimes a grandmother raises you, other times an uncle steps in, or you end up moving in with a girlfriend.

While the film delves into weighty themes like crime, loyalty and love, he noted that it also maintains a balance with witty comedy, a balance he admitted was challenging to achieve.

He remarked that this tonal juggling was the hardest part of the movie. According to him, people often wonder if filmmakers can pull it off and even treat it like some sort of magic trick.

However, he believed that as long as the stakes and danger were treated with respect, the audience would be able to respect it. Eenie Meanie is set to release in India on JioHotstar on Friday.

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