Jack Huston Steps Into the Ring to Discuss His Directorial Debut 'Day of the Fight' Starring Michael Pitt

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Tonight, I have a special treat for you, as I’m joined by Jack Huston, the actor who recently made his feature directorial debut with the boxing drama Day of the Fight, a black-and-white stunner led by his Boardwalk Empire co-star Michael Pitt.

As with all interviews here at The InSneider, this one is not behind a paywall, but if you’re an unpaid subscriber who digs it, I sure would appreciate it if you made the leap to premium for a month and placed a modest bet on yours truly.

After all, the news is slowing down and it’s starting to become the fun time of year when I get to look back on the 200+ movies that I saw and separate the wheat from the chaff.

Day of the Fight is a film that’s a contender to make my own Top 10 list, but if my ringing endorsement isn’t enough to convince you then I urge you to read this interview with Huston below.

I’ll see you later this week for the next “regular” installment of my newsletter — as if there’s anything “regular” about me. LOL!

Jack Huston Steps Into the Ring to Discuss His Directorial Debut Day of the Fight Starring Michael Pitt

I forget how I first heard about Day of the Fight — possibly from THR’s Scott Feinberg — but I remember hearing that writer-director Jack Huston’s feature debut had “old-school Brando” vibes.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on star Michael Pitt, but some guys are just born to play certain roles, and Pitt was tailor-made for the part of a pugilist who remains haunted by the past and thus, doesn’t care much about his future.

I’ve followed Pitt’s career ever since he was a teenager who popped up on Dawson’s Creek and in psycho flicks like Murder By Numbers and Funny Games. I know he’s had a rough go of it from time to time, but he rises to the occasion in Day of the Fight, much like Mickey Rourke did in The Wrestler.

Pitt may look like a tough guy, but there’s a tenderness to him, and Huston himself recognized that, citing the “vulnerability and sensitivity that sort of lies very deep within him [under] this rather hard exterior.”

As impressed as I was with Pitt’s bold and big-hearted turn here, I was equally impressed with Huston’s direction, as Day of the Fight truly is a poignant film. It’s not a movie — it’s a film, and I mean that as a compliment. This is a serious picture that has real weight to it and boasts three-dimensional characters as well — people who wear their hearts, and their pain, on their sleeve.

Huston is, of course, the grandson of John Huston, the Oscar-winning writer/director of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as well as the nephew of actors Anjelica Huston and Danny Huston. As an actor, he is best known to audiences for playing Richard Harrow on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, though I personally loved his work in Season 4 of Fargo and as serial bomber Eric Rudolph in Manhunt: Deadly Games.

And yet, Huston doesn’t appear in Day of the Fight, as he thought it better to stay off camera. His excellent direction is complimented by his brother-in-law Ben MacDiarmid’s stunning score and the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography of DP Peter Simonite.

However, the reason Day of the Fight works as well as it does — besides its exceptional cast, of course — is that Huston’s script has soul. You don’t see that a whole lot these days, and I think that if you track this movie down and give it a chance, you’ll recognize that.

In the meantime, here’s Huston, who will soon be seen in the live-action MGM+ series Spider-Noir starring Nicolas Cage, Brendan Gleeson, and Lamorne Morris.

He talks about where the idea for Day of the Fight originated, why he refused to compromise when it came to both casting and his decision to shoot in black-and-white, and why it took more than a year for the film to hit theaters following its debut at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. Enjoy!

Tell me where the germ of this idea originated. Why did you decide to write a script about a boxer’s final fight, and then make it your directorial debut? And why was this the right time in your career to step behind the camera? 

Jack Huston: God, man, it's so funny. When those things happen, they just happen. There’s no rhyme or reason. I’ve always said that I've never been in a hurry to get behind the camera, but I did have a need, or at least a passion, that I thought that one day, maybe, I would. But it had to be for the right reason and the right project.

Something I was told very early on was, ‘Make sure it's something you love, because it's gonna be pretty much the hardest thing you ever do, and it's gonna be hours of sleepless nights, and time away from everybody you love. You’ll be on your hands and knees groveling and begging for whatever you possibly can get, so it better fucking be worth it.’

I watched this documentary short, and I always had Michael Pitt in the back of my head since our Boardwalk days. He’s a dear friend and brother, but as an actor, he’s somebody who I feel like we haven't tapped into [as far as] the beauty and vulnerability and sensitivity that sort of lies very deep within him [under] this rather hard exterior.

There's this like childlike wonder that sort of exists within him and when I conceived the story, I couldn't imagine anybody else but Michael in there. That took me to putting fingers to [computer] keys, and it sort of fell out of me over [about] 10 days — just a conscious stream of thought.

I just thought, ‘Get to the beginning and then get to the end. Don’t go back on it, just get through it and write it, almost in that Kerouac way where you just [unload] this fucking conscious stream of thought.

I got to the end and somehow it led me through these great places, and [I realized] you can take quite a simple idea, which is a boxer on the day of a prize fight, but sort of turn it up a notch and say, ‘Well, what if that day was his last day? And what if it was your last day? What would you do? Who would you speak to and what would you say?’ 

It really just became sort of an organic, rather human, relatable way of orchestrating [the idea that] somebody can make mistakes in their life and they can do bad things, but it doesn't mean they're a bad person necessarily.

And the people you care about most, who really matter, are far more willing to forgive than we might expect, so I think it's a really interesting lesson for us in today's world, right?

I think that's the fear that we all think — that we've done something so unforgivable. But we’re just people, and other people are willing to forgive us.

Huston: Absolutely.

Tell me about the decision to film this in black-and-white and whether anyone tried to talk you out of it given that it's not as commercial.

Huston: [laughing] Everybody! Everybody [tried] to talk us out of it, literally. On a few different occasions, the money was there, but I had to sacrifice one of three elements — Michael Pitt, the time period, and the black-and-white.

[Financiers] would usually be like, ‘OK, the black-and-white is fine, but no Michael Pitt.’ Or, ‘OK, you can cast Michael Pitt, but you can’t do black-and-white,’ and if you insist, then it can’t be period, it has to be present-day.’

And in my career, I think the minute you sacrifice your, I hate to say “dream,” but it really was a dream at this point, given how you conceptualize something and how you've got everything in your head and how you’ve written every word in service of a certain idea. The minute you sacrifice one element, I think the rest comes crashing down. It's that domino effect so it's sort of sticking with your gut, a lot of it.

I always felt black-and-white harkens back to the films that I fell in love with — true adult stories, and character studies. Films that make you feel something, where you go on a journey with somebody.

My favorite photographs are black-and-white, and it's sort of ironic that something in black-and-white feels, to me, like a magnifying glass to the soul. I think we look far deeper into someone, and that might have something to do with the light and shadow and that sort of contrast.

And, in another sense, I always said, you know, ‘It's period but the character is living in purgatory. He's living in black and white. His life is black and white. He's desperately trying to paint this color to his memories, which is why we see this sort of desaturated color flit in during these moments when he's remembering his past.

But to be honest, he's walking through Purgatory, and he's trying to get to the Boatman, to the river Styx, so he can cross over to his final resting place, which was sort of the metaphor for the taxi at the end, you know. The taxi driver is the boatman, you know, like the angel of death who’s taking him there. So those elements are interesting…

Before I even wrote the script, I wrote a director's statement to anybody reading the script, and I said how the camera would move, how I would shoot it in black-and-white, and how there would be moments of color in these memories that wouldn't have a start and wouldn't have an end, but would come to you like memories do come to us.

Sometimes, memories are unreliable, but memories still, nonetheless, can be sparked by a touch, a smell, a sensation, or a piece of music, you know, whatever it is. So, I feel like it all sort of made sense to me to stick with this. 

Well, I thought your DP, Peter Simonite, did a great job and I'm curious how you linked up with both him and Ben MacDiarmid because I think this was his first score and I thought it was absolutely gorgeous. I don't know what he did to convince you.

Huston: Well, my sister is married to Ben.

Oh, I didn't know!

Huston: Yeah, no one would know he's my brother-in-law. He's never scored a movie before, but he’s a beautiful musician and possibly an even more beautiful soul.

I was actually working with a composer — a rather famous composer — but it just wasn't sounding right, and I called Ben and I said, ‘Listen, I'm gonna send you the movie, and I know you've never scored a movie or done this before, but I just think that if it moves you like I hope it will, I'd love to have a conversation about what you think we could do with this.’

I had a temp score on there — I had something I was working out, you know. And all of the needle drops were written in there already. But it was one of those great relationships where, from day one, there was zero ego. It was two people who were completely simpatico understanding what the language of the film was and how the entire score was as integral of a character as any one of the actors and the backdrop of the city itself.

And then Peter Simonite, our beautiful cinematographer, came on board, and he comes from the old school and worked under some great DPs — Chivo maybe being at the top of that list. He has such a sensitivity and a beauty to his eye, and when we first spoke, he completely understood what I was going for and he understood also that, you know, we had to shoot digital on the Alexa 35, and he found these beautiful lenses that gave it that grit and that grain and gave it that depth that I think a lot of digital black-and-white actually [lacks, as it] becomes quite flat. So Peter completely understood that I was trying to get the authenticity of Brooklyn, New York in 1989, and that is as much in that black-and-white image, in that grain and in that grit. It's in every step, every footstep. It's in the creases of the sidewalk and the graffiti [on the buildings and in the subway]. It’s everywhere.

Day of the Fight premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and it's only just coming out now, so tell me what the holdup was, what kinds of distribution offers you received for this one, and whether it was important to get a theatrical release as opposed to debuting on a streaming platform.

Huston: I tell you what, we got into Venice, but at the same time, it was the Actors Strike. We did a bit of the festival circuit and we're very lucky that we had just the most unbelievable reaction from audiences, but I wasn’t able to have any of the actors with me, and this film lives and breathes through the performances.

I mean, Michael Pitt, Steve Buscemi, Joe Pesci, Nicolette Robinson, Ron Perlman, John Magaro. It just goes on, and that's the film I wanted to make.

My grandfather always said that 90 percent of making a film was about casting, and no truer words have ever been spoken when it came to me making this film.

Michael was the anchor, but without this cast, the film wouldn't be anything in my eyes, so I really wanted to hold off [on the release]. 

I believe that we're in a bit of a drought in the movie industry for real adult stories that sort of deal with the human spirit and human emotions — films that make you feel something. That’s probably the best way of saying it. I love films that make me feel something. They're the reason I got into this business. 

I look back at all those films and this is my homage, almost, to them, because I look at the business and those films aren’t being made much anymore. And that, to me, is a tragedy. Because they were my entire inspiration, both as an actor and now, behind the camera.

I don't think audiences have changed. I think we all still want those films. It's just that they're not being given to us, so people don't know that they're missing them, and then [when they are made], people aren’t watching them. So with this film, I really want to remind people that it's okay to feel something and that you don't have to be cynical.

You don't have to go into it all jaded and say, ‘Oh god, I can't believe it tricked me into making me feel something,’ because that's the most human aspect of anything and the most relatable aspect of movies [in general].

I like movies that move you, and you wake up in the morning the next day and it's still there, [lingering] in the pit of your stomach. I want to see more of those.

I always say that I go to the cinema to remember, not to forget. I want to remember all those beats and things, and I like sharing an experience with a bunch of strangers because it's like music — it can move you and you realize that we’re all actually on the same kind of vibe, and that's awesome.

As a director, are there any actors that you'd really like to work with and vice versa, as an actor, are there any directors you'd still love to work with?

Huston: I feel like such a student of film that I still geek out on everybody I work with. There are multiple people I’d kill to work with but it's funny because as soon as I say somebody… [it won’t happen].

I truly can't tell you how lucky I feel any time I walk onto a set. Like, right now, I'm working opposite Brendan Gleeson and Nicolas Cage and Lamorne Morris — just these awesome, cool actors.

Every time I take on a job and I'm around another director, I get to see another style or how they approach something, but there's a common thread, which is that they all love what they do. There's an excitement bubbling there, and it still is with the directors who I've looked up to — my heroes, be it Marty Scorsese or Ridley Scott. It's amazing to feel like those filmmakers support this film because they understand how important they are.

Well, you should show this film to Nic Cage, too, because I think he'd really appreciate the filmmaking.

Huston: Oh, I think he would too. I told him 50 times, he's got to come to a screening.

I hope he sees this movie.

Huston: He’s the hardest-working man in Hollywood, by the way.

My last question for you before I let you go. You've been around the business now for a while, so do you have any regrets at this point in your career? 

Huston: God, man, you know, we all have regrets, but I just don't like to… I feel like you've got to move past them. I think that's the best part about it.

I guess I'm a little spiritual in the sense that I believe in destiny and fate, and that things actually happen for a reason — and don't happen for a reason.

I've heard “No” far more, and when I say “far more,” I mean thousands of times more than I've heard “Yes,” and that has never deterred me.

So, I think the constant fight is kind of beautiful because when you do actually get something that you feel very proud of, or do something you feel proud of, it feels that much more worthy because you know how hard you fought for it.

I've been on the phone for hours [with media] just trying to get [the word out about] what we're doing and where it's going. But the fight never stops, and thank God because you've got to, you know. You've got to keep pushing, and if you don't have the fight in you, get out of the ring, you know. That's important.

As one of the few journalists you'll talk to who has actually been in a boxing ring, let me tell you, you did a great job with the boxing scenes. I was one of the guys who fought Uwe Boll.

Huston: Stop.

Yeah, he beat the shit out of me.

Huston: Are you kidding? Oh my god., I'm, like, madly in love with you right now. That was like the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen. There were three of you, right?

Four, and he took us all down in one night.

Huston: But he’s, like, a proper fighter, right?

Oh, he didn’t even wear the headgear. You can look up the clip on YouTube.

Huston: Son of a bitch! Unbelievable.

Anyway, congratulations on the movie, Jack. You really impressed me with this film and good luck with the next one.

Huston: Alright, thank you, man. What a pleasure! Great speaking, buddy. Later…

Day of the Fight is now playing exclusively in theaters.

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