Writer/director Chris Gorak describes Right at Your Door as a real genre-buster. “It’s got drama, it’s got thrilling aspects. It’s got romance. I call it my punk rock love story,” explained Gorak. However you want to label it, the film’s a captivating look at what happens in the immediate aftermath of an attack on Los Angeles.
Focusing on a married couple (played by Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane), Right at Your Door asks audiences to consider how they’d react if one of their loved ones was trapped outside as toxic ash fills the sky and coats everything exposed surface. Would you disobey orders and open your door to let them in, possibly contaminating yourself in the process? It’s an intriguing and difficult question to ponder in this post-911 era.
Why did you choose this film to make your directorial debut?
“I met the producers, Jonah Smith and Palmer West, when I was production designing one of their films called The Clearing. I told them I wanted to write and direct and they challenged me to find something contained and thrilling. I was always writing on the side because that would be a financial plus, if you kind of contain your budget. I had an idea for a short film and it was when she comes home. I was going to do a short film of her coming to the door and I realized that that was a full-length feature, and so I just wrote the script. It has that energy of real time.”
Was making the transition to director everything you thought it was going to be? Did you feel a lot of pressure?
“Yes and no. My background is in art direction and production, so I’ve seen it from that side. There’s a lot of pressure in those positions as well. But I always wanted to challenge myself as a writer/director because I think it’s the ultimate creative challenge. I was really happy to be in those shoes and really enjoyed the process. There was a lot of pressure and things, but I enjoy that. When it’s creative-based, I enjoy it.”
This was a really short shoot, wasn’t it?
“Yeah, it was, and that I think helped create some of the tension, though. The set was frantic and that’s what we wanted to come out on the film so it was a good kind of backdoor strategy. The tightness of the budget and all that kind of played into this kind of like claustrophobic panic.”
Can you talk about casting Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane in the lead roles?
“The script sort of moved around and they auditioned. They read the script. They had a lot of fun doing it - and I say fun, but it was a challenge.”
With all the fake ash floating around Mary McCormack and locking Rory Cochrane's character inside a house for most of the shoot, you pretty much tortured your actors.
“Yeah, but they were great! Through the audition process is how we found them. I mean, I know their work but to see them come in… They read separately and I looked at both their performances and knew you can match them up and make them a couple.”
How tough was it to stage the ash?
“That was another thing…I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. We did all kinds of things. The ash by the window was special effects guys on the roof with ash and fans, then we would enhance it with some computer ash. And then the stuff in the city was like stock footage of Kuwaiti oil fires. We painted that into the landscape of the city and made it feel as real as possible. But I didn’t want to have one major visual effect shot. I wanted to have multiple cutaways to so many different things, so the visual effects became just another shot.”
Did you provide them with much of a backstory on their relationship as a couple?
“We collaborated about that. We talked about it, and clearly in the context that she’s the breadwinner. It was a very Hollywood kind of a couple where one of the people in the couple is kind of the moneymaker and the other one is kind of like trying to figure it out still. I wanted to capture that real Hollywood landscape and that’s why we set it in East Hollywood, up in the Echo Park area.”
Without giving anything away, did you always have the same ending in mind?
“Well the ending kind of changes because when you have two people, there’s multiple combinations of how it should end. There was never a Romeo and Juliet ending where they both can die but there were options. When I got closer to making the film I realized that was the most compelling ending. But I sat down and wrote the first draft in a short amount of time and just dropped the characters into this big event. I didn’t focus on the big event, I focused on the characters so by the time it was shot, I still had that huge event. The characters never ever tripped up over the science or tripped up over the event of the terrorism at all, because terrorism’s not even mentioned in the movie.”
We never learn who attacks LA.
“Right, it doesn’t matter.”
Did you have an enemy in mind or was that not even part of your thought process?
“No, I didn’t care. No, that was the whole thing. The whole idea was the aftermath of the event and survival - and instinct.”
It’s interesting you didn't think about who you would have cast as the enemy.
“I joked around in the beginning of the film that the white guy in the street in the Mercedes gets shot, so I would say he’s the bad guy.”
You’ve worked with so many great directors over the years. Whose style influenced your work the most and who gave you the best tips?
“I was lucky enough as an art director to definitely hang in the shadows and pay attention. It was more of a listen and learn. I was working hard but I look at it like I was getting paid to go to film school. Collaborating with like Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, the Coen brothers, and Terry Gilliam - those are kind of my four food groups, I guess.”
You couldn’t have four better food groups…
“No. They’re very diverse. I think they all their strengths and I kind of look at all their strengths, you know? I don’t think this movie’s like any one of those directors’ films, but I think there’s aspects of them that influenced me. That definitely influenced me, especially when I’m in a situation on set or something and I’m thinking, ‘What would he do in this situation?’ I’d get that quick little Rolodex and access it, of having watched some good directors work.”
