Relay Director Recalls Being an Early Taylor Sheridan Adopter

In 2013, David Mackenzie reset his career.

That’s when the Scottish filmmaker shot the prison drama Starred Up with Ben Mendelsohn and Jack O’Connell at a real prison in Belfast, Ireland. It was a palate cleanser for his 2011 sci-fi romantic drama, Perfect Sense, in which Eva Green and Ewan McGregor’s characters fall in love amid a global epidemic that causes people to lose their sensory perceptions. Mackenzie felt he may have been “bullshitting” his way through that film’s heightened themes, and so the grounded nature of Starred Up provided him a welcomed change of pace, as well as an edge that’s remained in his subsequent works.

“I became what I call a born-again realist, and I’ve taken that with me on the road ever since. [Starred Up] was a breath of fresh air, and it was the turning point in the way I work,” Mackenzie tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I stopped using clapperboards. I edit what I’ve shot on that same day … I’ve developed a faster method that’s more immediate, and it allows the actors a lot more freedom to improvise.”

Mackenzie’s newfound commitment to efficiency would be put to the ultimate test on his next film, Hell or High Water (2016). The crime thriller was written by Taylor Sheridan, and despite penning it after his first feature script, Sicario (2015), Hell or High Water was actually the first screenplay the former actor-turned-filmmaker sold after resetting his own career. The film would go on to become Mackenzie’s masterwork, boasting the best performance of Chris Pine’s career, one that was captured in only 17 days due to his Star Trek schedule. (Co-stars Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham all give highly memorable turns in their own right.)

On Aug. 22, Mackenzie returns to cinemas with the Justin Piasecki-written Relay, and the throwback crime thriller very much feels like a companion to Hell or High Water. Instead of the New Mexico desert that doubled for Texas and Oklahoma, Relay opts for the urban environment of New York City. Instead of punishing banks for their predatory practices, Relay condemns soulless corporations for their malfeasance and corruption.

Riz Ahmed plays a fixer who specializes in protecting reluctant whistleblowers from their former employers. He’ll broker hush money payments for the would-be whistleblower and arrange their safe relocation, while also retaining a copy of any and all incriminating documents so that the corporation in question doesn’t harm their former employee. And he negotiates all of his settlements by transmitting messages from a TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) to a relay call service. The relay operators then read his outgoing messages to either party over the phone.

Ahmed’s Ash and Pine’s Toby come from completely different backgrounds, but their highly methodical processes achieve successful outcomes when followed to the letter. They’ve thought of everything and accounted for loopholes that most people wouldn’t. However, both of their endeavors suffer when their hearts get the better of their brains.

“[Relay and Hell or High Water] have a yin-and-yang kind of thing: urban and rural, good guys and bad guys. They both have an us-against-the-system quality,” Mackenzie says. “They’re not quite sticking it to the man, but they’re surviving against the man. I’m drawn to rebels and the outlaw spirit, and cinema likes rebels, so I get there’s connections there.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Mackenzie also discusses his aversion to pre-branded entertainment, as well as his upcoming TIFF premiere of Fuze, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Theo James.

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You’ve been on quite a run of quality work since Starred Up in 2013. Looking back, are you able to identify a particular turning point or change in philosophy that might have led to all this?

The film I did before Starred Up was Perfect Sense, which is a fable in a way. It tried to feel real, and along came a pandemic that made it feel quite a lot more real [in hindsight]. [Writer’s Note: Perfect Sense is about an epidemic in which people lose their sensory perceptions.] It had a slight magical quality to it, and I struggled with the enormity of the fantastical themes that were going on in that film. I felt like I was in danger of bullshitting, and I struggled with the sense that I was bullshitting. 

So when we made Starred Up, the first thing I did was say that it has to be shot in a real prison. The British prison population was pretty full at the time, and while it was hard to find, we found this prison in Belfast. The situation had become less inflamed, and therefore, there was some space in this old prison. I spent a day there, as I always do when I’m scouting, taking photographs of everything and feeling the tangibility and solidity of the architecture. We shot it sequentially in that one location over four weeks, and we edited it in four weeks. It was like the equivalent of a dogma film.

So I became what I call a born-again realist, and I’ve taken that with me on the road ever since. [Starred Up] was a breath of fresh air, and it was the turning point in the way I work. I also stopped using continuity. I have no continuity on set. I stopped using clapperboards. I edit what I’ve shot on that same day, and I’ll come back to the hotel at night to look at the edited footage. So I’ve developed a faster method that’s more immediate, and it allows the actors a lot more freedom to improvise and explore the ingredients of the scene. 

You’ve managed to not get pulled into a franchise or brand of some kind. How is that possible in this day and age?

Well, I’m not particularly a fan of those things anyway. The kind of directors that do [franchises] well are probably people who are a bit more fan-ish and understand the games that are being played. So it is not something that attracts me, and dare I say it, the people making those films are not necessarily attracted to me. So it hasn’t come my way, and I’ve been able to avoid it.

Relay reminded me a bit of Hell or High Water as both have a David-versus-Goliath narrative. You begin both movies with people at work in a oner, and Riz Ahmed and Chris Pine’s characters are both highly methodical about their processes. When their rules are followed, things go well. When others around them deviate, things go wrong. Did you ever make the comparison? 

Yeah, I did. They have a yin-and-yang kind of thing: urban and rural, good guys and bad guys. I had the privilege of watching a double bill at the Aero in Santa Monica two or three days ago. I only saw the second half of Relay because I’ve seen it a lot recently, but I did watch all of Hell or High Water, which I haven’t seen since I made it. And they’re great companions. 

In retrospect, Hell or High Water is a lot funnier, but there are still laughs and gallows humor in Relay. They both have an us-against-the-system quality. They’re not quite sticking it to the man, but they’re surviving against the man. I’m drawn to rebels and the outlaw spirit, and cinema likes rebels, so I get there’s connections there. 

There’s definitely an echo with the minor characters who make up each world. In the case of Relay, there’s the relay call operators and the post office workers. They’re dependable old American things, and the people that you meet along the way in Hell or High Water occupy the same space. They’re solid people, and I make a real effort to make those day players come alive. It’s terrifying for them to turn up to a film set that’s already up and running, so I really try to cast the right people and nurture their performances.

I joked about this with Riz and Lily James, but I really would watch a spinoff about the relay operators just to hear their conversations about all the wild calls they facilitate.

Matt Mayer, the editor, and I joke that we should do the Tri-State Relay Service Christmas party as a spinoff. 

Had you ever heard of a relay call service before opening up this script?

No, I didn’t know about them. We went to New York Penn Station when we were scouting, and there were four or five phone booths there. There was also a TTY [teletypewriter] booth, and so they’re tangibly still there. It does exist, but it won’t be long before it is totally replaced by your phone or your computer.

Do fixers like Riz’s Ash actually exist for whistleblowers who get cold feet and want to put the genie back in the bottle?

We never came across someone who was the perfect model for that. We came across whistleblowers, and we came across spies who might inform the corporate henchman-type characters. We also interviewed former police and all that. But we never came across a fixer, who, as you say, puts the genie back in the bottle. So that type of character might be a fictional conceit, but it still feels very plausible.

Relay teases a more conventional ending until it takes a hard left turn. Do you think you still would’ve been interested in making this movie if it went in that more familiar direction?

Yes and no. It’s fun that it doesn’t go that way, and it’s an interesting thing for an audience to have to think you’re going in a certain direction until you don’t. It was certainly one of the things that deeply attracted me to the script, and I thought it was exciting. Out of all the elements that we evolved from 2019 to when we made it in 2023, that element of the script was one that remained in place.

You premiered Relay at TIFF last year, and you’re about to return there with another film called Fuze (starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Theo James). What’s your impression of that picture now that you’re likely putting the finishing touches on it?

Yeah, wrapping it up is what we’re currently doing. I wish it was finished, but it’s still not. It’s going to go right up to the wire and probably beyond the wire. Fuze is an interesting film because it’s quite pure cinema. I had an idea a few years ago to do a mashup of an unexploded bomb movie and a heist movie. And just to try and create that world, it’s 300-plus scenes, and it races along in 91 minutes. It’s very fast and quite pure in terms of the cinema of it and the twists and turns of it. 

So it was definitely a challenge to make because there’s a lot of things to get through in quite hard environments. And editorially, it’s been a challenge because there’s just so much to squeeze in. I worked with the same editor as Relay, and we’re trying to cut it again just to make the editing jagged-y and keep you on the edge of your seat and play attention games in a different way.

You captured the best performance of Chris Pine’s career in Hell or High Water. Is it true that you only had him for two weeks?

It was two-and-a-half weeks. He had a very, very short window. It was kind of insane. We shot as much as we could sequentially, and so the opening shot was the first thing that we shot. He was great. 

I read a draft a couple nights ago, and from what I could tell, you stayed quite faithful to what Taylor Sheridan wrote. Did you shoot the full version of the solo bank robbery that Ben Foster’s character committed opposite Amber Midthunder’s bank teller? In the script, Toby (Foster) takes her ID and threatens to kill her family.

How interesting that you got hold of an early script. I’d love to see what the difference is because we did do a lot of improvisation. But I don’t know whether I can remember [if we shot the full solo robbery scene]. I know that Ben was on fire at that point. Amber was very young and nervous, and now she’s a big star. We had the privilege of bumping into each other in Calgary a few years ago.

I’m sure we probably did lean into the script. I always start with the script, and then I start playing with the material and evolving it beyond what it is on the page. There was definitely a lot of chemistry between Ben and Amber. He was playing games and unsettling her. When I spoke to her three or four years ago, she said that her incredible experience with Ben was so formative for her.

Are you pretty surprised to see that Taylor has basically become a one-man TV network?

Not really. When I read Hell or High Water, I thought it was the best script I’ve ever read, so I knew there was a massive talent there. I watch less TV than some people, so I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t really been following the details of it. But I’ve definitely been following the enormous success of it. [Hell or High Water actor] Gil Birmingham is a good friend who I’m in regular touch with, and he has obviously been working with Taylor a lot on Yellowstone. He’s a friend [of his] and goes to the house and all that. But it’s amazing how productive he is. It’s like, “Gosh, how do you churn that stuff out?” And he’s directing. I saw an [episode] of Lioness that he directed, and I thought he did a bloody good job. So it’s impressive, and I don’t know where all that energy comes from.

Do you remember why Chris and Ben’s characters’ last name was changed from Hanson to Howard? Could you not clear the first version? [Writer’s Note: Toby and Tanner Howard’s bank-robbing spree took place between Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma is home to the Hanson brothers’ eponymous pop rock band, so maybe that became an odd real-world sticking point.]

I think it might’ve been something like that. The film [production] company was called Hanson Ranch Productions, so it was something that came down quite late in the day. But there was a reason why we chose Howard as well. There was an outlaw connection to Howard, but I can’t remember which one it was. Howard just felt a little bit more interesting actually, but you’re probably right that it was a clearance thing.

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Relay opens in movie theaters on Aug. 22.