A Visual and Textual Composite: An Interview with ‘One Day as a Lion’ Director John Swab

One Day as a Lion is the story of Jackie Powers (Scott Caan), a nice guy but a lousy hit man, who’s sent to take out a crafty debtor (J.K. Simmons) but only pisses him off. Fleeing the scene, Jackie takes bored waitress Lola as a hostage. When Jackie reveals he needs money to get his son out of jail, Lola cooks up a scheme for them to get cash from her dying mother (Virginia Madsen). Meanwhile, a thug sent to kill him is sleeping with Jackie’s ex. Also starring Frank Grillo, this crime-comedy is a witty homage to Tarantino and the Coen brothers. 

There's nothing more satisfying than being utterly entertained once again by a director whose work you've come to admire and respect - and that director is John Swab. He's a filmmakers filmmaker if there ever was one. He recently helmed One Day as a Lion, penned by actor Scott Caan and let me tell you - you're going to stick around for the zingers, and one-liners like, "You can't kill a guy on a horse!" quipped by the most ridiculous characters in the most ridiculous of situations, and most of all being fully encapsulated by an aesthetically pleasing film. It's easy to see why Frank Grillo is a frequent collaborator and folks like J.K. Simmons take the opportunity to work with Swab.

John recently spoke with Script about what attracted him to the written material, to his preparation with his cinematographer Will Stone and what he loves about filmmaking.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: How did this project initially come across your desk?

John Swab: Scott's [Caan] agent is an old friend of my producer Jeremy's [Rosen]. And he sent the script to Jeremy as something that maybe he would be interested in producing. Jeremy read it, enjoyed it, spoke to Scott, they got along; in all that my name came up as a potential director. I know that Scott watched Ida Red and really enjoyed that. So, then Jeremy sent me the script, and we all got on a Zoom and had a couple thereafter, and eventually, we felt like it was a fit.

Sadie: What initially attracted you to the material? Did you see certain actors already in your head as you were reading, like frequent collaborator Frank Grillo?

John: I try not to read things and think of actors on the first read, I try and just read the material. And Scott's initial script was about 25 pages longer than the shooting script. So, my first approach is read it for the story, understand the characters, understand really where and what this is. And then from there, is there ways to improve this? And if so, what are they? So, we went into that phase next, and we kind of honed down the strip to about 90 pages. And then from there, then we got into casting.

But in terms of what attracted me to it, I just liked the world of the script. I'm more attracted to characters and the world they exist in unnecessarily what the story might be. And this story, and script in general, reminded me a lot of movies that I watched when I was a kid in the 90s, that were kind of just these lighthearted ensemble pieces that were just fun. And that didn't have any real social commentary or anything like that. They were just purely entertainment. I'd made a string of pretty down-and-out depressing, bleak, hard films up until that point, and it felt like, why not try something that's a little bit lighter fare as an exercise.

Sadie: What was the creative collaboration like with your DP Will Stone, in terms of the preparation and just the overall tone and aesthetic of this film?

John: For me, it was cool, because I didn't write the script, obviously, my brain naturally was looking for other things to focus on and kind of new challenges and new things to look at that maybe I had overlooked or not looked at as much in my past work. Will and I, at that point, we've done two movies, we've done Candyland, and Little Dixie, and with this, I really wanted to be specific about framing and how things were shot. 

There's a photographer named Eggleston who's a very famous color photographer, one of the first color photographers ever. And his framing was kind of like my mantra for this whole movie, ‘How can we compose each shot to where it looks like an Eggleston photograph or a painting?’ A lot of the film was exteriors that are out in western parts of the state of Oklahoma. And it was important for me that it was pretty to look at, and it's fun to look at. And it's fun to look at as the text was fun to experience and be a part of. So, making it all one piece, visually and with the words was really important.

Sadie: Were there any scenes that were either creatively challenging or creatively fulfilling for you?

John: It sounds ridiculous, but I love the actual nuts and bolts of shooting; I love figuring out coverage, I love framing and composition and setting a scene, deciding how many setups we're going to have, and all that kind of nerd stuff, what kind of lens we're going to use on this character, so that kind of stuff I really enjoyed doing no matter what it is.

This movie, it was about framing and composition for me, so I got to nerd out on that. But it was also, what's the simplest way to approach this scene? And having that discussion with myself and with the DP, I enjoyed that, because we didn't have a lot of time to shoot the movie. And so, there wasn't a lot of time to overcover things, with a bunch of close-ups or medium shots or whatever, a lot of the times it was, could we shoot this in one take and one shot, in one frame? Could we do it in two? And just having that discussion throughout the whole movie was probably my favorite part of the whole experience. So, there wasn't one specific thing as much as kind of the overall approach I enjoyed.

Sadie: General advice for those who are thinking about directing another writer’s script?

John: Honestly, I enjoyed doing it, because I've only done it once, and I would do it again. I think the biggest thing is just to make sure you love the script. If you don't love the script and love it so much that it's something you felt like you wrote, then it's probably not worth doing. That's my only advice based on the experience I have.

Sadie: Do you think you'll ever direct another writer’s work?

John: I would love to. Good scripts are hard to come by, in my opinion. And maybe that's because I'm picky. But I haven't read a lot. I mean, I've read a lot of great scripts that have already been made into movies, but I haven't been sent a lot that I'm like, ‘Wow, this is really special I'm going to drop whatever I'm focusing on now to try and make this happen.’ But I welcome those and I look forward to reading them. 

One Day as a Lion is now in Theaters, and will be available On Digital, and On Demand on April 7, 2023.