Seven Psychopaths arrives in theaters today after winning the coveted Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award at TIFF last month, as one of the most interesting, unique, and funniest films of the year. Hypable sat down with writer-director Martin McDonagh and star Sam Rockwell in San Francisco last week to discuss the film, its influences, and the nature of psychopaths in the film.

In town for the Mill Valley Film Festival, McDonagh and Rockwell had limited availability for press, which meant that they were stuck in a hotel room with a handful of journalists, Hypable included, to discuss the film in a rather loose format for half an hour. What resulted was a very interesting talk, as Rockwell and McDonagh tag-teamed questions ranging a variety of topics.

While psychopaths (or the idea of them) obviously feature prominently throughout the film, McDonagh insists he isn’t actually interested in them and they were never the focus of Seven Psychopaths.

“Christopher Walken’s character at the end says, ‘Psychopaths are kind of tiresome after a while, aren’t they?’ So i’m not interested in psychopaths or serial killers or any of that, i’m kind of interested in why [society’s] interested in them. The film’s more about that then it is about a love or a joy of them,” says McDonagh.

“I’d question how many are psychopaths in the film. Psychopaths have no love or empathy, and Sam Rockwell’s character does. Christopher Walken’s does. I wouldn’t say he’s psycho at all, although some of his behavior is a little out there. Maybe only Woody Harrelson, the villain, is the true psycho of the piece – and the dog,” he adds.

That said, McDonagh clearly finds these characters interesting, saying of Sam Rockwell’s character Billy Bickle, “I guess you can go anywhere [with him], that’s the dream of writing the part, he can do anything at any minute. Like when the car explodes, I didn’t know he was going to blow up the car. When a character like that is in the background of another scene, even when you can’t see him, he can do anything. There’s nothing that’s not valid in Billy’s mind. So that aspect as a storyteller is a joy because the story can take on any aspect.”

Rockwell added on playing the character, “Well, it was a great script and a great part. The more I read the script the more I realized what a golden opportunity it was to play Billy Bickle. It’s one of those roles where you can chew up the scenery. It’s a dream part.”

Rockwell’s character is really a wild card throughout the film, as McDonagh says, so it was interesting to hear how Rockwell went about selling that to the audience.

“You have to have it in the writing. It’s why it’s such a great part that Martin wrote, and a great script,” says Rockwell. “But certainly, all actors want to be spontaneous, I think that’s the trick of acting. When you’re being truthful under imaginary circumstances, you want it to be truthful. Which means it has to be fresh and spontaneous.”

Rockwell uses the example of having to react the news his mother has cancer in a film: “You kind of have to trick yourself that it’s happening for the first time, and sort of trust this actor’s faith, so to speak. The trick is when you come in and tell me my mother has cancer, and I have to do that twelve takes in a row, and every time that discovery has to happen to me fresh. I have to kind of go, ‘Oh my god, what?’ and react to that,” he says, before adding. “But not that like that, that was terrible.”

For McDonagh, there was the responsibility of harnessing this process that Rockwell referred to, which can only be an added challenge with such unique characters and situations.

“For me you do a couple weeks of rehearsal before you start,” says McDonagh. “The best thing is that everyone’s on the same page, everyone knows why each of those lines are there, what I was thinking when I wrote them and what I was thinking when I wrote the character. And then that’s open for discussion.”

One of the major issues Seven Psychopaths tackles from a thematic perspective is that of violence. While it is definitely a violent film, there is a clear commentary that the film is making when using violence its self.

“The whole setup of Seven Psychopaths is to question violence in movies and to question the Hollywood love of it,” says McDonagh. “I guess there’s a fair bit of violence in a lot of my work, but even in In Bruges, that whole story is about the questioning of a violent man, the guilt of a fairly decent man who does a horrific thing. It’s not funny hitmen stuff, it’s quite serious. I could never do The Expendables.”

For Rockwell’s character, there are a whole lot of traits mixed-together which add to the bizarre, entertaining character that is Billy Bickle.

“[For Billy] we were talking about The Fisher King with Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams, and Chazz Palminteri and Sean Penn in Hurlyburly,” says Rockwell. “I mean there’s many examples of that kind of codependent male bonding kind of relationship–alpha-beta, beta-alpha switching. Johnny Boy [from Mean Streets] is definitely a template for Billy, probably more than Travis Bickle [from Taxi Driver]. I think that kind of flamboyance that DeNiro has in Mean Streets (and also New York, New York and Midnight Run.”

“I think Mean Streets in the writing was kind of prevalent,” adds McDonagh.

Rockwell is clear that while you can homage a character in your performance, it has to be a little bit of everything more than a recreation of a character.

“You don’t want to do a carbon copy of a carbon copy. I mean, there have been cases where you do see people imitating,” Rockwell says. “But in this case there are blatant homages and I’m definitely channeling some of that in the performance. It’s like a stew, and for me, I put all kinds of ingredients in the stew. So I’m putting a little Kathy Bates from Misery , and a character for the guy in Grizzly Man. There’s a little Richard Pryor in there, there are all kinds. So that’s kind of how I work out, it’s kind of a strange process. Steal from everybody so they can’t catch you stealing.”

For McDonagh, an Irishman who has explored his home country and culture over his illustrious, award-winning career as a playwright and filmmaker, Seven Psychopaths felt more like an American film.

“Seven Psychopaths explores maybe the American cinema’s fascination, well I guess world cinema’s fascination, with guys with guns, and whether that is really the best way to go forward,” explains McDonagh. “So it was really playing with the Hollywood conventions of a story like that. But then, subtly turning it on its head. But not in a European way, you know. If you’re gonna put a guys with guns film out there and you have the sensibility to question it, that was a fun thing to combine.”

Also of note from the interview is the news that Martin McDonagh has a new project he’s working on which will likely be released in “about three to four years.” The script was written for Sam Rockwell, who has agreed to do the film. There is also a key female lead in the film, which McDonagh is excited about, as he’ll be the first to admit his past few projects have lacked in that area (Seven Psychopaths even pokes fun at its lack of strong female characters).

Seven Pyschopaths is currently playing nationwide. You can read our review from TIFF right here.