Always a 'Ceremony' with Director Max Winkler

Nice that you can count on your friends. My dog's got some issue right now. Go on, go away. I never want to see you again, stupid dog. Women. I'm Oliver Tuvina, here at Young Hollywood Studio, with this young man, Max Winkler. How are you?

I'm very good. Thanks for having me.

And this young girl, Georgie. Um, well done. Thanks for stopping in.

Thanks for stopping in. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's very cool in here.

And uh, yeah, your directorial feature film debut.

Yes. So, you know, a kind of a romantic movie about a young man who's sort of madly in love with this older woman. You can't be here. Who are you? I'm Sam. Big Sam. You're far less intimidating than I imagined. Looks like Zoey's telling you some tall tales then. What is the occasion, by the way? Zoey and I get married on Sunday. Really? And it's my birthday. I have a very interesting story about how you had a quite nice birthday because of the film.

Oh, yeah. I had a unbelievable birthday. Two of the actors dropped out of the movie the day before I moved to New York, which was on my going away dinner, like victory dinner. They didn't want to tell anybody. Right. Because I thought everyone went to such great lengths to sort of come and throw this really nice party. So I was sitting there, you know, trying to act like nothing was wrong.

Right. You've obviously done short films and stuff, as I said, it was your feature film.

Yes.

So, how is it? How does it differ? What did you? Just come over here. Come on. There you go. There you go.

But just by most standards it was a pretty short uh, shoot. But for me, you know, you have these incredible people that you're working with and you get to work with these fantastic actors and I thought that was kind of a luxury, even though for most standards it was insane how quickly we shot.

Right. Um, and then, uh, most of it was shot in Long Island.

Yes.

And you all stayed on the same campus as well, right?

Yes. We'd stay in these little sort of like beach I wouldn't call it a beach house, that'd be giving it way too much uh, elegance. It's like a beach shanty. And I elected to stay in the smaller room and give the producer the big room and I stayed in the smaller room with my assistant. And um, the first night, um, half of the electricity in the house went out. And um, I saw my producer run in in little boat shorts just with his face completely white. He was so scared and uh, he's normally the really sort of straight one. I was positive. something had had something had happened and he had heard a rustling and he was sure that we either were under attack by like squatters. Okay. Or that um, there was a ghost in the house. So we called the police. The police came and uh, we were really scared. I was scared to go to sleep every single night. There was footprints sort of like in the sand leading away from our place. So we were certain that like somebody was trying to kill us and that it was going to happen by the end of the movie and they were just like toying with us.

Plus the way you're luck had been going, it was in

Exactly. Just say like very like I I think it would just say, I think it would just say Max Winkler dead without funding. I'm like doing stuff. Finally, you know, I was I was at uh, Uma Thurman's house for dinner party, you know, months after the shoot. And I was sort of regaling people with this story of like the great sort of lengths I went to directing a movie and how scary it was and you know, I did it with these girls and she started hysterically laughing and I was curious why and she told me that she said, you know, you're such an idiot. Didn't you know that that was Angarano and Reese, you know, messing with you the whole time. Oh it was. Yeah. And it was them the whole time.

Nice. You can count on your friends. My dog's got some issue right now. You can go, Georgie. She had your chance for the like, you failed. Go on, go away. I never want to see you again. Stupid dog. Sorry about that. I look at it. You can only do so much for someone, you know? Women. Anyway. What else do you like to do in your spare time? When you're not doing your directing, producing.

You know, I like to I've been traveling a lot recently, so I like to I like to sort of just hang. I have a good group of friends. We'll all sort of just go and and find some place to hang out. Therapy is another one of my favorite pastimes. I try to do that as much as I can.

Pretty much once again, a Hollywood.

Hollywood thing. Yeah. Except mine comes with me. She's right in the next room.

I just I did see someone laughing. I wondered what it

Giving your dog a tranquilizer. For the. If you got if you got any time for you afterwards, I'll take half an hour if you got it. Yeah.

Well, pleasure stopping. And it's also it's video on demand, right? And it's on.

Oh, yeah. You can also uh, watch it on video on demand. A lot of independent movies don't get to everywhere in America. So if it can be in your home, it makes sense. And it's not in your theater, yeah, it's it's it's very cool.

I think you'll do well. It's certainly had a a emotional roller coaster for this man in the making. So, have a heart. Go and see it. Or we will. Check it down. Great stuff. Thanks for putting up with my dog, by the way. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Thanks for stopping in. Georgie. Georgie, you let me down. She was great. Oh, my God. He's such a good dog.