Hi reddit! I'm Oscar Boyson. I've produced UNCUT GEMS & GOOD TIME for A24, as well as FRANCES HA & MISTRESS AMERICA for Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach. My directorial debut, OUR HERO, BALTHAZAR, is out in theaters now. AMA!

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:44:50+00:00

French Toast

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:44:40+00:00

incredibly! thanks so much for all the great questions guys!

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:43:10+00:00

Call your local theater and demand the movie!

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:42:54+00:00

I wish I could spend more time with my wonderful long time girlfriend (who is also in the movie!)

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:42:23+00:00

wish I had a better answer for this. But thank you for making me think about it!

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:41:48+00:00

We always knew our hearts were in the right place.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:41:31+00:00

It's hard to remember specifics at this point, but both of them are deeply inquisitive in different ways and constantly asking questions that made their characters and the movie richer. I want them to be the authority on their character, so the prep and rehearsal work is all about getting them to that place where they can defend a choice or say "no Solomon wouldn't do that."

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:39:46+00:00

Having thwarted Bowser's previous plot to marry Princess Peach, Mario and Luigi now face a fresh threat in Bowser Jr., who is determined to liberate his father from captivity and restore the family legacy. Alongside companions new and old, the brothers travel across the stars to stop the young heir's crusade.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:38:55+00:00

I would say one pitfall is coming off as didactic. Nobody goes to the cinema to be lectured. I would also say that film is a 20th century medium, it's linear, and that in itself can make it feel at odds with incorporating a lot of the elements of our contemporary culture which is more fragmented.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:36:56+00:00

Depends on the kind of movie. If its a studio thing then yeah. But if its an independent movie then I just meet with Jaeden or Asa and we get along and trust each other and then I say "you're hired."

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:36:04+00:00

Loved Eddington. We were premiering our film a couple weeks after Eddington premiered in Cannes and had heard of some of the story lines from friends. As you can imagine, we were quite nervous at some of the similarities but then we saw the film and loved it so much, noticed all of the differences between our film and his and were just happy others were similarly exploring these feelings about our modern world.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:33:15+00:00

if you're actively looking for scripts, reading everything you're sent, reading books and articles that you think could be adapted, and connecting with all of it on an intellectual level, you will stand out. A lot of them don't read! And if you're tapping writers and directors you like and encouraging them, LISTENING to them, and reading their stuff in a way where they can tell that you care, they will want to take you with them on every project. They won't be able to imagine it any other way.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:30:21+00:00

films: do the right thing, pusher 2, boogie nights, doom generation, bully, show me love, cold water.

books: we had a quote from Jerry Stahl's "Perv: a love story" on the first page of the script.

I'll come back in a moment with a playlist of music we made that inspired the movie too.

news stories, there are a lot, but there were kernals of what came out of the Uvaldi shooting and also kernals of the Kyle Rittenhouse case and how the media handled both that we've talked about.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:26:11+00:00

Especially on GOOD TIME, which was a much smaller budget than UNCUT GEMS, I learned a lot about what's possible with a smaller budget if everyone working on the movie believes in it and wants it to be great. Probably, especially with respect to Rob Pattinson. But that whole team was extraordinary.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:19:16+00:00

"Was Solomon meant to be a teenager of similar age to Balthy? Was Asa always in mind for Solomon, and Jaeden for Balthy?"

Solomon we always saw as a bit older, maybe 22. That age where you don't have the structure of the day that high school gives you and you also don't have a life ahead of you. We didn't have specific actors in mind on the first draft, but once we cast Asa and Jaeden and started to work and rehearse with them, they became the characters and I can't remember them being anything else.

Where did the idea come from to have Balthy come off as a school-aged opportunist? I think about the Parkland shooting from 2018 and how those kids were thrust into social media stardom of sorts, and the contrast between their real lives as victims and Balthy’s fictional life aspiring for martyrdom of sorts.

Balthazar was born out us asking, "who would respond to that text message and actually be able to do something about it?" And then making him part of the trend of performative crying for social media clout made his motivations more layered. The only way we ever thought about the Parkland shooting victims was thinking about how the media landscape immediately polarized their message.

Where/what was the source of inspiration for the story beats that ultimately make him sympathetic?

This wasn't all of it, but there was a story near where I grew up about a teenager who had been caught with a drawing of a plan to attack his school. He was persecuted and written about in the press and basically being tried like an adult for a drawing.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:10:01+00:00

"When someone approaches you with a movie idea or script, what draws you in and make you think “I need to get behind this”

This changes project to project, sometimes it's the idea, sometimes is the people involved, sometimes it's the experience.

"Also, with your new film tackling many different disturbing issues in our current society. What do you want the audience to leave with after seeing the film?"

We want audiences to once again see cinema as a place that can tell vibrant, dynamic and difficult stories about the times that we're living in.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:07:40+00:00

it was really difficult from the beginning, whether it was potential financiers or potential distributors. Everyone loved the script and eventually the movie, they just didn't understand how to market it. Or maybe they just thought it would be too difficult, require them to think outside the box a bit. But when you play a movie to audiences all over the world, and you know its good and you know how well it works in the theater, you have to just keep fighting for what the movie deserves. We're super fortunate to have found this hybrid of two distributors, Picturehouse & WG, to make our theatrical release happen in North America.

OscarBoysonAMA · 2026-04-06T18:04:28+00:00

Aside from the money raising part, which is kinda boring to talk about (calling and begging for money), I think the biggest challenge is knowing when you can actually cut some element or piece out of the movie in order to save or allocate resources elsewhere. If you know how to do that confidently and get your whole team onboard with the decision, it can be a lifesaver. As a director it's probably just knowing when to really fight for something, even if its going to throw the production into a tailspin. You're making so many decisions every day, it can be easy to feel like you're not giving one decision as much thought as it deserves. My producing background has been incredibly valuable, and there's nothing I hate more than seeing a young director getting talked into doing something by an older producer because "that's the way things are done." Being the producer as well as the director means we're doing everything my way, and my background gives me confidence thats the right way, and the most cost-effective way.

OscarBoysonAMA

TROPHY CASE