ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Novocaine directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen about working with the film’s unorthodox action star, Jack Quaid. The duo also discussed their use of tone, how they settle disagreements, and the Max Payne comparison that went viral. It is out now on Digital from Paramount Home Entertainment, while the 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD release is out on June 24.
“Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) was born with a rare genetic disorder, where he can’t feel any pain. When the girl of his dreams (Amber Midthunder) is taken hostage in a bank heist, he turns his inability to feel physical pain into an unexpected strength in the fight to get her back,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Two of my favorite movies this year have starred Jack Quaid. I’ve just been so blown away by his versatility. He’s definitely an unorthodox action star, but it gives Novocaine such a character. So I was curious, as directors, how do you work around his quirks and sensibilities? Because you really embrace it, and the film’s better off for it.
Dan Berk: Jack Quaid is amazing, and we also loved Companion as well. The question about his quirks, I mean, we leaned into all that. I mean, that’s what made him perfect for it. You know, we knew for this movie that we needed somebody that was an unlikely action hero because Nate doesn’t know how to fight. You know, he’s not Jason Statham, he’s not Keanu Reeves, he’s not some dude that knows how to kick.
That’s obviously the sort of comedic heart of this movie. It’s part of what makes the entire concept tick. So we knew we needed an actor that could handle that comedy, but also handle the sort of emotional weight of the love story in this movie. And Jack just has that in spades, you know, I mean, he’s such an amazing physical comedian and improviser but he has super deep chops and can make you cry. And he was just such a pleasure to work with and such a perfect Nate.
He was our number one choice when we were, when we were rewriting the script. You know, he was kind of who we were imagining playing this role. And it’s so rare that you actually get to cast the person that you’re sort of dreaming up in your head.
Robert Olsen: That way, you know what his quirks are and you write them into the character, you know? It’s very, very rare that the dream actor that we’re picking when we’re writing together, it winds up getting cast, but in this case, it did. We were so lucky because he’s an incredible actor and just as good of a person as he is an actor too.
I think having somebody like that be the number one on your call sheet just makes it all kind of trickle down because he’s such a humble, hardworking person and such a gracious performer. Everybody else working on the movie feels like they need to reflect that energy, so it made for a really blessed shoot.
Robert, Dan mentioned the love story at the beginning, and I did want to ask about that beginning portion because the bank robbery is played straight and it’s intense. Could you speak to the key of getting people really invested early on in the characters before everything just goes so crazy?
Olsen: Yeah, well that was something that was really important to us was to kind of take the time necessary to get the audience invested in the characters. I think it’s something of a lost art.
Streaming has made it so that so many movies you have to start with a punch ’cause you’re afraid of somebody kind of flipping to the next service. But we really wanted this to have an old-school theatrical pace to it. And I think that the classic action movies of the eighties and nineties that we grew up on and that we were trying to reference in this movie they took their time. [In] Air Force One, the plane’s not being hijacked until the 25th minute, you know what I mean? And you get so much more time to get to know your characters in something like Die Hard or Lethal Weapon.
We just thought that that was something that was gonna set this movie apart from contemporary action movies because so many action movies nowadays, your protagonist has a secret past of some kind. Like they were secretly some assassin, or they were secretly in the CIA, or whatever it was. And you’re slowly learning about that person who that person’s true identity. But when you have a film like that, it inherently puts distance between the audience and the protagonist because there’s something about them that you don’t know. But we didn’t have to do that in this movie. You got to know who Nate was at his core before everything kicks into high gear. And we think that that just makes for such a more satisfying experience when you’re able to invest in the character.
If the bank heist happened at the 10th minute, I don’t know that that would be the effect. That is what we were trying to do with the contrast there is that the bank heist is not played for comedy, like you said. It’s like that. It’s Heat, you know. It’s just like this intense bank robbery. It’s not until you get to the kitchen fight that you realize, “Oh, okay, we as the audience are going to be given permission to laugh during these fight scenes.”
You can really feel the relief of the audience as soon as you get to that kitchen fight scene. Everybody just starts to let loose and have a really fun time. But I don’t think that that would be the same if it just was like that [for] the whole movie. I think it wouldn’t have any weight to it. It would feel more, you know, just kind of pointless entertainment.
Dan, I did wanna ask about your approach to the action later on in Novocaine, because these fights are simultaneously super fun, but they’re also very disgusting. There’s a lot of just horrific body horror like going on, and just disfigurement. I was really watching with clenched teeth at times, but it’s always enjoyable. How is it threading the needle of just seeing poor Jack thrown through the wringer here, but it’s still a good time? I could see that going, maybe too ridiculous or too terrifying.
Berk: Yeah, I mean we always talk about that because for this concept to work, you need that violence. You know, you need that gore so you can really visually communicate this concept that this guy is being brutalized but can’t feel it. And that’s a huge engine of the humor, which is the other big component.
If we didn’t have this sort of tonal blend where you had the violence set right up against a lot of humor and a lot of heart, the violence would be really uncomfortable to watch. There’s something really fun about watching through your fingers when you know that it’s all sort of still in this jubilant celebratory vibe.
When it teeters into, like, “torture porn,” if you just sucked all the comedy out of this and it was just a dramatic thing, or if you change the concept and he could feel it and we’re just like fucking this guy up. He’s like, on the ground, like crying and praying to God for the pain to stop. You’d get up and leave the theater, you know?
But because all of that violence is contextualized with the humor, because every time you’re seeing like a compound fracture, there’s like a laugh a second later, you know, whether it’s from Jack just reacting in a really deadpan way or something about the situation it allows you — like Bobby said — it gives you permission to laugh at these really grizzly images, which is just a sort of a unique experience and certainly in a dark room with a whole bunch of other people.
It feels like it sticks out a little bit and makes it feel like kind of more of a ride. But yeah, that tonal blend was kind of mandatory for us to hit, otherwise it would’ve kind of fallen flat.
?% Inspired by Max Payne#Novocaine pic.twitter.com/qKHHyptkKW
— عزيس | FromGreybeard (@i3zis) March 14, 2025
Robert, there’s this one scene where the gun’s right in the camera, Jack has a leather jacket on, he looks just like a Max Payne screenshot, and fans were having a real field day with that. Was that a little Easter egg, or was it just a happy accident?
Olsen: No, that was definitely a happy accident. I will say that when we were on set and we were shooting you know, the first scene of Jack wearing the leather jacket, and we have this kind of like boom up reveal of him I do remember talking to Dan and being like, “he kinda looks like Max Payne there, you know,” but that was the extent of it.
I think the still that’s been going around with the gun close to lens is not an actual frame from the movie. You know, that was like a marketing still that somebody took. And it just so happened that like, that picture went viral because of how much it resembles the Max Payne cover or whatever.
But I mean, I’ve gotta say that looking between the two, I agree. It’s pretty uncanny. So you know, I don’t know if he can just re-use the exact same wardrobe and just go shoot a Max Payne movie, but if he did, I’d watch it.
Dan, I love that you guys are just roommates and it’s led to this really successful, great creative partnership, but there’s always gonna be disagreements, even if you see the big picture the same. How do you handle it when you both completely disagree about something? How do you like find that medium?
Berk: It’s all through very spirited debate. We always say that of course there are creative arguments… Although, there’s not really that many to be honest. We’ve been best friends for so long that we’re just interested in the same sort of stuff. So when one of us pitches a cool idea, the other one’s like, “Oh yeah, great.” It’s not this grinding thing. I think if it were this grinding thing every day, not saying other partnerships that work can’t have it be that way, but I don’t think our partnership would have the longevity and the success that it has. But through that debate, a better idea always emerges. You know, it’s like, if I’m fighting for idea X and he’s fighting for idea Y, we go at it for hours. I’m defending X, he’s defending Y, and then Z comes out and we’re like, “Oh, that’s a great idea.”
Like, we both understand the problems we each have with each other’s ideas, and we try to pitch workarounds around the margins, and it’s, “Okay, well what if it was this, but we did it this way.” “Okay, what’s your problem with it?” “Okay, well, let’s see if we can fix that and superficially twist it this way.”
And we end up with an idea that is better than either the ideas we started with. And that always happens. So some of our best creative results are forged through the fire of disagreement. So, you know, it’s sometimes a draining part of your day if you get in an argument like that, but it usually is worth it. And it’s sometimes an opportunity.
Olsen: Well, like you said, we were roommates, we were best friends for years before we ever started writing together. And I think that gives us the ability to argue about very little creative minutia and not have that ever affect our actual relationship. You know, it’s like a sibling or something where you can get in a big argument, but you still love each other, and the next day you’re just gonna be back to square one, you know? So it’s like that.
But yeah, it’s rare. And I think our biggest thing is we just try to make sure that anytime we’re arguing, it’s when we’re alone, you know? I think what we try to avoid is ever arguing on set or in front of people, stuff like that. That’s kind of part of the process is learning how to work those things out beforehand. I think the more reps that you get together, the more you learn how to do that.
Thanks to Dan Berk and Robert Olsen for taking the time to talk about Novocaine, which is out now on Digital.
