Blockbuster filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo discussed their latest film and participated in the inaugural installment of The First Time: Live on Rolling Stone on Twitch.
Hosts Tia Hill and Jon Weigell welcomed the Russo Brothers and opened with a conversation about Cherry, their new crime drama in which Tom Holland stars an army vet suffering from PTSD who starts robbing banks to pay for his opioid addiction. (The film arrives Friday, March 12th, on Apple TV+.)
“It was a very personal decision to make that movie,” Joe said. “We grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and the industrial Midwest is a little bit of a ground zero right now for the opioid crisis. We’ve lost family members to it, we have others who are struggling with their sobriety… And ultimately, to be honest, we made this movie for our kids. I’ve got kids between the ages of 15 and 24 and this was a movie that we felt was important to make to reach Gen Z, because we also feel like they are, in particular, most vulnerable to what’s going on in the opioid crisis right now.”
Later in the episode, the Russos recalled their early years as Kiss fans, with Anthony explaining how their parents got them tickets to see the band in concert as a Christmas present, then accompanied their sons to the show. “Which was extremely awkward, as you can imagine,” Anthony joked.
The brothers also spoke about watching sitcoms like Taxi with their parents, and how that influenced their love of working with ensemble casts on both TV and film. Later, the Russos spoke about working on such ensemble sitcoms like Arrested Development and Community, while they also discussed how they crafted their first superhero battle royale in Captain America: Civil War.