Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Mexican filmmaker DANIEL ANDRÉ directs RUNNING ON EMPTY, which marks his first feature film as a director. In this interview, Daniel talks about how this movie is an homage to all the movies he loved growing up. Keir Gilchrist, Lucy Hale, Francesca Eastwood and comic legend Jim Gaffigan star in RUNNING ON EMPTY, a brilliantly quirky romantic comedy about celebrating life and living it to its fullest. Mortimer is an odd but clever young man living a lukewarm existence in California’s San Fernando Valley until he receives some life-changing news. Determined to make the most of every day, Mort sets out on a spirited quest to find meaning in his existence and discovers the girl of his dreams along the way.
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00:00you know, I think it was just those were huge topics that I think I must not be the only one
00:04who thinks about these things. So I think that was sort of the catalyst. And then on top of that,
00:10it was really for my first film, I think it was my homage and paying respects to all of the sort
00:16of left of center films that I grew up loving, which are all of the I mean, one I haven't
00:21mentioned, but but when I was a small, I was way too young to watch this movie when it came out,
00:25but the man with two brains with Steve Martin. So I think that formed that along with like the
00:31comedian Steven Wright, I grew up while I loved him in very strange perspectives on things. And
00:39then with other movies, like Scorsese's After Hours, or Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch Drunk Love,
00:46Eternal Sunshine, Spotless Mind, Charlie Kaufman is probably one of my favorite screenwriters of
00:52all time. So I really, you know, a lot of it is paying sort of homage to those. The most important
01:00message is, I think that that no matter what's going on, you know, one thing I've come to realize
01:06over recent years is that all of the all of the bad things, all of the good things, those are all
01:11what make us who we are. That's all part of our experience. You know, everything happens for a
01:16reason. There was a reason why, you know, X happened and Z happened for Mortimer. Because
01:25he just sort of needed, needed to be shooken, or shaked, you know, and woken up, just being an
01:32artist. You know, for me, I try not to separate it. You know, for a long time, I think a lot of
01:39artists struggle with like trying to define themselves. And I truly feel that there's a
01:44renaissance, you know, I think things go in cycles, maybe every 30 years, you know, in the
01:4980s, in the early 80s, late 70s, in New York City, you had Debbie Harry, you had Basquiat, you had
01:54all of these amazing artists who eventually became known for Blondie or as a fine artist or whatever.
02:00But back in the day, when they were all living in New York City, they were artists.