Steering the Ship: Writer/Director Brian Helgeland Talks ‘Finestkind’
Brian Helgeland attends the premiere of Finestkind. Photo: Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Paramount+. All images courtesy of Paramount+
by CHAD KENNERK
Brian Helgeland has written and directed some of the screen’s finest moments. His work as a filmmaker includes writing the scripts for films such as L.A. Confidential, Mystic River, and Man on Fire. As a writer/director, his credits include Legend, 42, and fan favourite A Knight’s Tale.
His latest film, Finestkind, is a nautical crime saga set in his hometown of New Bedford, Massachusetts — America’s oldest fishing port. The fisherman tradition is integral to New England culture and heritage. Helgeland started fishing when he got out of college, following in the family trade for nearly two years aboard a commercial scallop boat. Looking for a book to pass the time at sea led him to a guide about film school and eventually a new voyage in filmmaking.
Helgeland initially wrote the first draft of Finestkind over 30 years ago, shortly after his stint as a fisherman. Heath Ledger was originally attached, though he wanted Helgeland to wait until he was old enough to play the role of the older brother. It was the beginning of a long journey to bring the story to the screen as funding came through and fell through. When Helgeland finally began shooting the film in 2022, he hadn’t been on a boat since 1985, but says it all came flooding back to him. For the first time in his career, he was his own technical adviser on set.
Finestkind stars Ben Foster, Toby Wallace, Jenna Ortega, and Tommy Lee Jones. It tells the story of brothers raised in different worlds who reunite for a summer catch aboard a commercial fishing vessel. When they find themselves in deep water, desperate circumstances lead to dangerous decisions. As the film sails onto Paramount+, Film Review spoke with Helgeland about leaving the harbour and honouring his father’s fishing legacy.
In conversation with writer/director Brian Helgeland
Film Review (FR): You’ve spoken about the importance of making every story personal as a filmmaker. Once you were in production and surrounded by all of the personal layers you’ve folded into this project, what was that experience like?
Brian Helgeland (BH): I didn't know what to expect. The very first thing was, I found I couldn't sleep in New Bedford — which is my hometown. Everyone was staying there, but we also had a production hotel outside of town. When I'd be done at the end of the day, I would drive there and stay, because I just had to get out of there. I don't know why exactly, but it felt overwhelming in a way. I would leave, come back in the morning, and drive a lot.
(FR): Did you learn anything about the young writer behind the script?
(BH): Yeah, I wrote it when I was 28 and I directed it when I was 60. The character that Toby Wallace plays is very much me in some ways. I didn't change it, because I didn't think I could write that version. I thought I should leave it that way, because it was fresh. I had only stopped fishing about three or four years before I wrote the script. He's not as funny as I am now, I think my stuff is funnier, but I'm very sincere and very serious about how much he loved that experience and how much it meant to him.
(FR): You come from a line of fishermen, was there a desire to honour them and their profession as a part of making this film?
(BH): Yeah, very much so. It draws a very particular kind of person. The guys who do it for a long time have found the life that suits them. They can leave their land troubles behind and go out to sea. Living that life of being cut off from everyone they know, but being with this crew. They sort of have two lives, because you end up spending more time at sea than you do at home. It was very important to me that anyone who fished, when they saw the movie, wouldn’t have too many complaints about it.
(FR): One aspect that I really appreciated about the film was that it gives time and space to the environment and profession.
(BH): I worked a lot for Tony Scott. Tony would always say that he made movies about what people did for a living. It just so happened they were Navy pilots and stock car racers, but he wanted to show the work. He wanted to show what he used to call process. I was very intent on showing exactly how they do this. The note from the studio would always be that suddenly this movie turned into a documentary about fishing halfway through. I said, “I think they are what they do. It's very important for the audience to understand what it is they do.”
(FR): What is the most difficult aspect of commercial fishing and what was the most difficult aspect to film?
(BH): You're bouncing around all the time while you're at work. It's probably the hardest thing about it. It’s like having a job where you’re standing on a trampoline the whole time you’re working. The most difficult thing is being away from everybody. I would leave my girlfriend, who is now my wife, in tears every time I left because she wasn't going to see me again for 10 days and then I'd be home for four. It's being away from your family, especially if you're close with somebody. We were very lucky shooting; we got every break you could get weather wise and sea state wise. It'll come back to haunt me in some form in another movie, but I’m one of few directors who will say I didn't have any problems shooting on the water. We only had five days out there, so we got a lot of stuff.
(FR): You were wise to have the actors go out and fish on a real commercial boat for a week before filming. That was great rehearsal and I think you were successful in creating a brotherly bond among them.
(BH): Yeah and the morning we were shooting we didn’t have to also try to teach them how to do what they have to do. They had been out to sea and it really bonded them. Especially Toby, Aaron Stanford, and Scotty Tovar. Ben Foster went out also, but he went on a different boat. He had a great experience too. It was funny, he said, “I want to go out on a boat.” I arranged it and then I called him and said, “Here's what you need to buy. There’s a place called Ship Supply; go there and buy all this stuff. And be on the dock at eight o'clock in the morning.” I told him which dock and he's like, “How do I? What?” I go, “Just be there. Someone's going to come up to you and go, ‘Are you Ben?’ And you'll be on a boat.” That's how it worked and he loved that. He loved feeling like he was actually down there doing exactly what you were supposed to do to get on a boat.
(FR): You're now looking at this story through the lens of rich career experience—and also life experience. It has a lot to say about brothers and even more to say about fathers and sons. As a father, did your own relationships shape how you viewed those father/son scenes years later?
(BH): I didn't have brothers, but I have two sons. I couldn't give you a concrete example, but I think it shaped a little bit how I approached directing the scenes with the brothers. I wrote the movie for my dad and unfortunately he died a couple of years ago, he never got to see it. In fact, by the end he would ask, “Hey, you think you'll ever make Finestkind?” I would say, “No, it’s never going to happen dad.” So it’s a little bittersweet that way. I wish he had seen it.
(FR): Do you think that the film would look different if you’d made it right after you wrote it?
(BH): I don't know exactly. The work would have been the same; the boats haven't changed at all. All that stuff is the same. I don't think I would have been so ensemble minded. I would have been more about my leads and sticking with them all the time. That's something I grew into as I worked, loving to get as many actors going as you can. That would be the only thing I think.
(FR): Audiences will feel that focus because there’s a rich ensemble across the board.
(BH): Yeah and everyone was there ready to go if I needed them. Sometimes they're a little bit in the background, but when I needed those guys they were there. For example, the scene at the start where they’re kind of hazing Toby and saying, “You look like Justin Bieber.” They ad libbed that whole scene, Scotty and Aaron. I had a different funny scene there and they said, “Hey, how about this?” It was just as funny, if not more funny, and it did the same job. That's how they were. You could not ask them to do that for six days in a row and on the seventh ask, “Do you have something?” They immediately had it, because they knew it was valued and it could make it into the film.
(FR): You've created so many iconic movie moments. Have there been any moments in film that inspired you or led you to filmmaking?
(BH): I didn't think I wanted to make a film when I saw the movie, because I just didn't have a concept of the people who made films, but Peter Yates’ Breaking Away from 1979. That movie was about a kid who was trying to get out of town and go to college—they're all stone cutters. I always remember that movie and having that feeling myself. I wanted to go out and do something, but I didn't know how to do it.
BRIAN HELGELAND is the filmmaker behind the screenplays for films such as Robin Hood, Green Zone, The Taking of Pelham 123, Man on Fire, Conspiracy Theory, and L.A. Confidential, for which he won the Academy Award. He was also nominated for writing Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River. As a writer/director, his body of work includes Legend, 42, The Order, A Knight’s Tale, and Payback.
