Set in the early 1970s, Amazon Studios’Uncle Frankis a gripping new drama about families of all kinds and the impact of the secrets they keep. From writer/directorAlanBall,Uncle Frankfollows teenager Beth Bledsoe (SophiaLillis) and her beloved Uncle Frank (PaulBettany) as they travel down to their family’s homestead in South Carolina to attend the funeral of the Bledsoe family patriarch. Things take a turn when Frank’s partner, Walid (Peter Macdissi), turns up at the funeral, bringing to light truths about Frank he was unprepared to confront with his family. This turning point forces Frank to come to terms with his own secrets and determine whether acceptance and forgiveness are even possible.
Collider recently got the opportunity to chat in-depth about the project with Ball and Bettany. During that interview, we talked about why it’s been more than a decade since Ball’s last feature film, what made Bettany want to take this character on, and what he learned from Ball as a director. Plus, Ball spoke about the TV project he’s currently developing, Bettany opened up about his upcoming Disney+ seriesWandaVision, and much more.
Watch the video and/or read the transcript below.
COLLIDER: Alan, what was it that made you wait so long to direct another movie? Was it something that just happened because of how busy you’ve been with doing TV, or was it because it’s just hard to get these types of movies made these days?
ALAN BALL: Yes, I was busy withTrue Blood. AfterTruei, I spent a couple of years developing and shooting a pilot for an HBO series that ended up not going. I did one season of a series for HBO that ended up not going, after the first season. So, I was pretty busy. But also, it’s difficult to get a little movie like this made. The people who are in charge of the purse strings read a script and they’re like, “Will this make me money?” And I think probably the answer to a lot of people who read this script was, “No. We love the writing, we love the story, but we don’t think this is gonna make us money. So, thank you.” And then, Miramax was the first financier that we met with who said, “Yeah, we’ll do it.” So, that’s what took so long.
Paul, was the script your first impression of this project? Or did you talk to Alan Ball first?
PAUL BETTANY: Alan is a pretty classy chap who doesn’t need to preface the read with a phone call. I’m always slightly suspicious when someone does that, like what’s wrong with the script? I also never read letters from directors and I never read a mood book when they send along a mood book. You’re like, “Yeah, I love all of these movies.The Last Picture Showis a great movie, but it doesn’t mean your movie is gonna be like that.”
Alan’s note was really, really short. It was, “I’d love for you to be in my movie.” I was incredibly flattered, being a big Alan Ball fan. But then, because I’m very much a “glass is half empty” sort of chap, I wondered whether I was gonna get the one shit Alan Ball script, and I was really, really thrilled to find out that I hadn’t and some poor other fucker has got that one. I got the good one. And then, we got on the phone and we had an amazing conversation. Then, we went off to North Carolina to make the movie and laughed our way through a very emotional shoot, but we laughed our asses off.
BALL: We laughed a lot.
Alan, what was it that made you see Paul in this role? And Paul, what was it that made you see yourself in the role?
BALL: Before I sent the script, obviously I had seen a lot of Paul’s movies over the years, but I was watching a movie calledJourney’s End, about soldiers in World War I in this bunker, and basically they all knew they were gonna die. Paul’s character had such dignity and decency and grace, and I remember thinking, “I can see him playing Uncle Frank,” and I sent him the script. The phone conversation that he just referenced, it was very clear to me that he got the script. He understood it, it spoke to him on a personal level, it would become a personal thing for him to play the role, and he was a really great guy and funny and kind and smart. That’s when we said, “Let’s get our business people on the phone with each other and make this work.”
BETTANY: I thought, “Anybody who likes a version of me where I fake dignity and decency is probably gonna be easy to fool for five weeks,” so I said yes. Why did I do it? It’s a really good question. My first question was, “Should I do it, as a straight man, and can I do this?”
I was just genuinely asking that question. I think it gets harder and harder, as you get older as an actor, to kneel in front of a grave in front of a camera and in front of the crew and do some play-acting. It’s like going to a therapist at 50. It gets a bit more embarrassing, the older you are. I need more and more compelling reasons to sit there with my dead brother’s t-shirt and go to dark places. Actually, I got asked a question by a journalist today that was the most empathetic question that I’ve ever been asked by a journalist, ever. They said, “How do you bring that energy, and what about your mental health?” And it’s true. Alan sent me home after we shot the scene at the grave because he realized that I was unshootable after that. Frankly, it was a Friday and I spent the weekend drinking too much and unable to sleep because I had gone to this place. It’s one thing to be doing that at 20, but at 50, when you’ve got kids and dogs and stuff in your life, you need a really good reason to do it, and I think we found one. So, there I was with my brother’s t-shirt at a grave again.
Alan is a master when it comes to these intimate family ensemble stories. Paul, as a director yourself, what do you learn from being directed by somebody like him and watching him work? Is there anything in the way that he works or approaches material that you’ll carry with you the next time you direct?
BETTANY: First of all, I’m resistant to calling myself a director. I think you’ve gotta get two under your belt. One is a mistake or something. Two, you really mean it, and I haven’t done two yet. Maybe I’ll start calling myself a director if I direct a second one. But “yes” is the answer. I think we actually have a similar style, in that I really love actors because they can make you look like you know what you’re doing as a director, I discovered. I happened to have written the thing that I directed as well, and I’m not very precious about what I wrote once I’ve written it. As long as the story survives the actor’s idea, I’m like, “Well, let’s go with that idea. It seems to make you feel really comfortable doing it,” and then, you do a quick calculation in your head and realize that the story survives.
A good actor is not protecting you, as the director or the producer. He or she is not trying to help you make your day. They’re trying to protect the object, in the same way that you are and they’ll push back on things. It’s nice when they push back when the lights aren’t burning and I was gonna say the film’s not in the camera, but we don’t do that anymore. Alan likes actors, and I like actors, so what I will take is being really empathetic and really listening because often somebody has a better idea. But Alan had all of the good ideas.
Alan, do you feel that all of your extensive TV experience helps when you’re directing films? Are there any ways that the experience you’ve had doing television changes or affects how you approach film?
BALL: Well, all the films I’ve done have been low-budget films with not really enough time to actually do the movie. So, all the experience I have in TV, of shooting five, six, seven pages a day is really helpful because I’m used to that schedule and I’m used to moving at that pace. I’ve never had an experience where I’ve directed anything for a feature where I had a really nice amount of time and all the resources necessary to do it. In my experience in TV, the last few shows I’ve done, I’ve actually had more, in terms of resources, than I have with films.
BETTANY: I think that’s true. The problem with making independent movies now is that we spend so much time trying to make them look like we had more time rather than just having more time.
BALL: Exactly!
Paul, we now know thatWandaVisionwill be available to stream at Disney+ on June 27, 2025. How did making that compare to the movies that you made in the MCU? Did it feel different in any noticeable way?
BETTANY: No, not really. If you think about it, what Kevin Feige has done is like a grand TV experiment anyway. It’s sequels and spin-offs, in an episodic formula and spin-off formula, like you’ve had in television forever, just done on a grand scale in film. So, moving it to TV, I think they made a really smart decision, as an homage to lots of different eras and genres of the American centuries’ TV. The difference is this, we had an awful lot of money, but we had to make six hours, rather than two and a half, or whatever it was – seven hours or eight hours, but a lot of hours – at the same amount of money that we would usually have to make two and a half hours. They did some very clever things, like we shot the first episode in two days, in front of a live studio audience. We basically ran it twice with the three cameras, running between sets. That allows you to bank all of that time for the action. The other thing is that we cross-boarded the entire show because we had one director, which meant that you could bank that time. Usually, you have two episodes with a director. They were clever and they made some pretty smart decisions about how we shot the early episodes so that we could have a lot of time at the end to attempt to keep the same sort of production value.
Because of how bonkers it all looks, does it feel like it’s intrinsically connected to the MCU, does it feel like it’s more of its own thing, or are both of those things true?
BETTANY: I think it’s gonna make you think about the MCU in a whole brand new way, but I do think that it’s absolutely a part of that universe. As each episode unfolds, the audience will be able to peel back layer upon layer until this rather beautiful puzzle box, written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman and shot by [cinematographer] Jess Hall, will be revealed to everybody and it will make sense. All of the bonkers stuff will be about something.
You mentioned exploring different eras. Is it paying homage to a lot of different eras, or is it mostly ‘50s and ‘60s?
BETTANY: It’s the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and all of it. And then, we end up in the MCU, in the real world.
Alan, do you feel like you have another TV show in you? Is that the next thing you might do, or are you looking more at film?
BETTANY: Yes, I’m in it. It’s calledUncle Frank on Ice.
BALL: Yes, absolutely. As far as an open-ended TV show that would run for seasons and seasons, no, I’m too old for that. But I’m working right now on a pitch for a limited series television show. I’m working on a pilot for a TV show that I’m just writing for myself. It’s a show I would like to see. Whether anybody wants to do it or not, we’ll see. I’ve got several movies I’ve written, that I’ve been trying to get made over the years, with not much success. Maybe one of those will go. During quarantine, I did write a slasher movie about a bunch of frat boys who go on a ski trip, and somebody starts killing them, one by one. I think I had some anger to work out.
BETTANY: You think?
BALL: We’ll see. I don’t know. It’s not up to me. Whatever I have that anybody wants to actually pay to hire cameras to start shooting will probably be the next thing I do.
Now I desperately want to and need to see this slasher movie.
BALL: Well, we’ll see. Several people have passed on it already. Maybe we’ll find somebody that wants to make it.
Is the limited series that you mentioned another ensemble family story, or is it something very different?
BALL: It’s about the family that created the Zankou Chicken restaurant chain. It’s a family of immigrants. It’s a family of Armenians who came to America and created this restaurant franchise. It ends in insane tragedy. There was a double murder and a suicide. It’s very light fare. We’ll see. We’re just at the pitching stage.
Paul, how long do you think it will be before you take on that second movie, as a director?
BETTANY: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. I wrote something during quarantine with my friend that I really like, that’s a comedy about his life. He and his wife got divorced, and then, about a month later, all had to quarantine together and it struck me as a hysterically funny situation.
BALL: That sounds great.
BETTANY: I’ll send it to you, Alan. I’d love you to read it. The truth is that nobody wants to make a movie about quarantine. It’s not really about quarantine, but right now, there was a lot of pushback on, “We just don’t think people wanna see that right now. They wanna forget about it.” But it’s got lots of jokes in it, and they’re pretty good jokes. I thought it’d be really nice to do something that was funny this time.
BALL: That’s a great idea.
BETTANY: I’ll send it to you, Alan.
BALL: I’d love to read it.
BETTANY: I’m really proud of it and I’d like to hear your thoughts. So, if somebody wanted to give me the money to make that, I’d love to do that. It’s very contained and can be shot during a lockdown.
