Interview conducted and written by Nik Mohan

The 2024 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing, and Top Film sat down with the director of one of the most anticipated movies of the fest; ‘The Luckiest Man In America.’

The film tackles the true story of a 1980s game show ‘Press Your Luck,’ and the one contestant who memorized five pattern sequences on an electronic game board in order to win a record breaking $110,000 ($325,000 adjusted for inflation). This man was Michael Larson who is played by the ever-impressive Paul Walter Hauser. The story also features performances from Walton Goggins as Peter Tomarken, David Strathairn as Bill Carruthers, and Maisie Williams as Sylvia.

Colombian-born filmmaker Samir Oliveros helmed the film as director and co-writer. He previously directed ‘Bad Lucky Goat’ (TIFF Next Wave ‘18) and the 2019 short film ‘Cactus Blossom.’

*Director and co-writer Samir Oliveros.*

Synopsis: May 1984. An unemployed ice cream truck driver from Ohio steps onto the game show Press Your Luckharboring a big secret: the key to endless amounts of money. But his winning streak is threatened whenthe bewildered executives in the control room start touncover his real motivations. Based on a true story.

TP (Top Film): There’s a lot of buzz surrounding this film, how does it feel to be at the festival this year?

Oliveros: “Amazing — it’s a dream come true. A year ago we were in the third week of principal photography, so if you told me a year ago we’d be premiering at TIFF I would not have believed you! It’s a dream, I’m so excited. It’s the perfect festival for the movie’s premiere.”

TP: What was so interesting about tackling Michael Larson’s story?

Oliveros: “I really related to unorthiddox ways of solving things. One day during the pandemic I was in a Goodwill in LA and I stumbled upon VHS tapes and one of them was ‘Press Your Luck.’ I was like wow, this looks like a very fun, stimulating gameshow, I’ve never heard of it. I did some research and found Michael Larson’s story. As soon as I read that he had memorized the patterns for six months and, under a lot of pressure, went into a Hollywood studio and executed his plan flawlessly, I was like wow, this man is a mastermind with bold decisions and he’s worthy of a movie.”

TP: Paul Walter Hauser is so vulnerable in this role, you can see the inner turmoil in his eyes. Was he always your first choice to play this character or was there other actors on the table?

Oliveros: “We were actually looking for somebody who came from comedy because we knew from the beginning that this was a wide appeal movie — everyone knew ‘Press Your Luck’ and it’s still on the air with four million daily viewers. We know it would reach a lot of people. The best way to make it appealing for the entire country was to make it through the vehicle of comedy. We were looking for somebody that could be funny but also had the range of showing depth. [Paul] Was definitely at the top.”

TP: How much direction did you give the cast on-set (Hauser, Goggins, Williams)? Did they understand their characters right from the page?

Oliveros: “These guys are professionals. I was impressed with them.”

Oliveros then gave a football (soccer) analogy to describe the situation:

Oliveros: “When José Mourinho landed in Real Madrid, he got there and said I’m not gonna teach Ronaldo how to play soccer — I’m there to teach them how to play as a team. So that’s pretty much what I did with those guys. I was very impressed with Walton’s professionalism, he’s incredible to work with. And Maisie — I was really impressed by the way she understood space. It’s something that is difficult to see. When we were shooting those long sequences, she happened to be behind another character, she knew she had to give half a step to the left to reveal herself without direction. She understood specialty perfectly. She always knew where the camera was.”

TP: The movie is set in the 1980s and everything had to be accurate to the time — cars, wardrobe, hair and makeup. How did you ensure that everything was authentic to that time?

Oliveros: “A lot of research. Every single one of those cars is from 1884 and before. Same with the makeup department — we did a lot of pre-production meetings to look at hairstyles and make sure everyone was looking the part. I had very responsible heads of department that were really making sure that we were not gonna accidentally put a little license plate of something that would become an IMDb spoof.”

TP: Pablo Lozano’s cinematography had certain shots in this film where we could see Larson’s POV as he’s looking at the board, figuring out where to hit the buzzer. Were there a lot of discussions between you and Pablo about the mood and feel you were trying to capture?

Oliveros: “That was a very long conversation. We knew that we’d have to shoot the board a lot and if you don’t get enough variation with these shots it would be very easy to fall into a formula. The other factor playing against us is that our main character (Larson) is sitting down in the same location for the majority of the movie, so if we locked ourselves into the same shots it would get monotonous very fast. We shot-listed a lot, making sure there was an evolution to the cinematography depending on where we were in the story so we could keep the visual language evolving.”

TP: These are real events. But where does that line between fictionalization and reality sit and how do you know when to make that leap?

Oliveros: “If you find the clip online for the Michael Larson scandal, it’s 42-minutes of taping. We were very aware of the fact that we had to keep it faithful, but we wanted to play with the unknown — which was everything that happens before, during the commercial breaks, and after. We were able to contact Bill Carruthers Jr. — the son of the creator of ‘Press Your Luck,’ and he was in the audition when Michael Larson came into the room. He [Carruthers] gave use a bunch of really good information to fill in those blanks… We also made sure we respected Michael’s story. We did research about his love live and realized he had a bunch of failed marriages and understood he was somebody who wasn’t the best partner — he was always looking into schemes and scams and ways to get validation. By doing that he would neglect his family so we wanted to make sure we captured that.”

TP: As a general question on directing, how did you take-in constructive feedback?

Oliveros: “We knew there would be a wide release because there’s a lot of people who know his [Larson’s] story and about the gameshow. We wanted to make sure the movie was landing with people so through the editing process, especially the last month of editing, we were in LA and we did a bunch of focus groups. We did four Saturdays and we would edit from Monday to Friday and screened the new cut on Saturday and make those people fill our surveys. That’s how we started shaping that last version of the movie — understanding what people were liking and disliking. So absolutely, I learned that from my first feature. I think that was my most valuable lesson. My editor was a big believer in focus groups. I wanted to make sure the movie was working with an audience and that’s why we had such a rigorous process with that. It’s amazing to see how that month of January, the surveys, and the ratings for the movie just started increasing the more we took this feedback. It’s something I really, really value. I’m glad that we did it.”

TP: Are there any lessons or methods you’ve learned from this movie that you’ll carry forward with you and adopt into next projects?

Oliveros: “Make sure the post-process goes through a lot of focus groups and feedback. I’ve seen a lot of filmmakers at the beginning of their careers not doing these at all and sticking to their vision and pretty much replicating the script onto the screen and believing that’s what editing is. They simply don’t take feedback in that stage. I’ve seen those movies fail and crumble and not get into festivals after years of work. That’s the one thing I’ll always carry on with me; testing the movie, see how it is with an audience, and make what you wrote is forgotten when you get into the editing room and just assemble a completely new movie and hope that it works.”

TP: Do you have a favorite memory or day on-set?

Oliveros: “Great question. I think, honestly, the first day. When the board lit up and we saw it working for the first time and we saw the podium and the actual set running. I was okay, wow, we’re making a movie. This looks exactly like the OG version — I think we’re going to pull it off.”

‘The Luckiest Man In America’ premiered at TIFF on September 5, 2024.

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