The Gutter is a comedy following Shameik Moore as a down-on-his-luck guy who discovers a new purpose when he finds out he is gifted in bowling. I had the chance to chat with directors Isaiah Lester and Yasser Lester about the film and explore the humor in bowling being considered a real sport and its low-stakes appearance contrasting with high-stakes competition. The directors also talk about working with Shameik Moore, Susan Sarandon and D’Arcy Carden.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

John Nguyen: So The Gutter, bowling, the premise of this down-on-his-luck guy just suddenly becoming pro. Why bowling? Out of all the games out there, ‘This is the game we gotta do for this movie.‘

Yasser Lester: I’ll start, and then I’ll let Isaiah continue. We just used to bowl a lot, honestly, it’s one of those things where people ask you the question, like, ‘Is bowling even a real sport?’ And you’re like, ‘Well, if that’s a question you can ask, then it inherently makes it funny.’ So there’s that. And honestly, because of that, it is a sport that I mean, Big John, if you bowled for three weeks and really train, you could technically just be a pro, you know what I mean? And so in a world where we have so many fish out of water stories, it’s just like, “Oh, here’s one where it’s a fish out of water, but it actually can happen.” Now, granted, it is the heightened version of that, but it happens. I mean, if you look up the top 10 pro bowlers right now, you’ll be like, ‘Wow, all of those people look like a terrible neighbor.’ None of them look like a LeBron.

John Nguyen: Or a typical athlete.

Yasser Lester: Correct, yeah.

Isaiah Lester: And bowling, it’s so low stakes on the outside looking in. But on the inside, it’s very high stakes to these people. So I think there’s a part of the grandness in the small that makes it also very funny.

John Nguyen: Right now, I’m seeing just the popularity of pickleball, right? So I was wondering if you guys have ideas on that, like, “If we were to do a sequel, maybe that.”

Yasser Lester: To be honest. So Ben Stiller is actually making a pickleball movie right now, I found out. Oh, yeah, Sean Clements is writing it, right?

Isaiah Lester: Is he? Good for him.

Yasser Lester: Yeah. But the thing that we’ve talked about is that for some reason, if we were going to do a Gutter sequel and we couldn’t do bowling, what we would do is we would only change the names. We would still have Shameik, we would still have D’Arcy, and we would do the exact same movie, but it would be cornhole. It’s still the same arm movement, it’s all the same thing. We would do the exact same movie about a guy who starts shredding the world of cornhole.

John Nguyen: Shameik and Darcy are in this. What was that like? What was the inception and the idea of bringing them on board?

Isaiah Lester: Well, there weren’t any auditions. Everybody we talked to are pretty accomplished actors, and it was just more like talking to them and seeing if they fit the role. We had a meeting with D’Arcy on Zoom, Yasser and I, and we were talking about the character. Though she is a bizarre character, there’s a lonesomeness to her and a bizarreness to her like Barry Egan in Punch-Drunk Love. That’s like the big reference we made. And as we made that reference, she pulled up a picture, like a hand-drawn picture that she just had framed of Barry Egan from Punch-Drunk Love, and we were just like, ‘Oh, she fully understands this character.’

Shameik… Yasser and I were just very big fans. We went out to dinner with him and talked to him about the role. He had never really done a comedy like that before. And he’s very eager to try to do, like his words, that he wants to do every genre of movie and lead kind of every genre. And so we kind of roped him in during that and in terms of the two of them together, that was a very special dynamic bond that I feel was very much built between the two of them. And a trust they built and a partnership on set, and it just made for a very good team.

John Nguyen: With Shameik, I love him in the Spider-Man movies, and so watching him in this, I’m like, “Oh man, you guys are just letting him loose.” And what was the excitement around that?

Yasser Lester: Well, to be honest, like he was kind of nervous when he showed up, because, to what Isaiah was saying, he wants to do every genre movie, but comedy is very vulnerable whether you do stand up, whether you’re an improviser, whether you’re a comedic actor. Like there’s no, and I use this word too much sometimes, but you can’t try to be cool and be funny. You are either being funny or you are being cool. But they actually don’t exist within the same Venn diagram. The circles aren’t even in the same picture for that Venn diagram. So you can have characters who are idiots, who think they are being cool, but they are actually two people on the outside, idiots.

And I think that Shameik, when he first showed up, was just very worried about that, and he wasn’t worried about being cool. He was just worried about being funny, but he didn’t know what that looked like in terms of what the other characters he’s played. He’s played Raekwon. He’s played Miles, who is funny, but Miles is an animated character, you know? So it’s just different. That body language is different because you’re not the one doing it. And so, I think he was just a little timid at first, like, “Oh, God, I’m on set with comedians who know their voice.”

Like Darcy is a comedic powerhouse. She knows exactly what to say and when to say it. Her brain has the timer to be like, “Now’s the time.” And Isaiah said this before. Her performance led to him letting loose. We very much were, like, “Buddy, just use your normal voice. You have this. We know you have it.” But I think she really showed him that. Taking off the – I’m using a Harrison Bergeron metaphor here – but like ripping the weights off of the performance and then just going for it. She, more than anyone I would say, even more than us, gave him the path at least to say, “Oh, okay. I understand what this is.”

You didn’t have to audition anyone, because whoever it was that you wanted to bring into the movie, you’re like, “Oh, these are the people.” But wouldn’t it be fun to have Susan Sarandon audition? It’s like, “Let’s see if you got the part.” Because she’s legendary.

Yasser Lester: Buddy, she auditioned us. Yeah, literally. She asked us to lunch. She auditioned us, for sure.

What was that like?

Isaiah Lester: I mean, it was nice. It was a little surreal. Like Yasser said before, we have both worked with a lot of popular, famous and accomplished actors and actresses and writers and directors and things of that nature. Sometimes it’s just a job, and you’re like, “I can’t worry about. I can’t think about that. This person is Drake. I just have to do my job.” And Susan Sarandon, you still feel that because she has such a presence. You’re like, “Oh man, this is a superstar I’m about to talk to. And I’m just a boy.” I’m just a boy, but she’s really personable and you always know how she feels. She doesn’t give you any fake energy. She doesn’t give you, like, “Oh, hey, how are you doing?” She’s not that kind of person. Speaking for myself, I just like a person like that. She asked us a bunch of questions about the movie and about the role, and you could kind of see, as the lunch was progressing, that she was kind of like visualizing herself in the role. And by the end of it, she was just like, “Alright, I’ll do it.” And it was kind of cool.

About The Gutter

Synopsis: Walt (Shameik Moore) is an unemployed underachiever who discovers a newfound talent for bowling. Encouraged by a barfly named Skunk (D’Arcy Carden), he launches a pro career to save the local bowling alley from foreclosure. With his powerful rolling skills and unconventional style, Walt becomes an unlikely bowling hero – much to the chagrin of legendary champion Linda “The Crusher” Curson (Susan Sarandon).

The film is directed by Yassir Lester & Isaiah Lester and stars Shameik Moore, Susan Sarandon, D’Arcy Carden and Paul Reiser.

Featured image credit: Magnolia Pictures