New road trip adventure movie features big-name celebrities, South Mississippi scenery
Linda Hamilton. John Goodman. The Black Keys. Actors from “Mad Men” and “The Simpsons.”
That’s some of the star power behind “Easy Does It,” a new movie filmed in part on the Mississippi Coast that’s showing at the Southern States Indie FanFilmFest in Biloxi this week.
“I think they’ll recognize the beach in Bay St. Louis,” said Will Addison of locals who attend the screening.
He directed and co-wrote the film with Mississippi native Ben Matheny. They produced it along with Lizzie Guitreau from Worklight Pictures.
About 15-20% of what ended up on the screen was shot in Mississippi, he said, with many rural scenes filmed near Lumberton during the summer of 2017.
The film is up for best feature film and is nominated in other categories at the Biloxi film festival, which returns to Palace Casino Resort from Jan. 7-10.
Big-name celebs
This is the first feature film production from Addison, Matheney and a group of friends who moved to Louisiana to attend film school at University of New Orleans and now live in the city.
They signed a big Hollywood name with Linda Hamilton, best known for her role in the “Terminator” films.
“She did it for almost nothing,” Matheney said. They made an offer, and Hamilton said she would accept only if they paid her half that amount, he said. She understood they had a low budget and went out of her way to support the film, he said.
She is nominated for best supporting actress at the Biloxi festival.
The film also stars New Orleans native Bryan Batt, a regular on “Mad Men,” Dwight Henry from “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and Matheney who was born in Ocean Springs, raised in Hattiesburg and appeared in “Assassination Nation.”
Coast residents Summer Selby and Kevin McGrath also are among the on-camera talent.
Adding voice roles to the film are movie and television legend John Goodman and Harry Shearer, best known for ”Saturday Night Live” and the voices of Ned Flanders and Mr. Burns in “The Simpsons.”
Patrick Carney with the American rock duo, “The Black Keys,” wrote and performed the film’s title song.
The film premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival in October, and they will know in about a month if it will get more widespread distribution. It also has won awards at the Los Angeles Crime and Horror Film Festival and the Rockport (Texas) Film Festival.
A ‘wild movie’
The timing of the Biloxi showing at the beginning of 2020 is ideal.
“It’s kind of a goofy and wild movie on the surface,” Addison said. But everyone has different goals in mind, he said, especially at the beginning of the new year and decade.
The movie really is about self discovery on your way to your aspirations, he said.
The road adventure about the unlikely friendship between two scrappy anti-heroes and their “accidental hostage” as they rob their way across America, from Mississippi to California.
“We wanted to make a movie that was fun to watch in a theater,” Matheny said. It’s a film you can take anyone to see, he said.
They found Mississippi to be very supportive of their project, with the Film Office helping find locations and the local communities providing food and friendship.
“Mississippi just has a lot going for it as a shooting location,” he said. The Coast has natural beauty, he said, “And we consistently met folks who were friendly, warm and happy to have us.”
“Easy Does It” will show at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8. Tickets are $10 for the opening night screening.
Other ticket packages to the film festival also are available.
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
