[Interview] Ted Geoghegan for BROOKLYN 45

In Ted Geoghegan ‘s (We Are Still Here, Mohawk) latest film, BROOKLYN 45, five military veterans gather in the ornate parlor of a Brooklyn brownstone on Friday, December 27, 1945. Best friends since childhood, they’ve reunited to support their troubled host – but when his invitation for cocktails turns into an impromptu séance, the metaphoric ghosts of their past become all too literal. Trapped in their host’s lounge, the Greatest Generation now finds themselves put to one final test, with their only route to freedom being more bloodshed.

For the release of BROOKLYN 45, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew spoke with writer/director Ted Geoghegan. During their interview, they discussed everything from how a joke was really the start of it all, his memories of working with his father on the screenplay, and the importance of creating chaotic queer characters.

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, Ted. To start things off, what was the main source of inspiration that led you to both write and direct BROOKLYN 45?

Ted Geoghegan: I’ve been a writer and producer for almost 20 years, and I’d never wanted to direct until 8 years ago when I made We Are Still Here. It was a film that when I finished writing it I thought, I can’t imagine anybody else directing this. This is my baby. So, I made it. After that, I wrote some other stuff that other people made, and then I wrote Mohawk. I had the same feeling,;it was just like this is mine. I want to tell this story. If it’s good, I can take all the credit and if it’s bad, there’s nobody to blame but me. I felt the same way about BROOKLYN 45. I came up with the concept and as soon as I came up with the concept I thought, this is mine. Nobody else gets it.

I came up with the concept because of a throwaway joke I used to tell when I was on the festival tour with We Are Still Here. In We Are Still Here, there is a séance performed by two middle-aged men played by Larry Fessenden and Andrew Sensenig. Every time I’d show that movie at a film festival, I’d have people come up to me afterward and be like, that séance scene was so good. And my joke was always, oh, if you love that séance scene so fucking much, my next movie’s just gonna be one big séance scene [Laughs]. That joke was the seed that got planted, that turned into BROOKLYN 45. I started thinking [about] what would it take to actually make a movie that’s just one big séance scene in one location and in real-time, set it over the course of 85-90 minutes.

I eventually narrowed the concept down to wanting it to be set during post-war America, the very early months after the end of World War II. It’s a very dark time in US History that doesn’t get talked about a lot because we think of post-war America as that sailor kissing the girl in Times Square. I started writing it and got about a quarter of the way through it up to the end of the first act, which, without spoiling anything, something very big happens at the end of the first act. I knew where the film was going to go next, but I didn’t quite know how to get it there.

So on a whim, I sent the first act of the script to my father who’s a quadriplegic US Air Force veteran. After being paralyzed in the early 70s, he went back to school and got his degree in 20th Century US History. I thought, wow, who’s a better person to help me with this project than my dad who served and also knows 20th Century US History? He gave me all this really wonderful information about the time and the military. It sounds so douchy to say it but after he gave me that information all the characters came to life, they all existed. Suddenly, I was like, oh shit, this is where the rest of the script goes. The second and third acts just poured out of me. I knew exactly what was going to happen. We sent the script back and forth six or seven times and each time I’d tweak a few things and send it back to my dad. He always told me, I’m not creative. All I’m gonna do is just give you factual notes. And I said, Dad, that’s so helpful. That’s amazing.

It was January of 2019 when I sent it to my dad and he called me up and said, it’s done, man. I was like, do you want a co-writer credit? And he laughed and was like, f*** no, that’s embarrassing [Laughs]. He’s like, I didn’t write a word of it. And I was like okay, well, I’m going to give you special thanks. He said, okay, fine, special thanks are fine and I can’t wait to watch this movie. And I said yeah, I can’t wait to show it to you. We hung up the phone and he died. It was the last conversation I ever had with my dad. It obviously knocked me on my ass. It was the last thing I expected, the last thing I ever expected for our last conversation to be about.

Suddenly this script, which was becoming more personal because I was working on it with my dad, suddenly was the most personal thing I’d ever written and I couldn’t fuck it up. I have one opportunity to make a movie with my dad and this is it, so I can’t fuck it up. As I said, that was January 2019 when my dad passed away and here we are in mid-2023 and the film is coming out. I was going to take my time, come hell or high water cause as I said, I have one chance to do this and I’m going to spend all the time I need to get it right. It was so impossibly important for me to get it right.

Having collaborated with your father, do you have or can you share a special moment or memory that stands out from working together on this?

Ted Geoghegan: Nobody’s ever asked me that before, so thank you. So many of the conversations I had with my dad were so casual and so chill. I never thought I’d ever be thinking back to those conversations. I think what sticks in my mind most was the first time I sent [the script] to him. When it was only those first 30 pages right up to, again, without spoiling it, the first bit of blood that hits the wall. My dad read it and he said, wow, I didn’t expect that to be where this was going. And I said, well, what can you tell me? What should I change? And he kind of smiled and was like well, nothing, but you’ve got a lot of things wrong. And I said, okay, well then what did I get wrong? He didn’t have it right there in that moment, but he sent me this long email later on.

With my dad being a quadriplegic, he had special instruments that helped him type. So just writing an email was a big deal. The fact that he actually wrote me this big email about everything that I got wrong… he said, look, you don’t have to change any of it, but if you don’t, it’s gonna be wrong. And I said, well, then I have to change it [Laughs]. And it was things that I thought were little things but were huge things like the ranks of these people and the fact that they were WWII veterans but I was referencing these battles that they’d been in during the war and my dad was like, they wouldn’t have fought in that. They wouldn’t have fought in this. They wouldn’t have been stationed there. They would’ve been stationed here.

What I thought were little things were the things that made the characters real. There were the things that turned them from a liberal pacifist writing a story about veterans to like, these are real stories about real people who served our country. That was such a joy, that first conversation because when I got that email from him I made all the changes, and then as soon as I made the changes, I started writing what happened next in the script before I made those changes I had no idea how to get through the next act. As soon as I made those changes, it was all there. It was all plain as day. I think that of all the conversations we had this was the one where I thought like, well, shit, this guy kind of does deserve a co-writer credit.

I thought it was interesting how the film explores the concept of masculinity through the portrayal of Mjr Archibald Stanton (played by Jeremy Holm), especially during a time when men, specifically, weren’t so open about their sexuality. What inspired you to incorporate that exploration?

Ted Geoghegan: As a queer person who is not defined by his queerness, I think it’s very important that when we include representation in art, that it is honest representation. I wanted there to be a gay character in the film. He’s never explicitly referred to as gay but the other characters in the film are aware of the fact that he is not heterosexual. They’ve, in theory, known this their whole lives. These are people who are in their 50s, maybe even early 60s, and he’s never had to come out to these people and he feels like he can be himself around these people. I think it’s very important that representation is not just golden gods. We need to see chaotic queer people. We need to see people who are messy because we are messy as people. All people are messy. In the case of Archie, he has a lot of baggage and he has a lot of trouble in his life, but none of that baggage or trouble comes from his sexual orientation. He is a proud gay man even though he’s closeted. He’s not defined by his queerness. He’s a soldier. He’s an American. These are the things that he defines himself as.

I’m married to a woman. I have a little human. I don’t say hi, I’m Ted, I’m bisexual. I say, I’m Ted, I’m a dad, I’m an artist. Like, those are the things and if it comes up, I’m very proud of my sexuality. I have nothing to hide, but it’s not what defines me. That is how I wanted Archie to be presented in the film. As far as masculinity goes, he’s also a very masculine man. He is able to present as hetero over the course of the film. And I just, I think he’s such an interesting character and I really love the character so much, but I don’t expect audiences to like him and that’s what being a human is. Without spoiling anything, Archie is very complex and audiences have a right to dislike this character, but I hope that the people who dislike him dislike him for all sorts of other things other than his queerness. Again, he is not defined by that. He’s defined by the actions that he has made in life. Just like all the other characters in the film and just like all of us.

I don’t think the majority of people know how difficult it is to do a film that takes place in essentially one room. Why did you decide to confine the majority of the story to a single location?

Ted Geoghegan: I’m paraphrasing but James Cameron said you can’t make a movie about everyone who was on the Titanic. You make a movie about a few people who were on the Titanic and it makes audiences care about everyone who was on the Titanic. And similarly, you can’t make a movie about everyone who served or everyone who served in WWII. You make a movie about a group of people and hopefully, it makes you care about and think about everyone who’s served. I wanted the film to feel claustrophobic. I wanted our audience to feel trapped with these characters and with their deeds and their misdeeds. I wanted the audience to feel like an extra member of this party.

When the film opens, it’s in 4:3 (academy) ratio and once they enter the parlor, it opens up into a wide-screen film. When the film opens, we’re outside with a few of the members of this little cocktail party and the screen is a little box like it used to be back before scope cinema. The characters are all very close together, they’re all kind of pushed into this little box because that’s how you had to shoot movies back then cause you didn’t have a wide screen. When we enter this room the screen widens up, but we’re still trapped because now we’re trapped inside this room.

Once the characters leave the room, slight spoiler but we do exit the room for the final moments of the film, the screen actually goes back to that tight academy ratio again to feel like we’ve never really left the confines of this film. We are constantly trapped while in here. Similarly, when the characters enter the room, so does the camera, and the camera never leaves the room. We never shoot through the windows. We never shoot through the doors. We are in this room with these people. We are trapped over the course of the film, and we want out. Hopefully, you don’t want the movie to end too quickly, but at the same time, you do want to get out. Hopefully that feeling of claustrophobia creeps over into our audience through those tricks.

BROOKLYN 45 is now available to stream on Shudder. For more on the film, check out our review.

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Shannon McGrew

Founder/Co-Owner at Nightmarish Conjurings

Shannon is the Founder of Nightmarish Conjurings and a lover of all things horror and haunt related. When she's not obsessively collecting all things "Trick 'R Treat" related, or trying to convince everyone that "Hereditary" is one of the greatest horror films ever made, you can find her designing interiors for commercial restaurants. An avid haunt fan, Shannon spends the entire year visiting haunts and immersive experiences throughout the Southern California area and hopes to one day design her own haunted attraction.

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