Shane West as Darby Crash, in Rodger Grossman's

As a film critic, it’s beneficial to see things from the other side of the silver screen every now and then, to know that there are real people and real passions behind many of the films I nonchalantly bang out 600 words on. Granted, film criticism would die as an art if every critic took into account the blood that was shed for each film, but speaking with those doing the bleeding from time to time puts things in perspective.

And if anyone has ever shed blood for a film, it’s Rodger Grossman, director of the Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret (you can find my review here). Extremely gracious with his time, I had the chance to speak with Rodger on the phone for over an hour about his labor of love, what the original band members’ reaction to it was, and whether or not he pays any attention to film critics. The edited transcript is below.

Evan Derrick: I’m always fascinated by complex or dramatic production stories, and I know that you had some real difficulties getting the film made. How long have you been working on it?

Rodger Grossman: Well, I’ve been working on this movie for about 15 years.

ED: That is a long time.

RG: It is a long time. If you want to pick a type of project that’s hard to make, I couldn’t imagine anything more difficult than this: it’s a biopic of someone who is not well known, there’s homosexuality, intravenous drug use, punk rock, a young cast that is not well known. There’s not really room for the type of main actors that fund this sort of movie, so it’s a miracle that it exists. And it really only exists for one reason: people were passionate for the subject matter and fought like hell to get it done. It’s really a tribute to people coming together and being persistent against all odds, and not because there was any big paycheck out there, because there certainly was never a promise of that with this film.
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