[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What was your major at University of Arkansas?
R.J. Hanna, Filmmaker: At the University of Arkansas I actually was studying economics and finance. I went to school. I initially thought I’d be a lawyer. That was kind of what I was thinking about but I was always interested in writing and got interested in film as well.
When I was there, despite taking a bunch of writing classes and having a writing mentor there, I was really on the business side and just pushed that I think about as far as I could, which was to graduate and then I had to decide to pivot and do something else.
Film Courage: What type of law did you want to go into?
R.J.: I don’t know that I really knew. I’d done debate in high school. I liked the idea of figuring things out, arguing and that kind of thing. It just seemed like that would be a fun but stable career.
Film Courage: What was the vision for your life while you were there at University of Arkansas? Did you have sort of a grand picture of what you wanted to do?
R.J.: I guess before I ultimately decided to go to film school at that point it would be like the grand vision is be a writer/director and just go for that.
I think before that I always felt like I was still making films. I was still writing and I thought I’ll have a job. I’ll have a career and I’ll try and see what I can do on the side.
At a certain point I just got to the point where I had to accept that I wasn’t going to give 100% to anything else. I just had to go for this thing that was occupying all my time anyway which was movies and trying to make movies and writing movies. I figured Okay at least if I give 100% to this maybe it’ll work out.
Film Courage: What changed at Arkansas that brought you to Los Angeles instead?
R.J.: A big part of it was I was making…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Maybe it was growing up in Arkansas as a Canadian, or the summers in rural Ireland with his grandparents, but Daniel has always been drawn to out-of-place characters, strange environments, and the unique rhythms of how people talk. He just completed post on his horror film “Succubus,” starring Ron Perlman and Rosanna Arquette, to be released in 2024. Crossing over 500 screens in the U.S. and beginning its run in the U.K. is his feature “Hard Miles,” starring Golden Globe-winner Matthew Modine and Oscar-Nominee Sean Astin, which has won multiple awards and screened at prestigious festivals including Chicago International, Heartland Film Festival, and Cinequest. Prior to that, Daniel directed the true-story feature “Miss Virginia,” starring three-time Emmy-winner Uzo Aduba, Oscar-Nominee Aunjanue Ellis, and Vanessa Williams. The film was listed as a New York Times and USA Today Must-See Fall Movie, won the Audience Award at The Naples Film Festival, and received a limited theatrical release, cable premiere on BET, and streaming deal with Netflix. As a writer, Daniel is a winner of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, as well as the Slamdance, ScriptPipeline, and Screencraft writing awards. He also explores storytelling as an editor, with ten features under his belt, including horror film “What Lies Below,” starring Mena Suvari, which hit #1 on Netflix, and “Supercell” starring Alec Baldwin, Anne Heche, and Skeet Ulrich, which hit #1 on Hulu. Daniel hopes to continue telling cinematic, character-driven stories long past the time any sane person would have retired. He lives on the east-side of L.A. with his excessively-vocal cat “Dottie.”
MORE INFO ON HARD MILES MOVIE:
https://linktr.ee/hardmiles_movie
MORE VIDEOS WITH R.J. DANIEL HANNA
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