There’s no doubt that stuntman turned director JJ Perry had a blast making day shift. The movie is packed with an all-star cast and production team, and it lives in one of the most beloved genres of all time: comedy horror.
With a screenplay by debutant Tyler Tice and Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead), the Netflix movie stars Jamie Foxx as a seemingly average dad who just wants to raise his daughter and work at his pool cleaning job. However, it turns out that his main source of income is: actually hunt and kill vampires. In addition to Fox, day shift also features Dave Franco, Karla Souza, Snoop Dogg and Steve Howey.
Perry, who made his directorial debut with this project, is best known for his work as a stuntman/stunt coordinator in a number of Hollywood favorites, such as Sheet, John Wickand Django unleashed. While looking for his next big move, he was immediately drawn to the day shift script. “After I Did That” John Wick 2many people brought me scripts about traumatized soldiers and PTSD, and John Wick-type movies.”
He continues: “As soon as I read… day shift, I started pacing around my house. It reminded me a lot of the movies I loved growing up. The script was brought to me by Shaun Redick and written by Tyler Tice, as soon as I read it I called and said, ‘We need to do this!’ So Tyler and I started working on it and we turned it into a much bigger action movie.”
Game Rant spoke to day shift Director JJ Perry talks about his vampire inspirations, balancing the comic and serious aspects of the storyline, allowing the actors to improvise, and more.
Game Rant: Who are some of your vampire inspirations?
JJ Perry: I was a big fan of lost boys and fear night—fear night is still one of my favorites. “You have to have confidence for that to work. Mr. Vinson, remember?’ I mean, it was funny, weird and trippy. I’m not going to make a period piece like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, they probably won’t hire someone like me to do that. I’m an action guy. I’m looking for things that people will like. The world is dark right now. There is a dual feature of COVID and Monkeypox out there. I just want to do fun things that allow people to escape for a while and have a laugh. With those three elements of action, comedy and horror, I can make them jump, I can make them laugh and I can make them go “Oh shit!” when the action takes place.
GR: I’d like to hear more about that. How have you used comedy and action as a way to lighten up the serious stuff in the movie? How did you balance these elements and still make sure it’s a real story?
perry: I have a nine-year-old daughter, which is why Bud Jablonski has a nine-year-old daughter. My wife is a lawyer. That’s why Bud Jablonski was married to Jocelyn Jablonski, the King Kong among the wranglers. I’m out with all these stuntmen and women who are millennials, and I’m Gen X. I love them, and we do dangerous things all the time, all over the world, but I don’t understand a word they’re saying. Snoop Dogg’s character reminds me of my old platoon sergeant. So I brought things that would make the movie feel familiar.
I was worried about the comedy, but when I cast Jamie Foxx, I didn’t have to worry about the comedy anymore. And when I watched the read-through between Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco and the entire cast, we all felt like texting each other, “Oh my gosh, this is happening.” It was the perfect storm, and it’s because I’ve been in this business for 32 years, working on 150 feature films and over 300 episodes of TV. That’s the number of directors and crews I’ve worked with. If you watch and learn from what the big ones are doing well, you’ll get a very strong opinion about what you want to do.
GR: Was there a lot of improvisation in the film?
perry: I’d say they used improv in every scene. I was counting on that. I have a duty as a director to sign the script and record the script. I’ve done my diligence, but then let it roll and let my Oscar-winning actor and my great comedians do what they do.
GR: It sounds like they really embodied these characters. What was your reaction when this all star cast got together?
perry: When Jamie signed up, it just happened. I had worked with Jamie before, we are the same age, we are both from Texas and we listen to the same music. I’m just a big fan of him as a person. He was really excited about it because if you think about it, he’s done some action movies, but he’s never done anything like it. We were very clear that we don’t make John Wick we don’t do that with vampires. We’re taking an action-comedy horror back to the mid-’80s.
GR: Have you two kept in touch over the years? How did he get on board for the movie?
perry: He showed interest in Netflix and then they came to me. After Netflix got the green light, they gave it to Fox and he bought it. As soon as we got to Zoom, he said, “Hey, man, we gotta do this,” and I tried not to get too crazy.
GR: What do you see next for the day shift story? Do you see this franchise?
Perry: I can’t say it, but I’d love to make it Night shift and Night shift, and then turn Snoop off on his own show. I will do day shift until they put me in the dirt.
day shift is currently streaming on Netflix.
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