Sometimes you just can’t hide a murder, am I right? That’s exactly what happens in the new film Blow the Man Down. The film features two girls who struggle to cover up a deep, dark secret. Far too often in our world, women are underestimated, and it’s this exact subject that the film tackles.

I had a chance to speak with directors Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy on how they crafted this Amazon Prime Video film. Blow the Man Down hits Amazon Prime Video on March 20!

Below is the official synopsis for Blow the Man Down:

“Welcome to Easter Cove, a salty fishing village on the far reaches of Maine’s rocky coast. Grieving the loss of their mother and facing an uncertain future, Mary Beth & Priscilla Connolly cover up a gruesome run-in with a dangerous man. To conceal their crime, the sisters must go deeper into Easter Cove’s underbelly and uncover the town matriarchs’ darkest secrets.”

LRM Online: Oh good. Thank you. Okay. So ladies, I had a ball watching Blow the Man Down, especially the twist in it. And then the unexpected, come on, you had women ruling this town. How did you collaborate? First of all, you wrote it, you directed it. Tell me about the beginning, how it came about. And this the whole concept and story together.

Krudy: I was like, wait women don’t run the town? Because that’s when we found in Maine. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well we started with what we had in common to be honest. We both have sisters, we’re from Irish Catholic families and we knew we wanted to do something in a fishing town because we had grown up, with sort of strong bonds in fishing towns. So that was sort of the starting point. And then from there really exploring like what would you do for your sister? And how far would you go to protect her? And so that’s something that were having fun.

Cole: I mean we are movie lovers too.

Krudy: Yeah. Like you know, the covering of a, of a crime is such a juicy starting point for a film. And then, yeah, and then the older women, this sort of like next layer of the town and it sort of as we spent more time with the girls and their journey or with this accidental murder. It was like we would create these other characters in the town and all of a sudden there was like this trio of women and this Enid character. And it was sort of like developing that over years Nancy.

Krudy: And then it was kind of returning to the big picture and finding how to like really bring these stories to a head together and seeing how this will became this intergenerational changing of the guard tale of this town and these women and these bonds. And really like a tale about transitioning into kind of like being like ushered into womanhood.

Cole: Yeah, because we had day jobs we wrote this over years. And we would leave in and come back to it. And so we really do feel like we kind of grew up writing this and we started looking at our own mothers differently and we actually had to confront a lot of our own like internalized sexism we had of just not wanting to be tough. We were camera chicks, we wanted to be tough, we wanted to be like dude’s and wanted to … We also rebelled against being homemakers.

Krudy: Yeah career ladies.

Cole: We were like very adamant about we’re career women and we’re not homemakers and then kind of changing our perspective.

Krudy: Yeah. And looking at this and seeing like, wow, what these women were doing is really like powerful and they’re kind of holding the community together and they … When stuff goes down. I mean, I remember really having an eyeopening moment when my friend’s dad passed away and just seeing like how every woman knew what to do. I was like, I don’t know what to do. How do these women know what to do?

Krudy: And they knew that they needed food and they knew you had to show up and they knew they were probably going to need a ride. And they knew they should hang out at the house so they could do the dishes. And clean up because everybody wanted to stop by. And so just really thinking like, oh man, like all those stupid thank you notes that we made fun of. We didn’t want to do and it seemed like this lame thing. Why do girls have to do think you notes? And boys never have to do thank you notes. And then just realizing, oh wow, this is really like the social glue and these networks, these communities are so strong.

Cole: So strong. And how much responsibility they take on and carry and how sort of beautiful and powerful that can be.

LRM Online: You touched a subject I wanted to talk to you about because there’s this stereotype about the homemakers. They don’t really put too much input. They just do what they have to do, follow the routine. But wow, the layers of these women, it’s like it was surprising. And you know what I think like deep down actually the homemakers are the brains of everything.

Krudy: Yeah, yeah. It really was. I mean like what Bridget was saying, like we kind of grew up writing this and really having a change of perspective about what these women do on a day to day and how society regards them and then what kind of power they do wield in their everyday life and how-

Cole: And how influential they are with their husbands.

Krudy: Yes.

LRM Online: Yes, yes.

Cole: And the funniest anecdotes with that are like actually from when we were shooting in Maine. We spent a lot of time in this town of Harpswell, where we ended up shooting Blow the Man Down and just the negotiating with these really tough like fishermen that were like talking the big talk like, okay, yeah, you can shoot here, yeah, we’ll do this and I’ll make it this and I’m going to be in the movie. And dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then they would come back the next day and be like, actually you need to talk to my wife. This happened over and over. Or just being like, okay.

And then the women would be like, what’s the movie about? I don’t know if I want to support it. What’s the problem? And when we told them they were like, oh yeah, that sounds right.

Actually in my house growing up, my mom really was like my mom. My dad would be like, like, yeah, you have to talk to your mom. My mom really was like the power bee of our household. And, but she didn’t get a lot of credit for it. That’s a little bit what we wanted to kind of play with here, where, they’re kind of like pulling this big load. The women who kind of run the houses, they don’t quite get the spotlight in the same way, but-

Krudy: It’s not about the spotlight.

Cole: It’s not about, they actually use that to their advantage.

Krudy: Yeah. And you really see that on the characters like Doreen, Susie and Gail, the three women, that they use their invisibility to their advantage. They’re everywhere and they see everything. It’s this, we really actually wanted the movie, we wanted to invite viewers to underestimate them, and say, oh this is like this familiar backgrounds character that’s going to like bring in the pie in scene five and be supportive to their grandson, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And be like, Oh man, no, they’re super naughty. They’ve been paying attention the whole time.

Cole: They’re playing you.

Krudy: They’re playing. you

Cole: And that’s kind of the truth. It’s like, yeah. It’s like you think about, you’re like, yeah, I like I did cut my hair. Or like I did wear pantyhose so that.

Krudy: All the weird things you had to do.

Cole: Oh my God the pantyhose that they got us to where. And that’s the girls, the Connolly’s sisters get played.

LRM Online: Yeah, they totally, like they did play everybody. And at first, the way you guys introduced them was awesome. I mean, they seemed like just the gossipy older women that just talking about everybody and just more of the judgmental but not realizing that they’re actually just keeping Enid to keep their town in control.

Cole: Yeah. But keeping tabs. But there could be something more than just like a gossipy, like current events thing going on with them.

LRM Online: They had real content.

Krudy: Yeah. And that was really important to us. So we like wanted it to feel like you’re in effect, you what you’re looking at looks like a feminine space. It looks very domestic, but that real decisions are being made. And we wanted to just sort of invert what your expectations for that. And we’re also totally playing with just our movie expectations too. I mean, you can see with Bob coming in like that, such a movie moment you’ve seen with the genders reversed so many times. Just like, oh, this irrelevant character of the other sex coming in, not really knowing what’s going on. Everyone’s going to humor them.

Cole: The busy body, like the busy body.

Krudy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was like the type, the busy body.

LRM Online: Yeah. So how did you come about the title for Blow the Man Down? I’m very curious.

Krudy: I think it’s very inspired by the sea shanty itself. We kind of were, we really early on were listening to sea shanties. Before we even had a fully fleshed out plot, we just were really kind of attracted to them as sort of this spiritual core of the … This spiritual timelessness that could be a part of the landscape of telling it like a seaside story.

Cole: And the double entendre, I mean that honestly told in retrospect can be like, yeah, that feels inevitable. But I know when we initially were choosing it, I think it was like a subconscious thing. Gravitating towards it and feeling like it had such an epic like, ah.

Krudy: Blow the man down but which man are we talking about? You can just keeps asking that question. And then also just loving that like blow is kind of in there and like it’s like about a brothel and like just like any like we like yeah, go ahead and think you’re making up the first blowjob joke had to do with our title.

Cole: We’ve already made it buddy. It’s kind of like, it’s sort a fake sexy movie. Like yah. It’s about a brothel but it’s like come in and watch it. It’s like a brothel movie for women. And I think it was like you were saying like the Blow the Man Down was like picking the sea shanty was like so early and that was like, from the original. The movie has always been called Blow the Man Down. And then sort of as our themes kind of revealed themselves and got more just like concrete, it was like, oh, this is the siren song of this movie. That was our theme playing on every scene.

LRM Online: Okay. Okay. That makes sense. I was just so curious, like how did they come about? Okay. Tell me about the casting of Blow the Man Down. How involved, I mean, you guys did great. My favorite one was Enid’s character. She was just like this badass. But yet.

Cole: Who’s character? Sorry.

LRM Online: Enid.

Cole: Oh Enid, yeah.

LRM Online: Yeah, she’s like a badass. But then it’s like, but then I don’t know, like you kind of like it, you’re rooting for her.

Cole: Yeah. And that’s like her tagline, she’s a badass but you kind of like it. Margo Martindale and we like, just feel so lucky that we got her to be in the film because she brings a sparkle and a wit and charm. I mean, Margo Martindale has swagger. She is really like a charming, naughty, rambunctious, extravagant person. And she actually brought this crazy charm to the role.

Krudy: Yeah. And she kind of lets you kind of like, well, you, why you like it is because you’re living vicariously through her. A woman who operates with an unapologetic attitude and who is like shameless and she’s not without vulnerabilities. She also, like obviously has a chip on her shoulder and feels like the women are ganging up on her and one woman hasn’t felt ganged up on and that’s where you kind of like drum up some empathy. But she really is this character we get to like live through even though she’s also obviously has made questionable life choices, which is her behavior sense.

LRM Online: Yeah. And what about the gals, the sisters, Morgan and Sophie?

Cole: Casting them?

LRM Online: Yeah. How did you know it was them two. They were meant.

Cole: Oh, we loved them so much. Well it took a long time to cast the sisters. We didn’t have a casting agent because we didn’t have financing yet. So we really were pounding the pavement and reaching out to people and then CA and UTA started helping us out in pitching us some young actors and we met with so many young actors in that age range and we read a lot of people like in Krudy’s house.

Krudy: Yeah. We would read with them, shoot it on our little DSLR or whatever. And so yeah, Morgan was really one of the first.

Cole: Morgan was one of the first, but we had to kind of go through the whole process of seeing a bunch of people before we were like, and we also kind of wanted to know who our … We wanted to cast them together. So it took probably like six months and Sophie was one of the last people we saw. And there were so many talented young women who we met with along the way and it was trying to find really specific things that kind of became cornerstones of each of these characters. That felt organic and natural for the actors themselves. And Morgan had sort of like a freedom sort of like a-

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Krudy: A looseness.

Cole: A looseness. And Sophie had a really special containness actually, yeah. Like a deep strength that felt like. Sophie is really like amazing at doing a lot with a little, like she just has this beautiful stoic qualities to her and really reminded us of women we grew up with. Really the character Priscilla is this person who again, with the themes of the movie, you might underestimate, in another movie she might be the like uptight one who needs to loosen up, but then you actually realize the same part of her that is so quick to write a thank you note is the part of her that is going to cover up a crime for her sister. And Sophie could embody that with a lot of dignity.

It’s like this is her. She comes through and we really just felt like we know a lot of women like this that they’re going to come through for you and they’re going to show up. And so a really felt like Sophie brought so much to that and Morgan too. I loved that Morgan made the role more of a tomboy actually because on the page a lot of people kind of went and sort of this like sex pot direction, we’re used to seeing that in movies and I think Morgan just brought so much of herself. She really is this like powerful young woman. Who’s kind of freed herself from a lot of expectations but taken control of her own life, which is very like the character.

And then Nancy, just the two of them together. We went on a retreat with them to Joshua Tree right when they got cast, we went away together for a couple of nights and then we had a rehearsal week in LA. But beyond that, the two of them really invested in each other. They spent a lot of time outside of our rehearsals just deepening a relationship and becoming friends. And then when we made the movie, they lived in a house together.

Krudy: They requested to live in the house together too and they’ve become like really, really like close, close friends.

Cole: Like sisters.

LRM Online: Well that’s great that definitely must have helped you for the chemistry and filming. So we didn’t get to meet Mary Margaret Connolly, but from what I watched, it seemed like Priscilla has a lot of her, like represented her.

Cole: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Kind of the duty, the coming through the kind of just like doing what needs to get done without a fuss. It’s a very New England. Yes.

Krudy: And also perhaps there’s a little bit of Mary Beth, where we like to think that Mary Margaret also had like kind of an unbridle view too and if she had had the opportunity to leave that town, maybe she would have, that she was a woman with a zest for life.

LRM Online: I thought that was going to happen. I seriously did. I was waiting for it.

Krudy: Waiting for what to happen?

LRM Online: For Mary Beth to leave town.

Krudy: Oh, well, we kind of leave it that she’s going to at the end.

Cole: Eventually. Yeah,

LRM Online: No, but throughout the film I’m like, Oh, that’s when she’s going to leave now.

Cole: Oh, interesting, interesting.

LRM Online: Yeah twice.

Cole: There definitely were other drafts of the movie where she … But that’s ancient history.

LRM Online: No this was good. Thank you so much ladies. Congratulations on Blow the Man Down.

Cole: Thank you so much for watching.

LRM Online: And hoping to see more films like this.

Cole: Thank you.

Krudy: Thank you.

Blow the Man Down hits Amazon Prime Video on March 20, 2020!

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