Where did this film’s weird emo-badass Mexican sidekick come from?
It came from my friend Clifton Collins’s personality. I saw that character in him; I wrote that role for him. And then we cast him in it. Thank God he was available, and thank God he was open to making far less money than he usually makes. I’m speaking for Clif here — though we’ve had these conversations, and I feel I can — but it was also something that he felt a responsibility for, that he wanted to do. For years I ran every draft of the script by Clif, and he watched that Romeo character evolve into what it was. And at the end of the day, he wanted to play that. He wanted to make a movie with his friend Troy, you know? And it worked out that way. His character has a great, kind of meta moment where he’s attempting to develop a Hollywood catchphrase on the fly. What is your trick for coming up with a catchphrase? That’s a tricky one. The fans taught me something in Boondock I. All these little throwaway lines that I thought were little minor, throwaway chuckles, they totally paid att
