Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Dan Berk and Robert Olsen direct Novocaine. In this interview, the filmmakers talk about their biggest challenge making the film, and about working with the cast on set. Novocaine tells the story of a mild-mannered introvert man who is born with a rare genetic disorder that makes him impervious to physical pain. When his new beau is taken hostage in a bank robbery, his affliction becomes his superpower. The movie stars Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Lou Beatty Jr., Evan Hengst, and Conrad Kemp. Novocaine premieres in theaters on March 14th, 2025.
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00:00I think just aside from being away from our families for so long, we shot in South Africa,
00:05so it was quite far away and we didn't get to fly home every weekend because it's a 21-hour
00:09flight, so we were pretty much there for five straight months, but I think as far as the
00:13production goes, I think it was just getting, you know, working on Nate's, like the Nate
00:21Fu we call it, like figuring out what these fight scenes are going to feel like, how they're
00:25going to feel different, and most importantly, getting Jack to unlearn the instinct of flinching
00:33when you get hit, you know, and I think as an actor, you work your whole career and every
00:37time you do a fight scene, if you get slapped in the face or punched in the stomach, you're
00:40going to wince, you're going to sell the pain if you're a good actor, you know, and so he
00:43had to work with our stunt coordinator to kind of, you know, reprogram himself so that
00:48he could get punched in the face and not react, and yet, you can't go too far, you don't want
00:53to look like you're a robot, you know, there's still fear and anxiety and worry in your face,
00:59but not pain, and so that was something that Jack worked really hard on and we think is,
01:05you know, he absolutely nails it.
01:07When we were taking that pass on the script, whenever we write, we usually choose an actor
01:12that we're sort of writing in the voice of just because there's two of us, so it allows
01:15us to stay on the same page, and Jack was our choice at that stage in the game because
01:19we were watching the boys and he was just so perfect in that show and he was such a
01:23perfect Nate for this movie, and we were lucky enough to get him, and the reason he's
01:28so suited for Nate is because he can handle both the comedy in this movie, you know, which
01:34is quite demanding, you know, and he's such a talented physical comedian and such a talented
01:41improver, but then he can also handle the weight of the emotional scenes in the movie,
01:45you know, you have to buy that this guy seriously loves this woman and would do anything for
01:49her, and there's real stakes in this film, you know, it's very funny, but Nate's journey
01:54is still a real thing that we're supposed to invest in, and Jack is kind of, you know,
01:58the perfect messenger for that story.
02:01That version of the script was pretty different from what you see today as the movie, tonally
02:06it was a lot more down the middle, there wasn't really a lot of comedy in it, and so we came
02:09on when we attached to direct and we kind of pushed it in that more comedic direction
02:13and brought it to sort of our tonal sweet spot, so yeah, that is kind of the original
02:20concept, I think we just saw a lot of potential there, it was a very sticky, very commercial
02:23idea of this guy who can't feel pain who's thrust into an action movie and has to save
02:27the person he loves, and we just kind of ran with it from there.
02:30Absolutely not, no, it's definitely, you know, it's a debilitating condition to have, you
02:37know, like it sounds like it's something that would be cool, but you don't, you know, I
02:40think you don't really think it through usually, I mean that means that if you, you know, step
02:45on some glass, you might not know it until you've lost a pint of blood, you know, it's
02:50actually, you know, it's something that I think a lot of people might think is really
02:56cool but, you know, the actual condition is quite difficult to have.