Welcome back to Following Films. Before we jump in today, do me a quick favor: if you're enjoying the show, hit that subscribe button, leave us a quick review on whatever app you're using, and share this episode with a friend. It really helps get the word out. Today on the show, I’m talking with director Padraic McKinley about his new film, The Weight, which lands in theaters nationwide starting today. Padraic directed the film from a screenplay by Matthew Chapman and Shelby Gaines, based on a story hatched by Matthew Booi, Leo Scherman, and Chapman. It’s got a massive team behind it, produced by Simon Fields, Nathan Fields, Ryan Hawke, Jonas Katzenstein, and Maximilian Leo, alongside a heavy lineup of executive producers including Andreas Rübo, Klaus Dohle, Frédéric Fiore, Céline Dornier, Ralf Berchtold, Peter Jarowey, Rich Goldberg, and Peter Block. Plus, the cast is stacked: Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe lead the charge, alongside Julia Jones, Austin Amelio, Avi Nash, and Sam Hazeldine. The setup is pretty grim. It’s 1933 in Oregon, and a guy named Samuel Murphy, played by Ethan Hawke, gets ripped away from his daughter and tossed into a brutal work camp. The warden, played by Russell Crowe, offers him a way out: smuggle a haul of gold through a completely deadly stretch of wilderness for an early release. Naturally, the crew he's stuck with starts rotting from the inside with betrayal, and Murphy has to figure out just how much of his own humanity he's willing to trade off to actually see his kid again. It’s a desperate, messy story about desperate people, and Padraic and I break down how it all came together. Here is my conversation with Padraic McKinley.
