Diana (Lili Simmons) is smart, charming and a bad good pool player who enters the illegal world of high stakes keno gambling. Nick (Kim Coates) owns a dilapidated plantation house and runs a ring of games, placing bets on players he takes under his wing. When Diana and Nick cross paths, her ambition combined with his greed raise the stakes above anything they have yet to face.
“The trailer, it comes across like, ‘Saint, what’s going on?’ and there’s Diana played brilliantly by Lily Simmons, I’ve got something in my hand, there’s a game… It’s kind of a fun sport, and yet it really invites you to watch the movie,” Coates said.
Double Down South certainly offers enough for viewers, from the tone of the movie, the characters, the tightly written script where each scene has a purpose, the suspense, to the themes and messages within it. Unsurprisingly, since it’s written and directed by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Tom Schulman (Dead Poets Society).
Alongside Coates and Simmons in the cast of Double Down South are Cameron Cowperthwaite, Igby Rigney, Rebecca Lines, Tom Bower, Justin Marcel McNamus and more. It will have its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival 2022 on Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 PM PDT.
Inspiration and participation Double Down South
“I sent Kim the script and he thought it was just for notes,” Shulman explained jovially. “He didn’t know I wanted him to do it. But in the end, when the money came in and everything, it was okay, now we offer.”
“I was hysterical,” Coates said, “I was talking to one of my best friends in the world, and five months went by, I didn’t read the script. I thought he wanted notes from me. He already has those other brilliant people to give him notes that I thought, ‘He’ll be fine without my notes.’ Then my agents say, “You know this, but Tommy offered you the co-lead in his next movie.” I went, ‘What?’ and then I read it right away. This movie is so incredibly well put together in terms of writing.”
Double Down South will challenge the audience via Nick, Coates’ character, who is charming at times but ultimately mean to a character who is hampered by racism and misogyny.
“I knew Kim would charm that character,” Schulman explained, making sure that the themes in the film that continue the story didn’t get any thicker than necessary. “When you play a guy like Nick… it’s just so hard because he’s full of all” [expletive]. All that misogyny and racism, and where he came from, is stealing and wanting to beat people up. You have to bounce it,” Coates added.
As they do, it is feathered just enough that, without giving anything away, will give viewers a sense of accomplishment at the end.
The tone of Double Down South
“It’s his way or the highway,” Coates said of his character Nick, which sets the tone for the entire movie. “He won’t change… I mean down to the wardrobe, I wear cowboy boots all the time, jeans all the time, there’s no real change. That’s why they live right in that house, and I don’t even know if there’s a shower that works in that house. It’s all about surviving and making money, and that’s what he does in this movie.”
There’s a lot of character in that house too, with a level of fear encompassing the walls and those who walk in them.
“From my perspective, we couldn’t make the film unless we found that plantation,” explains Schulman. “We needed one for the interior and one for the exterior. We found one in South Carolina, but the interior was in very good condition, and we couldn’t afford to renovate it after we damaged it, so we couldn’t use that spot. We found this place in Madison, Georgia, where the owner was going to remodel the house anyway, so we had to do whatever. Keith, our art director, showed up, and he did every room… and did a great job. It was hard to believe when seeing the house before and after. He brought it exactly where we needed it.”
Double Down South is a production of Benacus Entertainment.