Summary

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff chats with the team behind The Dutchman at SXSW 2025.

Director Andre Gaines is joined by cast members André Holland, Zazie Beetz, Kate Mara, and Aldis Hodge.

In this interview, the crew discuss filming on a real subway, adapting playwright Amiri Baraka’s work, and future projects like Gore Verbinski and Werner Herzog’s next films and Cross Season 2.

Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play, Dutchman, was an integral artistic work that inspired the Black Arts movement of that decade. With such a seminal text, adapting it through a contemporary lens is an arduous task, but director Andre Gaines (After Jackie) both honored Baraka’s work and brought a sense of inventiveness to his cinematic adaptation of Dutchman, which features a star-studded cast, including André Holland (Love, Brooklyn), Kate Mara (The Martian), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), and Aldis Hodge (Cross).
World Premiering at SXSW 2025, The Dutchman follows Holland as a successful business executive, haunted by his crumbling marriage and identity crisis, who is drawn into a mysterious game of cat-and-mouse after an interaction with a woman (Mara) on a subway.
At SXSW 2025, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sat down with Andre Gaines, André Holland, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz, and Aldis Hodge to discuss The Dutchman, obtaining the rights to Baraka’s play, navigating difficult emotions, and filming on a real moving subway train. Plus, Mara teases her upcoming film with her sister, Rooney Mara, and Werner Herzog, Bucking Fastard, Beetz teases her upcoming film with Gore Verbinski, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, and Hodge teases Cross Season 2.
Andre Gaines’ Adaptation Allows Us to Explore More of ‘Dutchman’s Main Character

“That gives us an opportunity to expand outside of the train.”

Image via SXSW

PERRI NEMIROFF: Some people out there might know about the source material, but just in case anyone needs a little Dutchman 101, Andre, would you mind doing the honors and giving us a brief synopsis?
ANDRE GAINES: Dutchman was a play in 1964 written by Amiri Baraka. At the time, his name was LeRoi Jones, and it was the seminal play that launched the Black Arts movement in the ’60s. This was a group of poets and playwrights that had come together and essentially launched a new arts renaissance that birthed its way out of Harlem. Amiri Baraka is really credited as being the founder and godfather of that. The play Dutchman not only launched that movement but launched his career and has been this seminal Obie Award-winning play for 60 years. It was really a great opportunity to be able to bring it to the screen.
I was reading in our press notes that it took you a good while to get the rights to the source material. Can you walk us through what was holding you back, and then what happened that finally got you the rights to make this movie?
GAINES: That’s a great question. It’s really just part of being a producer, pursuing rights for something that you want to make. I just don’t ever give up on it, so this was well over six years of pursuing these rights. What ended up happening, a sort of wonderful coincidence, is that the Baraka family, because Amiri Baraka had passed away in 2014, had actually seen the premiere for one of my other films, a documentary called The One and Only Dick Gregory that premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2021. I didn’t know they were in the audience. I found out afterwards, and they put two and two together. They wanted to talk to me, and I said, “This is what I want to do with this film,” and they said yes.
So you get the rights and then, all of a sudden, you have to take on this gargantuan task of adapting iconic source material. What space did you find in it that you thought you could bring your own unique voice to?
GAINES: It’s a very simple structure. It’s two people on a train. That’s what the play is. It’s a one-act play. Partially, I was doing it because I thought it might be an easy debut. How hard can it be to shoot two people on a train?

Image by Photagonist

Oh, I’ve got a lot of questions about that!
GAINES: [Laughs] It’s one act, so it’s 55 minutes. What I often find is the thinnest narrative throughline or the thinnest dramatic throughline that you have in a story, the more drama you can actually mine from it. It’s when it gets a little too complicated, there are too many moving parts, that it’s hard to keep focus on the drama. What’s at the core of it is André Holland’s character, Clay, who is really suffering an identity crisis. I wanted to know more about Clay, which you don’t know in the play. In the film, that gives us an opportunity to expand outside of the train, and learn who he is as a person. In my story, he’s married to Kaya, played by Zazie Beetz, and his identity is constantly under challenge, under scrutiny from Kate’s character, Lula.
Andre and André, I was reading that you two went to school together, and I just love when people find each other, stick together and lift each other up every step of the way in this industry. Do you each remember the very first thing you saw in the other that made you think to yourself, way back when, “I have to work with this person one day?”
GAINES: He was in the acting department, I was in the dramatic writing department, and the film department. We actually met through a mutual friend just in school, and there was a project that I had that I wanted him to do a reading for, and he wasn’t able to do it. We just stayed friends over time, but we’d never worked together. This was the first time that we actually worked together. We’d always see each other at different parties and events, and we’d always see each other at Common’s Oscar party. [Laughs] Every year, it was a thing that we would run into each other. I saw in André just a true thespian. This is a very heady, very dramatic, dialogue-heavy work that really requires someone of his acting prowess and caliber to do. He was my first and only call.
You speak the truth there, and you crush the role!
ANDRÉ HOLLAND: I saw a bunch of your work, as well, man, and I’ve always admired it. I’m a big believer in community and creating community. I feel like we were very fortunate to be a part of that ecosystem at NYU, where a lot of people were doing really interesting work. I’m glad that this is an extension of that, so thank you for your kind words, and thank you for having me.

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Kate Mara’s Character Is an Action-Driving Hyena

“It’s her play all the way up until the very end.”

I’ll start to get into the characters now. Kate and André, I’ll throw this question your way because the success of this movie hinges on your chemistry, your cadence, and how much of a spark the two of you create together. Can you each tell me the first thing you saw in the other that made you say, “Yes, you are the Clay to my Lula,” and vice versa?
HOLLAND: I just want to send some love to you, [Kate], because in the play, Clay often gets the credit because he has a big explosive monologue at the end, but it’s really Lula who’s driving the action. It’s her play all the way up until the very end. I think it takes an extraordinarily gifted artist to be able to carry that with such specificity and beauty, and girl, you killed it!
You are on fire in this film.
KATE MARA: That’s such a nice compliment. I was lucky because André was already attached as Clay. I did not go to drama school; I don’t know very many plays. I was a musical theater nerd, but I’m not very educated in the world of plays, so I was not familiar with Dutchman, but I was very familiar with André Holland’s work. So, when it was offered to me, I was just excited to get the opportunity to work with him. Then I read the script and was terrified, but I decided to say yes. That’s how I became involved. It was really just because I was so excited to work with André Holland.
I do not blame you one bit. I want to talk a little bit about finding Lula because it seems like a bit of a difficult character to put your finger on, so I was wondering if you had an “aha moment,” something you did either in prep or on set that made you say to yourself, “I get not only who Lula is, but who my Lula is?”
MARA: Obviously, she’s been played many times before since it was a well-known play. It just took a lot of preparation, and I did a lot of things that I’ve really never done before to prepare for a role, which was really fun. I really worked for a while leading up to the actual filming. Once we actually got to set, it was really all about connecting with André and just finding our rhythm together. It was really just all about… I don’t really want to give specifics because it’s all just embarrassing actor things, but there’s animal work involved, and she is a hyena, so there was a lot of hyena talk in my house with my kids with stuff like that. That’s as much as I’ll give you.

Image by Photagonist

I’ll take it. I’m fascinated by all of that. That’s why I sit here and admire all of your hard work, because I’d be embarrassed. I can’t do stuff like that!
MARA: It’s really embarrassing!
It pays off big time, though!
Aldis Hodge and Zazie Beetz Are Newer Additions to This Story

“We basically represent challenges in Clay’s journey.”

Image by Photagonist

Zazie and Aldis, your characters are new additions to the film version, so what kind of conversations did you have with Andre in terms of how their additions impact Clay’s story and reshape this world in a new way for the screen?
ZAZIE BEETZ: What our characters provide is an opportunity for context of where Clay is at. Also, the character is older in the script than he is in the play, which I think does change elements of it. We provide a little bit more of, like, why would a man like him, who does seem to have it all together, fall apart so dramatically? I felt like, for my character Kaya, my whole thing was the focus of our relationship. André Holland and Gaines talked a lot about our backstory, how our characters got to where we got to, and how that informs his relationship with Lula, and my involvement in partaking in that. I was fitting into the structure of the play where Kaya would come into, as well.
ALDIS HODGE: I’m piggybacking off of that because that’s exactly it. She hit it on the head. We basically represent challenges in Clay’s journey. I think the introduction of those characters and what they represent today helps clarify, especially for this audience, some of those things that we’re going through because a lot of us in our own right are on a very similar journey as Clay and can’t really see it. The thing I love about our characters, and particularly with Kaya, that I enjoy is that relationship, as an audience member, forces me to ask about the specificity of complexity in terms of what they’re dealing with, what they’re going through. It’s played so beautifully by the two of them because it makes one think, “What is right? What is wrong? What does compromise actually look like? As one is finding himself through this all, what do you do? Do you choose yourself, or do you choose the issue? Do you choose the person in front of you? How do you choose the right answer?”

Image by Photagonist

As far as Clay and Warren, where they are, they’re buddies, they’re guys, they’re bros, but at the same time, there’s something more important to address than maybe what Clay is going through at the moment for Warren, for the whole situation, for everything that’s bigger. I think their relationships really hone in on the nucleus of what Clay’s going through and trying to figure out what it means to choose self over other or to define self. The thing that I never mentioned to you yet, as far as Kaya—and this, I think, is also a really brilliant part of her—is that she has her own independent journey outside of [Clay’s].
GAINES: Yes, she does.
HODGE: I don’t wanna give away no cookies or secrets, but it endears you to the both of them and what they’re going through in a different way towards the end, because you’re like, “I’m rooting for you. I want you to make it. Find that peace!” It really is quite a beautiful unfolding, but also really entertaining to watch just because it makes you think about the things that you’re going through from a different perspective.
BEETZ: I also think what’s interesting is I feel like with the Kaya/Clay [relationship], I feel like all of us have been in, or are currently in, very long-term relationships.
GAINES: This came from real experience. [Laughs]
BEETZ: We were all like, “Well, my partner does this…” I think we were all able to, not relate directly necessarily, but to just relate to navigating relationships.
GAINES: Warren’s name is mentioned in the play. It was like, “Who is this guy? What is he like?” That’s where some of the fun came in, was being able to manufacture that. This party is mentioned in the play, so we wanted to go to the party. That’s what movies can do.
The Train Became a Character All Its Own in ‘The Dutchman’

“They were able to film on a train that came into circulation in 1964 when the play originally came out.”

Image by Photagonist

I’ve got to jump to the other character, which is the train. I’ve got a couple of questions about this train. One particular thing you said in our production notes is you totally misjudged the task of making a film that focuses on two people on a train. Can you tell me some production challenges you ran into that are attributed to misjudging that task?
GAINES: My producing partner, Jon [Gosier], is laughing off-stage. That’s really where it started. We wanted to make an authentic New York film. It was about finding this train. We got not only the blessing of being able to shoot in New York during the time because this was also during the strikes, but the fact that the train that we got was the train that’s out of circulation now, but came into circulation in 1964 when the play originally came out. So, it had very interesting striations along the side of it that just made for a beautiful tableau, and I wanted to shoot that train.
The production challenges, though, are metal on metal squeaking constantly going on that both André and Kate had to act their way through, and did very beautifully and actually made my job somewhat easier that way to be able to cut, and really dealing with the motion itself of the train. Kate and I have motion sickness. We were worrying about this train moving back and forth. We’re going between stations, one to the other. It was like being up in space a little bit, but it worked out.
The idea of you filming on a working, moving New York City subway train is something else. I don’t think I’ve heard of another production doing it quite like that.
GAINES: The MTA was fantastic. We actually had MTA engineers operating these trains, moving us back and forth. It was nine cars of a subway train, and we just ended up making it work. That’s what we wanted, and that’s what you feel in the film.
I’m a New Yorker. I appreciate that authenticity. I always know when it’s not in New York and not done the right way!
Another thing that was mentioned in our notes that I really wanted to bring up because I was curious about this is the choice to use a partially cracked 50mm lens. Why did you do that, and how can we see that informing the visuals in the film?
GAINES: There’s a Carl Jung quote that I used at the beginning of the film which is: “Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.” It was really all about trying to use some of those old lenses deliberately on these very new cameras to create the dreamlike, kaleidoscopic effects at certain moments in the film, especially in the party and during some of those flashbacks. A lot of the flashbacks we also shot on 8mm and 16mm cameras and doing some mixed media so that we can feel not only the texture of their relationships between Clay and Kaya and Clay and Lula but also feel New York. You really are able to get visuals out of these lenses and colors and things like this that you’re just not able to do out of other lenses. So, we wanted to be able to use that to try to highlight the whole tableau at the end of the day.
Kate Mara Joins Forces With Rooney Mara in Werner Herzog’s Next Film

The sisters will co-star in Bucking Fastard.

Before we wrap, I have a few upcoming projects to touch on.
Kate, you had a couple of things on the list, but the one that I settled on was Bucking Fastard because I’m excited that you’re going to work with Rooney [Mara], you’re working with a filmmaking legend, but also, I just love spoonerisms, so I saw that title, and I said, “I have to ask her about that particular one.” More seriously, though, it’s a big deal that you’re working with your sister. Have you ever been presented with that kind of opportunity before, and if you have, why not then but now with this project?
MARA: We have been offered things before, but Werner Herzog never offered us anything before. The title is the best title ever. We’re both fans of Werner’s and have been forever, and so we just were so excited that the script was as unique as we had hoped that it was. And we’re playing twins; it’s a very special opportunity. I’m very excited about it.
Gore Verbinski’s First Film in 8 Years Is Packed With Star Power

“Zazie Beetz joins co-stars Sam Rockwell, Juno Temple, Michael Peña, and more.”

Zazie, for you, I’m going to go to Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die because that’s a big deal because it’s Gore Verbinski’s first movie in eight years. What was it like working with Gore as a director, maybe something about that experience that makes you think, “I’m so glad he’s back behind the lens again?”
BEETZ: Before anything, honestly, the script just really roped me in. It’s just such an incredible dynamic and fun story, but also tragic. The cast attached was also one with Sam Rockwell, Juno Temple, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, and Asim Chaudhry. Anyway, it’s a great cast. It was one of those rare projects where I started reading it, and 10 pages in, I was like, “There’s no way I’m not doing this, no matter what.” I just was like, “I will play a flea on a bed. I don’t care. Put me in this thing.” So, yeah, it was a wonderfully fulfilling experience. Gore has a great ability to create these big worlds but still focus in on the character experience. It was just so wonderful, and I can’t wait for it to come out. I have no idea when, though.
‘Cross’ Season 2 Is Going to Be “Far More Expansive”

“It’s a wilder ride than Season 1.”

Image by Photagonist

Aldis, Cross is a huge hit. I had a feeling when we were talking at New York Comic Con. I loved the first few episodes and had a good feeling it’d spark with people. In an effort to tease what’s to come, can you maybe tell me something about Season 2 that will give people more of what they love from Season 1, but then also something unique about Season 2 that gives it its own definition?
HODGE: You know I wish I could. I wish I could tell you something, but I can’t tell you nothing.
Fair enough!
HODGE: Y’all are out here trying to get me fired. No, Season 2 is definitely, I would say, far more expansive, far more immersive when it comes to characters’ relationships. You get to learn a lot more about some of the folks that you love from the books. But we’re expansive in a very different way. It’s a wilder ride than Season 1.
Special thanks to our 2025 partners at SXSW, including presenting partner Rendezvous Films and supporting partners Bloom, Peroni, Hendrick’s Gin, and Roxstar Entertainment.

The Dutchman

Release Date

March 8, 2025

Runtime

88 minutes

Director

Andre Gains

Writers

Andre Gains, Qasim Basir

Producers

Cassian Elwes, Joshua Blum, Jonathan Baker