Actress and film-maker, Elizabeth Banks, isn’t content playing within the confines of Hollywood. No, she would rather push the envelope and stretch the imagination.
And this is wonderfully manifested in her latest film, “Cocaine Bear”. Interestingly, this was one of Ray Liotta’s final projects before his passing on May 26, 2022.
Banks cemented her career in Tinseltown with an extensive slate of rom-coms among her other projects. As such, comedy became a playground where she flourished.
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And this is manifested in projects like “Charlie’s Angels” and “Pitch Perfect 2”.
For “Cocaine Bear” she marries horror with comedy.
At a recent media junket, she said: “I really felt like this was the opportunity to layer real true comedy, laugh-out-loud moments, with a real sense of suspense and a lot of gore.
“I think what I do best as a filmmaker is walking a fine line of tone. I essentially make comedies, but I put them inside of other movies.”
“Cocaine Bear” is loosely inspired by a true-life story of an American black bear that ingested almost 34kg of lost cocaine.
By the way, the bear which died after consuming all that cocaine was found three months later in northern Georgia and is currently on display at the Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington.
The premise revolves around the perilous attempt to retrieve a shipment of cocaine that was dropped into the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest by drug smuggler, Andrew C Thornton.
Andrew, in attempting to parachute with a duffel bag filled with drugs, encounters a mishap that sees him plummet to his death.
Meanwhile, Syd White (played by Liotta), a drug kingpin from St.Louis, is determined to retrieve the remaining cocaine, which proves to be a perilous task when an American black bear ingests some of the drugs and goes on a killing spree.
And then there’s Bob, a local detective from Knoxville, Tennessee, trying to get to the bottom of the case after Andrew’s body is discovered.
The 49-year-old multi-hyphenate admitted: “For me, as an audience member, and as somebody who had aspired to make films, I have always loved horror and comedy together. Horror and comedy are two sides of the same coin to me.
“The best thing you can do is take the audience on a real roller coaster, making them laugh, making them scream, making them jump.
“That’s what the goal was in making this film. I really felt like this was the opportunity to layer real true comedy, laugh-out-loud moments, with a real sense of suspense and a lot of gore, and have a great time with this big, bright, broad idea of this bear that’s going to mess some people up!”
She explained that her acting background lent itself to the making of the film.
“ My first movie, ‘Pitch Perfect 2’, was a comedy inside of a musical. ‘Charlie’s Angels’ was a comedy inside of an action movie. This is a comedy inside of a horror movie.
“To me, it felt like we could do something special and unique like the Coen brothers-meet-’Evil Dead’, Banks added.
The visual effects played a huge part in bringing this movie to its dramatic conclusion.
Banks pointed out that it was what excited her a lot about this project.
She shared: “The possibilities of the visual effects was one of the main reasons I wanted to direct this film.
“I think a lot of women don’t get the opportunity to do things with a lot of green screen, effects and action because of this assumption that women aren’t interested in that sort of thing.
“I wanted to prove that that’s a myth. That was one of the reasons that I really liked the idea of doing it. I just love the challenge. And I really wanted to learn a new set of skills.”
As a mom to a 12-year-old, Banks admits to relating to the Sari (Keri Russell) and Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) storyline as parents, at some point in life, feel disconnected from their kids when they choose their friends over them.
She added: “Sari needed an actress who was going to be totally grounded. I didn’t want somebody who was going to wink at the audience. I wanted somebody who you believe just wants to find her daughter.
“With Keri, I knew, from everything she’s done in film, that she would enjoy the tone of the movie, but she would play it totally straight, and that the audience would want to root for her. I mean, who doesn’t love Keri Russell?”
Banks also sang the praises of O’Shea Jackson Jr., who plays Daveed.
She said: “Daveed is The Grinch of ‘Cocaine Bear’ – his heart grows four sizes in the movie. He sees his boss for the bad guy that he is, and he chooses his friend over him. That was all O’Shea’s idea.”
And, last but not least, she weighed in on working with Liotta.
Banks said: “He’s one of the all-time greats and I felt like it was a huge get for Ray to come do the movie. I felt so lucky that he trusted me from minute one and that he was so game for everything.
“He’s so present that he makes you, the audience, believe that you are there, in these incredible places, on this adventure. I needed Ray Liotta to really ground that character, ground this movie. He did. And guess what? He was funny, too.”
“Cocaine Bear” is currently showing at cinemas nationwide.