Today at Cannes A24 snapped up Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid, amidst multple eight-figure offers following its premiere in Un Certain Regard where the film received a 7-minute standing ovation.
Firstman was at Deadline’s Cannes studio with co-stars Cara Delevingne and Diego Calva to talk about their experience making the film.
In Club Kid, Firstman stars as Peter, a drug-addled club promoter, whose working relationship with co-worked Sophie (Delevingne) has soured. Life has taken a downturn, when suddenly a British clubber called Edison (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) arrives on his doorstep with Arlo (Reggie Absolom), the 10 year-old son Peter never knew he had. With Arlo, and then his therapist (Calva) on the scene, Peter begins to learn to accept love in his life, and everything changes.
‘Club Kid’
UTA/Charades
Firstman said of the inspiration behind the film, “There was a period in my life where — it’s going to sound wrong — I was just around a bunch of kids for some reason. My friends started having kids and I was getting along with them in a funny way and they would always laugh at me with kids. So in the first iteration, I’m just like, ‘Oh, me and a kid, funny, ha ha. Adam Sandler, blah, blah, blah.’ And then through the process of writing it, I went through a breakup and that partner and I, we partied a lot together. He was in Berlin and so I had just a lot of exposure to that scene and was just partying a lot myself and finding myself at this crossroads where the drugs were not hitting like they used to. But you keep doing them and you’re like, ‘So they’re not working and I feel horrible for a week.’ And so I kind of just wanted to explore that. And then as I kept writing, new things kept unfolding and honestly they keep unfolding. I still learn new things about the film and myself every time I watch it.”
Delevingne joked about her role of Sophie, “It’s a real stretch playing a neurotic drug addict” referring to her own experiences dealing with such issues.
L to R: Cara Delevingne, Jordan Firstman, Reggie Absolom and Diego Calva at the ‘Club Kid’ premiere in Cannes. France
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
The cast agreed that returning to the pre-Trump era depicted in the film was a joy. “I feel like 2016 was the best year,” Firstman said. “Right before Trump got elected, it was like heaven. And that is why I brought music into the movie instantly because it’s like we had Frank Ocean’s Blonde, [Beyoncé’s] Lemonade, [Kanye’s] The Life of Pablo. Rihanna. It was the Solange album. It was the craziest year for music. Then Trump happened and life has been horrible ever since. It really hasn’t gotten better for a day since then. So that summer of 2016 was just amazing and the parties were free and no one was on phones.”
Delevingne and Firstman had met before, she said. “We’d met before. “We’d met at parties and I really loved his work and I loved everything I knew about him and we just instantly connected. I think I was going through a transitional period of like, I don’t want to do anything I don’t care about with everything I have… I don’t think I’ve ever read a script like that and felt so enamored by it and felt the gravity of it, but also the levity at the same time.”
Sophie also hits some serious lows in the story. “I think her part in the movie is just also her finding her own way and making a huge mistakes and cutting away people that come close to her.” She quoted the movie when she added, “When you do cocaine you lose empathy.”
In the film, Calva’s therapist character Oscar forms a romantic relationship with Peter and Calva said he and Firstman had a real-life close bond. “Jordan has this superpower,” Calva said. “You create this environment and through all our conversations and being on set — we shot in New York — and I was there and we partied and we became friends. But he creates this space when you’re able to play and you feel safe, which is really important. I do think you have to fall in love for real in the movie, in every movie, in every character. And I think we fell in love.”
To see the full conversation, click on the video above.
The Deadline Studio at Cannes is sponsored by SCAD.