#Gimme the loot full

New York's over.''įor Leon, things have changed, but not that much, and not only for the worse. I understand that people look at this and say: 'New York is a mall. Now it sells extremely expensive bullshit fucking oils and hair products and moisturiser things. 'This used to be a really smelly old dirty butcher's shop. But it isn't a Walmart it's still native to New York.' A cosmetics shop tells another story. 'This is a fancy market that used to be a not-fancy market. 'There was this homeless guy who used to throw bottles,' he says. Details such as the Mets moving from Shea Stadium to the corporate-sponsored Citi Field, or one character's claim that all he sees is 'guys wearing flip-flops', acknowledge the counter-argument, though Leon believes that people can overrate the grittiness of the old days. New York has not had the life gentrified out of it, he thinks – and he made Gimme the Loot partly to show that 'the energy of the streets is still here'. But after completing his own process of refusing take no for an answer, Leon had an 80-minute film – and went to South by Southwest (where he won top prize) and then on to Cannes.Īfter coffee, we take a stroll around the old neighbourhood and compare and contrast it with times gone by. Though his own route to success didn't prove especially long – he is 31 – there were 'lean years' during which he worked as an assistant to Woody Allen, and as a film programmer. They had a vision and they just pounded it home.' He also thought: 'Fuck you – you went to Cannes and Sundance.'Īdam Leon: 'Making Gimme the Loot was a lot of fun.' Photograph: Corbisīeyond film-making, Leon points to his mother's 'late success' as an estate agent as another source of inspiration, proof that 'you can try to do the thing you really want to do'. Watching Daddy Long Legs, a small-scale New York comedy, he admired the way that the directors, Ben and Joshua Safdie, didn't 'take 'no' for an answer. The result is a laidback, uplifting comedy, enlivened by a bouncy soundtrack that resembles a collaboration between Vittorio De Sica and John Hughes – or Quentin Tarantino and Walt Disney.īut it was work by film-makers of his own generation that encouraged Leon to keep trying. 'I remember thinking: 'If I didn't want to be here more than anything else, this would be the worst thing in the world.'' But despite the challenges, Leon remains convinced that the 'guerrilla-style, low-budget, take-to-the-streets-and-run-all-over-the-city type of thing' suited the story he wanted to tell. Was it fun? 'Yes, it was a lot of fun.' Was it some other things? 'It was everything.' He describes a day on which things were going badly. Gimme the Loot was filmed over 30 days on a budget of $65,000 (the actors, mostly non-professionals, got 'paid-ish'). And I didn't know him through acting – he's never acted before. 'Meeko is part of the Latin Kings, a big gang. 'He's playing a goofier role than what he really is,' Leon says. That includes Meeko, who plays a much-tattooed crook called Champion, and whose help the main characters enlist for a burglary that doesn't quite come off. It's that kind of movie.' Many of the actors were acquaintances and friends. 'All those exterior shots are of the building I grew up in. 'I grew up right round the corner from here,' says Leon, a giddy talker in black-rimmed spectacles.

#Gimme the loot full

Although Leon's script – full of New York nuance and know-how – pits the two boroughs against each other, much of the action takes place in Greenwich Village, where Malcolm sells weed and Leon and I meet for coffee.