Upgrade's Logan Marshall-Green On His New Film Adopt A Highway, His Action Aspirations, And More

If you were looking for a movie to watch with your parents this Thanksgiving, you could do a lot worse than director Logan Marshall-Green's Adopt A Highway. The quiet, indie drama stars Ethan Hawke as a man coming off decades in prison for getting a third strike in a realtively minor drug infraction. Working at a fast food joint as part of his release program, he finds a baby in the restaurant's dumpster, and decides in a moment of compassion to take it home and care for it. Of course, being an ex-con living in a motel is not the ideal situation to raise a baby in.

The movie was released earlier this fall both theatrically, and to video on demand services. It represents Marshall-Green's first outing as a feature film director.

Logan Marshall-Green recently joined ComicBook.com to discuss the film, which is available now on streaming video on demand platforms.

As an actor, you have been in a wide variety of roles. Film to film, audiences might not know what to expect. How, as a filmmaker, did you decide this was how you wanted to make your debut?

Well, that's a great compliment to not know what to expect from me. It's probably the best thing I could ask for. In answering your question, I didn't have many expectations of this film. I didn't go into it saying "this is the one." In fact, I wrote the film so I could go make my other films that I'd already written. As a first-time filmmaker you've got to work within your wheelhouse and work within your means. There was only so much money that I could ask people to be confident in giving me to make a film, having never made one. I wrote this film specifically as an exercise. It started out just simply as an exercise to write something that was workable, makeable.

I was told to write something that's sexy, has violence and drugs and death and sexy and commercial and don't write anything original. I said "Fuck off" and wrote everything opposite to that effect and decided to give myself an exercise that I would not have a gun, a drug, sex, explosion, rock and roll even....No, I take that back. Jason [Isbell] is always pure rock and roll. But that said, I also wanted to write a role that wasn't competing in every single scene as the opposite and yet it's still someone that we are engaged with, care about, are invested in, and someone that's interesting. Out came Russell Millings, and then out came Ethan. And then out came Ethan's Russell Millings, which is everything and more.

Millings is an ex-con, but he's a fairly quiet, meek guy. That isn't the image that I think a lot of people conjure in their heads when you hear about these three-strikes laws. How did he come together?

The seed is my daughter, my youngest child. I was lost when I became a father, not a dad, no handbook. I became a father almost overnight. I was in love with this little girl, but had no idea how to be a dad. That's the engine behind the character is just being lost as a father. What I wanted was a man who had made a mistake, and who was not being forgiven for that mistake, but yet found purpose in finding this baby and, of course, the baby found a second lease on life in finding him. They give each other these new leases on life.

When it came to creating an ex-con archetype, I wanted the beginning of the film to be the end of a chapter, and the end of the film to be the beginning of a chapter. It's more about what happens in between these two pillars in his life. I wanted to move away from the prison, and any indictment that might be taken, because it's not an indictment of the system. That said, I'm very interested in and focused on the plight of the men and women in our penal system and how broken or penal system is. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that those men and women of all colors and shapes and sizes are not on my mind. They are.

Obviously prison is not without its obvious flaws, but for Russell, it seemed like there, he was respected and understood. Outside, not so much.

That's right. We move away from the prison, and it becomes about a man. It becomes about a man trying to become a father, or trying to give somebody purpose. I just want to be really clear on this: While it isn't an indictment on the system, it is still a commentary on what it means to be a quote unquote "ex-convict" in this nation. If you ask most, the real prison is outside the bars, after you've been in the system for so long, because halfway houses, they're not freedom to these men and women.

In fact, they're even more grotesquely intrusive into their lives. They have their parole officers coming to see them at their work, coming to see them in their lives. They are in ways even more incarcerated outside. We don't forgive them. We enact laws against them. I guess what I would say is that's the long winded answer. The short winded answer is keep watching the film, finish the film and look at the credits. The last thing I did as a director on the film is I added something at the end of the credits as a dedication. For me, that dedication, I think is the answer to what you're looking for.

How important was getting Ethan Hawke?

If I couldn't find the right Russell Millings, I can't cast the rest of the film. We are asking of our protagonist to A, not compete in scenes. B, wander and C, we're asking of our audience to engage in only one point-of-view. That can be a demanding thing, you know? That point-of-view has to be crystal clear.

When you cast somebody like Ethan Hawke, well you've done 99% of the work there in your directing. The other thing we wanted to do is we want it to lock that camera off. We wanted to form it and we wanted our treat our audience like our editors, and we wanted to create incredibly deep frames of human conditions, interactions, and we didn't want to move the camera. We wanted the story and the audience to edit itself. You will see a kind of a harsh, almost sterile, locked off camera.

Michael Haneke is a big influence of mine, and I love his frames. I knew I had an actor who could fill a frame and I didn't need to move that camera. I knew I didn't have to command attention. I knew I had an actor who gets you not just to come in and put butts in seats, but actually get you to lean forward with your heart a little bit more. Essentially the movie doesn't work unless I have an actor of caliber. When Ethan Hawke then said "I'd like to play Russell Millings," 99% of the job now is getting out of his way, wafting him towards choices, but get out of his way and that's it.

Given that this is your first feature, did you ever consider writing it for yourself to star?

I don't write with myself in mind. I haven't up to this point. I don't have any interest in it. I love the line of demarcation between the actor and writer/director, and I'm just simply not a good enough actor, nor am I a good enough director, to be able to direct myself in anything I would be in. For me, I love having those lines clearly drawn for myself. I at no point intended to put myself in this film.

Obviously you did Upgrade and everybody sat up and took notice. Do you have any interest in doing one of these big action tentpoles or a superhero movie or something?

I definitely want something commercial and fun and action-y, and I'm going to take a swing at it. I definitely have more interests, since I've ticked that box in Upgrade and a couple of other films and TV shows. I definitely want to try my hand at directing action, because I think I have some kind of voice on it, having done a few and having done them in different ways.

The answer is I think I've ticked that box as an actor, and I definitely want a shot at directing action in the film, and who knows? That's what I'm going after at this point. That doesn't say I don't want to do Upgrade 2. It doesn't mean I don't want to be Mister Miracle or playing a great western. I love all action, and I think I've been cast or I've been hired for my storytelling but I want to also tell that story as the director because it's great. I grew up with a profound respect of action films.