A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government experiment in Director Juel Taylor’s sci-fi mystery comedy, They Cloned Tyrone.
Taylor’s film processes the story of Fontaine, Slick Charles and Yo-Yo, who discover a cloning conspiracy and embark on a mission to save their neighborhood.
On September 10, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Taylor discussed the making of They Cloned Tyrone during a Q&A moderated by Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island).
During the conversation, Taylor spoke about how he was able to step away from the script he had co-written and view and the story through a directorial lens.
“You write it and you get attached to it. Especially, the longer it exists before getting made, the more attached to certain things you get. I think really what happens is the actors are almost always coming up with much better stuff than we wrote. They have so much that they bring to the table and so much intuition in terms of like blocking and ad-libbing things between the lines. I don’t know if it’s a by-product of also directing it, but I think it was exciting in terms of seeing the things that Ken [Seng, cinematographer] would see or the talent would do that would make you think of a shot in a whole different way. It’s almost like you’re playing with house money. You’re getting free juice you wouldn’t get if you were so strictly adherent to what’s on the page.”
Taylor’s other directorial credits include episodes of the series Twenties, Boomerang and A Guy, a Girl, and Their Monster. He has been a DGA member since 2018.