Anthony and James Gaudioso on Keeping Filmmaking a Family Affair

Anthony Gaudioso and James Gaudioso on filmmaking as a family business

Anthony Gaudioso and his twin brother James do almost everything on their films: they write, act, produce and direct, often at the same time. In a wide-ranging conversation about their careers, the Long Island, New York natives traced how that habit began, from a childhood of Stanley Kubrick and Brian De Palma on the living room television to a Los Angeles company that makes its own opportunities.

The brothers say their love of movies started early, thanks to a stepfather who steered them toward major auteurs. Anthony names Vanishing Point, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Shining as formative, and he is happy to say that the two of them are "huge horror fans." James remembers turning to his brother in the middle of films, wide-eyed, and the pair would spend hours afterward discussing how the actors reached a particular emotion. What drew them in, James says, was the human condition on screen.

At twelve, they told their mother they wanted to be actors. She answered that they had picked the hardest business there is, and then she drove them into Manhattan for years of auditions and callbacks. Anthony describes her as the facilitator: she would work a full shift, take her lunch at the end of it, pick the boys up from school and run them into the city, and James adds that the trip home often meant four hours of traffic. The auditions led to some promising commercial work and a good deal of humility.

The drive carried through school and into film school, where Anthony tried different genres, formats and techniques. He says the brothers have always been proactive about their careers, and film school was the right choice. When he graduated, he suggested they make a thriller together.

From a Victorian house to Vanity Fair

The first feature was a supernatural drama inspired by their mother's work as a well-known medium. A cousin lent the production her Victorian house, which was in the middle of renovations, as the main location. New York socialite Cornelia Guest took a small role and was so impressed by the twins' energy that she recommended them to editors at Vanity Fair, who were putting together a spread on Hollywood newcomers. Both brothers appeared in it.

That recognition settled the question of where to go next. The twins arrived in Los Angeles in 2005. Anthony calls it the "mecca" where everything happens, and he says it was the obvious place to put down roots.

Building their own door

Once in Los Angeles, the brothers set about proving they could work as a creative team. They produced commercials for the ad house Pretty Nifty and feature-length work under their own label, Gaudioso Twins Films. James is candid about why the second part mattered. Getting through the door as actors felt like a constant challenge, he says, and he felt stifled, so they built vehicles for themselves instead. In his words, they had to create their own door.

That logic explains the shape of their filmography, in which a Gaudioso is nearly always writing, starring and directing, and often all three.

Duke and The Ghost and the Whale

The brothers' next major step was Duke, which Anthony wrote, co-directed and acted in and describes as a gritty, contemporary Western set in Los Angeles. Carmine Giovinazzo, Vanessa Ferlito and Richard Roundtree appear in the cast. James plays J-Bird, a transgender woman living on the streets, and he calls it the best role of his life. He is modest about it, but concedes that the performance shares something with Jared Leto's later Oscar-winning turn in Dallas Buyers Club.

The Ghost and the Whale came next, a story of revenge and redemption about a tormented widower whose wife's unsolved disappearance divides his community. Anthony and James wrote elements of bipolar disorder into the character so it would resonate with their star, Maurice Benard, who lives with the condition himself. Anthony says he went into his room for three months and came out with a big beard and a rough draft, which he gave to producer Paula Benard. She loved it. The film was released in Los Angeles on June 1, 2017, through MarVista Entertainment, and it runs 105 minutes. Jonathan Pryce voices the whale, and the cast includes Tippi Hedren and Monica Keena.

At the time of the conversation, the film was already collecting honors: a screening at the Writers Guild in Los Angeles the previous August, the People's Choice Best Picture Award at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival Awards in February and a featured slot at the Monadnock International Film Festival in Keene, New Hampshire, that April. A segment on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network helped, and producer Mark G. Mathis, of Precious and Brick, reached out after seeing a screener.

The Gaudioso twins' path, step by step

1. 01Childhood in Long Island, with a stepfather who introduced them to Kubrick and De Palma.
2. 02At twelve, they tell their mother they want to act; years of Manhattan auditions follow.
3. 03Film school, then a first feature shot in a cousin's Victorian house.
4. 04A Vanity Fair feature on Hollywood newcomers, and a move to Los Angeles in 2005.
5. 05Commercials for Pretty Nifty and features under Gaudioso Twins Films.
6. 06Duke, then The Ghost and the Whale, then Numb.

The Ghost and the Whale at a glance

Numb and the next chapter for the Gaudioso twins

Mathis's offer to help with a passion project points to the film the brothers were most excited about at the time: Numb. Anthony calls it a true passion piece, and says it grew organically, without outside collaborators shaping it. It is, he stresses, two brothers telling a story with characters they invented. James describes it as a slice of American life.

Numb is a coming-of-age family drama about a young man with a condition that leaves him unable to feel pain, whose short life expectancy is close to running out when his father dies suddenly. James sees the family in dire straits, at a make-or-break moment. The brothers said that several in-demand actors were possible front-runners for the lead, and that Melissa Leo, Juliette Lewis and Kate Bosworth were being discussed for the female roles. At that point, Numb was scheduled to begin production the following fall.

What makes Numb different for them is that someone else will direct it. Matthew Dean Russell, the producer and visual effects specialist on The Ghost and the Whale, was to step into the director's chair. The twins also would not take on the demanding dual role of the lead character, Aaron, and his repressed psyche, which they had expected to play themselves. Anthony says it will be fantastic to watch someone else direct their words and that they told Russell simply to do it. James calls giving up their usual pile of responsibilities a breath of fresh air; he would rather give a hundred percent in one or two areas than seventy percent in five.

The tone of the whole conversation is that of two people who like being each other's collaborator. James says wearing so many hats can be exhausting no matter what the job is, and Anthony laughs at the idea of watching a stranger interpret a story he spent months writing alone in a room. Their plan for Numb is not to retreat from the work but to concentrate it, writing and producing while a director with a fresh point of view shoots it without handcuffs.

Two practical details stand out for anyone following their careers. First, their body of work already covers a supernatural drama, a Western and a revenge story, which suggests the twins are less interested in a brand than in finding the next story that matters to them. Second, they have built their company around the idea of staying in control of the material, a choice that explains how a pair of actors from Long Island ended up with credits as writers, directors and producers.

A reader looking for the lesson in all this will not find a tidy one. The Gaudiosos kept making their own opportunities for two decades, and the interesting part is that they were ready to stop doing everything themselves.