Fans of Courteney Cox who only know her from her roles in such TV comedies as “Friends” and “Cougar Town” may not realize that she’s been carving out a whole other career behind the camera.
As a director, Cox has helmed a dozen episodes of “Cougar Town,” in addition to the 2012 Lifetime TV movie “Talhotblond” and the 2014 comedy feature “Just Before I Go.”
Now, for her latest stint in the director’s chair, Cox has just premiered her latest, “Evil Genius,” at the Toronto International Film Festival.”
‘Evil Genius’
The film is based on the true story of the 2003 “pizza bomber” tragedy, dramatizing the events laid out in the documentary series “Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist.”
The series detailed the real-life saga of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, who seemingly masterminded a nefarious scheme in which she convinced a dupe to rob a bank with a bomb strapped around his neck.
As Cox explained in an interview with Variety, it was a story so strange that she needed to tell it.
“The choices these people made were so absurd,” Cox said. “I really wanted to go deeper and find out, Why? Why were these their choices?”
As Cox explained, she didn’t want to lean too heavily into the dark elements of the story, but instead aimed for a Coen Brothers-like tone that was more dark comedy.
“I wanted to have some sort of understanding for these characters, and I wanted the film to be really bright,” she said.
An A-List Cast
GettyIn the role of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, Cox cast Patricia Arquette, sister of her ex-husband David Arquette, with “Stranger Things” alum David Harbour as the patsy she convinces to undertake the crime.
“We weren’t reduced to either loving or hating her,” Cox said of Arqutte’s performance. “We were uncovering all parts of her.”
“I can see Patricia’s heart,” Cox says. “It beats right out of her chest. Every time Patricia laughs, it’s absolutely real … You don’t want to just hate someone the whole time.”
A Born Director
(Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)According to Cox, directing has always been her endgame.
As she told Variety, she has an attention to detail along with an innate ability to put all the pieces of a storytelling puzzle together, a combintation that makes her particularly well suited to being a director.
“I notice everything,” she shared. “I love actors, I love people, I love human stories.”
That said, Cox also admitted that the same qualities that come in handy behind the camera aren’t always advantageous in her everyday life.
“I suffer from acute awareness, “because it’s very hard for me to not notice everything around me,” she explained. “It’s a blessing and a curse — I call it my superpower, but it also keeps me late.”
