Michael Buckner
While many artists claim their projects are a “family affair,” this proved to be the case for John Hyams with All Square, a gambling drama featuring many of his long-time friends, among them writer Timothy Brady and House of Cards actor Michael Kelly. The film follows John (Kelly), a down-on-his-luck bookie who takes to betting on Little League games, stirring up chaos in his community.
“I read the script and was just knocked out by it, so immediately, myself and Michael set about trying to help get it made,” Hyams told Deadline of Brady’s first produced screenplay. “In the process of doing that, I think we both became greedy and wanted to do it ourselves.”
Hooking up with Mill House Motion Pictures and star Yeardley Smith’s production shingle, Paperclip, Hyams and Kelly made that possible. Within a year from the time the pair received the script, All Square was in the can. “I’d read so many things that Tim had sent me in the past and was always very impressed with what he wrote. But something about this [was], I was literally on the last page, dialing his number, reading the last few lines,” Kelly said, appearing with Hyams. “I was just like, ‘Tim, where did this come from?’ And he was like, ‘I just kind of wrote what I wanted to write this time, instead of what I thought everyone else should write.”
Appearing in studio with Hyams, Brady, Smith and Kelly were stars Jesse Ray Sheps, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Tom Everett Scott, and Harris Yulin. To hear more from the collaborators behind All Square, take a look above.
The Deadline Studio at SXSW 2018 is presented by MoviePass.
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