‘Pain Hustlers’ Director David Yates on Abandoning Harry Potter for Pill-Pushing Pharmaceutical Reps
variety.comBrent Lang Executive Editor With “Pain Hustlers,” David Yates was ready to exchange Hogwarts for strip-mall medical offices.
It was time for the British director behind many of the Harry Potter films and the “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” series to leave magic behind for a grittier look at muggledom. “Having spent such a long time making films about wizards, I wanted to do a film in the real world and a social-issue driven, but one that wasn’t too earnest and serious,” Yates says a week before the Netflix release debuts at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. “I wanted to tell a story that was entertaining and funny in a subversive kind of way.
I’m moving from a heightened world of J.K. Rowling, but I’m not going straight to kitchen-sink drama. The characters here are so heightened and crazy and the world is so intense.” Indeed, “Pain Hustlers,” which follows the rise and fall of a ethically compromised saleswoman named Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) at a pharmaceutical startup, isn’t preachy, even as its characters profit from pushing fentanyl, a drug that has devastated communities.
Yates wanted the story to sting, but first he was interested in taking his audience on a wild, highly pleasurable ride before reminding viewers of the pain and suffering that made this lifestyle possible.
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