Adam Bernstein
A Conversation with Adam Bernstein
(Director)

Q: How did you get involved with BAD APPLE?
A: I read the script and loved it. I thought it was a great mixture of crime and comedy, which are the two genres that I work in the most. I chased after it.

Q: What is it like working with Chris North?
A: Chris is just doing some fantastically funny stuff. As Tozzi, I think he's creating something new from the other screen presences that you usually associate with Chris. What you're getting here is a guy who's not a bad cop, but sometimes his romantic interests cloud his judgment.

Q: This film is just incredibly stylized. How did you get the wardrobe to contribute to the overall feel of the film?
A: Our concern is that we wanted each character to pop as much as possible. My big concern is that I wanted everyone to be rooted in the reality of the situation. There are a lot of mob movies and a lot of cop movies, but we wanted to get completely away from the John Gotti stereotype of the dapper don and the pinstripe suit. And if you looked at pictures of the actual mob bosses, both current and dating back to the '40s, these were guys that didn't want to be flamboyant. They actually wanted to fly under the radar. And a lot of them just looked like older businessmen. That's what they posed as in the real world, as just businessmen.

Q: The dialogue in the movie is quick and fast-paced. How do you capture that energy?
A: Anthony Bruno and Howard Korder are fantastic dialogue writers. As a director, there's not a lot you're going to do to improve what they did, except make sure the pacing is appropriate for the scene and that the actors are doing it as dryly as it's written.

Q: Is there something that really sticks out that you really gravitated toward every time you dove into the script and as you got into the directing of the film?
A: For me it's the different relationships that play in the film - that's what's fun about it. You have Gina and Tozzi. Two people are sort of in love but hate each other at the same time. Or at least she hates him. You have Tozzi and Gibbons two partners who depend on each other. They can't live with each other because one's a hothead and one's a cranky and by-the-book kind of guy. You have so many dysfunctional relationships on every level, and I think that's what's fun about it.