Yahoo News The Bikeriders director explains why the movie is an "odd hybrid"
The Bikeriders is based on the book of the same name which centred on the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club in the 1960s, but the movie isn't quite based on real life.
Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, the movie sees Austin Butler play Benny, a member of outlaw motorcycle club Vandals MC, ran by Tom Hardy's Johnny, who finds himself torn between his loyalty to the club and his partner Kathy (Jodie Comer).
Talking to Digital Spy, Nichols noted how the movie was inspired by the book, but with his own fictional additions.
"I would say 70% of the dialogue is taken from this book, certainly of Kathy's dialogue. To say that this story follows these real people, that's not true either," he explained.
"It is this really odd hybrid where we had Danny [Lyon, author] visiting these people in 1965, and then he was done. And that's all I really had. So I had to invent everything before and everything after.
"It really is a balance of saying: these are fictional characters, but they hold a lot of reality in them, taking directly out of Danny's book."
As for Comer, she recently shared how she was inspired by her nan when it came to creating the character of Kathy.
"There was elements of her. She's extremely vivacious and an incredible storyteller," she said. "There was a humour I found in [Kathy] and a warmth that I felt like a lot of women, especially from Liverpool or the north."
The movie marks the first on-screen pairing of Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, with the former saying he already wants to work with Butler again on a future movie, calling him a "really generous, sensitive soul".
The Bikeriders is released in cinemas on June 21.
You Might Also Like
