From ASU to the WGA strike: How writer and director Joe Russo's career started in Arizona

Joe Russo had just stepped off the picket line in Hollywood where he had spent most of the day, as part of the Writers Guild of America strike.

A couple of cars had swerved almost into the picket line, and a man started ripping his pants off.

“So, just another day in Hollywood,” Russo said. And he would know.

A graduate of Arizona State University, Russo moved to LA in 2010, hoping to make a living in movies. And he has — as a development executive, a writer and a director — though like other writers and directors who are on strike right now, all that is on a temporary hold.

Right now, his number one job is as a strike captain, out on the picket lines, where some of his hand-worded signs have made a splash on social media. (For instance, Russo shares a name with one of the directors central to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He wrote one sign that said, "When will Avengers Joe Russo picket with me?")

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Russo was a journalism major at Arizona State University

“The balance of power has shifted away from the creatives and into the hands of the executives,” Russo said, explaining his deep involvement in the strike. “I've been incentivized by this fight, because I've lived through a lot of these troubles. I've had it happen to me. I've been forced by some of these companies to do tons and tons and tons of free work that has stretched what should have been decent pay days into just getting by.”

Full disclosure: Russo is a former student of mine at ASU. He met his wife, Crystal, in my class. He was a journalism major, but stuck around for a second major from the just-opened film department. I’ve followed his career, which began not as a filmmaker, but as a film critic — though he always wanted to make movies.

“I wasn't really a sports kid growing up,” Russo said. “I was a movie kid.”

Still, Russo was born in Connecticut, which was an impediment to his dreams.

“Hollywood seems so far away from Connecticut, that, you know, it wasn't until I got out to Arizona that it started to seem like, well, maybe this could be a viable career,” he said.

Russo graduated in 2008 — “right in time for the great recession.” That’s when he began reviewing films.

“I was doing that, you know, as a potential Plan B,” he said. “But it became very apparent to me that having a record of me criticizing movies, and wanting to go out and meet the people whose movies I was criticizing, and potentially working with them, probably wasn't going to be to my benefit.”

He stepped back from reviewing as many films, and worked at Hollywood Video (“rest in peace”) and was watching three movies a day.

“I think that, coupled with doing all the press screenings, and kind of just learning that type of the business, I think it was all kind of went into the soup of helping to prepare me to make the jump to working out in Los Angeles.”

Russo knows exactly when he made that decision.

Russo had found film and TV production work in Arizona, which at the time had a film tax credit. (It has since been revived.)

“I worked on that movie ‘The Kingdom,’ that Peter Berg directed,” Russo said. “I was there for the big car crash sequence, which was, you know, I was running Gatorades to stunt men with fiery cars, you know, to my left and to my right, and it was like, ‘Wow, this is, this is what I want to do.’”

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Russo moved to Hollywood in 2010

When the film tax credit went away in 2010, so did Russo. He got work as a development assistant.

“What you're essentially doing is you're writing script coverage, which is not unlike writing a movie review,” he said. “So I think in terms of that specific way, one of the reasons I got hired for at that at that production company was they liked the coverage I was writing on screenplays, because I think I had a lot of practice reviewing movies.”

Russo rose through the ranks. Meanwhile, he had made two short films. He and his writing partner, Chris LaMont, worked on scripts.

“I realized I needed to be putting more focus on my writing,” Russo said, “and a little less on just chasing a day job development paycheck. And, you know, the next couple of things we wrote, got us our agents and got us our managers. And we started placing on all these kind of best-of, year-end screenplay lists. And that's when things kind of really started to open up for me.”

They sold their first screenplay 2017. “I had a steady paycheck that whole time,” Russo said. “And I was building my network, and I was building my relationships, and I was honing my craft, and all those things kind of came together.”

'I'm very empathetic for my fellow writers'

Russo has written, produced and directed several types of films, like "The Au Pair Nightmare" and "Nightmare Cinema," but he identifies most closely with horror.

“I've been obsessed with the holiday of Halloween since I was, like, a really little kid,” he said. “‘Ghostbusters’ was my favorite movie of all time. The Haunted Mansion was the ride I wanted to go on over and over at DisneyWorld, you know? I've been fascinated by it forever.”

One film in particular influenced Russo, as it did many others.

“In sixth grade, I saw the movie ‘Scream,’ and it just changed my life,” he said. “And I've always said that 'Scream' is kind of this Rosetta Stone for horror movies.”

Russo also attributes his love of horror, and making horror films, to another quality.

“I like to think that I have a lot of empathy,” he said. “And because I have a lot of empathy, I know how to weaponize it on the page and on the screen. And I know how to kind of use that to stretch out the thrills and chills.”

Russo sees that as a connection to his work as a strike captain.

“I think it all kind of actually ties together,” he said. “You know, again, the same reason I like horror, and I think I'm good at writing horror, is that kind of deep empathy. And I'm very empathetic for my fellow writers, very empathetic for all the crew members and executives who are losing their jobs, because of this labor movement.”

So he’s out on the picket line, organizing and protesting.

"I think it's important to remind the studios and the streamers, and the executives who run them that, you know, we're the people who make the content, and hopefully kind of rebalance that power a little bit," he said.

“It's been a very gratifying experience,” Russo said. "I don't regret a second of it.”

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: When Joe Russo moved to Arizona, a Hollywood career felt within reach