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[0:00] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:09] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to The Roundtable, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeartSpotify, wherever artists talk about art. I'm excited about our next guest because last week you may have all heard us talk to Melinda Hale. And Melinda Hale was here to talk all about a movie that she did called Bull Street. And I fell in love with this movie. I fell in love with the cast. I fell in love with the incredible Loretta Devine, with the incredible Amy Madigan, the incredible story of a lawyer fighting for her grandmother. And it's touching and moving. And why not have the producer, the director, the one who made this all come together in the heat of the Carolinas, I believe, where this film was shot, and make this movie for us to enjoy. It's on Amazon Prime right now, and you need to catch it and check it out. Am I right? It's on Amazon. Lynn Dow is here.

[0:58] Lynn Dow: Hi.

[0:59] Robert Bannon: Congratulations.

[1:00] Lynn Dow: Thank you so very much. I really appreciate this. It's been with the heat in New York and traveling and, you know, places in the South and things like that, promoting it. So it's been rather refreshing in all this heat.

[1:17] Robert Bannon: It fits, though. It's perfect. But you're not from the South. You're a Harlem New Yorker, ready to go.

[1:24] Lynn Dow: Yes, yes. I was born and raised in Harlem. My maternal family is from the place where we shot this movie and filmed it. And so I'm really excited about that. It's a place in South Carolina called Clarendon County. It's Somerton, South Carolina. And so my family moved up, from everyone moved up to New York City, except my grandmother's sister. And so I got a chance. She didn't have any children or anything like that. So I got a chance to, my grandma shared me with her. So I got a chance to spend a lot of time down there when my grandma would go back and visit. So, yeah.

[2:03] Robert Bannon: So it's beautiful. And I'm excited that you got to tell a story about grandmothers and granddaughters. And it's very touching. Your family, I love a journey story to how somebody becomes a director or an artist. And yours seems, without knowing, I don't know the details, but it seems unique because you did not originally go to school or want, you were working in corporate America. You were not always a director and a filmmaker. So what happened? What was the change?

[2:33] Lynn Dow: You know, I, after graduating Columbia, I thought I was on my way to law school, like, you know, everyone else, you want to be the first attorney in the family. But I must say my sister became a lawyer. So that's great. The family forgave me. But I think I was, you know, I'll tell you this, Robert, I was talking to one of these well-renowned professors. And I could remember him saying, I've always wanted to write, had this creative spirit and everything, wanted to write. But, you know, you've got to play it safe. And you've got to go to college and you've got to get a great job and you've got to do all of that. But I was talking to this professor once, well-renowned, consulted on every network, everything.

And he says, if I had to do this all over again, I would be in Europe with my guitar. And I'm thinking to myself, huh? Huh? And it's after my grandma had passed away. And I said, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to run and I'm going to go for it and see what happens. And I'm going to follow my dreams and make it happen. Now, Wall Street, I will say was a very exciting, there's a rush to Wall Street that I think I was able to apply and move over to the film business. And I think that's what gave me a foot in. But I didn't have the technical experience when I had it. I knew I could, I knew, you know, the writing was there, but I didn't have the technical, you know, the whole, I wanted to respect the industry.

And so I went and I studied at Columbia Film School, writing with a screenwriter, Jamal Joseph, who was just absolutely fabulous. So once I got that and how to really write a script and the discipline of it, and I just combined it, and then I was just like, okay, I'm going to just go for it. But my time in Wall Street was really one of those things that prepared me for the film industry. I didn't know it at the time. I thought I was just going to toil away in something that I, you know, didn't make me happy. But I, it was, you know, I have no regrets doing that. But I think my biggest thing is that I wanted to give the industry respect and not just say, hey, look, you know, for all the people that gone to grad school and did this and had so much experience, I didn't want to just come in and say, hey, look, I could do this because, all because my grandmother said I was a gifted writer growing up.

So I, you know, Wall Street was fun back to, you know, back to school and got that training. And then I just went out there and paved and knocked on doors, as you could imagine, and, you know, waiting for that somebody to answer. But I think the biggest thing is just to keep knocking because one of those doors out of those thousands of doors that I knocked on, one opened.

[5:14] Lynn Dow: Yes, it takes one door. You know, it moves me, not that this is about me in any way, I left Juilliard to be a singer and musical theatre actor and became a school teacher because I was scared. And then I went to school for communications, and I wanted to host a show, all of this. And I was scared. And I left that too. And I think that, you know, that idea of take your guitar and go to Europe, I think there's many of us who have a dream, and we're afraid to take a chance and take the bat and take a swing. And you did that. And I think that's so inspiring. And now this film lives on in memory to your family and a testament to your journey.

[5:47] Lynn Dow: Well, I will say this, Robert, I'm sorry, but I think this is important to say also. It was my first of all, my mom said when I told I was leaving everything and walking away from grad school, law school and all this stuff. When I told her that she was like, wait a second, you're gonna go to LA, you're gonna end up on drugs. I'm like, I don't even smoke cigarettes. What are you talking about? But that's apparent for you. But I think it was my grandmother who said to me, she says, Lynn, if it doesn't work out, come back home. And I think that took away the fear. So I think it's important for me to say that you don't make these decisions on your own. There's someone always there that's guiding you.

And I think those words from her when she said, do not be afraid to come home, because a lot of us do. We go chasing the big lights, and we're just embarrassed by it. And then you end up on Skid Row. But I think when she said that, and I knew I could always come back home and be proud that I took that chance, I was able to go for it.

[6:44] Robert Bannon: Well, that's why this movie is so beautiful. And that people need to check it out. If you're looking for the perfect, if it's the week, it's the summer, you're home, maybe you rented a house, maybe you're going on vacation, maybe you need to download a movie for a flight somewhere, maybe you want to sit with your grandmother, your mom, your husband, your wife, your partner, or take a moment to yourself and get a Diet Coke and take out and have a seat on the couch and enjoy an incredible movie. This is the movie, we're talking everybody, it's Bull Street. Now you could have just directed a movie, and you could have written a movie and sold it and had somebody else direct it. You decided to just jump in here and do a bunch of jobs. How was your writing process? And when did you decide to direct it? Or was that always part of the deal?

[7:28] Lynn Dow: That was always a part of the deal, because the movie is so personal. And that was really the number one. I'm not one of those writer and directors that I must write and direct everything that I have. But this movie was so personal, and it was a healing journey for me. I wrote it because I lost my grandma. And I was depressed, I'm going to say it. I had sunk into a major depression. We were so close, Robert, that it was just like, we could finish it. I adored her. And when I lost her, I was the only family member scheduled to speak at her service. But grief had paralyzed me that I could not move. So I carried that guilt. And I think for me, so to get out of it, I had to do it all. I had to keep it personal.

I had to keep it close to the chest. Because of all the counseling you get and talks you get with your pastors and your social workers and things like that, it just wasn't there. And so I thought, but what I have to say as the writer, I've got to say this, because this happened with my short film. As the writer in there, when I started directing, so I write from, I write as a director. So everything that you see in that film, the little touches in there, they're all in there. So when I get to set, it's more of a collaboration. It's not where I'm a rah-rah and yelling and doing all of that. I've actually put everything in that script. And then I require the actors to give me that 10-year history and that collaboration.

But I've learned to in the process of when to move the writer in me out of the way, I've learned to, because at first I used to just write, write, write, and I fell in love with my own words and I couldn't move. When I started, you get into the editing room, you get into the, as a director and you start hearing those words, you're like, oh man, this is Oscar worthy. Keep that line, keep that line. So I have to cut, Bull Street actually came in at three hours. So at some point I'll do that directness cut, but it was a healing. This first film for me was definitely my healing and this was my journey. And that's why I was so hands-on as the producer in me. I knew the town. This is the same town that gave us Briggs versus Elliott, which is the first of five cases that led to Brown versus Board.

And so I spent my summers there. I knew every nook and cranny of the town. I wrote what I saw. Everything is still the same. We didn't have to build or anything like that. So I think the producer's part of me is when I introduced the town to the industry and then I was able to let that go and stay in my lane as a director and concentrate as a director. But I was healing, not to give away, but that moment that Luesta has in there, Melinda Hale, that was one take. And it was that moment where I was just set free. And it was an extraordinary experience in that way. But that's the only reason. Now I'll tell you this though, my next project, I will be writing, directing also, because all of these are just so personal for me.

But you've got to know when to take off the hat. And that's what I had to learn in this process here, when to take off the writer's hat, when to take off the director's hat, and when you get into that editing room with the editor, when to take off and go in there with this mind and chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. And I wasn't afraid to do that with this film.

[11:15] Robert Bannon: I think that's what makes the movie. When you watch the movie, you could tell the love, detail, attention to the story and the acting. Your cast is so... Melinda Hale is a star, like flat out star. And you already know that Amy Madigan and Loretta Devine are legends and icons in film and television and theater. What was it like to cast this, knowing how personal it was to you? And that these characters are kind of based on, and the area is based on something so personal to you. So it had to be, was it tricky?

[11:45] Lynn Dow: Well, let me tell you, I was intimidated at first. So first with Loretta, they get her the script, the cast manager, they get her the script. And at this point, I'm like, wait, what? You're giving it to who? And everything was just so surreal. It was just like, wait, I'm sitting here and my first feature film, conversations with Loretta Devine. So everything was surreal when the casting agency, I said, oh, shucks, I think I've arrived. And right off the bat, she says, I'm in. And so when we, the first conversation we have, of course, she hears me on the telephone and she's like, and she could hear that I was saying, she goes in her Loretta voice. Now, if you're going to be afraid, you've got to leave everything at the door.

Everything I've ever done, this is a new movie. And she approaches that. Every movie is different. It's almost as if, and one of the things I actually got from Loretta is that every movie that she approaches, it's almost like it's her first movie. And she's fighting to get into the industry. And you watch that throughout. And it was just so amazing. I'm like, here she is. She can retire and go off and receive all the honorary rewards she deserves. But here Loretta is approaching this as if this is going to take her to the top. And so that's one of the things. And she never ever, she and Amy Madigan, they never ever came on with these big, they were very involved with the community. You see them with so many photos with the actors.

One of the things they were proud of is that each of the actors stepped up to where they are. They didn't have to come down to meet anybody. All the actors stepped up to meet them. And it was such a team effort. But one of the things I like to say about Amy Madigan, and I think this is really important. These are the sides that we do not know of these actors. We see them in there. But I like to say Amy is definitely from the black church, because we had this day, Robert, that anything that could go wrong, went wrong on the set. And so Amy storms off, she goes into a trailer. And they said, Oh, Amy wants to, you know, see you right now. And I'm like, Oh, God, this is where all the stories you hear.

This is where everything breaks down. We were already dealing with the heat and everything in South Carolina. But this is where everything breaks down. And so she calls me in the trailer, and she puts out her hand and she says, Let's pray. I was like saying to myself, What? And she takes my hand, and she's praying, and she's praying. And I'm like, Wait a second, is it in the film business time is money. But she goes on and on and on. And it was just reminding me of being home at church. And then she just goes on. And when she finishes, she says, Now go back out there and make this great movie. And after that, it was over. It was so over after that, because we were dealing with so many elements, we were dealing with the bugs in our eyes and our mouth.

[14:48] Lynn Dow: And that's what I appreciate. It was a really a family setting, especially the fact that it was right after COVID. So people were going through loss. And that's what rallied everyone together and we just fought through and fought through. And for me, I just kept, you know, there were times I was knocked down, I'm going to admit it, it was not an easy journey. And there were many times you're going to get knocked down, you just get back up because I knew I had to, I had to heal. And that's why I was so determined to get this movie completed. And it's done and it's out and you can be right now you can go home, you can get it on Amazon Prime Video. And you can be watching it right now tonight, today, everybody pick it up, check it out.

So the story, the story of this film, you know, this the story of this film is very moving. And maybe no matter where you're from, no matter what race you are, no matter what ethnicity, what background you have, you always love a battle of like, I don't want to say good versus evil, but the underdog versus the monopoly, the family that's going to fight the corporation. You know, it's about a home, it's about a small town attorney. And it's about, you say in the bio of it, privilege against legacy. You know, someone coming in to try to take what's rightfully someone else's and family lineage and all of that. How did you come up with the idea? I'm trying not to give away the whole movie. But what? How did you come up with the idea of this house? And this battle? And you know, the this, this, this David versus Goliath story that you're telling?

[17:53] Lynn Dow: Well, so yeah, after I lost my grandma and all this depression and everything, I was like, I started writing, but I've got to say this, because I love this story here. My uncle, when I was probably about four or five years old, I think it was five or six, my uncle had his wife had left, he had come to live with us, and he had this broken heart. And so my mom gave him my room, and he locked himself in this room. And when he locked hisself in this, right, I would bang on the door, like, you know, open up, this is my room, what is this guy doing in there? And I remember when he did open that door. And there were like these stacks of papers. And the first lines on this stack of paper I'm reading in the beginning, God created heaven and earth.

And so let me just say two weeks prior to that, that was the scripture they gave me for the Easter play. They gave me that. So I look up at my uncle and say, my you wrote the Bible. And he's like, No, no, no, no, no, wait, no, no, no, I did not. But it was already too late. So I went telling everybody, Robert, I told my kindergarten class, my pastor, everybody in the church, because at five years old, you don't really know the author of the good book. You know, so I'm telling everybody about this. And one night, my grandmother pulls me and she says, But Lynn, you're a better writer. And I'm like, Yeah. And she says, Yeah, but you must write, you must write, you must write. And so I really I think that she tapped into something during that time, you know, at five, I didn't know the difference between copy and, you know, I thought he wrote it.

And so fast forward, when I was going through this depression, I could hear my grandmother, tell me to write. She kept saying, Lynn, write, write, write. And so Robert, I just started writing. And then I thought, huh, who wants to hear my pain, we all have a grief, who wants a two hour movie of just my pain. And so I thought, when my grandmother would take me down, you know, to South Carolina, and I would go because I loved I fell in love with the Piggly Wiggly. So I had a great time there. You know, and my cousins and my siblings would say, I'm not going to the South, there's nothing to do in the country and blah, blah, blah. But I was just tailing along with my grandma every place she went.

But she would always say, when this is over in New York, I'm going to come back down to sit on the porch. So I thought I'll track her steps. And maybe there was a story there. And in tracking her steps and taking her back, I find out it was her grandmother, which would be my great grandmother, who was committed to Bull Street for fighting the sheriffs of the town. So they committed that they wanted to take her land. And so they committed her to Bull Street. So back then, when the prisons were overcrowded, they pulled her in for fighting back physically. And so when the prisons were overcrowded, they would actually send you to mental institutions. And Bull Street is it's called, you know, when you when you and we all have our Bull Streets in the every state has its Bull Street.

And so they sent her there. And it was when I found out she lost all her land, my family lost his generational wealth, legacy, everything. That's when I knew I had the story. That's when I knew I had the story. So that's where it really comes from. It's it's that grandmother healing. And I'm throwing in her grandmother. And I'm throwing in, you know, all of these things. It's actually her mother's name was Miss Big Al Loretta's character. And I just love the name is Big Al. I always did growing up. And so I gave it to my I gave that name. So it's really about my grandmother, her mother and her great grandmother all wrapped up in one. It's so touching. And it's so moving. And you can feel the love and the the personalness to it.

And as someone who loves and my grandmother who lost my grandmother last year, I watched this, it choked me up, it will make you tear up, it will make you think of your family. And it is the perfect movie to watch it. The world is on fire. And there's so much craziness going on everywhere. And sometimes we need to see something that will touch our hearts, move us and make us think of our family, our love, our lineage and where we're from and what really matters in the world. We get there's so much noise, Lynn. And this makes us remember what at the end of the day, what really matters and our family and our legacy. And that's what's so beautiful about it.

[22:26] Lynn Dow: Yeah, yeah, no, thank you. She wrote this, she directed it, she produced it. And it's a feature film. What did it feel like to have it out with this release? And now that everybody can see it anywhere? At times, first, I must say that this is important for me to say my executive producer, also producer who worked alongside of me, when you hear the stories of your meeting people in the strange of places to get your movie done, it really is true. My nephew played basketball down in Sarasota, Florida. And he was best friends with this guy from Bermuda. And his parents would come and visit, I would go down there and write. Sarasota is such a really small, quaint town, senior citizens. And so I was so at peace there.

And so I can watch his game and help him out, do his laundry and all that wonderful stuff. And Wendy Tannick would come in from Bermuda to help her son out also. And we get in the bleachers and we get to talking. And her husband likes to say, they're all in Bermuda. She's her family. She's still born and raised there. And she was like, let's go for it. I've always wanted to get into this. So when she told her family about her, her husband likes to tell the story that he tells her, after you get the boys out of high school, you can do whatever you want. And he never thought she would say, I'm going to go to America to make a movie. He thought she was going to do some volunteer work, stay in Bermuda and enjoy the pink sand.

But I think it's important to say also that partnership, that's what kept it. We were back to back and fighting for the film and we both believe, and that's what you've got to do. So I think it's important. I didn't do this alone, not only with my grandma telling me to write, write, write, but it took someone from, a woman from Bermuda to say, hey, look, this is my dream. They had land issues also. That's the incredible thing about this film. When I speak to Ann Dudley, I think we miss, Ann Dudley gets lost in the film, but she's actually composed and she did the full Monty, the crying game. And I said to Ann, she lives out, we recorded in London with the London string section of the symphony.

And I said to her, I said, why this film? We're from two different countries and we listen to some of the same music and things like that, but why? And she said, because I lost land in the countryside of England and also I was close to my grandmother. So those are things that resonated with so many people when we had our theatrical run. But I think for me now, when I look back and I listen to the conversations I've had with Ann Dudley and her approach to composing this music, it was an education process for me. I was going through, and I tell everyone, I told Loretta and Company Three and who colored the movie and all these people, I said, I'm going to need some handholding. And I think we cannot be afraid to say that.

I think we get into this. And I knew my first fit, I was going to need handholding and they really held my hand and went through the process. And Ann Dudley brought so much out of me. She wanted to, her process was to read, she had the screener, but she didn't want to see the screener first because she said there were so many things that were probably cut out that was personal. She wanted to read the script first and she would go through those scenes and the major scenes that she thought, and she would ask me so many questions about them. And I thought it was just fascinating. And that was also a healing point for me to say things out loud and what I was feeling. And then she saw that. So when I look at this now, the film is out in every place and we track our steps in every place that we've been to small theaters and in rooms at times we're just in theaters, just four people in the audience.

And we still do Q and A's. I think now sometime I pinch myself, I go to bed like, wait, what? And when I get these calls to do this from my great publicist, Frank Pierre, and they're like, oh, you're going to Robert today. I'm like, wait, what? He wants me? Why? So sometime I really got to pinch myself, but mostly I think that it was a healing journey that I'm satisfied with and it's truly a blessing. I think that I've got to give the faith and I owe it. I owe it to everyone who had a hand in it. And I can smile now. The work is still not over. You've still got to push, but I can personally, I can smile now. I could say it's all as well.

[27:09] Robert Bannon: Well, we're going to smile. You'll smile when you watch this movie, everybody. And we're going to smile for the more work that Lynn Dow is going to do and the next features and the more projects. I hope you're writing. I hope there's more stuff coming because you write a movie that we need to see this heart and this family and joy and that we can overcome things together is something that we need more than ever. I can't tell people to watch it enough. I enjoyed it so much. It's such a beautiful film. It's called Bull Street. You got to check it out. Shout out to Melinda Hamm. Loretta Devine is maybe my favorite. I have never met Loretta Devine, but she might be the greatest American institution of great, like she is just joy and love.

[28:48] Lynn Dow: Robert, when you say that in person, yes, you will definitely, she is the real deal and very protective of filmmakers. And not only just, there is this, she protects filmmakers, men, women, especially, she protects filmmakers and that's what you appreciate about her. And she allow you to do your thing. She stays in her lane and the greatness of that and both, Amy also, it's just the, and to know that you have these Emmy winners and Oscar winners, I'm like, oh no, but they really calm my nerve. And I think I was truly blessed this first time around and I owe it to the script and the story and just everything.

[29:10] Lynn Dow: Thank you so much, Rob. I really appreciate this. This was actually fun.

[29:16] Robert Bannon: My pleasure, back at you, so much fun. Thank you for being here.

[29:35] Robert Bannon: Well, back at you because they did it because of you and what you were able to do. And definitely everybody go, she just won an Oscar, everybody, Amy Madigan. And now she's in this movie, which you need to check out. And talk about a role that she won an Oscar for, what a wild ride that is. So go check out, check her in a totally different role in this film. You'll have to check out. Congratulations. When the next movie comes out, please come back and say hello to us. Please come back and see us. And I wish you the best, break legs, congratulations and go, everybody go see this movie.