When Aronofsky and Huston sent the script, Butler was already primed to say yes. “I was 11 or 12 or something, and the director of the first audition
When Aronofsky and Huston sent the script, Butler was already primed to say yes. “I was 11 or 12 or something, and the director of the first audition I ever went to—Jacob Chase was his name—cast me in this student film. I remember talking to him. I’m this little kid, and I said, ‘Who’s your favorite director?’ I’m trying to seek mentorship in whatever way. And he said, ‘Darren Aronofsky.’ He said, ‘Go watch Requiem for a Dream.’”
“At 11 or 12?” Aronofsky interrupts. “Get away from that director as quick as you can.”
The harrowing drug addiction drama is a strenuous watch for anyone of any age, but Butler was transfixed. “It became my favorite film,” he says. “Highly inappropriate as a youngster, but I remember watching it, going, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize you could do this. How inventive and visceral. As the years went on, then I dug into every one of his films and always wanted to work with him. And so when we met, I remember having this moment of: That’s actually Darren Aronofsky!”
For that reason alone, Caught Stealing was an straightforward yes for him. “Also, the setting being ’90s New York, which Darren knows so well,” Butler says. “It’s something that I could sink my teeth into as an actor and explore this guy who’s tortured and has been sort of numbing himself and then, suddenly, is thrown into this world…”
“The world really spirals out of control,” Aronofsky says.
But there was one point of disagreement from the start. “Darren kept talking about how fun the movie was,” Butler says. “And I was, like—the stuff I’m going through is not a lot of fun.” But now that he’s seen it, he gets it: “Something that can be a nightmare for the character can actually have humor.”
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