Muldoon<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s sudden passing just days before our conversation. Interdonato spoke movingly about his friend and co-star in a separate remembrance, but within the context of DIRTY HANDS, Muldoon\u2019s presence is inseparable from the film\u2019s emotional core.<\/p>\nInterdonato first met Muldoon through Guy Nardulli, Muldoon\u2019s longtime best friend and also part of the DIRTY HANDS cast. The connection was immediate.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen I met Pat for the first time, I was received with a big hug,\u201d Interdonato recalls. \u201cHe picked me up off the ground \u2014 he\u2019s like a foot taller than me \u2014 and he swung me around, and we were punching each other and having beers within five minutes. And I\u2019m like, this is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Interdonato, that off-screen chemistry was everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just felt right off camera,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s when I knew that was my guy, because we had it off-screen and there was no acting.\u201d<\/p>\n
That rejection of \u201cacting\u201d is key to Interdonato\u2019s approach, both as filmmaker and performer. He bristles at the word \u201cperformance,\u201d calling it \u201cresult-oriented.\u201d What he wanted from Muldoon, and from the film as a whole, was something lived-in, unpolished, raw, and emotionally present.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted someone to sink into it and not think about my most hated word, performance,\u201d he says. \u201cWe both talked about that extensively, and just staying in the moment, not knowing what\u2019s going to happen. And he jumped in wholeheartedly and really embraced that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That authenticity extends to the film\u2019s violence. DIRTY HANDS has action, but Interdonato doesn\u2019t see it as an \u201caction film.\u201d Its physicality comes from street-level reality, not stylized heroics.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, that\u2019s irrelevant,\u201d he says of genre labeling. \u201cIt\u2019s not an action film. This is the world I grew up in. I know this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wanted the violence to feel abrupt, messy, and painful \u2014 not choreographed into cinematic fantasy.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal life is not Jason Statham flying kicks,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s raw. It\u2019s unpredictable. It just kind of happens. And sometimes people can just walk away from it 30 seconds later and pick up a phone call from their mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
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That same rawness informed the visual design. Interdonato calls the 1970s \u201cthe best era for film,\u201d citing its purity and grit, and that sensibility runs through DIRTY HANDS. Working with cinematographer and production designer Eric Miller, he built a visual grammar around contained space, practical limitations, and emotional pressure.<\/p>\n
Much of the film unfolds inside a mechanic\u2019s garage, a location that serves both budget and story. For Interdonato, the garage was not simply economical. It was thematic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the idea of being in the mechanic garage for that long, symbolically, that was the best way I could tell the audience that their backs were literally to the wall,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was nowhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
That space is bathed in blue, a choice that gives the garage an odd duality: claustrophobic and strangely calming, a trap and a temporary refuge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blue wash was really a calming point when they entered the garage,\u201d Interdonato explains. \u201cBlue just represents that cool, calm, relaxing ocean, but there was an electric feel to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u201celectric feel\u201d came partly from one of the film\u2019s most effective details: a blinking, buzzing halogen work light. Added to interrupt the steadiness of the garage, it becomes visual texture, tension builder, and sonic irritant all at once.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt almost felt like it was a living, breathing space,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was not totally silent. And then people kept coming into their world and interrupting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sound design became one of the film\u2019s most important invisible weapons. Interdonato and his team were \u201cadamant about every little sound,\u201d from the buzzing light to the amplified textures of night. He drew from childhood camping memories and his military experience, remembering how small sounds in darkness can become almost deafening.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so quiet at night,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if you really listen, the smallest sounds almost become deafening \u2014 crickets and cicadas and leaves rustling. You hear everything so clearly. I just wanted to enhance as much as possible any sound to really color the world and the moment they were in.\u201d<\/p>\n
That attention to detail carries through the production itself. The garage, secured through Nardulli\u2019s Chicago connections, was nearly turnkey. The owner handed over the keys at night, let them shoot, and even offered up a junk car to destroy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Don\u2019t worry about getting blood on the floor. I\u2019ve got to clean the floors in a week anyway,\u2019\u201d Interdonato laughs.<\/p>\n
Even wardrobe became part of the film\u2019s economy. Because DIRTY HANDS unfolds over one night and was shot largely in chronological order, continuity could be maintained with a handful of duplicates.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAt the end of the day, I just bought four pairs of jeans and four pairs of Hanes T-shirts, and we were good to go,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
When asked whether he went for the three-pack or five-pack, Interdonato didn\u2019t miss a beat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got the Hanes that were five to a pack. I went for it. I sprung for the extra ten bucks!\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the Jersey boy, and that\u2019s the filmmaker: practical, specific, funny, and unwilling to spend where he doesn\u2019t need to. But that economy is not limitation masquerading as virtue. It is a methodology.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could do a lot with a little,\u201d he says. \u201cComing from the world I come from, I don\u2019t know how to spend lavishly.\u201d<\/p>\n
He likes small crews, tight locations, and people who are all-in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to surround myself with, for lack of better words, a crew of gangsters,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody that\u2019s all in it. Everyone\u2019s excited to come to work and get their hands dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n
That same precision applied to the edit. Editor Nicholas Larrabure has been part of Interdonato\u2019s creative circle for years, and Interdonato describes their shorthand as almost instinctive.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just completes my thoughts,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have that kind of relationship on a creative level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fight scenes, meanwhile, were anything but casual. Though resources were limited, Interdonato brought in stunt coordinator Jason Mello, along with Travis Staton and additional stunt performers. Muldoon, Nardulli, and Interdonato rehearsed in New Jersey for five days, eight hours a day, using cardboard boxes and pool noodles to map out the violence before heading to Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery hit, every move, every punch was orchestrated,\u201d Interdonato says. \u201cWe did it enough so we were comfortable with the movements and didn\u2019t have to think, and then we could actually live in the moment and react.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The film also gives Denise Richards a surprising dramatic showcase as Sheila, Richie\u2019s wife. Interdonato says Richards came to set with a depth he had hoped for but did not fully expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was just electric,\u201d he says. \u201cThat role of Sheila was really the only person that was stable. She was unhappy in the situation, but she was the person that was the victim of everything, and she really brought her A-game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interdonato encouraged her to forget the camera and sit inside the discomfort of the role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018This is not about performance. I really need you to know that there\u2019s no camera here. There\u2019s no nothing. I just want you to go to that place that\u2019s so grounded and really just sit in this and live it out. I need you to be comfortably uncomfortable.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point, she was so locked in that Interdonato forgot to call cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just watching the monitor,\u201d he says. \u201cShe just kept going. And she\u2019s like, \u2018Are we done?\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh yeah, sorry, Denise.\u2019 She was magnificent.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Michael Beach, he says, needed no such direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have to say anything to Mike,\u201d Interdonato says. \u201cHe\u2019s just such a pro. He brought it and elevated everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a filmmaker who built his acting career on improvisation, Interdonato is surprisingly strict as a director. Improvisation, he notes, does not mean comedy. It can mean silence, behavior, or a small adjustment that improves a moment. But on DIRTY HANDS, the script mattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI write everything for a reason,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was not a lot of improv on this film at all. It was scripted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back, DIRTY HANDS reinforced something Interdonato says he is still learning: to trust his instincts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s coming to me and it just feels right in my gut, I just go harder with it and stick to my guns,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
That instinct is rooted in his lifelong relationship with movies. Before he was an actor, writer, director, or producer, he was a film fan looking for escape.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMy escape was film,\u201d he says. \u201cEven as a teen, my escape was film. So I\u2019m a film fan first. I always think of the audience and how they would take it, how they would receive it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And for Interdonato, that is the goal \u2014 not polish for polish\u2019s sake, not violence for genre\u2019s sake, not performance for acclaim\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, Debbie, I just want to move people,\u201d he says. \u201cIf I can just give back to people the same joy from film that I received, that I look for, then my job is done.\u201d<\/p>\n
With DIRTY HANDS, Kevin Interdonato does exactly that. He strips things down to blood, breath, brotherhood, bruises, buzzing lights, and survival. Then he lets the night close in.<\/p>\n
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by debbie elias, exclusive interview 04\/23\/2026<\/p>\n
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DIRTY HANDS is now available On Digital and On Demand<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
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