God’s Pocket marks the feature-film directorial debut of Mad Men star John Slattery, and it takes place in a working class town where not much happens. Things change though when Leon, a crazy kid who’s always bragging about himself, ends up getting killed by a fellow construction worker. The rest of the workers, however, have no problem passing Leon’s death off as a work accident since nobody in town really liked him anyways.
His mother, Jeanie (Christina Hendricks, another Mad Men alum), demands answers about her son’s death, and she enlists her husband Mickey (Phillip Seymour Hoffman in one of his last film roles) to seek out the truth. This only exacerbates Mickey’s already looming problems, which include gambling debts and a lack of money for a proper funeral. Sooner or later the truth will come out, but not in the way that anyone expects.
Recently, I sat down for an exclusive interview with Slattery and Hendricks when they appeared at the God’s Pocket press day at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. They spoke about what drew them to this particular movie, which is based on the novel by Pete Dexter, why John chose this story to make his feature film directorial debut with, and what it was like to work with the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who gives yet another fantastic performance.
Check it all out in the video below and be sure to catch God’s Pocket when it comes to theatres this Friday!