AFF ‘24: Rob Taylor and Nic Costa on Raging Midlife

In the early 2000s, two friends conceptualized an action-comedy feature film—and now two decades later, that concept is reality. Rob Taylor co-wrote, directed and co-starred in Raging Midlife alongside long-time friend Nic Costa, who also wrote and starred in the film. Their feature follows Nic’s character, Alex, as he tries to acquire his favorite childhood pro wrestler’s tank top to satiate his midlife nostalgia. Along the way he and his best friends encounter mystery, hijinx, love and some gnarly pro wrestling moves.

As part of our coverage of Austin Film Festival 2024, we sat down with the creative duo on Zoom to ask a few questions about their latest release. Along the way we covered the joy of filmmaking, the balance of their process, the inspiration of pro wrestling, and the sincerity of this comedy film.

Hyperreal Film Club (HFC): Thanks for giving me some of your time. The first thing that struck me about Raging Midlife was the sheer joy that it seems like you guys made it with. It comes out in every scene. You've got these great gags, you've got all this style and you bring in these fun elements from different genres. Can y’all tell me a little bit about the writing process between yourselves?

Nic Costa (NC): Sure, the whole concept began in 2003. Rob had just finished his first feature film and had an idea for a buddy chase movie. He didn't know what the McGuffin was going to be, but he knew that he wanted to do this comedy in the form of a very brief, act-by-act outline.

Rob Taylor (RT): It's kind of great because we both have very different writing styles in a very complimentary way. I'll have a one sentence idea. I'll be like, “Nic, here's the concept.” Then he'll say, “Move over,” grab the laptop and just start buzzing away. And I’ll say, “love this, hate that.” We wrote a different film called Neil Stryker And The Tyrant Of Time (2017), and it was the same way where we took this mess and puzzled it together. And that's where Nic really shines. He just needs a basic concept, and then he fills it out. 

NC: Then we just make it as funny as we can together. 

RT: Also, we kind of knew how we wanted to dismount and end the film. We built some scenes around a joke but it kept coming back to the question, “How's it pushing the narrative forward?” Nic is truly a comedian, and I'm just all story. And the beauty of that is it keeps us on track in both categories. We’re keeping it fun. We’re keeping it funny, but I'm making sure that if this is not supporting the narrative enough, it's gotta go. We’re complimentary, the two of us are a good team because of how different our styles are.

NC: It’s that way on the set too. I would say Rob was a good general and a beautiful and wonderful and very smart director. He knew what he wanted, what vision he wanted. And meanwhile, you know, I was there to sort of juice it up a little bit.

RT: Yeah, exactly. You're a good cheerleader. And I wasn't fun on set. I was like, “Don't fuck with me.” And Nic was there, like, “Hey, it's okay.” Nic and I had a rule on set. It's like, if we're not having fun, then what are we doing here? Yes, we're trying to make a movie. But once any vibes start getting sour, we draw the line.

HFC: That speaks to the palpable joy that comes out in each scene. I really enjoyed your fun, energetic dynamic. Rob's got this hilarious straight face thing. Nic's got this amazing charisma. Y’all worked together before on Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time. How much did your history with one another inform your dynamic on-screen?

RT: That's a good question. In Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time, we each play two different characters. And, Nic and I love comedy and we love comic timing. So we’re on the same page. “Do we have something? Is it funny? We got it. Moving on.” We played different characters in this new movie and don't have a lot of scenes that are just the two of us. We have one specifically, that's in front of a window just after the haunted house scene. I think that is one of the funniest little moments in the movie.

NC: We have a pretty positive working relationship in real life. We keep the same rule when we're writing. If we're not having fun then what are we doing? Same rules, same people as well. You'll notice if you've watched Neil Stryker, we literally have brought the same people back. It takes a village and we take our village with us. We even had Walter Koenig in in Neil Stryker, and we would have brought David Ogden back, who had risen from Mash fame, but unfortunately, he passed in, I believe, 2017. The crew and all, we’re all still homies. Very Christopher Guest in that way, you know, brings his comedy troupe to the next one.

HFC: You put some of yourselves into your characters.

NC: It could look like we didn't even try in Raging Midlife. We just called Rob’s character “Rob.”

RT: That was always the plan when we wrote the script. We all had our own names in it. The one we didn't change was mine, and I was basing that character off of who I was at the time. I was in a little more of a solo melancholy, one of my dark modes. And we just kind of went with that and kept it. We didn't change a thing. 

HFC: I think the puppies were a good touch for his character, too. The natural question that comes up next, though—why pro wrestling?

NC: In 2003 they weren't going after a wrestling tank top. I can tell you that much. When we finally figured out what the McGuffin was going to be, it was actually the tank top that Kurt Russell wore in Big Trouble in Little China.

RT: And it wasn't until about 2019 that we were still struggling, and Nic had this amazing idea. I'm not a big wrestling fan but it was perfect. We wanted a bigger, broader concept, and what do people love? Westling. Even if you don't like wrestling, you know who Hulk Hogan is. At the time we struggled with IP issues and eventually decided to create our own wrestling League with our own wrestlers.

NC: We get to create the wrestler, but then he can be informed by some of our favorite wrestlers. And I gotta tell you, I don't know how many Halloweens I dressed up as Macho Man Randy Savage. But then Rob took his three point shot. He goes, “Get out of the box. What if it was like, Macho Man meets Abraham Lincoln. We can call him Raging Abe.”

RT: All I gave him was Abe Lincoln and Nick, like I said before, Nick took that and went to town with it.

NC: But we still wanted Macho Man, the vibe, so we had that. We ended up finding this guy who did the perfect impression. He was a professional Macho Man impersonator in Las Vegas. We did a fundraiser where we put on an entire wrestling show in Portland. We brought all these wrestlers that ended up actually being in the film, but we ended up hiring him because he was so good. If we could ever do a behind the scenes, I could show some of these auditions that were so good. So many creative people giving us their best Macho Man impressions.

HFC: And it seems like there's also this influence of pro wrestling acting in the film. There’s this wonderful physicality and size to your characters’ performances. How much of that was intentional? How much of that kind of came out in the moment?

NC: I actually trained with the wrestlers in the film. I trained with them for months. In Portland, there was this outfit that allowed you to train on Monday nights to be a wrestler, a referee or a manager. I wanted to get myself in shape and I wanted to learn how to take people down to pound town. Then the natural question we asked was, “Do we tap these guys and just bring them in?” These are real wrestlers that we met in Portland that did this every week for peanuts. Richard Sincere, Eric Fischer, and Doc Kliever. They were great. They had these signature moves that we really loved and came up with “The Gettysburg Caress” that you see in the movie. It was based on a real move by a wrestler named The Million Dollar Man, Ted Dibiase, called the Million Dollar Dream.

HFC: Many parts of the movie have a heightened aesthetic. I was getting kind of Hanna-Barbera vibes from certain segments. Were cartoons one of your inspirations?

RT: I watch cartoons every moment I can. I have all the Looney Tunes DVDs and blu-rays at home. So a lot of my comic timing is informed from old Warner Brothers cartoons. Nic came up with one of his bits in the movie and I said, “Don't change a thing.” A lot of that stuff, like Matt Zak’s move, I think it was kind of figured out on the day of. He loves pro wrestling. When he was a little kid, he watched it all the time. He had the action figures. So who better to play this part? That shit just came to him naturally.

NC: There's a little toy action figure of Raging Abe in the beginning of the movie that's sitting on the floor. That’s a replica of Matt Zak’s actual action figure. He really loves it. He has a scene where he steps into a pro wrestling ring. Then, later in the movie he uses all those same moves from the ring against everybody else. I don't know if anybody got that connection, but I love that.

HFC: I wanted to just touch on the word “midlife.” It’s in the title of the movie and it’s this background thing that gives context to everything that's happening. Can we talk a little bit about that? 

RT: The original title did not contain “midlife,” because we were not in our mid-life back then. We just changed it over time. I was brainstorming with Nic and the second he said “midlife,” I realized I’d never heard that word in a movie title.

NC: We just put something fun in front of the movie. And you know, what's more perfect to go with it than “raging?”

HFC: There is a lot of substance in this movie, especially at the level of a midlife crisis. I’m thinking about Alex’s big growth moment. What's y’all’s relationship with the substance of this story?

RT: This script was ever evolving since 2003. We even shot Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time along the way. The script evolved with us.

NC: Gosh, aren’t comedies just better with dramatic layers? Many great comedy actors have gone and made some great dramas. Really great comedies have some wonderful dramatic moments, and comedians, when they're on stage, have some beautiful stories to tell. This story is about nostalgia, or really the end of nostalgia. Paula Abdul is in the film, and her character helps Alex understand that you gotta live for the future.

RT: There were drafts that came and went, and then at some point we analyzed it to make sure that our character has a proper arc. And that arc changed over time, because the McGuffin changed, but by the time we got to wrestling, we needed Paula Abdul’s character to have a certain focus and a message.

NC: Paula Abdul had thoughts about her character. One of my favorite things she ever said, “I don't want to just be Paula Abdul. I want Mary to have meaning and flair.” So we did some rewrites and that process brought a lot of things together. I remember in the next meeting telling her, "Even if you say ‘no’ to us, I want you to know that you’ve already made this story so much better.”

HFC: What's next?

RT: Oh, honestly, there's a lot of stress that comes along with filmmaking. The only thing I can think of is a little bit of relaxing theater. I think Nic and I would love to get back on stage. We both have a theater background. And the stakes are different.

NC: There will be a theatrical run in select theaters in March of 2025, and it'll be released on VOD, I think the same day. There'll be a digital premiere. There'll be an actual premiere. So for the film that's teed up and that's going out to the world, so that'll be very exciting. For us, though? I've implored Rob in every movie we’ve done, we've got to have a musical number. The last one had a proper musical number, but the next one, I would love to do a musical. I’m thinking about a musical that’s got elements of Predator and vampires with some possible characters played by Ian McDiarmid and Paul Abdul. We love her. She’s just great. People say, “Don't meet your heroes.“ Rob and I often respond, “But meet Paula.”

RT: It's gonna be great.

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