Many may argue that local and national news has become entertainment rather than “hard news”. While some believe the contrary, it’s no surprise that ratings affect the jobs of those in charge. But what happens when you meet someone who is willing to give you what you want in exchange for great footage to boost ratings? The answer: Nightcrawler.

Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, this thrilling drama captures the essence of freelance stringers, also known as nightcrawlers as they roam the streets of Los Angeles in search of a story. Gilroy talked to us about the idea and inspirations to the film. “I came up with the idea for the movie in pieces. The first piece, I heard about a guy named Weegee, a crime photographer in New York. The first guy to put a police scanner in a car and drive around in the 1930s and he took still photographs and sold them to newspapers. And then Joe Pesci did a movie about that called, The Public Eye. Then I moved out here and I heard about the modern equivalent, these stringers, nightcrawlers who drive around at a hundred miles an hour with a dozen scanners going.”

“I got interested in the world because, it’s night time, it’s L.A., it’s crime. It’s all that stuff, but I really didn’t know what to do with it…. Then one day, I sat down and the character of Lou started to come out. I started to think about Lou’s character. When he plugged into that world, it became a very personal story. In the sense that I could not only tell a story that I thought engaging, but was relevant to me in terms of ideas that are presented and thoughts that maybe it provoked. So I just sat down and wrote it for myself and then everything came from there.”

Louis Bloom is an ambitious character that seized every opportunity to make things happen for him in a ‘world of growing economic disparity.’ Jake Gyllenhaal, who also produced the film, admits that playing the role of Lou was challenging, but worth every word. “I don’t think Lou ever says anything that I wouldn’t agree with. If you think about, no really! What he does is different than what he says and he justifies what he does. He justifies with what he says, but he just turns what we all use. You know, our idea of success, editing cost, you know all those things. He does something different, but he says what you’d want him to say… I think he was pretty gangster.” As the work for Lou became consistent, he decided it was time to hire a wingman. His search ended when he found a homeless young man named Rick (Riz Ahmed), who was desperate for a job.

As Lou continues to deliver, Nina (a veteran of local TV news) crosses more journalistic lines than she’s ever crossed in the thirty years of her career. Rene Russo talked to us about portraying Nina, a role she admits her husband Gilroy wrote for her, and proved to be the woman for the job. “It was such a very cool role to play. Actually to be completely honest, it was really hard for me to put a handle on her ‘cause I did not know who this woman was… I sort of finally found a way to bring her to life and that is through desperation,” said Russo.

The work between Nina and Lou is one that strangely develops into an understanding. However, the relationship between the two may be difficult to take in or comprehend. Gilroy explained, “The real aim was that at the end of the film hopefully people will go in, ‘but the problem isn’t Lou, the problem is the world that creates Lou’s and rewards Lou’s.’ That was really where I was trying to go, that people will look at it and be horrified… He’s like a virus. See, in the end when the cars go off in two directions, I always imagine that it was literally like a virus that infected a body and they were going off into the bloodstream. I very much seen Nina, it’s almost like ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ like people are being consumed by a perverted dream. And I feel the world is increasingly that way.” 

Nightcrawler is in theaters Friday, October 31^st.