Interview: Dumb Money director Craig Gillespie

One of my favorite current directors is Craig Gillespie. He’s had an interesting career, with him directing the very underrated remake of Fright Night before taking a detour into big-budget fare with the Chris Pine vehicle Finest Hours. However, his career took off when he helmed I, Tonya in 2017. A darkly comic but empathetic look at the Tonya Harding scandal, the movie helped Margot Robbie breakthrough as a major star. Gillespie adopted the same technique he used for that movie to the Disney 101 Dalmatians spin-off, Cruella, which, despite coming out at the height of the pandemic, still made over $200 million at the box office.

Gillespie’s since juggled work on the big screen with the small screen, having recently directed Pam & Tommy and Mike for Hulu, which stuck pretty closely to the I, Tonya formula. Now, Gillespie’s back on the big screen with Dumb Money, a funny take on the GameStop saga, which played to good reviews at TIFF this year (including my own). In my exclusive interview with Gillespie, I picked his brain about the sprawling cast, how truth is often stranger than fiction, and how a movie like Dumb Money might have been different had he made it as a limited series.

Dumb Money is now in limited release and goes wide on September 29th. I highly recommend checking it out!