Cry Like a Guy
A feast for the feels
Directed by Anthony Rubinstein
Words by Katie Huelin
In Cry Like a Guy, director Anthony Rubinstein and writer Catherine Willoughby turn a creative clash into a deep exploration of male tears. Blending humour with insight, the film challenges the stigma around men’s emotional expression, while unpacking the biological, historical, and societal roots of crying.
Led by House of the Dragon and Warrior star Kieran Bew, whose gruff-yet-goofy charm shines, this powerful short redefines vulnerability, inviting viewers to rethink what it truly means to "cry like a guy."
Cry Like a Guy perfectly captures a balance between humour, emotion and education. What made you want to create a film that reveals men do, should, and can cry?
Believe it or not, the topic was inspired by a clash of opinion between Catherine (the writer) and Ant (the director), who are a couple. We realised we’d been socially conditioned to have opposing views about tears being useful vs futile, and wanted to explore that in a piece of creative writing. Catherine wrote a longer spoken word poem originally about tears in general, but in order to tap into the conversation around our society’s shifting views on ‘manliness' we decided to adapt it into a film that was specifically targeted at men. For that we stripped it down to the essential beats of the argument to make the punchiest version possible - and attempted to elevate the delivery with all the sparkle and excitement that we could squeeze in.
Men’s well-being is a huge topic, and such an important one too. We hope this film can play a small part in reshaping the narrative. We’d love it to be seen by as many people as possible in an educational context and we’re working on charity partnerships / amplification to get it in front of the people who could benefit the most from the messaging.
Kieran Bew delivers a nuanced and engaging performance. What led you to casting him for this role?
We were so lucky to get Kieran on board. The narrator was always going to be what the success of the film hinged on and for us he stuck just the right balance between gruff and goofy. We always wanted him to play this very masculine tough-guy, to make the juxtaposition between his appearance and what he’s actually saying all the more pronounced. Kieran’s experience in House of the Dragon, Netflix’s Warrior and all manner of other ‘tough’ roles made him a superb fit for the part. Kieran also had a personal reason to be involved, in his own words: “I’ve had my own journey embracing tears and growing through pain, so I feel very strongly about sharing this message."
Can you give us an insight into your experience collaborating with Catherine Willoughby on the script, and how the film's poetic rhythm contributes to its exploration of male tears?
I (Ant) am very lucky to have Catherine as a live-in poet / partner in rhyme... We’ve got a fairly unique synergy in that her obsession for poetry and word play is just about matched by my obsession for filmmaking and visual tricks. Our last big project together ‘There’s Something Going Around’ ended up preserved in the BFI national archives. So throughout our professional and personal relationship the times we haven't been working on a spoken word project of some sort together have been quite few and far between. This one just escalated more than most!
From Catherine’s side: Rhyme and rhythm are such engaging devices because the predictable sound patterns fire up reward receptors in your brain. In this particular poem, the spoken word flow mirrors the body’s rhythmic processes (breathing, heartbeats, sobs etc) - as well as our machinery analogy.
Shooting this fast-paced film, within a studio environment, how did you push creative boundaries to bring the quirky and abstract elements to life?
In the pre production we created a really intricate 3D animatic of the whole thing, we plotted out exactly what was going to happen and when – particularly how it was going to flow together with these theatrical sliding scenery pieces. At the start, working on the animatic was the only thing Ant could do by himself to drive the project forward and we needed to use this pre-vis to convince people to get on board… (it worked!) It also meant on the shoot we could be super efficient with coverage, as we had the film pretty much all laid out already in terms of what shots we needed where.
DoP Thomas English brought so much to the table on this short, we wanted a high end, gangster tone – somewhere between a Nike spot and a guy Ritchie film, which meant using some lovely vintage anamorphic lenses and plenty of haze to set the mood in the warehouse. Paul Zabihi (Production designer) did a fantastic job with all the background dressing too, to make it feel like a real dodgy-gang HQ. I particularly love the simple palettes hung up to illicit big factory windows on a budget!
“Men’s well-being is a huge topic, and such an important one too. We hope this film can play a small part in reshaping the narrative.”
The sound design by James Everett and James Benn, amplifies the emotional, and slightly chaotic, intensity of the narrative. How did you use sound to influence this journey we are taken on as viewers?
Sound is where 80% or or more of the emotion comes from in my opinion. The script is so complete and engrossing you could watch the film with your eyes shut and hopefully still get the message. I spent many may hours deep diving into audio libraries to find the music to complement the rhythm of the poem, there are three distinct sections with three distinct tracks and I wanted to steer well away from anything that seemed too slow, mournful or clichéd - with respect to what you might expect a film about crying to sound like. I'd always pictured this as a Nike spec ad in terms of the tone and that's why we landed on upbeat hip hop to make it feel closer to a rap than a poem.
The work the guys at No.8 did on the sound design is truly phenomenal, I’m honestly blown away by the intricacy and detail they managed to squeeze into every moment - to craft this rich and immersive soundscape that swirls around the dialogue and just makes it feel alive throughout.
The VFX in Cry Like a Guy balances the artistic and scientific aspects so well. How did you intend for multimedia elements to further portray the hidden world of male tears?
My big challenge was to get all the VFX to sit really well in this world without it feeling cheap or tacky. I think to the wider public CGI can be considered a dirty word these days and can easily undermine a good story if not executed successfully. But, the gigantic leaps that are being made all the time in the tools and technology a humble freelancer like me has access to are staggering - and I wanted to use this short to play with some of these new technologies, particularly in finding tasteful applications of Ai that I could use to supercharge my workflow. Also, scenes like the pop-up book and the mind machine would have been extremely difficult things to demonstrate practically - but with visual effects the only limit is your imagination!
What’s next for you?
As a duo we haven’t got any other big projects in the works right now, but we’re sure it won’t be long until we stumble on the idea for the next one ... Ant is keeping very busy directing commercials and Catherine is currently writing a musical, alongside her day job as a Planning Director at Adam & Eve DDB.
Director / Editor / Visual effects Ant Rubinstein
Writer Catherine Willoughby
Produced by Benji Landman
Executive Producer Adam Dolman
Starring Kieran Bew
Aaron Ly as Office Man
Keanu Hughes as Pub Goer
Mark Collins and Alex Ajuwon as Kieran’s Boys
Isis Caletti as Little Girl
Additional Cryers: Nik Valentine, Chi Chan, Michael Totty, Ciaran Duce, Harry Starkey-Midha, Russel Barnett, Karlu Akumas, Jamal Franklin, Chris Barlow
Director of Photography Thomas English
Production Designer Paul Zabihi
Costume Designer Lara Jensen
Make Up Artist Clare Eastham
Art Director Charlie Speak
Colourist Alex Gregory
Additional Colour Matt Turner
Re Recording Mixer George Castle
Sound Design James Everett, James Benn
VFX the ‘Mind Machine’ by Blind Pig
Executive Creative Director Ric Comline
Creative Director Sean Cooper