The Red Roses and Petrol Story

Red Roses and Petrol is a family love story on screen and off. Its film life began when Tamar Simon Hoffs saw Joseph O’Connor’s celebrated play in New York. The play’s sharp observations of family life and witty exploration of characters facing personal tragedy were an irresistible combination for her. “It deals with my favorite subjects — love and family,” she says. “Joe O’Connor’s wickedly funny, dark take on the emotions that surface when this Dublin family reunites for their father’s funeral just turns everything you usually associate with mourning upside down. But, there is much more to Red Roses and Petrol, as each family member, provoked by another, peels back layer upon layer of unpredictable secrets in a domino effect of revelations. And I recognized every member of the family.”

Family has been a vital part of Hoffs’ creative life since the birth of her own children. When Hoffs was a young director, she was also a young mother. Eager to encourage artistic expression in her kids, Hoffs gave five-year-old daughter Susanna her first guitar. Susanna, with brothers John and Jesse (now a psychologist and an attorney, respectively), formed their first garage band before they could cross the street alone.

The mother-daughter artistic relationship really blossomed when Susanna graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and suddenly the kids, who were playing music in the garage, were the pop sensation, The Bangles. Tamar had a turn producing-directing some of the band’s music videos, and Susanna has appeared in most of her mother’s films including “Stony Island,” “The Haircut,” and “The Allnighter.” Additionally, her voice can be heard in the others. “It felt like the whole world was listening with me when Susanna sang Randy Newman’s nominated song (“A Fool in Love” from Meet the Parents) at the 2001 Academy Awards,” says the proud mother. With Susanna as executive producer, Red Roses and Petrol is emerging as the Hoffs’ most meaningful collaboration ever.

But first — anticipating funding from the Irish Film Board — Tamar adapted Red Roses and Petrol for the screen and wrote the script with Gail Wager Stayden. Hoffs helmed a series of Irish-American co-productions, enabling her to put together a first-class cast and crew for an Irish shoot with the help of co-producer Pierce Boyce and his production company, AbuMedia. Stayden, Georganne Heller (the play’s New York producer), and Alfred Sapse (the production attorney) joined forces with Tamar as producers. Then, like so many independents, they had a rude awakening: Their Irish financing fizzled.
Susanna, busy recording her new album, hadn’t read the script, but came to the rescue based on her mother’s passion for the material. Tamar’s husband, Dr. Joshua Hoffs, a psychiatrist, UCLA neuroscientist and artist, believed in the psychological truths of the story and joined his daughter on the executive producer line. Susanna laughs, “I said, ‘Just make the movie in America, Mom.’ I wanted to keep the production close to home because I knew we’d end up calling in favors and using our own clothes and furniture.” The singer contributed two songs for the film, with her romantic folk-rock voice perfectly attuned to the earthy nature of traditional Irish music. Nancy Schreiber, the brilliant cinematographer of the most famous The Bangles’ video, “Walk Like an Egyptian,” was enlisted to photograph Red Roses and Petrol in high definition video.

“My mom has such an incredibly infectious energy; I knew Ireland would come to her,” says Susanna. Red Roses and Petrol changed overnight from an Irish film made by Americans to a “foreign film” made in America. But finding actors with believable Irish accents in Los Angeles, for the super-low-budget production, was easier said than done. “I like to do my own casting,” Tamar explains, adding, “and I often sit alone in a theater for a matinee watching an actor’s work that might otherwise be lost to me.” Still, Hoffs hadn’t found Enda Doyle, the central character in the story. When she went to a screening of the amazing British film, Gangster One, Malcolm McDowell’s performance “blew her away.” “I knew if he would take the role of the patriarch of the Doyle clan, everything would come together,” Hoffs recalls, “Malcolm agreed, and we were off and running.”

Moved by the material, the other actors converged on Los Angeles: Max Beesley and Greg Ellis from Britain; Susan Lynch, Olivia Tracey, and Catherine Farrell from Ireland; and A Clockwork Orange alumni Aubrey Morris and Malcolm McDowell reunited. The only American principal was Heather Juergensen, who had made a splash in 2002’s indie hit, Kissing Jessica Stein. Juergensen, with her fabulous Irish accent and her recent experience as a writer-producer, became indispensable to director Hoffs throughout the production.

At Stayden’s home, during the first reading of the script, the “click” was almost audible as the Doyle family bonded. “I was nervous at first, until I realized the woman playing my mom was actually from Ireland,” Juergensen remembers. “So I could just ask her a question like, ‘Is it fuck or foock?’” After the reading, the men continued their bonding at a local pub over Irish whiskey, vowing to do the movie as long as the location was near a golf course.

When the cast arrived at the sound stage (yes, in Valencia, CA) they were already behaving like a family and reacting gleefully to their new home, an incredible replica of an authentic Dublin house that had been built to the specifications of gifted production designer, Julieann Getman, and complaining about the tea. “We would demand ‘real’ tea, and the craft services lady kept bringing in these dreadful herbal concoctions or horribly weak American stuff. She just didn’t have a clue,” McDowell laughs. “Finally, I brought my own PG Tips to the set, and my trailer basically became the craft services table because it was the only place anyone could get a good bloody cup of tea!”

A relaxed atmosphere on the set, as in life, gives actors the freedom to reach new limits. “I don’t believe it’s necessary for a director to over-rehearse with actors,” Hoffs explains. “The director’s job is to be open to ideas, trustworthy and well prepared.” To this end, cinemetographer Nancy Schreiber and director Hoffs spent time, well in advance, creating shot lists and story boards for key scenes. “I loved it when the actors felt free to surprise me and dig deeper into character when the spirit moved them, even on days with as many as eight pages of dialogue to cover,” Hoffs offers.

The synergy between the Doyle family coming together at the death of their charismatic father and the Hoffs family coming together to save the movie from an untimely end is incalculable. The family feeling imbued the cast and crew during the filming — and has happily continued to this day. Tamar and Susanna Hoffs may be proof that there is no greater artistic resource than a loving mother and daughter team. Red Roses and Petrol was completed on budget and schedule.