Elizabeth Banks Explains Why She Made “Cocaine Bear”

When Elizabeth Banks determined to make “Cocaine Bear,” the world round her was — actually and figuratively — on hearth. “I used to be feeling very chaotic after I learn this script,” Banks tells POPSUGAR. “We had been in the midst of the pandemic. We had been nonetheless wiping down groceries. There have been fires in every single place in California. The world was chaos. Then I learn the script and I believed, effectively, there’s nothing extra chaotic than a bear who’s excessive on cocaine.”

“Cocaine Bear” is, certainly, loosely primarily based on a real story a couple of bear who stumbled upon some cocaine. In 1985, a bear in a forest close to Blue Ridge, Georgia was discovered lifeless after ingesting a part of a duffel bag crammed with the drug — nonetheless, nobody is aware of what occurred within the quick aftermath of the animal’s unintended drug binge.

Banks’s dramatization of the occasions entails a wacky forged of characters who encounter the bear throughout its, ahem, altered state. This consists of two uncomfortable little children, their mother, a gaggle of knife-wielding teenagers on the lookout for bother, a park ranger, and the wildlife inspector she’s determined to impress. It additionally contains a trio of drug sellers looking for the misplaced cocaine, which incorporates Alden Ehrenreich because the grieving Eddie, O’Shea Jackson because the disgruntled Daveed, and Ray Liotta — who’s excellently outlandish in his final movie position earlier than his loss of life — as drug kingpin Syd. From begin to end, the entire thing is extraordinarily gory and completely absurd.

It is smart that “Cocaine Bear” arose from the depths of the hysteria that outlined the early levels of the COVID-19 pandemic, when everybody was hoarding rest room paper, tent hospitals had been being created in the midst of soccer fields, and many individuals felt just like the world may fairly actually be coming to an finish. For Banks, who’s remarkably articulate about what drew her to make such an inane movie, the story’s insanity helped her contextualize the state of the world at that time. “I felt that making this film as an artist was form of my approach of taming that chaos just a little bit,” Banks provides, “and hopefully bringing an viewers collectively for a communal expertise of connection and pleasure and enjoyable.”

Practically three years and a complete lot of chaos later, “Cocaine Bear” is lastly out in theaters. Along with seeing the film as an embodiment of the overall temper of the time, the “Charlie’s Angels” and “Pitch Good 2” director says she was drawn to the story as a result of she wished to push herself as a director. In early February, Banks informed Selection that she was afraid the film might be a “career-ender,” however the threat appears to have made her wish to pursue it extra. “I do not assume we develop if we do not attain for issues that make us just a little uncomfortable or that scare us just a little bit,” she says. “Do not do one thing you are comfy with. I imply, you may, however you are not gonna develop as an individual.”

That sentiment appears to be shared by the characters of “Cocaine Bear,” who pursue the enraged animal — and ultimately her cubs — regardless of the intense hazard. However whereas Banks is not afraid to slip feet-first into probably precarious conditions like her characters, she additionally sees one other aspect to “Cocaine Bear.” “Do not go close to animals within the woods. They’re wild and you can not management them,” Banks says. “That’s, I believe, the hubris of people, pondering that we are able to management nature.”

For her, “Cocaine Bear” can be a cautionary story, one which reminds us that we won’t anticipate to do no matter we wish to nature with out it will definitely preventing again — within the type of issues like local weather change and the wildfires that raged when Banks first encountered the “Cocaine Bear” script. “That is for certain a theme of this film,” Banks says. “Nature is all the time gonna win.”

Take a look at extra of Banks and her costars O’Shea and Ehrenrich’s ideas on “Cocaine Bear” within the video above.