VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Jessica Garza & Dan Brown On Working With Angus Cloud In His Last Movie,’Your Lucky Day’

Director Dan Brown and actress Jessica Garza spoke about their upcoming film Your Lucky Day and their experiences with the late Angus Cloud in their new uInterview.

Brown, who is the writer and director, explained to uInterview founder Erik Meers how the film focuses on a criminal who steals a lottery ticket from an elderly man at a convenience store, which turns into a hostage situation. 

“Things spiral out of control from there, there’s a cop in the back who was in the bathroom,” Brown explained. “And one thing leads to the next and he sort of ends up with this ticket and conspires with Jessica’s character and a couple of other people who were in the store at the same time, the hostages, to put together a story so that maybe he can get away with the money but maybe everyone else can too.”

Garza plays one of these hostages. “We have a chance to change our entire lives,” she said of her character.

Brown explained that for the characters, this is a pivotal moment. Originally, their goal was to get out of the store, but then they realized that they could enrich themselves with the lottery money. 

“Once you kind of set your mind to something like this and you kind of start, I think, imagining what that life looks like because you kind of can’t help it. I think then they all get more invested than they were expecting to be in coming out on top or walking away with the money,” Brown observed. 

Cloud plays the main character in the film, so most people on set had the opportunity to work alongside him.

Brown recalled that after he wrote the script for the film, his wife told him that she believed Cloud, a star on the hit HBO series Euphoria, would be perfect for the role. 

“I’d written the script and then just you know in the way and I shared the script with my wife and she had really liked it,” Brown explained. “And then some point I was out of town and she had watched Euphoria on a binge and when I came back she’s I know who should be in your movie: Angus Cloud.”

Cloud auditioned for the film and during initial conversations with Brown, they got to learn a lot about each other. Brown described how Cloud wasn’t interested in fame or money, but just had an “adventurous spirit.”

“We talked about that he had always wanted to ride rails so he did it,” he recalled. “It was one of the things he wanted to do. He jumped on a train and then rode it down the coast. And I was like, ‘That’s incredible, that that’s what you’ve been wanting to do and you went and did it.’”

Garza recalled a special moment for her when, on Christmas, Cloud had sent her a message, even though the two didn’t know each other well.

“I remember waking up on Christmas morning, and I had a DM from him and it was just like, ‘Merry Christmas player!’ And there was like a little picture that was a little Christmas picture. And I just thought it was so special because we had, well done this really intense project together but we didn’t get to know each other in this deep intimate level.”

Your Lucky Day is playing in theaters and is available for streaming now.