Interview: Dumb Money director Craig Gillespie

We interview Dumb Money director Craig Gillespie, who breaks down how he turned the GameStop saga into a movie.

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!