We sat down with Emmy Award winning director Oz Rodriguez’s (Saturday Night Live, Vampires Vs. The Bronx) to talk about latest film Miguel Wants To Fight currently streaming on Hulu.
This coming of age story follows a group of high school friends from a neighborhood where despite the fact that fighting is stitched into the fabric of everyday life, high school junior Miguel (Tyler Dean Flores) has never found himself in one. And, he’s perfectly fine with that. But as his life feels like it is turning upside down, Miguel wants to prove his solidarity to his friend, who chastised him for not joining them in the fights they have had. His three best friends —the stoic David (Christian Vunipola), the rowdy Cass (Imani Lewis) and the quick-tonged Srini (Suraj Partha) — who decide to help to Miguel have his very first fight to hilarious results.
Rodriguez has worked on over 50 episodes of SNL. He directed the Emmy®-winning show Creating Saturday Night Live, which documents the making of America’s most iconic sketch comedy TV series for which he won a personal Primetime Emmy in 2029. We talk to Rodriguez about Miguel Wants to Fight, the casting, how the story developed, and shooting the martial arts and fight scenes in the film.
Other cast includes Imani Lewis, Christian Vunipola, Suraj Partha, Raúl Castillo, Dascha Polanco, and Andrea Navedo.
Miguel Wants to Fight is directed by Oz Rodriguez and written by Jason Conception and Shea Serrano; produced by Jeremy Garelick, Will Phelps, Molle DeBartolo, Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon and Oz Rodriguez; executive producers include Jimmy Price and Michael Glassman.