Filmmaker David Drake chatted with #Powerjournalist Markos Papadatos on the red carpet of the Tribeca Film Festival about writing and directing his new movie ‘The Long Haul.” Ironically enough, this marks Drake’s feature directorial debut.
The cast features three-time Emmy winner Margo Martindale, Stephen Root, Cole Sprouse and Yalitza Aparicio.
The synopsis of this road drama is: CJ (Margo Martindale), a seasoned truck driver who has spent her years traversing the American Southwest, has meticulously constructed a life of distance from her past. However, a letter from the parole board threatens to dismantle the walls she has painstakingly built. CJ, facing the prospect of retirement and a reckoning she has evaded for years, must finally find the courage to pause and contemplate her future.
The movie earned a rave review from this journalist, and rightfully so, thus praising David Drake’s direction and vision in bringing this piece to life, and moving the audience on an emotional level.
Inspiration to write this film
On his inspiration to write this film, Drake said, “I have always been interested in the trucking industry. My father worked at Hunts Point in the South Bronx, and anybody who has been there knows that it is a trucking hub.”
“There are 15,000 trucks a day running through that place. So, yeah, it’s just something that I’ve always wanted to write about, and I did,” he noted.
Lessons learned from ‘The Long Haul’ script
On the lessons learned from this screenplay, Drake reflected, “Oh, well, it’s an exercise in perseverance and patience trying to make a movie. It has taken six years from when I started to writing it to now. So, yeah, that’s what I would say.”
Working with the cast and crew
On working with Margo, Cole Sprouse, and the rest of the cast and crew, he remarked, “The production itself happened in 2025, and that’s when we got all the cast and crew together, which was amazing. We shot it out in New Mexico.”
“The whole process before that was just me and my producers sitting and developing it and trying to get it made,” he admitted.
Closing thoughts on ‘The Long Haul’
For fans and viewers, Drake stated about the film, “I want the audience to just have a bit of empathy for a character like CJ, who is on the run; she’s a real hard-working person, and she kind of buries her feelings in her job. I think a lot of people go through that, and that is perhaps a big takeaway from it.”
To learn more about filmmaker David Drake, follow him on Instagram and visit his official website.
Read More: Rave review of “The Long Haul.”
