Director Sean Ellis delivers a reinvention of the boxing film with The Cut. Rather than centering on the ring, the story turns inward, exploring the punishing discipline, psychological strain, and physical transformation required before a fighter even steps out under the lights. Orlando Bloom stars as a retired boxer attempting a comeback with the support of his partner/trainer Caitlin (Caitríona Balfe). When an unorthodox coach (John Turturro) steps in to take over his grueling weight-cutting regimen, the boxer begins to lose all sense of self as the lines between ambition and obsession begin to blur.
Ellis, an Oscar and two-time BAFTA nominee, brings his personal martial arts experience to the project, along with an understanding of the sacrifices athletes make to meet the demands of their sport. Bloom filmed in reverse chronological order to achieve the physical requirements of the role, beginning at the greatest point of transformation. Following its world premiere as a special presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024, The Cut, from Paramount’s Republic Pictures, hit theaters on September 5th. BoxOffice Pro joined director Sean Ellis ringside to discuss the release and the unseen battles that define the path to victory.
We’re used to sports movies focused on a David and Goliath story about overcoming the odds, but there is a dark side to that world and the lines that people are willing to cross for commerce, for success. How did you set about the challenge of visualizing an internal match in a mental ring?
It was a very internal drama of a man who was obsessed with trying to get one last shot of what he thinks he needs in life. On that journey, he figures out that what he wants is actually not what he needs. It’s the backrooms of boxing glory. It’s the ones that try and don’t; it’s the ones that want to but can’t. For every champion that you see, there are a hundred of these people that have to deal with not being at the top of their game. That was an interesting angle, told from the everyman point of view. We’ve become so accustomed to seeing those sorts of stories where someone overcomes all the odds and then wins. And this was a completely different angle. I think it’s a little bit more human, a little bit more honest, and that’s what I really loved about it.
We’ve seen a number of boxing films where someone’s out of the game and out of shape, but then all of a sudden we have a training montage and they’re ready to fight.
That’s just not realistic. What’s interesting about this is that even though he kind of gets what he thinks he wants, it’s never about that ultimately. A lot of us are driven to distraction, driving for what we think we want and sometimes [we’re] not open or grounded and quiet enough to actually listen to what we really need. In that respect, there are some very quiet moments in the film that are grounded in a relationship between a man and a woman who deal with everyday stuff.
Sometimes we have to go through extreme circumstances in order to see our own trauma or in order to be able to confront our own trauma.
Yeah, exactly. I read something today that was really interesting. Sometimes it’s very hard to let go of the depression or the sadness of what you’ve lost, because it’s the last thing that you had before that thing went. I definitely think it’s somebody that’s trying to deal with their past trauma, probably in an unhealthy way. Not really asking for help in order to deal with it the right way.
And how many times are people in situations where they’re being put forward for a goal that is actually enabling harm, perhaps without those involved realizing it?
I think on the flip side of that, you can’t help the people you love. Even though Caitlin is trying to help him, he has to find his way through the problem in order to actually say, “I need help.” He’s very much driven to doing what he’s doing, but what he’s doing is harming him. It’s harming his relationship. It’s harming the people that love him. But like I said, you can never help the ones you love.
She can’t do it for him. He has to come to that realization himself.
He has to come to that realization, exactly. I think she sort of realizes that. I think she removes herself from the situation, having been somebody that has gone through that herself and has gone through the program and has kept herself clean. She knows that he needs to be the one that initiates it. She can’t do that for him.
A lot of your films deal with characters that are struggling with a past trauma, consequences from past actions, or sacrifices that characters feel the need to make. What draws you to these kinds of stories and characters?
I think sacrifice is one of the primal story traits that we learn at a very early age. Some of the strongest moments of memory, of story, are of some sort of sacrifice. Whether it’s somebody willing to give their life for someone else, or giving their life for their country, or just trying to survive. For me, that feels like a very deep, dramatic decision. Cinema is brilliant at showing decisions, both good and bad, and I think we all are at some point in our lives regularly at a point where we need to make decisions, and those decisions will have consequences. ‘If I do this or if I do this, I might have to do this. I don’t want to do this, but I might have to do this.’ We’re constantly dealing with that.
What I find engaging is when you take those stakes way up, there’s something that we will identify because the decisions we make in life sometimes are very simple, but sometimes those simple things have grand consequences—I was going to have coffee and tea was going to take five minutes longer. And I thought, ‘Shit, I’ll wait five minutes and I will get the tea.’ And I didn’t get the bus that crashed. There are no small decisions.
The good thing about movies is that you get the answer straight away. In life, you don’t. I think that’s probably why we’re drawn to film and story, because it is a way of us getting immediate answers to things that we can’t sometimes explain at the time that happened to us in our lives.
With things that we can’t necessarily put into words, seeing a story played out in a movie theater can contextualize a moment in our own lives.
If you are walking down the street and you see someone get knocked down, you rush in and you help. They’re like, “Call a doctor.” And you call a doctor, and you’re in the middle of it all. Then you go home, you replay all that in your mind, and it’s shocking for you. You’re trying to understand it, why and how, and all the rest of it. But that would never happen in a movie for no reason.
That’s what’s interesting, because in life, there might be a reason why that happened to you, and you might not even understand that until years later. “Oh, I remember this time when that happened.” And it makes sense to you at that point. But with movies, if that happens on page six, there’s a reason why that happens that you get to understand within the runtime of the film. So in a way, we get the answers to life by going and seeing these stories.
Thinking about your decisions in this project, faced with a short shoot and filming in some small spaces, what was your creative process approaching the project, and was it different from previous films?
I think your creative process has to align itself generally with the budget. Your imagination then suddenly comes up against the reality of what you can do. But I’m not moaning about that, because, in actual fact, I find that restriction very freeing, because you can actually be the most creative when you’re under extreme pressure of time constraints. It sharpens your decisions. I think if there was all the money in the world and all the time in the world, you’d probably never finish the film; you’d do it every which way you want, and then you’d still be scratching your head.
When you’ve got five shots to do and you’ve only got time to complete two, your mind goes immediately to: what is the most important thing that I need to shoot in order to convey or finish this scene? Often when you have that kind of limitation, your mind is just like this spring that bounces back from that situation and goes, “But what if we did this?” It’s something you wouldn’t have thought of if you didn’t have that constraint. And then someone says, “Yeah, but what about…” And you go, “Yeah, you’re right.” And they go, “But what if they did that?” And you go, “Yeah, what if they did? That’s it. That’s what we do. If we do this, then we can have that light that comes through, because that’s where the police siren was from.” So you start to really build visual connections of you being able to do mental gymnastics out of this problem, where it was a time constraint ultimately, and maybe a budget constraint, normally both. I find that fantastically creative, being on set and dealing with those problems in real time.
I’ve had lots of time on stuff, and I’ve had lots of money on certain things, and I’ve not been happier with the result. Ultimately, you’re always sort of compromising something. As a director, you have to learn to live with what you’ve done. Your face is not perfect, is it? I mean, I look in the mirror and I go, ‘Who’s this old guy staring back at me now?’ but it is what I have. That’s what I have to learn to deal with. It’s a little bit like filmmaking in that sense. It’s not always what you imagined or what you wanted, but you have to settle and learn to live with what you get.
Boxing films are inherently theatrical. What’s it been like for you to share this film with an audience?
I’ve seen it with an audience that was a little bit slanted towards me, because I went to a screening with sort of the cast and crew. I read a few reviews, and you sort of forget how powerful it is, the fact that it does have a reaction on some people. Some people are just really like, “I never want to see that film again.” Or like, “I wanted to scrub myself clean.” Or other people that go, “I feel like I’m being dragged through something, and I don’t know where I’m going, and it was a very real experience.” But I think that’s what good movies are supposed to do. You’re supposed to love them or hate them. They are supposed to get a reaction from the audience. I hate watching movies where I just go [shrugs] at the end. Then what stayed with me? The next day I’ve completely forgotten about it. I think that, for me, is a failure. Reactions that are either good or bad, I think, are good for the film, ultimately.
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