Cory Wexler Grant: Director of 'Painter' Talks About First Feature & Family of Artists

Cory Wexler Grant's debut feature Painter (2020) premieres October 13 on digital platforms. The psychological thriller centers on a young artist who becomes the object of obsession for a wealthy, elder benefactor and gains in her a surrogate family member, sharing in his love and passion for the same visual medium. In an interview with Grant, he talked about himself being a young artist but not having a surrogate family but actual family members who also shared in his love and passion for visual media. Grant isn't a painter. He's an actor-turned-filmmaker.

However, he says his mother was a painter. He referred to her as a "Sunday painter." She was talented but not committed, according to him. It might have been a hobby to her, but something that she thought wouldn't earn her any kind of profit. Grant's father was also an artist, a sculptor whose preferred medium was wood, or wooden objects. For Grant's father, it was more than just a Sunday dalliance. Grant's father was more dedicated. Grant's brother, Jordan, is also an artist, a photographer who is a producer on Painter as well.

Grant's most famous relative though is another artist. Grant's maternal, great uncle is Haskell Wexler. The late Wexler was nominated for five, Academy Awards in the category of Best Cinematography. Wexler won two Oscars as a result. His first was for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). His second was for Bound for Glory (1976). Yet, he might best be known for being the cinematographer for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). Wexler even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which he got back in 1996, marking one of the few cinematographers to have such an honor.

Wexler's son, Mark S. Wexler who is Grant's cousin is also a filmmaker. Reportedly, Mark's mother who is Grant's great aunt-in-law was a painter as well. Wexler's other son, Jeff Wexler who is Grant's other cousin is another Oscar-nominee. Jeff was nominated twice in the category of Best Sound. Jeff's first nomination was for Independence Day (1996) and the second was for The Last Samurai (2003). If that wasn't enough, Grant's artistic family tree doesn't stop there.

Wexler's brother is Jerrod Wexler. Jerrod wasn't an artist but he was the father to Tanya Wexler, another film director. Jerrod was also the stepfather to Daryl Hannah, the legendary actress in Blade Runner (1982) and Wall Street (1987). Tanya and Daryl would then be cousins of a sort to Grant.

Currently, Grant is living in New York City where he's been for the past two decades. He was born in Marin County, California, and lived in San Francisco for some time. He eventually moved to the Chicago area at age 8. Chicago is where many in the Wexler family originated, but Grant left the Windy City at 18 for Manhattan in order to attend NYU and the Tisch School of the Arts. He was therefore on the opposite coast where his more famous Wexler family members where stationed. Grant graduated in 2001 and began working as an actor exclusively for the stage. He toured and he did regional theater. He even worked on a Broadway show, particularly the musical Jersey Boys in 2008.

He wrote his own musical called Cutman: A Boxing Musical (2011), which was produced by Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut. Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights was a touchstone for Grant. Cutman incorporated elements of Grant's personal experiences to the stage. Those experiences weren't his passion for art but instead his experiences as a Jewish man. Cutman focuses on a young boxer training with his father but who then has to choose between two important things in his life, his faith or his vocation, eventually sacrificing one for the other.

In Painter, a similar dilemma befalls the protagonist. Grant has written seven screenplays over the course of the past two years. He says he likes telling stories that tackle painful, human struggles, dilemmas and such. The idea of sacrifice is also a main theme at Grant's disposal. In Cutman, that theme poses the question of what would you sacrifice to fulfill your dreams. That same question is essentially posed in Painter. Yet, in his debut feature, he pushes that idea to the extreme of a person having to make a Faustian bargain.

During the interview, Grant discussed and debated what that bargain would hope to achieve. For his titular character, what he hoped to achieve was possibly fame and fortune or the type of commercial success that he sees in one particular celebrity artist. Grant's titular character sees this as validation of his work. The titular character also wants a kind of revenge. A twist in this story is that it just so happens that Grant's titular character was in fact bullied by the celebrity artist of whom he's envious. Grant's character had the goal of achieving celebrity over his bully but it wasn't the case.

Grant's titular character was bullied as a child for being too effeminate or perhaps not as masculine or as strong as a boy stereotypically should be. Grant is gay in his personal life, but his titular character here is straight. But, he wanted to show that the kind of bullying or abuse suffered by gay people isn't limited to gay people. Grant did hint at the fact that it was difficult for him growing up gay in the Midwest, in or near Chicago, where he lived, but that he wasn't interested in only writing about gay characters or gay themes.

What he was interested in writing about here is insight on what it's like in the art world and particularly the visual media that Grant and his family are familiar. He wanted to show the passion needed and possessed by those therein. He also wanted to show and have his film be an indictment at times of that same art world. He wanted to mock the personalities, the obscurity and vagueness, those things that determine who succeeds and why.

Grant talked about directing his debut, his first time in the captain's chair, as it were. He says what was most difficult in that process was time or time management. He says it was the most nerve-racking aspect. He says every day was terrifying. That doesn't necessarily translate in the final vision of the film.

Painter is available on VOD and digital platforms, such as Amazon and iTunes, on Oct. 13.