Actor, writer and director Benny Safdie talks about his passion for physics, and how it influences the way he sees the world
When Benny Safdie was at high school, his teacher marked two points on a piece of paper and drew a long, squiggly line between the two. “Now,” he said, “if you can walk me from point A to point Z, you’ve done your job. It doesn’t change just because somebody can look back to figure out how they got here. All that matters is you went along for the ride and understood your way forward.
’” With his brother, Josh, Benny’s freewheeling studies of the lowlifes and hustlers of his native New York have become bywords for cinematic cool, plugged into this era’s mood of free-floating anxiety. Next, he’s flying solo with The Smashing Machine, a mixed-martial arts drama starring The Rock.