Director Pat Boonnitipat On Capturing The “Essence” Of Close Familial Bonds In Thai International Film Oscar Shortlist Pick ‘How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies’
Having a close familial bond is a gift that can grow stronger with each shared moment—at least, this is the case for the slightly dysfunctional family at the center of How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. Directed and co-written by Pat Boonnitipat, the story follows a teenage slacker named M (played by popular singer-actor Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul) who devises a plan to take care of his terminally ill grandmother (Usha Seamkhum) in hopes to win her inheritance.
The debut feature from Boonnitipat became one of the highest-grossing films in the director’s homeland of Thailand, earning an estimated total of $73.8 million globally. With such recognition and a well-received reception from critics, Thailand submitted the film as its official nomination for International Feature Film. In the history of the Academy Awards, Thailand has only ever submitted 24 films, but the country has never scored a nomination nor a spot on the shortlist until now.
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Here, the filmmaker talks to Deadline about what it takes to make an internationally resonating tear-jerker hit.
DEADLINE: This is the second highest-grossing film in Thailand for 2024. What do you think people are responding to? What are they telling you when they walk up to you?
PAT BOONNITIPAT: Someone typed a response, I think she was a film student from the States. She said she watched the movie. It surprised her how the movie, which came from a country she’d never been to or spoke the language of, somehow felt it talked about her family. That was really beautiful for me.
DEADLINE: Do you know Taweewat Wanta, who has the first highest-grossing film in 2024? Have you called him and told him to relinquish his title?
BOONNITIPAT: I love this question because that director is also my friend. So now we always [bet] each other. Now I’m winning [laughs]. But it’s lovely. He also contributed a lot of materials to the movie.
DEADLINE: So, you didn’t block him?
BOONNITIPAT: No, I didn’t block him. But maybe he should block me [laughs]. Just kidding.
DEADLINE: You’ve done directing work in TV, but this is your first feature film. Talk about creative challenges and lessons you learned in the switch?
BOONNITIPAT: For television, what I learned is that it comes down to the script. You have to pay a lot of attention to the structure of the story, and whereas for a feature film, I have to pay a lot of attention to the details: the charm of the characters, the charm of the dialog, the charm of the scenes, how you construct the scenes and the details inside it. That matters a lot more.
DEADLINE: What led you and your co-writer, Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn, to bring this story to life?
BOONNITIPAT: This started with Thodsapon. He had a chance to care for his late grandmother, so he wrote the genesis of the story at that time about that experience. So, me and the producer read that and we fell in love with the script and how it made us feel. After I finished reading the script, I thought a lot about my own family. That was a really nice feeling, so we just tried to develop it after that point and aimed to keep that essence.
DEADLINE: So, you signed on this famous popstar Billkin. At first, you didn’t care too much about his audition, but after some time, you cast him. What led you to ultimately change your mind?
BOONNITIPAT: After the first audition, he turned to me and said he was going to enroll in some more workshops and he would come back again. And I found that very dedicated. The second time he came back, he was more natural, and that’s what I loved about him.
DEADLINE: How did you guys work together to get this particular performance out of him? Because he plays this insecure kid who feels unloved. Did you worry that this was going to mess up his popstar image?
BOONNITIPAT: What’s really cool about him is that he doesn’t care about what he would look like on camera. Even on set, he never looked at the monitor. When we did the workshop with our acting coach, we tried to find the method that worked for him because he’s already so charming, but we wanted to bring out his instinct that way, he wouldn’t expect his performance [in an inorganic way]. He wanted him to stay in the moment, like the teaching of Buddhism.
DEADLINE: You found Usha Seamkhum, who plays the grandma, because she was in a rock music video. Is that correct?
BOONNITIPAT: Yes. Our casting director gave it her all to find the grandma, but she said she ran out of candidates, so we’d have to do a regular search. Luckily my assistant director worked on that music video, and he was showing me her pictures, and it was her smoking and holding a guitar. She was acting so cool, but she looked nice [laughs]. So, we called her in, and she nailed it. It was a scene that many people struggled with. That scene where M is rolling her in the wheelchair in the hospital, and they were fighting about how much she loves him. She nailed it in one take.
DEADLINE: What was non-negotiable in making this film? Something that you absolutely could not make this movie without.
BOONNITIPAT: I’m a very flexible. But, I insisted on having time to revise everything over and over until all the way through pre-production. We spent a lot of time doing practice in the process of pre-production. We went to the real locations several times. Like, more than 10 times for the main locations just to get the shot, to come up with the very exact blocking, and then we would tape it.
We would tape, for example, the scene where they are eating together on Sunday. We would have our crew do the exact blocking, and we would tape it and record it. Then, I would show the blocking to the cast and said they should walk exactly in this order. And we would rehearse it until we nailed it completely, 100%, and then when we shot it, I would just let them be whoever they want to be. I really loved this process, and this is the thing that I wouldn’t compromise with.
DEADLINE: Speaking of time, this film is interesting because it is very much in the category of “Slice of Life.” There’s not necessarily this huge climax in a traditional sense; it’s just following the daily goings-on of this Thai family with an ailing grandmother. Talk about the vibe of this movie.
BOONNITIPAT: I did a few TV series, and I found out that when I tried to put too much pressure on the audience, like, telling them that they should laugh here, they should cry here, they should feel a thrill here, I found that it became pretty shallow for my own work. I wanted more depth out of this, and I found out that a lot of great filmmakers they’re good with that. They let the audience breathe. So, I tried to study that style of cinematography and storytelling, and I found out that the balance between the information you want to tell them and the information you would let them cultivate themself is important.
DEADLINE: Food is so important here. I really wanted the fried fish from the market. However, I’m wondering what your favorite familial dish is.
BOONNITIPAT: Actually, I included this in the movie [laughs]. It’s the vegetable stew that the grandma cooked. It’s called jub-chai (??????? / vegetable stew). It’s a combination of leftover vegetables combined with new ones that are bought from a market that you can just boil for a week. The more you boil it, the better it gets because it seeps into the soup. So that’s my favorite dish because my grandmother liked to cook that too.
DEADLINE: Has your grandma seen the film?
BOONNITIPAT: Yes, she saw it at the premiere. She could never watch any of my work except this one. After she finished it, I ran up to her in the theater and tried to record her reaction, but she just suddenly went [quiet]. I asked her, how she felt, and she was just walking with her cane and went [in a blasé tone], “It’s just a normal movie.” I was like, “Wow, that’s the best reaction.” [laughs]. Then, the next day, she came up to me and explained that it was because her life was so much harsher than this; that’s why she felt that way. And I was like, “Whoa.” So that’s what I love about her.
DEADLINE: Was there a scene that you originally thought wouldn’t work, but then upon seeing it, resonated more than you thought it would?
BOONNITIPAT: The scene that I really loved, but during the shooting I became very nervous about it, is the scene towards the end of the movie where he suddenly remembers that his grandmother is depositing the money to him in the bank. The camera just starts panning, and then you see into the past. I loved the idea when I came up with that with the help of my assistant director, but then when we shot it, it felt so plain that I didn’t think it would work. But we stuck to it, no improvisation. I think it works though, now.
DEADLINE: That scene made me cry. There’s the scene that you mentioned earlier regarding the audition. The hospital scene where M says he feels unloved to the grandmother. Talk more about the creation of M’s inner turmoil. You never really know when he stops caring about her just for the money and as a person.
BOONNITIPAT: It was always our main question between me [and Thodsapon]: at which point did M start to feel that he was caring for his grandmother out of love or out of just wanting something? It started with the character itself because I wanted to explore my generation and even younger than me, the passion. The thing I tried to nail is that it started in the scenes, without him knowing, where the grandmother and him write wishes on the coffin, but all of her kids didn’t actually write about her. So, M becomes mad at that. He then gets madder when she excuses them for not writing about her because they have their own families to care for and think about.
That feeling of someone taking advantage of someone is relatable to me. I’ve felt that. And I think for him, that’s the beginning of the point that you start to feel like your bond with someone is so close that you just hope for the best for them.
DEADLINE: Congrats on making the Oscars shortlist; there is only one more round of nominations to go. What do you want people to take out of this film?
BOONNITIPAT: It’s a very difficult question to answer, but the thing is that I grew up in this house where I have a lot of cousins and aunts. A lot of one generation lived in one house, where there’s 20-plus of us. But now people keep moving out so there’s only three or four of us in the house, including my own grandmother. I was there to witness that. For my own grandmother, I would see her sit on the balcony or porch in the yard as she would just stare out the window or just out at [the environment], just waiting for something. I would also take photos without knowing why. But I think I just wanted to make a movie that somehow talked about that feeling of the people who miss you and the process of that.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
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