Interview: 'Pharma Bro' director Brent Hodge

Having already made documentaries about Chris Farley, Freaks and Geeks, and the song “Who Let the Dogs Out,” director Brent Hodge continues to diversify his portfolio with Pharma Bro, a creative look at Martin Shkreli.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps Shkreli’s notorious exploits will, including raising the price of the AIDS treatment drug Daraprim to $750 per pill, and buying the lone copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s album One Upon a Time in Shaolin — and promptly being a jerk about it.

From his New York City home, Hodge spoke with Asheville Movies about the five-year project, combatting lazy journalism, and Blumhouse’s rising pedigree as a source for documentaries about real-life horrors.

Edwin Arnaudin: I'm down in Asheville, North Carolina. I didn't know if you had any history with our city. 

Brent Hodge: No, I have been to North Carolina...or was it South Carolina? Spartanburg? Spartanburg, South Carolina.

EA: That’s pretty close. 

BH: That was our first movie. We did it on a thing called Bronies. They're middle-aged men who liked My Little Pony and there was a bunch of Bronies from Spartanburg. So that was a big part of our filming on that first movie that we did. 

EA: Nice! [Laughs]

BH: [Laughs] 

EA: Well, I'm glad we could connect. I really enjoyed the film and thought this was very well-made and informative and entertaining — so, kind of everything I want from a documentary. 

BH: Thanks, man! I really appreciate you watching. It's one of those movies where I can't believe it's a real story. Like, “Pharmaceutical hedge fund wiz kid buys Wu-Tang album and is hated by the world and goes to jail for wire fraud.” I can't write that. And also, I made this movie by moving into his apartment building and recording all of his livestreams, and then interviewing all the people that no one actually ever went out to. You're like, “What's going on?” So yeah, it was a pleasure to make. It was a five-year process to make this movie. But here we are. 

EA: So, when did you first hear of Martin Shkreli? 

Photo courtesy of Blumhouse

BH: It’s funny, I was just looking at this. So, exactly yesterday, 2015 — so six years ago, Martin Shkreli came out in the news and confirmed the price hike of Daraprim by 5000%. So, six years ago. We started about five years ago, so like a year after all of it was there and he was already seen as the most hated man in America. The Wu-Tang album was bought and he was using it as a coaster. And I remember going down sort of a Google rabbit hole on this guy like we do in the movie. 

And then I remember his livestream just sort of popped up and I was like, “Oh, he's right here.” And you could call him. He gives you his phone number. He's like, “Call me if you have any questions.” And I just got really into doing that — started recording myself talking to him, and he would answer everything. I was like, “This is how you make a movie on a guy that's inaccessible. He's completely accessible and you don't have to read the headlines. You can go further.” So, that's when we started. And then it just kept going as you watch this guy crash and burn. 

EA: You mentioned going above and beyond on those interviews, and I think that’s a definite strength of the film. Were there certain subjects that you were especially thrilled to get on camera?

BH: I mean, Wu-Tang was like next level. This is completely by fluke — we'd just signed with Blumhouse, which I thought was just the perfect partner for this project. And it has been the perfect partner. Blumhouse, as everybody knows, puts out like massive franchises in the horror film space, from Halloween to The Purge to Get Out. And they had put out The Jinx, and I was like, “This is one of the coolest, scariest, real stories that I've ever seen.” And I just saw a lot of parallels with Martin Shkreli. We were having a meeting and I was like, “We have to get everyone in this film, from Christie Smythe, the journalist he fell in love with, to his lawyer to Wu-Tang.”

And I said, “It has to be Ghostface [Killah]. They had a feud.” And I went to the airport and Ghostface was right in front of me. I was like, “I need you in this movie.” And I showed him some stuff — some of the animation we had done. We'd brought it to life and made cartoons and he's like, "All right, fine. I'll do it." So, a week later, we were in Staten Island and [laughs] we were doing this interview. It just happened by flute, but he was by far the best. I just felt like until that Wu-Tang album and that whole part of this project came to life, I don't think I would've done this documentary. I think that it needed to hit that level of pop culture for me to go, "Now, this is weird. This is weird enough. Now he just bought this album and everything's strange. Now we can go."

Photo courtesy of Blumhouse

EA: On the flip side, were there some interviews that you were really hoping to get that didn't pan out?

BH: I mean, Martin himself [laughs] would have been good. He went to jail a little too early. You know, the Daraprim patients were hard. I got one in the film, as you know: Patrick [Rice]. He's got a great story. He reached out to Martin on Reddit and ended up getting Daraprim. I talked to a lot of patients on the phone, and people don't want to disclose their HIV status. People don't want to be in the spotlight. They're sick. This is not exciting. So, the last thing they wanted to do was be on camera. But there are some really incredible, heart-wrenching stories that I wish we got to tell. But, you know, journalists didn't get excited by that part of the story. No one asked patients. I wish we could have had a few more patients in this.

EA: And then, you lived a floor above Martin for that year. Were you in the apartment directly above or a little over? 

BH: Oh, I was way up, actually. I think I was 10 or 15 up. It's a big building. And here's the thing: the guy just like gave his address and was like,”C:ome see me come find me.” I just felt the headlines weren't going deep enough. There's a lot of lazy journalism and I wasn't seeing the level of getting to know a person before you speak on it that I wanted to see. There's so many missing gaps. 

And that was really the ultimate goal— really just to get to know a guy that nobody was getting to know. And his livestreams were like an element of that, but I felt if I can meet you face to face and see where you're at…it's like Roger & Me, Michael Moore's film. He does such a great job in that. And I just took that as an inspiration. Sadly, [Martin] went to jail a little early. We didn't really get to know him, but we do meet with him and sort of see how it all works. I think it's a really powerful part of the movie. 

EA: Yeah, I think when you bring him that six-pack [of beer], that's probably the most moving moment in the film. What was that experience like for you, going inside his apartment? 

BH: That’s the day before he got arrested. It was the next day that all the Hillary Clinton stuff went down. Wild! You sort of can't believe that that happened — and it crossed the digital screen world over. I got into his apartment and met him and then I got onto his livestream and I was like, “Oh, whoa! This is like The Matrix.”

But I don't know. I wouldn't say that it was this epiphany moment where I learned anything. It was just a conduit of the human experience. And this is this weird, entertaining movie where I almost don't see it going any other way. It was a fragile moment where you could go, “Put all of it aside, everything you think about this guy. All the hate, all the support — whatever this is. All the trolling. Put it all aside for a second and just, can you look an individual in the eyes and then have a beer with anyone, any human?” Six years has gone by, and it's been a really interesting six years: like election, COVID, communication, social...all of it. There's a different world of importance that I don't think we've even grasped yet.

I'm really happy that moment happened. I think it kind of freezes time for a second in this movie. And you just go, “All right! This is what we have. This is it. And this is so weird that we're here, right now.” [Laughs] 

EA: Yeah, it does seem like he lets his guard down and he's, like you said, kind and just connecting on that human level. Just that whole encounter, and him referring to you as a friend, did that kind of convince you that his public persona is largely a front? 

BH: I mean, that was it. The “front” part of things or letting a guard down is exactly what I wanted to do. Because I think he was even buying into what everyone was saying. Like, “I'm the Bond villain. I'm going to do this.” The front poster for our film is a Vanity Fair photo, which I absolutely love. But he chose to do that photo shoot where he's shadowed, looking back, evil, on a chair. I'm like, "You created what's out there right now. You're as much a part of the problem as you are a part of any solution that you want, and maybe you got caught up in it a little too much." He's a young guy. Like, we're all young. [Laughs] He doesn't have any more truth than any anybody else. So, yeah, that was a really interesting moment.

There was also a quest to that moment. If you're questing to something — in Roger & Me, the quest is pretty incredible. It's like a Christmas moment where these people are getting kicked out of their house and Michael Moore's there and he sort of sees them and says what he needed to say. It's also got that sort of…you’re in this moment, you know exactly what you want to say to somebody, but this is what came out. And you can't write that stuff. That's what's incredible about a documentary. You couldn't write that scene at all. And I would never write that scene. [Laughs] It'd be a weird scene to write. This whole thing, you couldn't write. it just doesn't make any sense. That's what's so beautiful about it. 

Image courtesy of Blumhouse

EA: And I was wondering, too, what life was like for you in your apartment that year outside of working on this film. Were you able to pursue other interests and have guests over, or were you just so dialed into this project that that took precedent?

BH: I just treated the place more like a project place. it was a New York story. We were in New York and we were on a mission in New York. Life is normal — it goes on and everything. But this project, especially, we were always working on other stuff. I always felt like Pharma Bro was a slow burn in a lot of ways. If you're actively doing a documentary on someone whose moments are living out as you speak, you kind of just have to watch. Some of those livestreams were so long and there's such weird...they're like at witching hour, in the middle of the night. And you're like, "What am I doing with my life?" [Laughs] 

But I'll say this: a film isn't made by one person. There's a team of people. I wasn't always the one that was always watching the livestreams each evening. We have a team of editors, producers — it takes a village to put  a film together. So, there was support and a lot of people on this project.

EA: Have you been in communication or tried to make contact with Martin at all while he's been in jail? 

BH: No, I haven't. Through the grapevine, Christie Smythe, the journalist who fell in love with him, obviously connects with him. Every once in a while, I'll get an update from Billy the Fridge or different people who have spoke that we have in our film. But no. I mean, this isn't about my relationship with Martin. It was a bit of more like the audience's relationship with Martin — the audience's perspective and journey through my eyes. But no, I just haven't had a...I don't even know what his communication levels are or what he's allowed to do in jail. I have no idea. 

EA: And is your ultimate goal, or one of your goals, for him to end up seeing this film? 

BH: I mean, I will hold it against him if I can hear the Wu-Tang album. [Laughs] I can hear the Wu-Tang album, he can watch the movie. I mean, if wants to watch it and comment, he's welcome to like everybody else. I think he'll watch it and I hope he'll watch it. But no, there's never been a quest for, like, “What does Martin think about this thing?”

EA: And I think what you're saying earlier about it being more of a journalistic quest and going deeper than just the headlines — that seems like the victory in itself. 

BH: That’s it! I mean, you want to read some of these... Go back to 2015-16 and look up articles of Shkreli, there's some really bad journalism going on. It's not real. Nothing's happening. Even all the Wu-Tang, everything ...the level of knowledge around Daraprim, the level of knowledge around all this doesn't make any sense. And I do treat a lot of these films as experiments where you have, like, “Specimen A is Martin Shkreli, and hopefully there's a bigger story here.” And, honestly, in this case, you're like, “What's the bigger story?” The bigger story is that the drug price is still the exact same. It's still $750 a pill.

So, what is the Shkreli story? It has nothing to do with him and him watching this. It has nothing to do with with journalism and trying to get the facts straight. It's like, “What are we actually getting out of this?” And so far, not a lot, besides some entertainment value.

EA: Well, I think I think this is going to make a big splash. I think it's going to be really big and hopefully open even more doors for you. Do you have some next projects lined up already or are you already working on some other stuff? 

BH: We have a lot with Blumhouse coming up. I've just adored working with them. There's a really interesting space in documentary right now where it's not just docs. There's comedy docs and music docs and sociopolitical docs. And, like, what is a horror doc? What does that look like? What is so scary that it can't even be written? What is real life that freaks us out? And not a murder doc. Like, what's a horror doc? We've gone off onto the branches of documentaries as this industry has grown, and Blumhouse is right there. And it's super exciting. 

EA: Yeah! And I hope, down the line, you can make it down to Durham, North Carolina, for the Full Frame Festival. That's a really good doc festival and I love covering that. So, hopefully we can see your work there.

BH: Absolutely! I'd love to be there. I mean, if there's any stories in your part of the woods, please let me know because it's cold in New York and in Canada, and I need to get down there in the summer. [Laughs]

Pharma Bro is available to buy via Amazon, iTunes, and other streaming services.

(Photo courtesy of Blumhouse)