One of Our Greatest Creative Duos Confirm They Have Broken Up
Benny says it's cool. Don't worry about it.
The Safdie brothers, who brought us movies such as Uncut Gems and Good Time, are seemingly done working together. For now. They broke up, making many of us wonder how two brothers “break up” but hey, sometimes when you need to go your own way, even your partner was your older bro.
Benny Safdie has had one amazing year with films like Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret as well as his role as Edward Teller in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, and he’s part of the team behind The Curse, in which he stars opposite Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder. Talking about his year of work with Variety, Safdie talked about his upcoming projects, and the topic of his work with his older brother Josh Safdie came up.
It was there that Benny Safdie revealed that he is going solo and working on his own things, separate from Josh Safdie. Don’t worry, the break-up wasn’t filled with tension, with the family dinner table crying over the boys fighting. Safdie said it was amicable and just makes sense for them as creatives. “It’s a natural progression of what we each want to explore,” he said. “I will direct on my own, and I will explore things that I want to explore. I want that freedom right now in my life.”
This does mean that Benny Safdie will not join Josh Safdie on the highly anticipated followup film to Uncut Gems, starring Adam Sandler once more and including Megan Thee Stallion, taking us into the world of sports memorabilia and baseball. So to all the film fans looking for the next Safdie brothers movie, sorry to say it isn’t happening.
The good times were fun while they lasted but now we’re just uncut gems
To be fair, when asked if he’d work with his brother again, Safdie simply said, “I don’t know.” So I guess never say never, and we could, at some point, have a story that moves the Safdie brothers to reunite. For now, the two are going on their own path and telling their own stories, which is good for them!
I love Benny Safdie’s acting career, so I really enjoy how his roles in things he creates as well as movies like Oppenheimer and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza show his range as a performer outside of his writing and directing. This break-up, while sad for fans of their work, might mean double the Safdi brother work for us to enjoy. It just won’t be joint ventures for them.
For now, we can just rewatch their films and be stressed out for the characters that are on that journey. Thinking of Pete Davidson today.
I am excited for Josh Safdie’s film with Sandler and what Benny Safdie is working on next, but hopefully this ends up being a “never say never” situation and we’ll see them working together again.
(featured image: Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
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