The finale of Ed Burns’s debut film The Brothers McMullen gives all the characters a happy ending.
In the 1995 movie, Molly (Connie Britton) forgives Jack (Jack Mulcahy) for his infidelities, Barry (Burns) moves in with Audrey (Maxine Bahns), and Patrick (Michael McGlone) and Leslie (Jennifer Jostyn) take off for the West Coast. Thirty years later, Burns says, “I knew that I wanted none of those relationships to have worked out.” (Actors returning for the sequel include Burns, Britton, and McGlone.) He tried to write a sequel twenty years ago, he explained, and “couldn’t crack it.” But then in 2021, “I read an article about how many twenty-somethings were moving back in with their parents,” he says. “I thought, oh, maybe that’s the way into the McMullen sequel.”
Courtesy HBO
The original film follows three Irish Catholic brothers from Long Island.
The Family McMullen, now streaming on HBO Max, starts and ends on Thanksgiving. “I like the idea of bookending it at the dinner table,” Burns says. “Even if your family is a little bit messy, those moments, the ability to go home again, it just feels good. Right now, I think we need as much of that as we can get. So that’s what I was looking for.” Plus he adds, “as a viewer, I love a good holiday movie. I was in The Holiday—and there’s a reason everybody watches that movie every holiday season.”
Ahead of the premiere of the sequel, Burns spoke with Town & Country about the “surreal” feeling of filming at his childhood home, why he loves Moonstruck, and his plans for the holiday season.
Elizabeth Fisher
Thanksgiving plays a central role in the film.
What was it like for you stepping back into the world of Brothers McMullen 30 years later?
A bit surreal at times, as you would imagine. [Especially] that first scene in the kitchen where I take the turkey out, and I look and there’s Connie Britton. Then over there is [Michael] McGlone. That was wild. But at the same time, there were moments with them that it felt like no time had passed as well.
I would say the other moments that were very strange were we shot the first home in my childhood home. My parents no longer own that home, so even just we went to do the location scout and to walk back into your childhood home—that also was the setting for the movie that changed your life—was, I hate to say surreal again, but that’s really the only word to describe it. The family that bought the house from my parents have owned it ever since, so there’s a couple of rooms, like the kitchen, that they did not change at all. For our production designer, it was great because it was like we didn’t have to try and recreate the look of the old house. It was still intact.
Elizabeth Fisher
Burns and McGlone in the McMullen kitchen.
Why is being on location so important for you, for the feel of the film and for the actors?
My stuff is so grounded in reality. It’s character driven. The thing I’m most interested in is the trying to tell honest stories about, or authentic stories about people who feel real, feel like the people in the families, and anytime you’re in a practical location, it just helps. I know for me as an actor, it kind of helps put you in. It grounds you putting you in that place, but it also just aesthetically, I just prefer the look of that.
What were some of your references for the film?
New York Daily News Archive//Getty Images
Cher and Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck.
The biggest reference, hands down, is Moonstruck. I’ve always loved Moonstruck and because we were shooting in Brooklyn, we were scouting locations, and when we found Karen’s [played by Juliana Canfield] apartment, it was in Park Slope right on the street where Cher has that scene she kicks the can. Well, let’s recreate that with Pico! So once we did that, we did another little homage to Moonstruck. When Sam [Sam Vartholomeos] picks Patty [Halston Sage] up and he says, I’m taking you to the bed. That’s a little wink to Moonstruck. What I loved about Moonstruck is it’s about a screwed up family. It ends at the breakfast table, not Thanksgiving, but around a table. It’s a New York ethnic family, and it’s so funny, but they feel like real people. So that was definitely a big reference for me.
What are some elements that are critical to a holiday movie?
One thing I’ve never done really before is a lot of those movies have the singalong or a dancing scene. That’s kind of why I wrote in that dancing scene. We had another scene that got cut from the finished film where they go to a bar and everybody sings “12 Days of Christmas.” It was a good scene, but just the movie was too long.
Why was it so critical to have the final scene back at Thanksgiving?
I really wanted this to be a feel good family film and not just a rom-com. So the rom-com could have ended with Sam and Patty having the kiss. Right? That’s how you would end a rom-com. I wanted this movie to be more about sort of the importance of family. The idea that—there’s this other line that’s in the movie, McGlone, I think, has the voiceover where it’s like, “Some people say, you can’t go home again.” I like the idea that even though they don’t live in that house anymore, the idea that home isn’t necessarily the house, but it is the people you spend your time with. I like the notion of that, and I like this kind of family, this new family that’s made up of all of these other fractured broken families.
If you were to pick back up with them 30 years down the line, what would you want to explore in a third McMullen?
Elizabeth Fisher
A scene from The Family McMullen.
Well, I can tell you I’m already working on the third because this is so much fun to work with this cast, so I’ll pick them up three years later. Right now, without saying too much: There is a wedding involved and maybe the McMullens go to Ireland. Those are the two ideas that I’m playing with.
What is making you want to do another film so quickly after waiting so long to do the sequel?
At a certain point, you stop caring about what your filmography looks like, and you just want to work with people that you love working with, and I don’t know that I’ve ever had a better cast of just great people. It was only a 22 day shoot and it was over like that [snaps], so we were like, “That’s it? We’re done? I feel like we’re just getting started!” So for that reason, I just want to get back together with my friends sooner rather than later.
Elizabeth Fisher/HBO Max
Burns and Tracee Ellis Ross play friends with benefits whose kids start dating.
When you’re working on a project that’s just a 22 day shoot, is there anything you wish you can do more of or get back into?
Every scene you want to do more of; every scene you want to go back and get one more take or one more angle. But after thirty years of making low budget movies on tight schedules, I know that I’m always going to be disappointed that I didn’t have more days and more money.
What advice would you give to other filmmakers who are working on that type of schedule?
You have to embrace the compromises because you are going to have to make compromises every day on every scene, and if you don’t roll with that, you’re never going to finish your film. You’ve just got to make your day, and if the location you had at the restaurant suddenly falls apart the morning of the shoot, rewrite the scene for the two people sitting on a bench across the street in a park. We’ve had to do that on every film we’ve made.
What are you looking forward to in the month of December? Do you have any holiday plans, traditions that you do with your family?
Thanksgiving is always great fun. We have a sort of annual pickup basketball game with all the cousins and nieces and nephews and the uncles, so I’m looking forward to that. But for Christmas, we usually do Christmas in the city. Christmas Eve is usually the fun night. We usually go over to a friend’s apartment on Christmas Eve, we exchange gifts, come back to our place, do one last gift. It’s always a good night.
Dimitrios Kambouris//Getty Images
Burns and his wife Christy Turlington earlier this year.
What is your gift shopping strategy?
I’m more last minute, I look for guidance. I’m not good at surprising. My wife is very good at coming up with these great gifts. Mine are just usually lame.
The Family McMullen is now streaming on HBO Max. Watch now
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
