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Director Floyd Russ Goes Deep With Mike Tyson in Netflix Docuseries
Smoking toad venom with the champ led to revelations
Floyd Russ admits that he didn’t know much about Mike Tyson before he agreed to direct the four-part Tyson docuseries, currently streaming on Netflix. “I’m not a boxing fan. I’ve never read a Tyson biography. I’ve never watched a Tyson documentary,” the director says.
But that lack of knowledge was not an impediment. In fact, coming to the project without an ingrained point of view allowed Russ to approach Tyson’s story with a blank slate. Ultimately, the filmmaker’s goal was to meet the controversial athlete where he is at now and go from there.
Russ goes deep with the legendary and oft-volatile boxer, even partaking in a psychedelic drug experience with him on camera.
Here, Russ, also known for the Netflix true-crime series American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson, discusses the process of getting the controversial athlete to open up. The multi-Clio Award winning director, who is repped for commercials by Partizan, and has done ads for clients such as Nike, Gillette and Ford, also discusses authenticity in admaking.
In the first episode, Tyson cries as he reminisces about the loss of Cus D’Amato, the trainer who turned him into a world-class boxer. He asks, “Is there something wrong with me?” He is so uncomfortable with showing those emotions.
I think that’s a lot of years of dealing with trauma and pain, and it’s very layered. He’s talking about Cus there, but I think it’s a layered feeling—that you’re taught as a man, especially a masculine man, to hide your feelings and bury them and not show them. He’s had to come to terms with expressing his feelings and showing them but also that they do come out in an uncontrollable way. Everyone ahead of time told me, “Hey, be careful with Cus. When you talk about Cus, it’s like pushing a button, and sometimes it can make him shut down.”
I remember he said, “Can you turn that off?” I refused to turn the cameras off. I told Mike, “Hey, if we turn the cameras off, and you take a break, you’re going to come back, and I’m going to ask you the same question again. So can we just get through this?” He nodded, and we kept going.
What was your relationship like with Tyson? How much time did you spend with him before the cameras started rolling?
We spent just a day together before we actually started the interviews. I flew down to his house, spent some time with him and the family. I went all by myself and just took an Uber to his mansion in Florida. And that was my introduction to him. We just sat there and talked for a couple of hours. I remember he ate a big bowl of ice cream. And then we shot one or two months later in Las Vegas. I was nervous that first day. I was like, “Man, I don’t know what I’m going to get. Is he going to be grumpy? What’s the deal?” But he came with a great attitude and the first day was really good.
You definitely bonded when you smoked the toad venom with him.
Tyson brought up the idea. At first, I thought it was a joke. When we did do the toad, I had to sign a lot of waivers and basically sign my life way. I was very anxious and scared.
Why did you say yes to doing it?
Mike and I had developed a lot of trust at that point. But there was still one more big wall. I don’t think Mike is a person that you can just hang out with and become friends. You have to do something with him. You have to earn his trust. You have to have a history with him. And the good thing about doing the toad together, it gave us trust very quickly. The toad helped him, so he wanted to show people, “Maybe it can help you too.”
Where did you learn how to do interviews?
I don’t know. I was never a reporter. I went to film school for writing and directing and never thought I would make documentaries. I took a lot of sociology and anthropology [classes] and minored in philosophy. I think those courses make your curious about people and why they do things. What’s the backstory? And I think that is useful for doing biopics or character-driven documentaries.
You have a wealth of archival footage and photos in this film, including some that’s never been seen.
Kudos to our archival team. We had a huge archival team on a project like this. There’s a lot of red tape when it comes to boxing. It’s probably one of the hardest sports to license. Don King has a rich, crazy archive. We called him one time, and he picked up the phone, and we were like, “Would you do an interview?” He said, “Yes, I’ll do it. Call me back.” Then we called him back about 100 times, and he never picked up the phone again. He’s so old school.
How has your experience making commercials influenced the way you approach documentaries and vice versa?
Every time you make something, you learn something. I love doing commercials that have real people in them, or commercials that feel authentic and genuine. I like ads that have a level of authenticity. That doesn’t mean they can’t be stylistic. When I do an ad, I’m always trying to think, what’s the balance between authenticity versus stylistic? In documentaries, often you can’t go stylistic. It starts feeling fake and weird. Why are you doing that when at the end of the day an archival clip of a 13-year-old Mike Tyson is better than anything I could ever shoot?
Of all the ad work you’ve done, what do people most ask you about?
Probably “Marriage Market” [a short documentary for skincare brand SK-II about women over 25 living in China who have yet to marry and are considered “leftovers”]. I love that project. A lot of people are like, “Oh, you did that?” That was really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was so sensitive, so nuanced.
Early in your career, you made a short documentary called ‘Zion’ about a high school wrestler born without legs. It made the shortlist at the 91st Academy Awards. I watched it again recently on Netflix. How did that project come about?
When I first conceived of it, I was trying to pitch it to Nike, Under Armour, adidas. I was trying to make it as a spot. They all passed, or I didn’t even get a meeting because it was my first or second year being signed at my first production company, and I was like, “I’m going to make cool commercials. I want a Nike commercial!” So, I was trying to jump the ranks. Thank God they all said no because then we just went and shot it as a short doc. We didn’t want to waste the access. We turned it into this beautiful short and got it into Sundance, and then it was bought by Netflix.
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