IDK if anyone has asked you this before (or if I was the one that asked it) but are there any movies or tv shows that inspired you when developing or writing Lackadaisy?
Very many things. Too many to name. Sometimes it's hard to even identify what things inspired you because it happens without you realizing. I've always enjoyed history and historical fiction, but I think prior to working on Lackadaisy, I had written most gangster-genre media off as superficial morality tales (it might seem like all fun and games but don't become a crime kingpin, okay?) or power fantasies aimed at hetero male audiences. Looking back, probably the Sopranos, Deadwood, and Coen Bros films did a lot to change my mind and spark my interest in deeply flawed, morally bankrupt, tragic-but-funny characters scheming their way around. As I was developing Lackadaisy, I absorbed just about every gangster film and Jazz Age-themed thing I could find. Watched lots of old Cagney and Bogart films. Cagney often portrayed very vulnerable, even fragile characters, really. I think it surprised me how clearly some of those old movies telegraphed the tough-guy element as a complete facade, how much more psychologically layered some of the gangster types were, and how much ambiguity pre-Hays Code films toyed with. (There's plenty of stuff that's just kind of vacuously silly too, but that can be fun in its own way). Anyway, I watched all of the self-serious stuff and sprawling epics - Once Upon a Time in America, Road to Perdition, Scorcese, Coppola, etc., and mixed in a bunch of Marx Brothers and Jeeves and Wooster too. Add some Don Bluth and other animated influences, and I guess that's why Lackadaisy is the way it is.
