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Eric Jacobus On His New Short Film Bag Lady, Possible Feature Version
Image Credit: Eric Jacobus
The 411 Interview: Eric Jacobus
Eric Jacobus is a martial artist, stuntman, motion capture performer, actor, writer, editor, and director who has been involved in movie making since at least 2001 when he formed The Stunt People with friends in California. Jacobus has starred in and collaborated on various short and feature films, including the Rope-A-Dope short film series, the Blindsided short films (check out my review of Blindsided: The Game here), and the feature film Death Grip, the feature film Contour (check out my review of Contour here). Jacobus is also an author and podcaster, having written the books Badass on a Budget- A Timeless Guide for Zero-Budget Action Filmmakers and If These Fists Could Talk- A Stuntman’s Unflinching Take on Violence and hosted the podcast Action Talks Podcast. Jacobus’ latest movie is the sci-fi action comedy short film Bag Lady, which is currently out on the film festival circuit and recently played at Big Bad Film Fest and Haymaker Fest. In this interview, Jacobus talks with this writer about making Bag Lady, working with the cast and crew, working in the sci-fi genre, working on expanding the short film into a potential feature film, and more.
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Bryan Kristopowitz: Why did you want Bag Lady to be your next movie as a director?
Eric Jacobus: Dennis Ruel, who was a close friend and collaborator of mine, tragically passed away in early 2025. Dennis and I had been trying to get a project going for a long time, specifically an action comedy of some kind, but we just couldn’t get it going. We were both trying to get work. We were both trying to make it as stuntmen. And we were getting older, obviously, and there were more obligations as we went along in life. And so, when he passed, there was a moment when I was sitting on a Comic-Con panel in July of 2025 and we were watching a series of clips from martial art action films, and every one of them was dead serious. They were all very violent. None of them had a comedic take on anything. And I remembered that back in the early 2000s, with the slew of Bourne films, we would watch all these serious action films and write down spoof ideas (I still have a book full of these, which we wanted to make into a script called Death Fight). But now that he was gone I realized that we had lost that opportunity. And so it was then when I decided I’m not going to come back to Comic Con unless I had a fun action short film.
Another reason was that I’d been working with Thekla Hutyrova on tons of projects for a decade at that point, from God of War (2018) to Mortal Kombat 1 (2023) and God of War: Ragnarok (2022), and I really wanted to show what she was physically capable of, that she could play this small, petite menace and just destroy three grown men and everybody would believe it. And so I think it was those two things that really prompted me to make Bag Lady.
BK: Where did the general idea for Bag Lady come from? Was it always a “sci-fi” idea or did that sort of come to fruition later?
EJ: The idea for Bag Lady came from a conversation I had with my mentor Clayton Barber years ago. He had the idea of doing a fan film of the alley fight from They Live (1988), the John Carpenter film. We ended up shelving it and doing Blindsided: The Game (2018) instead, but the idea stuck with me. When I started SuperAlloy in 2019, I thought it would be interesting to revise the idea into a 3D animated film where a kind of Blade Runner (1982) hero chases after three villains who are robots in disguise. AI was just starting to become a thing back then and I thought it would be interesting to shift the focus from aliens hiding under human skin to robots. And the first villain in this short film was a bag lady. A mysterious man attacks this bag lady and for a second, you think that the old woman is the victim, but then she turns out to be this unstoppable robot. There were two other characters after that but when I pitched the concept to an animator, he said, “You should just make a short film about the bag lady because that is one of the coolest villains of all time.” And that’s where the idea came from. And so we made it into a live action film.
There’s one other important element. The original script had a lot of cussing in it, and then it dawned on me that I wanted my kids to see this movie, so I took out all the cussing and tried to find other jokes. It ended up being much funnier. When my kids watch this movie and laugh their asses off, it makes my day. They were a major guiding principle for me making this movie.
BK: Was Bag Lady always the title of the movie or is it that something you figured out later on?
EJ: The original title of the short was They Still Live, but we were a little bit concerned that that might ruffle some feathers with certain people. We understand that that intellectual property is kind of touchy, so we changed it to The Bag Lady. Then, when we were shooting and writing it on the slate, the DP Jeremy Le looked at the slate and said, “You should just call it Bag Lady. I think that’d be way cooler.” Or maybe it was Danny Shephard. Anyway, these guys were really the eyes of the production and I trusted them, so we changed it to Bag Lady.
BK: Where was Bag Lady filmed?
EJ: We shot everything in Las Vegas.
BK: How did you approach your character Bender?
EJ: The Bender character treats his younger brother Skee (played by Phill Kismartoni) like a child. He’s just not at all interested in Skee growing up in his own way. He feels obligated to ensure Skee has the life that Bender wants him to have. Often this is how dads first think when they have kids and I was no exception, but when I went through a divorce and got full custody of my three boys I realized that I needed to let my kids grow in a way that worked for them, and that allowed me to look back at Bender comedically.
BK: How did you cast Bag Lady? What was it like working with the cast?
EJ: I cast Bag Lady primarily with people I’ve worked with at SuperAlloy. All of these people have been involved in the mocap scene with me for the past 8 years in some capacity. I regularly hire Thekla Hutyrova, Phill Kismartoni, and Steve Erwan as talent, and I’ve hired Danny Shepherd of Ismahawk both as talent and production help. I felt like I knew them well enough that I could also write natural dialog for them, and it ended up going very well.
BK: How long did it take to make Bag Lady, from completing the script to finishing post-production?
EJ: I wrote the first version of the script in a single sitting, but it had too many locations. Robert Dill, the producer, recommended I streamline things, so I did another pass on it. I pitched it to the cast, they had ideas for their characters, and I think I did one more pass on the script. From first draft to shooting I imagine it was maybe a month or so. Shooting took six days, spread throughout November and December, and we literally finished one day before Phill had to cut his hair and I had to go in for hernia surgery, so we were really under the gun. Post-production finished in March.
BK: How did you come up with the look of the robots in Bag Lady?
EJ: Harry Nguyen developed the robot look and 3D printed the mask. I just told him, “Think of how a recycling bot might build itself.” I wanted to get away from the bony terminator look and do something sleeker. I also wanted it to be practical, so when you see the robot, that’s the real deal.
BK: What was the hardest part of making Bag Lady for you as both a director and an actor? What was the easiest?
EJ: I think the hardest part, which is always the most enjoyable part, was the action. We pre-vizzed the entire house fight and so that was pretty easy, but I left the fight against the bag lady boss to the last three days of shooting and I really didn’t want to over prep that fight. I wanted it to feel very “in the moment” and very stream of consciousness. It was pretty stressful. We were shooting mid-December and we’d lose daylight at 3:30pm, but we had a good team and ideas were flowing, so just like I thought, we got it done and everyone was really happy with it.
BK: Do you have a favorite scene or sequence in Bag Lady?
EJ: My favorite moment is when I look away to argue with Stevie, and suddenly Phill’s character is on the roof of the house. That always gets a big laugh. I also love the opening of the bag lady fight where she’s fighting all of us at the same time. I always try to get at least one of these “poetry moments” where the fighting is super aesthetic, shapely, and rhythmic. I believe it sets the fight apart. But I also love the parts where my kids respond; the robot reveal, the explosion, and whenever daddy is acting goofy.
BK: Bag Lady is currently out on the film festival circuit. How many film festivals do you hope to appear at, and what has the response been so far from audiences that have seen it?
EJ: I’m not sure how many festivals, honestly, but the audience response at every one of them has been the same. They laugh at the gags, they love the action, and they gasp at seeing the robot.
BK: Bag Lady is currently a short film, with plans to expand it into a feature length film. What needs to happen in order for the world to see a feature length version of Bag Lady?
EJ: A lot of logistical work needs to go into that, and we’re still figuring it out. To be continued!
BK: Any upcoming projects you can tell us about?
EJ: I’m planning to write a book on motion capture and shoot a sequel to Contour. Also to be continued!
BK: What do you hope audiences get out of Bag Lady?
EJ: I hope they come away with some hope. A lot of martial arts cinema is pretty bleak. I call it a “grunge” phase, and it’s been that way since 2002. There have been many creative titles but not many of them make you feel hopeful in the end. As a single dad for over three years I’m addicted to hope; I tend to avoid anything that’s negative now, including the news and all the doom and gloom stuff. I just don’t have any free parking spots in my head for that shit now. I wanna make hopeful movies.
BK: What is your favorite science fiction movie?
EJ: Terminator 2!
BK: Where did you get that blue fanny pack from?
EJ: Where else? A dumpster.
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A very special thanks to Eric Jacobus for agreeing to participate in this interview and to david j. moore for setting it up.
Check out my review of Bag Lady here!
Check out the official Eric Jacobus website here!
Check out the official Eric Jacobus Instagram page here, official Twitter page here, and official YouTube page here!
Check out the Eric Jacobus IMDb page here!
All images courtesy of Eric Jacobus.
