Paper Tiger director James Gray spoke with ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese about his new crime thriller movie. The acclaimed director discussed the film’s personal nature, its themes, and working with Miles Teller. The film, which also stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, will be released in theaters on Friday, November 13, 2026.
“In James Gray’s deeply felt and intense crime thriller, set in 1986 New York, a naïve engineer, Irwin (Miles Teller) accepts a seemingly lucrative business proposition from his brother, Gary (Adam Driver), a former cop. But when Irwin witnesses something he wasn’t meant to see at the Gowanus Canal, the brothers find themselves pulled into a dangerous confrontation with the newly emerging Russian mafia. As the threat of violence escalates, Irwin’s wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson) sounds the alarm, Irwin desperately tries to protect his family, and Gary is forced to make an impossible choice to save those he loves.”
Tyler Treese: All good films are personal to a degree and are a product of expression, but Armageddon Time and Paper Tiger are both autobiographical for you to a degree. What’s been most rewarding about getting to explore these personal stories and, I assume, work through some parts of your life and view them from different perspectives?
James Gray: The closest thing we’ve got to a time machine. You can go back and revisit and rethink and study again and learn why you’re so damn neurotic. So to me, it’s a lesson in my own neurosis.
How’s that? I mean, I’m kidding, of course. It’s a very moving thing to be able to do it. I consider it a huge gift. And I think that if the film is going to have any kind of emotional meaning or impact, it’s got to come from a place that’s from you. So I hope that if even one nine-hundredth of my emotion and emotionality comes through, then I’ve won.
There’s an interesting element to this film of not appreciating what you’ve got and kind of overreaching. And it seems so simple when said aloud, but it’s so easily lost, and we all need a reminder of that. So what interested you in exploring that as a theme?
If you’re told all the time that the only normal state is for you to want more, how are you ever going to be content? How can that be? If the culture all around you says something is wrong with you if you don’t want more, that’s a tough, tough thing to live with.
That’s a constant stressor. And I think sometimes we forget that the love for each other that we have actually matters much more. I mean, it sounds so corny, but it’s true.
I was curious about the casting of Miles Teller. He’s obviously a fantastic actor, but I haven’t seen him do much in this similar vein where he’s a mature, loving father, but he’s totally up for it. What made you think of him for this key role?
James Gray: I had seen a movie called Bleed for This, where he plays the boxer Vinny Pazienza, and I thought it was an amazing performance. What I saw in him was that he had both a sort of alpha male quality, but also could be very vulnerable and sensitive. Just think about when he’s getting hit in Whiplash, his expression, how your soul bleeds for him.
So I wanted both of those things. I thought that would be very dramatic and very interesting. And he really came to play. His work was just beautiful.
Thanks to James Gray for taking the time to talk about Paper Tiger.