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Editor’s Note: Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz paid a visit to FFHS while in town for the premier of “The Peanut Butter Falcon” and chatted with students in the media center, then had a sit-down meeting with Nighthawk News. Check out their wide-ranging interview with Michael Pearson, Emmy Trivette and Peyton Dickerson to learn more about their story, navigating show business, OBX influences in the film and much, much more!

By Emmy Trivette, Editor-in-Chief

“When I first moved to LA I was living in my car – we built a tent and lived in the woods as 35-year-old and 36-year-old men, for a year,” said Tyler Nilson, co-director and co-writer of “The Peanut Butter Falcon.”

Now, the Manteo High School alumnus and his collaborator, Michael Schwartz, are celebrating a film that has surpassed $18 million at the box office and given the nation a hefty helping of Outer Banks culture.

“I feel satisfied. I feel like I worked really hard to do this stuff, but it also feels like another part of the journey,” Nilson said as he spoke about leaving his Colington home for Los Angeles. “I don’t feel far from this place, so far that I don’t feel like a separate piece of it.”

The real story of “The Peanut Butter Falcon” actually began eight years ago when Nilson and Schwartz met Zack Gottsagen. And until a dinner with him three years after their introduction – when Gottsagen declared his ambition to become a big movie star – Nilson and Schwartz had no idea they had met the driving force behind their big break. 

“We told him that there weren’t many roles written for people with Down syndrome,” Nilson said. “So he said, ‘Write me one,’ and we said, ‘OK.’ ”

Hand in hand with his passion was Gottsagen’s background in the performing arts, which included enrollment in a performing arts middle school, high school and experience working as a movie usher at Alco Boynton Cinema in Florida.

Making their promise to Gottsagen was one thing. But how to follow through? Nilson and Schwartz began a five-year production journey for “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” but while inspiration was high, the budget was low, and finding the money to shoot the movie was a little harder than expected.

One business owner who liked the idea declined to contribute $10,000 for the project, but did offer a little free food, Nilson recalled with a laugh as he rolled his eyes. Undaunted, Nilson and Schwartz upended their lives: Looking back now, they can laugh about living in a tent, surviving on 300 calories a day, and other low-budget life hacks, such as how coffee costs money, but the creamer at those shops is free.

“I was eating one piece of chicken, a spoonful of butter and half a sweet potato a day for a year,” Schwartz said. “At coffee shops, the coffee they charge for, but the creamer is free, so if you get a cup of creamer that’s enough calories to last a day.”

After shooting a cheap proof here on the beach, Nilson and Schwartz began spamming various producers through googled emails until they finally received a response from the producer of “Little Miss Sunshine.” That launched their movie-making journey: finding actors, shooting for six months in Georgia – not the OBX because North Carolina no longer offers incentives to film-makers – and navigating the ups and downs that came with telling their story, everything from scene-stealing sharks to rising tides and weather delays.

The final budget for the film came in at just over $6 million. When Nilson and Schwartz visited First Flight and spoke to several classes in a 40-minute Q&A about their journey, the film had been well-received locally but hadn’t gone nationwide yet. At the time, they said if the film made $1 more than its budget, they would consider it a success.

They also encouraged students to measure success on their own terms and stressed that there was no reason to dream about their future in a closed box. While charting a path – and diet, in their case – might be difficult, achieving a wild dream is not impossible.

“Especially at this age, it’s OK if you want to be crazy,” Nilson said. “You don’t have to accept this norm, that may be in your mind you’re already starting to shift to.”

Bills, rent, college, families: Nilson encouraged students to look at his path and take chances even though it might not be easy. And even though the work may seemingly be finished, sometimes it never actually is.

“I mean, there’s no surreal moment,” he said when asked about the early success of “The Peanut Butter Falcon.” “We’re still fightin’ for it.”

Senior Emmy Trivette can be reached at “trivetteem0626@daretolearn.org.