Yeah, exactly. I put him in the role because I thought he would be fantastic for the part— and he is fantastic!

You used the word “consequence” a few moments ago. Is there a point where you consider that there may be consequences for the movie from him being in it? This is something that’s spoken to in the movie, but it’s kind of the time that we live in right now.

I want to make the best movie possible, and I put him in the role because he's fantastic. I mean, there are a couple of consequences of putting him in the movie; one is you and I are having this conversation, and the major part of your interview time is going to be spent discussing it. And there are also people who won't see the movie because of that casting choice. But I have a target with what I do, and the target is the best version of the movie possible. Once I put Vince with someone with that stature and that charisma and that presence in that role, and I needed a senior guy who could hold his own and seem legitimately his superior in some ways, his equal in others, of the same breed but further down the line and more embittered, he was the choice for me.

So I make a lot of choices that aren't going to make the movie the most popular for everybody, but everything that I do will appeal to only a certain amount of people. Appealing to the largest group, or going after the biggest demographic, has never been a concern of mine. It's just not what I do. I would not write “Bone Tomahawk,” and “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” and “Dragged Across Concrete,” nor the violent Western novels I've written, or any of this stuff if I was chasing a big audience. I'm chasing self-satisfaction, and I hope that enough people enjoy it that it’s successful enough that I get to make the next one.

I actually think the casting plays very well with what the movie is trying to accomplish, and I'm curious about the movie's layers of racism and how people—white characters, black characters—interact with each other throughout. Is this something that came to you after taking the temperature of the moment that we're living in? It feels like a very of-the- moment movie.

You're not the only person who’s said it’s very of the moment. I conceived of it in 2015; we had a very different president, and it was a very different moment. This comes from my interest in building a larger world and showing different people with different plights from different backgrounds and how they converge: Kelly Summer, Jennifer Carpenter's character, and Melanie Ridgeman, Laurie Holden's character, Tori Kittel, Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, these are all different people with different histories. A lot of what I'm interested in doing in my novels and music and movies is world building. If you're painting with a lot of a lot of different colors, and using a lot of different strokes, and going on a wider canvas, the world will be richer. Not every piece calls for that; my first [movie], “Bone Tomahawk,” was an ensemble piece, and I feel you got a lot more different viewpoints than that. And then the second one wasn't. “Brawl in Cell Block 99” is really driven by a guy, and there are the people around him, so it's a little bit more singular that way. The world-building in that is more specific to the environments, particularly the prisons.