Korean War-era newlyweds find their stability derailed by the arrival of the husband’s charismatic brother in Director Daniel Minahan’s drama, On Swift Horses.

Minahan’s feature tells the story of Muriel and Lee, who leave their Kansas home to start a family and a new life in San Diego. Their plans are upended by the arrival of Lee’s brother Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past who draws Muriel down a new and dangerous path.

On May 11, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Minahan discussed the making of On Swift Horses during a Q&A moderated by Director Mary Harron (Daliland).

During the conversation, Minahan spoke about how he used music to help set the stage for the film.

“I knew that the overarching idea for the approach to this was to not make it feel like it was a film made in the ‘50s. I wanted to try to do something that was different, it just happened to be set in the ‘50s. The music, for example, I didn’t want anything to feel nostalgic. Or if we chose a location, I didn’t want anything to feel like an archetypal location. But for the music if we were really going to play the music that was popular in 1956 it would have been Elvis. He was number one. But I didn’t want Elvis because then it becomes something else. Then it becomes American Graffiti with a jukebox. So, I tried to choose things that were B sides, or things that I hadn’t even heard of before.”

Minahan’s other directorial credits include the movies for television Deadwood: The Movie and House Rules; and episodes of Fellow Travelers, The Girl from Plainville, Ratched, American Crime Story, House of Cards, Homeland, Ray Donovan, Game of Thrones, The Newsroom, True Blood, Grey’s Anatomy, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, The L Word and Series 7: The Contenders. He has been a DGA member since 2003.