The pursuit of the American dream leads two brothers into dangerous territory in Director James Gray’s thriller, Paper Tiger.

Gray’s film follows former police officer Gary and his younger engineer brother Irwin, who tap into a lucrative business opportunity in 1980s Queens, only to find themselves entangled in a scheme involving the Russian mafia that terrorizes their family and puts their sibling bond to the test.

On November 1 after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Gray discussed the making of Paper Tiger during a Q&A moderated by Director James Mangold (A Complete Unknown). He is also scheduled to speak about the film following the New York screening on November 29.

During the Los Angeles conversation, Gray spoke about the challenges and benefits of shooting the film on location.

“We scouted and my 1st AD, Francisco Ortiz, was sitting there saying, ‘It’s too small. It’s too small.’ And I’m sitting there going, ‘No, it’s going to be all right.’ And he was totally right. You can’t move walls; you can’t do anything. But in some way the restriction of it is okay because then the camera can’t be where it can’t be, if that makes sense. And the thing starts to take on an authenticity and the actors start to feed off it. The actors sense that this is a real place. I love working on stages, but I like shooting on location because of what it really does for the actor. They start to feel a certain measure of — I don’t want to say realism because it’s not realism. Authenticity is a better word.”

Gray’s other directorial credits include the feature films Armageddon Time, Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z, The Immigrant, Two Lovers, We Own the Night, The Yards and Little Odessa; and episodes of The Red Road and Homicide: Life on the Street. Gray has been a DGA member since 2001.