Rick Rocha and the Raw Intimacy of 'The Method': Screening Closing Night at the Beverly Hills Film Festival

By Kiara Sangronis

“Directing is like robbing a bank,” Rick Rocha tells me. “You’re running and gunning. You think you're gonna get the shot, and then there’s a jackhammer going off next door. Now we can’t shoot here. Move everything over there. Then your location bails. But you know, you get the money in the bag and go. And hopefully, you get enough. That’s it.”

Rocha talks about directing like it’s a high-stakes heist, but his energy is all heart. Raised in New York, he describes the city like it was his personal playground. Running through Chinatown, playing Shakespeare in the streets, inventing worlds on the fly. “Everywhere you look is a story,” he says. That restless, imaginative energy pulses through The Method, his short film starring Eric Roberts and Conlan Kisilewicz. A magnetic film about the fine line between devotion and delusion in the pursuit of performance. It feels like a fever dream from inside a rehearsal room: the obsession with performance, the power dynamics, the psychodrama disguised as craft. Rocha doesn’t just know this world, he grew up in it.

“I mean, I had acting teachers who rode Harley Davidsons and told me to get my shit together,” he says. “Old school. Brutal. But also wise as hell. They wanted results. And honestly? They rubbed off on me.”

The Method plays like a ritual every theater kid knows but never fully tells. A student spirals under the gaze of his revered teacher, and the line between learning and losing yourself starts to blur. There are no clear villains here, but the tension is real. “I wanted to show people a world most of them don’t know exists,” Rocha says. “Because it’s kind of cult-y. It’s kind of beautiful. It’s definitely embarrassing. And it's insane no one’s made a movie about it.”

He’s not wrong. Films like Whiplash, Black Swan, and Suspiria touch similar nerves, but The Method tackles a subject that hasn't been tackled before: acting. “Actors are out here losing their minds in front of each other, and we act like it’s normal,” he says. “That’s what fascinates me. You’re watching someone strip themselves emotionally, and no one blinks. They just say, ‘Okay, next.’”

Rocha’s performance background comes through in every moment of the film. Though he jokes about not knowing lenses, “My crew makes fun of me all the time”, there’s a sharp theatrical rhythm to the way scenes build and collapse. “I think movies have gotten too technical,” he says. “Too clean. Theater people, we bring mess. We bring intensity. We’re not afraid of silence or confrontation or watching someone completely come undone. And I think that’s what makes good cinema.”

Of course, Rocha isn’t riding solo. “My cinematographer, Matt P. Jones, is my rock,” he says without hesitation. “He brought the whole thing together, from beginning to end.” The same warmth extends to his producers—Briana Rebekah Sherman-Myntti and Briana Bursten—whose names come up like family, and to Conlan Kisilewicz, “for getting me back on the horse,” and Micheál Neeson, “for convincing me the ride is in fact worth it.” Alan Keating helped carry them across the finish line, while Arsun Sorrenti and Henry Munson collaborated with Rocha on the score. “Getting to play as an orchestrator with them, making something completely from scratch was truly a delight,” he says, lovingly.

When I ask if he sees The Method as a critique of method acting, he pauses. “Look, I respect whatever gets the job done,” he says. “But I’ve seen people get so into the ‘method’ that they forget to actually act. It becomes about the process more than the performance. For me? I love an actor who can flip it on and off like a switch. That’s impressive.”

He lights up when we talk about Eric Roberts. “He’s the real deal. Actor’s actor. As soon as I saw his face on the monitor, I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s the movie.’ He brought this gravity, this danger, this warmth, it was all there. And he was game. He let me push him. He trusted me. That’s all you want.”

The dynamic between Roberts and Kisilewicz carries the film. It’s part mirror, part battleground. “It’s like they’re versions of each other,” Rocha explains. “And when a teacher sees a student with that much potential, they push harder. It can feel cruel, but it’s because they care. They see something worth pushing for.”

And then there’s the ending: ambiguous, reality-bending, almost ghostly. Rocha always wanted it that way. “You never forget your teacher. But do they remember you? I wanted to show a student who made himself unforgettable. Will this teacher ever be able to give a note again without thinking of him?”

It’s a brilliant reversal. The film doesn’t let anyone off the hook.

And while The Method leaves a mark visually, Rocha is just as obsessive about its sound. Again, the score, which was composed in just two days with a group of musicians from his LaGuardia days, is a full-blown tradition for him. “That’s heaven,” he tells me. “That’s my favorite part. I want to be that guy, in the studio, composing with the musicians. That’s where I’m most alive.” Rocha credits his friend Arsun Sorrenti' music studio as a second home and sees composing as part of his identity as a director. “If I can afford it, I’ll always do it. It’s my tradition. That’s my director’s touch.”

He’s just as hands-on with editing. “I’ve got trust issues,” he jokes. “I wish I could hand it off and go golfing or whatever. But that’s not me. I need to be in the room, cutting, and shaping. It’s an art form. It’s sculpting. You can’t fake that.”

So, what’s next? 

“More of this,” Rocha says. “I’ve got a lot more stories. A lot more little worlds people don’t know about. I want to open doors people didn’t know were there.”