Note: The remainder of this interview contains spoilers for “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera”, so proceed accordingly.

I’d love to know more about Big Nick’s arc, in particular. There’s a nice reveal that happens at the end with Nick turning these people into police officers, but he’s at such a low point that it seems believable that he could have legitimately turned around. So tell me about the change you wanted audiences to experience with this character in this film compared to what we saw in the first one.

So it comes back, again, to what we just talked about. It’s like where is Nick in his life when he goes on this journey? Maybe he went there with one intention: “I’m going to take Donnie down. That bastard pisses me off. He got away with it.” And then he gets there and he meets the local law enforcement, and he doesn’t get along with them. They treat him like shit. And he’s in a strange place and suddenly he sees someone he knows, even though it’s Donnie, it’s a familiar face. It’s like you’re traveling somewhere in a part of the world and you see someone [and you’re] Like, “Oh my God, what’s up man?” and there’s an instant connection there, and he’s experiencing all these emotions. It’s like a roller coaster, these constant ups and downs. We wanted to play with that throughout the film to feel where will he go? and understand the journey, the emotional rollercoaster, that he is on.

But at the end of the day, it’s like, “Dude, I’m a cop. I can’t do this.” But at the same time, he says, “It’s kind of fun.” And the technical advisor and consultant, my friend who worked with us on “Den 1”, Jay, we talked to him a lot about the character of Nick in “Den 2”. And Jay was an undercover cop for years and years, and there’s this push-pull, right? You come into a world, you’re all excited and rah-rah, and “I’m going to take these guys down,” and then you get to know them and you really like them. And then by the time it’s time to put them down, you feel like shit. They almost become a surrogate family for him. Now he’s destroying that. It’s like, “My family life at home is fucked up. Now I have this new family and now I’m bringing it down too.” And he feels very bad. It’s like, “Who am I? What do I do?” It’s a bit of an identity crisis.

There are so many great heist films that exploit this. “Point Break” comes to mind, and the “Fast and Furious” movies do that too. So in terms of cinematic references, there are obviously a million heist films. So, did you watch any of them in preparation for this, either for aspects that you wanted to pay homage to or things that you knew you doesn’t you want to do?

I saw 10 minutes of the first “Fast and Furious” and didn’t see any of the others. None of them. It was really, “Ronin” was a big influence. “Gomorrah,” “Suburra,” and then a lot of old French New Waves like Melville and “Le Cercle Rouge” and “Rififi” and “Borsalino” and all those great films. I mean, I’ve seen most of the old school classics. To be honest, I haven’t really seen much new stuff. But it’s really about doing research and going out into the world and doing what you want. You try to be unique and original with yourself. You don’t really try to… I mean, obviously as artists we all have influences, of course, but we didn’t have anything really specific. [going for]in terms of homage. Plus the energy and atmosphere of certain films. “Ronin” was an important character, again, an American character in Europe and sort of a mix between American and European cinema, right? But there was no specific tribute, no.

Have you ever been afraid, at any point, because several years have passed since the first movie, that another modern heist movie will come along and have a very similar plot or something like that. As a filmmaker, do you ever worry about this?

I mean, it always does, you know what I mean? I’ve had things in the past as a writer where you write a script, a spec, and it’s great, and then suddenly you realize there’s a very, very similar one coming out. I had this years ago, I worked on a project called “The Company”, and then as we were about to edit it and direct it, this movie “The Recruit” came out with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino. And honestly, it was basically the same movie. So that killed our film. They beat us to it by a few months. So yeah, sure, you kind of think about it, but you just have to do your best, do your thing and hope for the best, right?