Filmmaking isn’t always about creating the movies people want to see. Sometimes, it’s about challenging the status quo to introduce new ways of storytelling to raise the standard — Boaz Yakin can personally attest to this. The famed screenwriter and director is behind some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster films — “Remember the Titans,” “Uptown Girls,” and the “Now You See Me” series — yet, he says, none of them truly reflect the kind of filmmaking he’s interested in these days. Insert “Once Again (For the Very First Time),” Yakin’s bold indie flick that completely goes against the grain.

His unconventional drama, which debuted at the 2023 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, illustrates a heartwrenching New York love story between famous street dancer DeRay (Jeroboam Bozeman) and spoken word poet Naima (Mecca “Meccamorphosis” Verdell). Still, it’s far from your average romance. The emotional tale, also executive produced by Van Lathan and Nicholas Maye (“Two Distant Strangers”), paints a surreal vision for viewers. It uses vivid elements of dance and poetry instead of traditional dialogue to depict the intimate and creative connection between its two artistic leads. It’s one of Yakin’s most ambitious films yet, as it attempts to break the current mold for American filmmaking that he’s tired of seeing.

“I really was excited by the idea of not having rules when you’re telling a story or trying to convey an emotion,” Yakin says of “Once Again,” “Because I feel like American film has become so… There's a lot of good work done, but I also feel like it's very stuck in a certain kind of a pattern and way of telling a story.”

BET.com spoke to Yakin about making his out-of-the-box movie, his storied filmmaking career, and how his diverse portfolio helps him maintain longevity in the entertainment business.

BET.com: You have quite a mixed bag of movie projects under your belt — “Remember the Titans,” “Fresh,” “The Harder They Fall,” the “Now You See Me” films, and now “Once Again (For the Very First Time).” What movie would you say is essential watching for someone who wants to get a good grasp of your work?

Boaz Yakin: Well, I'm a hard person to grasp because I've moved around so much in terms of genres and my interests. Lately, I've been doing much more experimental and artistic things, for lack of a better word. I made a film before “Once Again” called “Aviva” that, in a lot of ways, I think really defines what I feel like doing these days, and “Once Again” follows up on that. But the films that represent the way I feel about movies or about telling stories are probably [those two], “Fresh,” a film I made called “Boarding School,” [another one] I made called “Death in Love” about cyclical, generational trauma and sexual dysfunction. Those are the movies that represent me the most.

Films like “Remember the Titans,” “Uptown Girls,” “The Harder They Fall,” or “Now You See Me” are things I do to keep my hand in the business so [people] know I exist and that I can make money because there's no money in the independent world of making movies. I pay to make these movies. The difficult thing is that, because those other films are more commercial and popular and the films most people see, [people] think that that's who you are. 

BET.com: You’ve been writing and directing movies for over thirty years, working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. What made you want to make “Once Again (For the Very First Time),” a film so different from the standard commercial feature, with no star names attached?

BY: Well, I was excited by the idea of not having rules when you’re telling a story or trying to convey an emotion because I feel like American film has become so… There's a lot of good work done, but I also feel like it's very stuck in a certain kind of a pattern and way of telling a story. “Once Again” was about a traumatic relationship and having to rediscover yourself as a person and artist. Because I had done a dance film [before], I wanted to do more dance, but with this metaphor of art and life as a battle. I thought of working with poetry, battle rap, and battle dancing. I also wanted to work with Black dancers and poets, and the thing about it is that you can't make movies like this with stars or get funding for movies like this. Also, when you're trying to make movies with great dancers, no actors are great dancers. Unlike the old days when they were song and dance [actors]. These days, actors can barely move. 

So, to do the kind of film and work with the kind of people I was going to work with, it had to be people that aren't known, like Jeroboam Bozeman, the lead dancer for the Alvin Ailey Company and has been for years. He's loved and respected in the dance world, but he's not known in film. And Mecca Verdell, who’s this incredible, award-winning spoken word poet, but this is her first film work. So it's super fun to work with people who are new to it, and you're also getting to use talents that you don't normally get to use in film.

BET.com: What inspired the movie’s title?

BY: Well, I was telling a story about the feeling of having to create your life repeatedly. Also, we have this illusion that repetition is a thing when it isn't because everything is always new. It feels like we've done things before, but we never have. So I wanted a title reflecting that idea that it's like, once again, but everything is for the first time. It's always new.

BET.com: “Once Again” is extremely textured in how it uses spoken word, dance, and visual expression to illustrate its plot. Where does your interest in that side of the arts come from?

BY: Well, my parents were pantomimes when I was growing up. They met in Paris in the ‘50s studying mime with Marcel Marceau. When I was a kid, they had a mime company for years, which was always interesting. My father was a theater director and taught at Juilliard for 50 years as the head of their movement department. So, I grew up with theater and movement always as a model. I never really danced, but I have loved musicals and dance films ever since I was a kid. I've used elements of it in the past, but I never really dove into it in film. And I finally, honestly, was like, "If I have to make another regular movie where people talk and then there's some action or whatever, I'll shoot myself." I wanted to start exploring telling stories in different ways, and so I've been moving more and more in that direction.

BET.com: “Once Again” also interestingly tackles fear—the fear of giving and receiving genuine love. What informed those emotions, and how were they translated onscreen?

BY: I guess, personal experience. But the strongest and most difficult romantic connections made are ones where there’s shared trauma; where our wounds are the things that draw us together. This movie is about two people dealing with their traumas, but what those traumas are is pretty symbolic. It’s about how trauma affects relationships and creates growth, and the thing that we come from, the thing that inspires us in a way, is also destructive and the kind of thing that can bring us down at the same time. So, I think I was trying to grapple with that in the film.

BET.com: The movie is very layered in how DeRay and Naima’s story unfolds, so there are plenty of messages audiences can come away with. Still, is there one particular takeaway you want audiences to have?

BY: Well, as you know, it's a very surreal film, and it was very intuitive and emotional on my part. I didn't have these big plans. It was whatever you wanted to take from it. But if there's something I could say, it would be that sometimes the most difficult and painful relationships are the things that yield the greatest results, but we have to know how to leave them before they destroy us. That life involves having to rediscover yourself over and over and over and over again. If not every day, year, and moment, we constantly have to re-energize, rediscover, and re-inspire ourselves, so that's a lot of what I want to convey.

BET.com: Looking back at your career, the way you talk about past movies you’ve done that aren’t quite reflective of who you are or the things that interest you, do you have any regrets?

BY: Honestly, regret is a useless emotion, right? Because the past is the past, and you're not changing it. All we can do is learn from things we did and try to make our life now the life we want. When I made “Remember the Titans,” I had this feeling of, oh, sh*t. The biggest movie I ever will have made up to this point, with the biggest [actors] and the biggest backing behind it, is the furthest away from the kind of thing I'm interested in doing. And if this succeeds, I will forever be associated with something that does not represent my perspective. It's not like I don't like the film. I like it well enough; it's just not me.

So for years afterward, it was difficult because the kinds of things that I wanted to do, people were like, "Yeah, but that's not what we saw you do." So, do I regret it? No, of course, I don't regret it. But did it alter the trajectory of my career and the things I could do and not do interestingly and strangely? Yeah, for sure.

BET.com: Do you think that survival mindset kills the creative sometimes?

BY: Yeah, it does. You constantly remind yourself, "Hey, people do all kinds of jobs they don't like to do to make a living." You must employ your sense of inspiration and creativity towards something for which you have zero passion. So you end up trying to be a professional, which is fine, but it's difficult because it does ask you to employ aspects of yourself that you associate with other things.

BET.com: What’s the key to longevity in this entertainment business?

BY: Staying creative. You do have to keep your hand in [the business] and make money for people every once in a while, or you're screwed because eventually you'll get phased out. I'm always in danger of that because I do spend a lot of time doing my own stuff and then a lot of new people come in who fill in the holes that you leave behind who want to do that other thing. But staying creative, staying present in life, nurturing your skills and talent, and staying flexible is also important.

BET.com: What advice would you offer aspiring and current filmmakers who struggle to decide what kind of art they should make?

BY: Everyone has their own journey, and I don't mean that evasively. It takes a lot of work to give advice in an unspecific way. But you do have to commune with yourself and decide what you want to do. The only advice you can give is to work hard and don't give up. You have to have a lot of perseverance and a lot of stomach for rejection, and you have to be able to push through it. Few people are incredible talents and do the right thing at the right time and boom, it all seems easy. But that's one out of 10,000 people. Everybody else has to f**king grind it.