Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub sat with Out for Delivery’s Chelsea Christer, Deanna Rooney, and Martin Starr at SXSW 2025.

Christer reveals the pressures of editing a 10-minute cut and shooting for two days, but how it felt “cosmic” to bring this together.

The cast and crew reveal stories from their past as PAs and piano lifters, while Starr teases future seasons of Tulsa King.

Short films have the challenge of creating a memorable impact in such a limited span of time, but writer-director Chelsea Christer’s short, Out for Delivery, which screened at South by Southwest 2025, doesn’t run into this issue with a strange and dark premise and unforgettable performances.
The dramedy is based on a morbid true story, as it centers around the strange and stressful final moments of someone seeking end-of-life care after a long battle against cancer, but the mail delivery system fails her. In the short film, Joanna (Deanna Rooney) lives in a world where modern technology allows the end-of-life medication to be shipped directly to her, but the systems in place to make this happen only offer dark comedic mishaps and even more anxiety. Things take a turn when she meets Mark (Martin Starr), and the short film continues to hit those notes of black comedy, bleak absurdity, and visceral melancholy, crafting a tonal tightrope that grips us right to when the credits roll.
Director, writer, and editor Christer, as well as actors Rooney and Starr, sat with Steve Weintraub at Collider’s Media Studio in the Cinema Center at SXSW 2025. Christer talks about her experience creating a short, especially in the editing room where she was challenged to make a 10-minute version of the story. From the pressures of two-day shoots to the achievement of screenings at Sundance and SXSW, the cast and crew share how they got the film off the ground. They reminisce about previous PA jobs and suffering from injuries on the set of RuPaul’s Drag Race, while Starr also teases Tulsa King Season 3 and a future remake of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Hear all about this straight from the cast and crew in the video above, or you can also read the transcript below.
‘Out For Delivery’ is a Short Film Based on a True Story

“Why am I laughing at the most tragic story I’ve ever heard in my life?”

Image via SXSW

COLLIDER: Everyone watching this right now will not have seen the short film, so talk a little bit about what it’s about and why you wanted to make it.
CHELSEA CHRISTER: Out for Delivery is a dark comedy about a terminally ill woman who decides to seek end-of-life care, and the systems that are meant to make her death peaceful and dignified end up becoming the opposite.
I believe this is based on true events.
CHRISTER: Unfortunately, yes. The film is loosely inspired by true events. In the true story, a person decided to pursue end-of-life care, and the shipping company lost the package completely, and customer service was extremely unhelpful. They use things like, “We don’t have customer service on Saturdays, so you’re just gonna have to wait until Monday.” And they never found the package. When I heard the story, it actually made me laugh, and I was like, “Why am I laughing at the most tragic story I’ve ever heard in my life?” As a filmmaker, I decided to figure out why I felt that way, and I wrote a screenplay, and it turned into this dark comedy satire about convenience culture and the disconnect we have from each other, with all this technology and all these systems in place. I wanted to basically deprive a woman of dignity, much like in the true story, and then return it to her through human connection.
For both of you, what was it about this project that excited you and said, “Oh, I wanna do this?”
DEANNA ROONEY: Oh, I’m Chelsea’s friend that she likes to deprive of dignity, so it was an easy fit for me. What about you, Martin?
MARTIN STARR: Honestly, you were one of the main reasons I was excited. I’ve known Deanna for a long time, and I was excited about the opportunity for us to work on something together. Getting to sit and read this story, there’s a fun friendship that develops. The core of the story is founded in this unfortunate story that you have in real life, but I think a big part of the way that the story develops is that we become friends, as I’m waiting for her medicine to end her life. In this process, we start to get to know each other as I’m waiting to do my job, which is to deposit her body at the funeral home that I own.
Christer Was Challenged to Do a 10-Minute Cut of ‘Out for Delivery’

“It felt cosmic to bring this whole thing together.”

Image by Photagonist

One of the things about short films is that you have to do a lot in a very short time. Talk a little bit about the challenges of trying to do everything in, I believe, 15 minutes.
CHRISTER: As a filmmaker, we start in short film, and I think you start to learn very quickly what works, what doesn’t, and how to get a message across very quickly. What I found with this was I knew exactly the beats to follow with this character and her journey and how I wanted it to go. It was only 17 pages that we shot in two days, which is a lot. When I was cutting it together, a friend of mine challenged me to make a 10-minute version of the film, which led us to trimming it back and getting the run time down to 16 minutes. I think it’s just knowing your characters and ensuring that you see the arc through in a way that can resonate with an audience, and challenging yourself to do that in a short amount of time is just a really good practice in storytelling.
When you make anything, you really never know what’s gonna happen. It could fall on its face, and it could also get into Sundance and South by. For you and for everyone, what does it mean to be in these two prestigious festivals with your work?
CHRISTER: I’m still finding my footing. It’s such an honor. It’s also incredibly validating. I’ve been making things for a long time, and to have something hit in this way means so much to me. Hopefully, it opens the doors for me to continue doing this kind of work on this scale, especially with Sundance. I was a long-time volunteer at the festival. I love participating in events in that way and giving back. So, to premiere at Sundance was just incredibly meaningful for me, with my history with the festival. Honestly, South by is one that I’ve always wanted to attend. I’ve always wanted to come here, and the fact that I got to come here, too, I’m still reeling. I’m still trying to figure it out.
ROONEY: It’s been really lovely. Martin knows I spent like a decade and change working in animation as a compositor. It’s been an interesting transition back into performing, and this has been really welcoming and lovely, and I dare say validating for what it is.
STARR: You deserve it. I love any excuse to come to Austin. I missed Sundance unfortunately, but I’m very excited for the success of the short and the acceptance, and people seeing it and it resonating with people. It’s always awesome to find an audience for what you’ve made and put your heart into.

Image by Photagonist

I love talking about editing. You mentioned already that you tried to do the 10-minute version. Talk a little bit about how the short changed in the editing room in ways you didn’t expect, or was it exactly what you had scripted and pretty locked down?
CHRISTER: This film happened incredibly fast, too. I wrote it in July. We found out Martin’s availability in early August. We shot it in mid-August, and I picture-locked it by that first week of September, which is bonkers. There was an urgency. It felt cosmic to bring this whole thing together. But in editing it, I did the first cut, and it was 23 minutes, and I was like, “Yeah. It’s great. It’s done. I did it.” I sent it around and everyone was like, “Oh, this is nice. Can it be shorter?” And I was like, “Do you have anything more specific that could help me out with that?” But, I went, “It’s true, 23 minutes is a bit luxurious for a short.” So, I brought it down to 18 minutes. That’s when I approached my dear friend, Mike Mohan, who is the one who said, “Hey, you know what, try this 10-minute version. It’s not gonna be 10 minutes, but you’re gonna find out real quick what’s essential and what’s not.” He said, “Involve alcohol if you need to.” So, Deanna came over, and we cracked open some liquor, and I cursed Mike’s name.
ROONEY: It was a two-day process.
CHRISTER: It was a two-day process of just really being angry at what we were cutting out, but sure enough, we found out where the fat was, and, as they say, killed some darlings, and we got it to the 16.5-minute cut that it’s at now.
STARR: It really hums along. That’s a lot of the response I’ve heard. Even some of the other people who had shorts in our block responded with how smooth it felt. In our group, there were a lot who felt that way, as well. For them to see that and respond to it, I think, is a huge compliment.
CHRISTER: I’m very grateful. I think it worked out, and as painful as it was, getting it to where it is now feels right. It feels good.
Filming and Editing ‘Out for Delivery’ Was a Collaborative Experience

“Try the version where you cut way too much out in your eyes.”

Image by Photagonist

For both of you, you mentioned that you shot this whole thing in 2 days. What is it like, as actors when you know you’re on such a tight schedule that you really can’t mess up? You gotta get your shots and you gotta move on. What is it like in those days leading up to the shoot, and you’re thinking about your character and how you want to play things?
STARR: I didn’t have much time to think about it. I had 24 hours before I was like, “Okay, we’re just gonna do this on Friday or Saturday or whatever it was.” It was same week, and I just got to dig into the process. I was only there for one day. That end, where I’m carrying her body to the back of the van, and the credits are rolling, I think we maybe did that twice.
ROONEY: You were so afraid you were gonna hurt yourself.
STARR: I don’t look like it, but I work out every once in a while.
I thought you were Arnold’s [Schwarzenegger] stunt double in the last Expendables movie.
STARR: On the last one? Is that when he’s lost a considerable amount of weight? [Laughs] Muscle weight. I was not, but I’m open. If you’re casting, I’m open.
CHRISTER: We only took two takes of that, and the first one was really fast, and that second one was really slow.
STARR: I think you said, “Take your time.”
It must be the second take you used.
CHRISTER: It is the second take that we used. I told Deanna, “Flop around a bit more if you can. If there’s a move, you can do a big flop.”
We should say that in this, you are in the front seat of a van, and you are being brought to the back, and it’s not a short distance. It’s a real distance.
STARR: The medicine kicks in. Then I gotta take her body to the back of the van—just for my job, to be clear.
CHRISTER: To be clear, that’s also a minute and a half of the runtime, so I was like, “I’m not trimming this back.”

Image by Photagonist

I am curious. You mentioned that you’ve been doing other things. What was it like for you in the days leading up to filming this because you’re in everything?
ROONEY: Honestly, it’s just exciting because Chelsea wrote us a great script. Everything was kind of on the page. It was just the fun of problem-solving, where it’s like, “Okay, if this is true, whatever of figuring out who she was.” It was just on the day, trying to be honest with the beats and, thankfully, the comedy comes out of just being an honest little nightmare. It worked out.
CHRISTER: I was just gonna say, too, the benefit of writing a part for one of your best friends and casting them is that we got to sort of workshop it even while I was writing, in a way. When I wrote the first draft of the script, I was like, “Well, this is gonna be for you, so let’s sit down and talk about it.” That helped us trim some fat on the page before we got to the shooting script. It was also just so collaborative. We got a chance to just really workshop the character and give Deanna the space to really ground this in a way that I feel is why it’s being so well-received. Their performance is so grounding and real, but it’s also so funny. Because of that real-world feeling, that’s what makes it work.
STARR: A lot of that also ties into the editing. Being able to pull back and not hold too long on maybe beats that feel precious to you in the process, especially because that is part of art, as you get attached to things the way that you see them. It’s always helpful to get into the edit and try to do what Mike… I love Mike; we did a movie together a long time ago. He’s a sweetheart, super talented, but that is such good advice to any filmmaker is to try the version where you cut way too much out, in your eyes, and see how people respond to that, and see how you feel about that, and then sparsely put things back in if you feel they’re mandatory.
100%.
Christer Worked As a PA on Reality TV, ‘Contagion’ and ‘The Master’

“It was a 22-hour shoot.”

14:03
[Chelsea], I did a little research and found out that you were a PA on four very diverse things. Let’s start with So You Think You Can Dance, American Idol, Contagion, and The Master. These are four radically different things. I’ve been a PA before, and it can be both really cool and the worst job ever. How would you describe some of these in terms of worst job ever, really cool? What did you take away from those experiences?
CHRISTER: I went to film school in the Bay Area and got on, like, a shortlist for a second-second somewhere, who was just hiring PAs. So, I was getting these jobs as local set PAs for these productions. The team that does American Idol also did So You Think You Can Dance, and so those were interesting. [Laughs] I feel like I turned into a therapist because I just saw all these nervous bunnies going in for these auditions, and I was just like, “It’s gonna be OK. It’s gonna be OK.” I did a lot of work on those. They actually offered me a job to move to LA and work in reality TV. They were like, “Quit school, come to LA.” And I was like, “Thank you. No. I don’t want to be in reality TV, but thank you.”
But it was the same list, so then, when I got the call for Contagion, I was like, “Fuck yeah.” But all I really did was stand at a perimeter in the tenderloin to prevent people from entering the set. I got to see people shooting up. I got to see a couple of drug deals. I was just there, a tiny 21-year-old blue-haired girl on the corner of the tenderloin.
STARR: So, the hair is natural?
CHRISTER: It is natural. It’s my natural color. Contagion was cool. Those days were so effective and efficient.
[Steven] Soderbergh works very efficiently.
CHRISTER: Oh my goodness. Seriously, it was like a clean 10-hour day. He was just like, “Everybody can go home.” And I was like, “This is amazing.” This is such a huge, beautiful production, and everyone’s working together. These days are totally reasonable.

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The first film starred Matt Damon.

Then I worked on The Master, and you’ll notice I stopped PAing after that. While it was incredible, I did two days, and the most incredible day was one where I was selected to go on the yacht. I got to work with Philip Seymour Hoffman, and I got to actually be a set PA for everybody who was on the yacht because it was a pickup day because the first AD forgot to get Dramamine for everybody on their original shoot day, so they had to reshoot everything. I’m not gonna go into details, but it was a bad day.
I was there on the pickup day. They had to keep it until another day that they had already planned. It was a 22-hour shoot. I was supposed to be on a third day, where my call time was 11. I arrived at 7 a.m., wrapped at 5 a.m., and I was like, “This is not it.” I could barely walk at the end of the day. I was like, “This has been an incredible experience.” I snagged a little bit of 70 millimeter film that’s still in a box somewhere. I was like, “There’s so much here that was amazing to witness and see, but there’s no world in which 22 hours is ethical.” I was like, “If this is what it is, I’m gonna stop this and start in a different way.” That was my experience. Sorry, it was a little long.
No. I actually think that’s eye-opening for people who don’t understand.
CHRISTER: It was crazy, too, because they were like, “We’re just gonna roll out second dinner, third dinner,” and I was like, “Shouldn’t we just bring in, like, ‘changing of the guard’ or something? Why are we all still here?” They went, “This just happens sometimes.” I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t think it should, don’t think it should.” When I was supposed to have a call time of 11 a.m. the next day, I went to the second AD, and I was like, “I’m not coming tomorrow. Not tomorrow, later today. I’m not coming. I’m not gonna get any sleep.” And they were like, “Fair. Thanks for the day.”
Rooney “Knocked” Off Her Kneecap on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’

“You have this beautiful human being that everyone wants to have proud of them.”

Image by Zanda Rice

[Deanna], my question for you is, and I could be wrong, but you worked as a set dresser on RuPaul’s Drag Race. I am definitely curious, what is it like being a set deck on that show, which is incredibly popular?
ROONEY: Oh my gosh. I had the joy of doing art department for the first two seasons, and RuPaul is hands down one of the most incredible humans I’ve ever met. Knew every PA’s name, showed up a good two and a half hours before everyone else, never complained, super professional, was so present for everyone—so much so that on the first season, the producers were confused that there wasn’t a lot of drama amongst the contestants, where it’s like, “Do you understand what you’ve put together here?” You have this beautiful human being that everyone wants to have proud of them. They’re not gonna be petty little monsters like you see on a lot of reality. But the contestants were incredible and the challenges are super fun. Like any production, there are always challenges and last-minute changes, but it was just so neat.
Truthfully, the only reason I left the art department is—it didn’t even play on camera—in the second season, for one of the challenges, we had a bunch of things for our photo shoot, and one of the things that was going to be on set was an upright piano. I was given a non-art PA to help me unload the truck, and they didn’t know how a furniture dolly worked. Long-short, I have very dumb impulses. We don’t have insurance for this, as a piano falls off the back of a cube truck, and knocked my kneecap off, or just egregiously not where it should be, and that’s when I switched to animation. Up until then, amazing—10 out of 10, no notes.
How’s your knee now?
ROONEY: I have to keep muscle built on it, otherwise it just starts to drift.
That’s the thing that no one tells you as a child. As an adult, if you hurt yourself, it stays with you.
STARR: Not everything that heals makes you stronger.
Starr Teases ‘Tulsa King’ Season 3 and Working With Stallone

“I think he goes home every night and rewrites something.”

Image via Brian Douglas/Paramount+

Before I run out of time, and Martin knows this, I am a fan of Tulsa King, and Collider’s audience is a big fan of Tulsa King, so what can you tease about Season 3?
STARR: I mean, I’ve only just read the first two scripts. We start production next week.
Is that filming?
STARR: We start filming next week.
Oh, wow.
STARR: I can’t tell you anything that I’ve read in those episodes, but I am excited. This new season is going to be a lot of fun. It looks already like there’s going to be a lot of action, and there are some loose ends that may or may not get tied up.
Let’s be honest, me and everybody else are watching it for Stallone. Obviously, I love you, too.
STARR: No, no, Stallone is the guy on the poster. This is the Sylvester Stallone show.
He’s talked to me about how he will rewrite his own dialogue. What is it like working with him, and how much is he changing things on set and how much is he doing it before he steps on set?
STARR: I think he goes home every night and rewrites something.
Oh, he’s told me this, by the way.
STARR: Yeah, these aren’t secrets. But he also, lucky for me, enjoys improvising. So, especially when it’s the two of us, we get to play around a little bit. There’s maybe not as much room in a bigger scene with a lot of cast to find moments or jokes that we can find on the day, but he does like to play with the dialogue, which I appreciate, and he likes comedy. We get to find new things in there and have fun. I appreciate it.

Image by Photagonist

You’re also in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Is it a remake?
STARR: It’s a remake by a Mexican director named Michelle Garza [Cervera], who is incredibly talented. I don’t know that I’m allowed to talk much about it, but I’m very excited about it. The process was incredible, the experience was incredible. She’s amazing. The whole cast is really great. I look forward to seeing an edit of that one because I think that’s gonna be a really fun one.
When did you film that?
STARR: December and January.
Oh, so you literally just…
STARR: Just wrapped.
So this is all an end-of-the-year kind of movie?
STARR: I don’t know when they’re trying to push it. I know she’s already editing it, so we’re going.
Special thanks to our 2025 partners at SXSW, including presenting partner Rendezvous Films and supporting partners Bloom, Peroni, Hendrick’s Gin, and Roxstar Entertainment.

Out For Delivery

Release Date

January 24, 2025

Runtime

16 minutes

Director

Chelsea Christer