In indie thriller 'Neglected,' David Lipper wears every hat

“I get to be the boss and say, ‘I don’t really care what somebody thinks, this is what I think.’”

Among his choices: casting Elena Sanchez as a detective, not a stunt double. For years, she has wanted to make the move, and blockbuster producers don’t want to lose her as their go-to in films like “Avengers: Endgame” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”

“The first few years, that’s definitely all I got,” she says of her stunt roles. “I went from these huge $100 million blockbusters to going back to the indie world and scraping roles together.”

It’s how she got a key role in “Neglected.”

“I had just done a movie with Jeremy London where we played the two leads. Jeremy (who was cast in ‘Neglected’) knew David, and Jeremy texted me and said, ‘There’s a role in this you’d be perfect for,’” Sanchez says.

London contacted Lipper and helped her make the connection.

That’s how independent films work, Lipper says.

“We don’t answer to anybody. Our investors have faith and trust in our process,” he says.

To reduce the number of hurdles filmmakers face, participants often take on multiple roles. Thus, Lipper’s credits.

“That’s just how my life has gone,” he says. “I started as an actor, and that’s all I did for decades. Then I got into writing and wrote a bunch of scripts that got made. This is one that actually came to me from a young writer, Adam Levine. I rewrote a large chunk of it and we ended up with a movie.

“As far as directing goes, I directed five movies and probably produced 40. As an actor (he appeared in “Full House” and its sequel, among other credits), you’re so at the mercy of being hired. You get sick of waiting for the phone to ring and you say, ‘I’m gonna take things into my own hands.’ So, I took it into my own hands, and now I have a lot of jobs.”

In “Neglected,” he plays the mayor, “a role I could really deliver on," he says. "That’s one of the advantages of writing a script. You can write a character that is in your wheelhouse and something that I can jump from the director’s chair to the actor’s chair and not be so intrusive on the process.”

Star Josh Duhamel says it isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“It’s all-consuming,” he says. “If you’re directing something, you have to answer all the questions from all the different departments. You have to be decisive, you have to have a plan and, then, you’ve got to jump in front of the camera. That to me is the hardest part because you’re using both sides of your brain. It all falls on you.”

Lipper says drawing on those with specific talents lets actors like Sanchez make big moves and ones like Dylan Sprouse change their trajectory.

“Taking Dylan, who’s a Disney kid, and turning him into a serial killer was another ‘against type’ thing to do,” Lipper says. “And I love that. Again, this is the advantage we have in independent film.”

Twins Jeremy and Jason London also have roles in “Neglected.”

“The original script had them as partners, but I thought, ‘If I make it twin brothers, imagine how the stakes rise?’” Lipper says. “When I had the opportunity to cast them, I jumped on it and it was an immediate phone call from me to both of them.”

Again, the benefit of wearing several hats in the filmmaking process.