Special Report: Clean Hands (2026)

Hold your ears, folks. It's showtime. People pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Turn it off. Turn it off. 70 miles west of Baltimore sits Hagerstown, Maryland. You can get drugs there in 60 seconds flat. What's up, pig?

That's my daughter, Brooke. Don't believe a word she says. That was a good one, babe. Thanks, Dad. I love you.

Love you. Be safe. Hagerstown is the major stop on the heroin highway. Go take our city back. Let's go clean up these streets!

Let's go! I don't care if it's 10 kilos or one needle. If they're breaking the law, we book them. But do everything by the book. Clean hands make cases.

There's a lot of work you should be proud of, Kev. You've been using for a month. Can you help me or not? You fight in here. Stay sober.

And I'll fight out there. I'm gonna go get him. By the time you get out, Hagerstown's gonna be clean. You two are addicted to each other. She runs away so you can save her.

I lost a nephew a few years ago. Died alone in a hotel room. I will not let that happen to her. A hero is someone you can count on. Every time I broke his heart, he never left my side.

Hey folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I am talking with Jake Allen. He is the writer-director of the new film Clean Hands. The film stars Zach Braff and Esther McGregor.

The film is all about a drug cop who has an addict for a daughter and the struggle that he and she and their family went through to try and help her out. I had a wonderful time talking with Jake. I hope you have a great time listening to this interview. Enjoy. Tell me a little bit about your career, and especially when it comes to directing, because this is, what, your second full-feature film that you've directed?

Second directing job, yeah. I moved to Los Angeles just wanting to be an actor and a writer. I was very nervous to become a master of none and become endless multi-hyphenate. And of course, that's what ended up happening. And I really directed my first movie...

I don't want to say by accident, I think it was by fate, but it wasn't going to get made if I didn't direct it. And I ended up falling in love with directing. And that was right around the time that I found this true story for Clean Hands, the movie that we're going to talk about. And I saw that story. It came to me and I was like, I don't want to tell this story.

I have to. It's so real. It's so true. It's so powerful. I became really good friends with the couple that the movie is about, and they're like second parents to me now.

And I just couldn't let anybody else have that movie or tell their story. This is not your first rodeo, because even before you were directing stuff, you were producing, you're writing, you're acting. Like you said, you are a multi-iphonet. Can you talk a little bit about some of the movies that you helped produce and have been a part of that way? Ultimately, if you're a writer in the independent film space, there's just no way those movies are going to get made if you're not also producing, at least to some extent.

You have to be able to raise money. You have to be able to coordinate people and push the ball up the hill, push the rock up the hill. And so the first movie I ever really made was a movie called No Man's Land that was a modern Western on the Texas-Mexico border that... My brother and I produced, I wrote and acted in, and he directed. And then I took the next step.

I added another multi-hyphenate with Ride, which, to your point, that was my first rodeo, which was a modern Western as well and really centered on amateur rodeo in Texas. And that one, yeah, I wrote, directed, acted in, and produced. So this one was a walk in the park, man, because all I did was write, direct and produce. Oh, that's all. Didn't even have to be in front of the camera.

Yeah. I tell you what, though, I'm really happy that I didn't act in this one. I mean, it was a true story. So like the roles were the roles. And I wanted to honor that as opposed to like finding a way to force myself in as an actor.

And quite frankly, the fact that it was a true story and a true story that didn't take place that long ago. This only happened. 11 years ago, I think, which in the scheme of things, it's just not that long ago to tell a true story about. And the real couple was so involved. All the police officers that served with Kevin were involved.

They were all there on set. Brooke, the main girl that the movie's about, her drug counselor was on set every day. She was in the movie, actually. And if I had been trying to act while navigating all that, I think it might have been too much. So how did you find out about Kevin and Brooke's story?

It's a great story and a weird one I found on YouTube. It was during COVID. I'm doing research just about our country, about what I wanted to talk about next after I had dove into the border. And it was during COVID. Police in America was a very talked about subject.

And addiction in America was very much at the front of people's minds. And then I found this story that had both just clashing with each other. A father and daughter who were also a cop and an addict and a drug cop nonetheless. He wasn't just a... Kevin Simmers wasn't a beat cop.

He was running a drug task force. He was a celebrated narcotics cop. And he had this amazing relationship with his daughter that was... beautiful and tragic and funny and wild and everything that as a filmmaker you want in a story and as a father you don't want. And I was just so lucky that he trusted me to tell this story. As you can imagine, it was quite a thing to hand over.

Tell me about your casting process and how closely did your actors work with the actual people, with Kevin and Brooke themselves? Very closely. That was a gift that I was so eager to give You know, Zach Braff, Esther McGregor, Abigail Spencer. I remember Zach in the beginning was like, oh, is he going to be on set? Can you give me a couple of days to kind of warm up?

And like by week two, Zach would be like, where's Kevin? I need Kevin. You know, I'm like, you told me not to have him. So that was a tremendous gift, especially for Zach, who was stepping into a different lane, you know, playing. I think it was the first time he played a real person.

And the first time he was playing a cop, you know, so to give him that support system, I thought was huge. And then for Esther, that was a big weight for her to carry because Brooke really stands, I hope stands for all women in recovery and all the Brooks house girls. And she knew that weight, which was beautiful, but also pressurized. And so to be able to give her kind of this force field of support around her with Irene, Brooke's real drug counselor, all the women of Brooke's house, all the people that work at Brooke's house, Kevin and Dana Simmers. I mean, that for an actor is uncalculatable.

How was the shoot itself and when did it take place? It was hard and amazing and wonderful and all the things. We shot it in 20 days in Atlanta and in Hagerstown where the story took place. And it was beautiful, man. I mean, some really tough days, you know, it's a harsh subject matter that we were tackling.

And there were plenty of scenes that I remember being like, oh man, why did I keep this in the script? Like, this is brutal to shoot, you know, but it was like, we have to do it for them. We have to do it for these women that face this, for these parents that face this. I mean, this movie is equal parts about what addiction does to the whole family as it does to the one individual. I really tried to keep that as my North Star.

It's like, just remember, some dad is going to see this and not feel so crazy, you know, about his kid that maybe is going through it. And maybe some kid will see this and not feel so alone. I mean, we had a screening two weeks ago in Hagerstown and three women after the movie played came up to the booth where we had a table set up and they were like, we made a pact after this movie to go get help. What can we do? We use drugs way too.

We want out of this life. And they got sick and we took them straight to health services. Now you talk about wanting to make an impact. I'm like, it was only three people. Those are three fricking human beings whose lives might be saved. the whole movie's worth it.

For Kevin and Dana to be on set was really an opportunity for them to take their story back. These years of their lives that we were telling was, it was an incredibly traumatic moment in their lives that probably gave them PTSD and is something that they've blacked out certain parts of it. And so to be able to, even though it was tough to watch, sometimes they told me it was a way for them to finally grieve properly. And again, for me as a worn down filmmaker, that's been working on this for six years, that gives you so much energy. Were you with them the first time they got to see this film about themselves?

Yes. I showed them the movie here in Nashville where I edited it and, uh, I let them watch it alone. Uh, the couple, Kevin and Dana Simmer's, And I paced around the hallway for like two and a half hours. And the movie's only an hour and 47 minutes. And then, because I know every bit, you know, so I know what parts what.

And I remember the movie ending and I kind of put my ear up against the door and it was just silence. And they needed about 20 minutes in there by themselves after the movie before they could kind of open the door and let me in. And we just kind of sat there for a little while after. As you can imagine, this movie is very bittersweet for them. Ultimately, they wish none of it had ever happened.

But in the same token, they know that all this happened for a reason and for a bigger purpose. And so they're very proud of their daughter's fight. What's next for the movie and what's next for you? The movie comes out Friday, October 16th, wherever you can rent movies. My job right now is releasing this film and getting it into as many hands as I can get.

You know, I'm really proud we structured the film financially so that one third of the movie is owned by Brooks House. So every time someone rents this movie, every time someone buys this movie or tells their friends, they're not just getting me a rental, you know, they're supporting this house, they're supporting women in recovery, they're supporting recovery as a whole. So really my full-time job right now is making sure as many people get to see this movie as possible. You know, like I said, if I can get one more person to go to health services because of this movie, any of these conversations are more than worth it. And I love it.

I love my own movie. And I want people to watch it. Is there a good place for people to go to keep up with the film, maybe make donations to Brooks House? Anybody can go to brookshouse.org. That's their website.

And again, every time you rent this movie, you send a dollar to Brooks House. I think the... The biggest place for people to rent the movie will be Amazon and Apple. It'll be in theaters as well. I think in Detroit, I want to say.

But definitely Amazon and Apple tend to kind of dominate those on-demand numbers. And then we have an Instagram page, Clean Hands Movie. And I'm posting there rapidly. And yeah, I'm just going to keep it going. Jake, thank you so much for your time.

This was such a pleasure talking with you. Absolutely. I could talk all day about it. So I'm sorry if I take you for too long. No, this was great.

I really appreciate it. It was so nice to meet you, too. Yeah, nice to meet you, man. I appreciate your support. Have you ever found anything so pure before?

I touched your head You. Lost control. Do you really want me to break down and cry? She was just a little girl She didn't know how to say stop She was just a little girl Please raise your hand when you had enough. She was just a little girl.

She didn't know how to say stop. She was just a little girl. Where do all the little girls go? Take your time. Look into my eyes.

Have you ever seen anything. So pure before? She was just a little girl She didn't know how to say stop She was just a little girl Please raise your hand when you had enough She was just a little girl She didn't know how to say stop She was just a little girl. Little girls go when they're in safe at night Where do all the little girls go when Wrong's. Done by Mr.

Right Where do all the little girls go when there ain't. Safe at night? Where do all the little girls go when wrong's done by Mr. Right? Say stop, I, I, had enough, stop