The Oscar-nominated film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is set in a nightmare version of Montauk, New York. Its journey to the screen, however, routes through Los Angeles — and Pittsburgh.
Conor Hannon on Growing Up in Pittsburgh, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, the Oscar Nomination, and Bronxburgh
Producer Conor Hannon is one half of the production team Bronxburgh, who brought If I Had Legs I’d Kick You to the screen. Hannon’s western Pennsylvania roots are responsible for the back half of the Bronxburgh name, while partner Richie Doyle hails from the Bronx.
“I went to Shady Side Academy for middle and high school,” Hannon says. “At a young age, we would always get together with friends and shoot these silly videos for YouTube” when not watching movies at the Waterworks and Manor theaters. Hannon later studied radio, film and television at Northwestern University; he would return to Pittsburgh each summer, leading to formative internships with the Pittsburgh Film Office and the Steeltown Entertainment Project.
He also had his first experience on a film set during one of those summer breaks — appearing as an extra in the locally shot Perks of Being a Wallflower.
“I was just amazed. I had never been on a real film set before,” he says of his time on the Wallflower set; the film was written and directed by fellow Pittsburgh native Stephen Chbosky, adapting his own novel. “Every department is working in conjunction with each other … I was just enamored by the whole thing.”
Making an Instant Impression with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Hannon relocated to Los Angeles after college, working on FX’s Dear Mama documentary miniseries, about the life of Tupac Shakur, and spending time at Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Productions — where he met Doyle. The pair formed Bronxburgh in 2021; If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is the first feature for the team.
Unlike most debuts, it’s one of a number of Oscar nominees; lead actress Rose Byrne, best known for memorable turns in Bridesmaids and the Insidious series, is up for Best Actress. (Byrne already won a Golden Globe and a Film Independent Spirit Award for the film.) “She’s in every scene. She’s so amazing in it,” Hannon says. “She really carries the weight of the project … [She] has been doing it for a long time, and it’s great to see her finally getting well-deserved recognition.”
Byrne plays Linda, a professional therapist fed up with an absent husband and a demanding daughter. Her daughter’s feeding disorder, and required daily hospital visits, have left Linda threadbare; when a burst pipe causes a hole to spontaneously open up above her bed, flooding their apartment, mother and daughter relocate to a seedy motel. Things get worse from there — though the film remains in the realm of pitch-black comedy, even at its most dire. (Byrne’s Golden Globe win was for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy; her primary Oscar rival, Jessie Buckley, took Best Actress in a Drama for Hamnet.)
“It was a deeply personal script for [writer and director] Mary [Bronstein],” Hannon says. “It was based on a lot of real-life events that she had experienced with her family … When we met with Mary, she was an amazing person; you could tell she was going to do a great job with the movie.”
Oscar Night and Beyond
Did they expect enough success to attract the Academy’s attention? “I don’t think we expected Oscars! We’re big dreamers and always hope for the best — but nothing is ever guaranteed. You can’t celebrate anything until it happens.”
Bronxburgh’s second feature, the documentary The History of Concrete, premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival; they’re currently seeking distribution for that film, while developing several other projects.
The goal, Hannon says, is to fill a niche in modern moviemaking.
“No one was really making $1 million to $15 million movies anymore — there’s kind of a gap there … We set out with the intention of making movies that we wanted to watch.”
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is streaming on HBO Max.
By Sean Collier
Photos Courtesy Conor Hannon
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