Every once in a while a movie comes along and scrambles the noggin in just the best way possible. This week, that movie was Greener Grass, an absurdist comedy/satire that takes aim at suburbia and polite society in cruelly hilarious fashion. At the front of it all, and laboring behind the scenes, are Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, the stars of the film who also wrote, directed, and executive produced the film. Greener Grass is entirely their baby and unlike protagonist Jill early on in the film, they weren’t going to give that away.

From our review of the film:

“Anything and everything is fair game in DeBoer and Luebbe’s creation, a movie that immediately introduces audiences to its pastel-shaded nightmare logic. In the very first scene, Jill (DeBoer) is squaking about the usual suburban nothing chitter-chatter with friend Lisa (Luebbe) who suddenly notices and compliments Jill on her new baby. Without a moment’s hesitation, and sans any kind of provocation, Jill asks Lisa if she wants to have her. Not hold her for a moment. Not watch her for a date night. Have her. After all, as Jill says, “I’ve been with her since she was born.” “

I had a blast talking with the pair of comic spitfires, with the topic of conversation steering us anywhere from secret investors to the future remake starring Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron, touching on the wigged-out, Jet-Ski-averse character they love that didn’t make the final cut, the really compelling (and sometimes crazy) fan theories about the secret meaning of the film, the level of improvisation and bringing their highly-detailed script to life, and how having ultimate control allowed them to execute such a wonderfully bizarre and singular vision.

Love the movie. I have so much to ask. I’d love to start with this idea of when you guys are writing this movie and coming up with ideas, you’re very much skewing away from traditional comedy tropes and traditional comedy narratives but I’m assuming there still has to be the traditional comedy pitch to some guy with money or some girl with money to come and finance this thing. I’m wondering what the elevator pitch is for someone straight-laced? Like, how do you describe this movie to your grandpa?

Jocelyn DeBoer: What we have to tell you is we had our funding completely in place before we even wrote the feature script. We basically had a sole investor, who wishes to remain anonymous, who was a fan of us over the years and our short films played a big part of that, but they just kind of trusted us with a “low-budget movie” so to speak. But just to make anything and just get ourselves off the ground so to speak. When Dawn and I talk about this, we’re so honored and it’s the coolest compliment to have people tell us our movie is so unique and like nothing they’ve ever seen before and we always think that’s because we had complete creative control over it so we weren’t trying to sell the movie. We talked about it in terms of we started writing in January of 2018 and we had a production draft around May and we knew we were going into production so we wrote it as a blueprint. The other features that we wrote the year before, we were writing to try to get into the Sundance lab and it was much more with the reader in mind rather than just a blueprint for designers and actors, let’s go.

That has to make you feel pretty good that someone says, “Hey whatever you guys come up with I trust you’re brilliant enough to make it worthwhile.”

Dawn Luebbe: It was the best feeling of our lives, truly. And I think it’s possible that had the short film version of Greener Grass not performed well then, kind of, that they might not have had the confidence in this idea as much, but because it isn’t the first thing we’ve ever made and she or he was like aware of our voice and that it was perhaps didn’t follow the exact model of traditional comedy and they were a fan of that.

I would say not. Going off that idea, I have to assume that there were plenty and plenty of demented little ideas and things going on in the background that didn’t end up making it either into the script or final cut. Did you guys have some favorites things that you wanted to include but maybe were just too bizarre or didn’t fit in but in an ideal world you would have liked to have.

Jocelyn DeBoer: There’s one…go ahead Dawn.

Dawn Luebbe: No you go ahead.

Jocelyn DeBoer: There’s so many things that come to mind. There’s this one idea that made it so far in like so many drafts of the script that I think we regret cutting. Buck, who is Kim-Ann’s husband, who has the divorce, the man who dresses like a Cowboy, in many drafts he later, like in the bowling alley, shows up with his new girlfriend named Pamela –

Dawn Luebbe: And before he shows up with Pamela, the women have been gossiping about her, leading up to that. Like “Buck has a new girlfriend”

Jocelyn DeBoer: “She’s just hair. She’s all hair.” Then we meet Pamela and Pamela is indeed just a walking hairdo. Just floating hair.

Dawn Luebbe:  Throughout the script, Buck is bragging that he has this jet ski and loves this jet ski and when he shows up with Pamela, he announces that he has to sell this jet ski because “Pamela just can’t do wind.” It’s a funny thing because the reason that we cut Pamela is because we did a few reading of the script with some comedy people that we really trust, just part of our community that we really trust, and we paid really close attention to what they talked about afterwards and what they had questions about, their favorite things, etc. And in all of those conversations, Pamela just never came up at all. No one had any questions about her, and you’d think people would have questions about her. No one said it was their favorite part so Dawn and I were like “I think she needs to go.” After we cut her, our casting director, was like, “I read the new script last night. Pamela’s gone? That was my favorite part.” So we were like, “Oh no.”

Jocelyn DeBoer: Maybe Pamela will have a spin-off, even though she never existed in the first place.

Say that your mystery investor said, “I need you to start shooting Greener Grass 2, even Greener Grass, tomorrow” what’s your pitch?

Jocelyn DeBoer: We have an idea that we’re quite interested in and frankly, Matt, we’ve never pitched to anyone so maybe we can run this by you.

I’ve got my checkbook out.

Jocelyn DeBoer: Is it okay if I talk about this?

Dawn Luebbe: It is okay. I’m nervous but I trust Matt.

Jocelyn DeBoer: Well Matt, we’re excited about the idea of what we’re calling “A-List: Greener Grass”, also known as “Greenest Grass” and this is a version of the movie where we were on an extremely limited budget and so a lot of the actors in the movie were our friends. So what if we shoot Greener Grass with the exact same script but all of the resources in the world. I believe Angelina Jolie is playing Jill, Charlize Theron is playing Lisa.

Dawn Luebbe: Robert DeNiro is in there somewhere.

Jocelyn DeBoer: We think that this is what the world is asking for.

This is the missing gap in entertainment. It’s like taking a popular foreign film and remaking it in Hollywood, losing all the magic along the way, but here we’re just taking an American movie and remaking it into a bigger American movie.

Jocelyn DeBoer: We think that as filmmakers and artists that this would be a very interesting experiment. So thank you for asking.

Dawn Luebbe: We just have 200 million more to made.

You’re well upon your way. I love that the movie kind of operates with this total dream logic. I described it when I was writing about it as when you wake up from a dream and you’re trying to explain it to somebody and in your mind it makes sense but as you’re explaining it you start to lose the plot. “Well, no, nevermind, this is insane, forget I said anything.” I’m wondering how you guys go about stringing these things together but keeping it from spinning out of control.

Jocelyn DeBoer: I love that description, yeah.

DL: I love that as well. I think that it was so important for us to have this element of surprise throughout the movie. We didn’t want our audience to get bored and we also didn’t want them to know what was coming next. I think that though there are like all of these kind of unusual events that keep happening, it was also so important to us to have everything anchored in the spine of Jill, our protagonist’s, journey and her downfall and her kind of takeover by Lisa. And I think it was just like, a lot of it comes down to the tone in terms of keeping it anchored. One thing I loved so much about Jocelyn’s performance and what I think really anchors the movie is how grounded it is and how emotionally connected the character of Jill is. Even though her child turns into a dog and she gives her baby away and all these absurd things are going on, to her they are very meaningful and have real consequences. I think without that, the movie could just be a bunch of nonsense strung together. And that was so important for us to avoid.

Jocelyn DeBoer: Thank you for complimenting my acting.

I think that you’re right on the money there: it is very much grounded in real human emotion despite the absurdity of the situations and Julian being a dog and all that.

Jocelyn DeBoer: And Matt everything that happened, like Dawn just mentioned, and everything that is ridiculous in the movie, so to speak, Dawn and I painstakingly broke down in terms of how these things are relatable and sad. I’ll use Jill giving her baby away in the beginning as an example: of course on the surface, it seems so wacky but if you think about it, people in real life people are so often making these huge decisions based on what they think other people want or what will make other people happy or to fulfill what people’s expectations of them are. People choosing who they’re going to marry or what career they’re going to have, if they want to have a baby or not. All these things impact the rest of your life and these are the things that as an actress I was basically mapping any of those moments to. What are the reason versions of this that deeply impacts people that we all know or ourselves.

Totally. That brings me along to the belief that I think the movie is very open to interpretation but I also like my interpretation of the movie, which seems in line with what you’re saying. I thought that broadly this is about how we destroy ourselves to present as pleasant and inoffensive. And the lengths we’re willing to go to to avoid the slight offense. I’m wondering though what are some of the weirdest reactions and responses after they’ve seen this.

Dawn Luebbe: We love hearing people’s analysis and what the movie means to them. It’s been the most fun traveling around with the movie and talking with people after.

Jocelyn DeBoer: Not to be self-indulgent but you and me and Taylor would sit around for hours and talk about our own theories.

Dawn Luebbe: There’s so many but one of them is someone came up to us after a screening and said, “I get it, I understand the movie. Greener Grass is purgatory. And all these people are stuck between heaven and hell and trying to find their way around.” Another guy came up to us and said, “Everyone around me was laughing but to me this is not a comedy, it’s a tragedy, and I did not laugh.”

But he enjoyed it nonetheless?

Dawn Luebbe: (Laughs) I think so.

Jocelyn DeBoer: That was in Atlanta, Dawn, and he came back and saw it again. Our sound designer, Garrard Whatley, who was truly an incredible collaborator for us, he had a theory that the movie is all about loss. And that Jill’s son dies in the pool and the rest of the movie is everyone not being able to cope with that.

I get that read. That’s pretty good.

Jocelyn DeBoer: Yeah totally.

Dawn Luebbe: The other thing that has been fun is almost everyone we’ve gone in America, like when we were in Utah, people said, “This movie is about the Mormons. Like you guys must have grown up around Utah. This is about us.” Or in Florida, people said, “You guys grew up in Florida, right? This is exactly what this movie is about.” And every region of the US, there’s some people that swear that we made it about that place.

That’s brilliant. I’m assuming you guys have seen this movie a billion times throughout the editing process and all that jazz. What’s something that every time you see it still makes you burst out laughing?

Dawn Luebbe: This feels like an embarrassing question to answer…

Because it’s just your own performance (Laughs)

Dawn Luebbe: (Laughs) Exactly.

Jocelyn DeBoer: The thing for me is, it’s so silly, but I just love the moment, and this is a Beck and Neil moment, where at the middle soccer game Dawn’s husband Dennis impersonates ref and everyone laughs too hard at that. And during that, when people are laughing too hard, Beck shakes Dennis’s hand and he basically goes in for a second handshake, which always gets me. It’s just such a funny moment that he improvised and I just love.

Dawn Luebbe: There’s a few but one that kind of comes to mind is towards the beginning of the movie is just a very little thing in the first cheesy show you see in the Greener Grass world: the competitive cooking show. The host she does this turn, this pirouette, that she does with such confidence and poise but she does not stick the landing to but continues as though she did and it just makes me laugh every time. I guess I’m just a sucker for well-timed physical comedy.

And for the jokes you write. “I love those jokes.”

Dawn Luebbe: (Laughs) They’re the best.

That brings up another thing that I adore about this movie: all the little things that are going on in the background that you don’t necessarily draw attention to like the husband emptying change out of his pockets and he just has unlimited amounts of change, just pocketful after pocketful of change. Just all these weird little quirky happening. So where are these coming from in the creative process? Like is this something that actors are coming to you with or are you guys pretty loose going from the script to shooting?

Jocelyn DeBoer: The change moment, for example, was something that was always in the writing of the script. We had that spliced into the dialogue, “He takes out more change. Even more change. And even more change.” Of course, that was inspired by our dads. But I would say Dawn and I when we write, what did you say, we’re so choreographing the scene on its feet while we’re writing it. Like, what is everyone doing? Every moment and every layer in the scene we want to juice with something we think is fun or just right, just a comment or whatever, so I would say a lot of the times it was choreographed but we just had the most talented improvisers in our cast and they definitely added things, little behavior things. I’m trying to think of the best example. This is a little one but Mary Holland, she plays Kim Ann, the moment where I bring her a taco dip and she says, “Is that seven layer?” “No, it’s five.” And she started doing this thing of gesturing to put it on the floor. And we were like, “That’s so funny” and then she just saying, “Put it on the floor.” That wasn’t in the script at all but it was literally just a little behavior thing that was her first impulse when we were reading the scene. We love that line.

I figure I should wrap this up so I’ll ask just a few more questions here. As not only stars but writers and directors of this, what is wearing all those hats allow you guys the freedom to do that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to do in something that has more oversight and constraints.

Dawn Luebbe: We were so lucky to be able to wear all those hats and it truly, truly helps the movie to have one unified voice throughout and that’s a very general answer but I think, for example, as actors acting the words that you wrote that we did so much analysis in the writing, and draft after draft of every line, and we just knew the intentions inside and out for all of the lines, then getting to be in the edit and knowing so well all of the, you know, different departments and what they added because we were the people having the conversations with the costume department and the art department and really making sure in the edit that the best of everything comes through.

Jocelyn DeBoer: I wanna add that one thing you left off there is we’re also the executive producers and that is a huge thing in terms of streamlining the vision. Basically the funding of the movie went through our company and after we had the money, we were the only people that could make the final decisions about it. It was completely within our control and that was huge in terms of our creative vision, for obvious reasons. We could push for the things that we thought were the most important and no one could say no to us.

I love that and I think it’s fantastic that in modern entertainment we’re seeing more female duo comedy writers who are also starring and producing and so I gotta say, this movie was really a joy for me. I enjoyed it so much. I’m hoping you guys achieve cult comedy status for this because it’s perfectly ripe for a midnight movie filled with people drinking beer or whatever.

Jocelyn DeBoer: Well that’s our dream.

Is there anything else that you guys are working on for the future that you want to talk about?

Jocelyn DeBoer: While we work up the funding for “Greenest Grass” (laughs)…

Dawn Luebbe: Yeah, we are writing our next feature. It’s early days in the script-writing phase but we’re very, very, very excited about it.

Is it a similar situation where you’re starring, writing, directing, producing again?

Jocelyn DeBoer: Maybe? We’re still figuring that out. There’s a good chance but, we’ll figure that out.

‘Greener Grass’ is currently playing in NYC/LA and is available to rent via YouTube.

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