Talking with Robert Duvall of WILD HORSES

March 22, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Interviews, Robert Duvall, Wild Horses

With Wild Horses, Robert Duvall returns to the director’s chair after a 13 year stay of absence. Though he attempts to craft an unlikely movie with meaning inside the confines of a thriller/western, the film gets away from him. From our review;

“The proof-of-concept for Wild Horses is in the pudding: Robert Duvall in front of and behind the camera, festival “it” boy James Franco and once teenage heart-throb Josh Hartnett saddled at his side. Even though Duvall hasn’t directed a film since 2003’s widely panned Assassin Tango (what. a. terrible. name.) there is promise in the idea of the diverse trio hidden beneath cowboy brims mugging through difficult family dynamics. Duvall, Franco and Hartnet aptly square off but there is just so much wrong with Wild Horses that it’s hard to overlook its bumbling, clueless ways.” (Full review here)

Though we touch on the film and its “terrible” roots – his words not mine – Robert opens up about the awards season, his favorite films of the last few years, foreign film, young actors, his directorial style and roles that he’s offered now that he’s well into his 80s.

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Over the last decade, you’ve been somewhat choosy with your roles, and as a living film legend, you must get offers left and right?

RD: Well, some.

Not as much as you might think?

RD: Not as good.

Well still, even with what is coming down the pipeline, what in particular really attracts you to a project, or a film, or a filmmaker these days?

RD: The character, first. The character and the writing. And then the director, and then the overall script. But maybe if I can do something a little bit different with this character then I did before. Maybe. A little different. It’s always the character that is the initial impetus.

And when you’re looking at characters, are you mainly looking for someone you relate to, or do you mainly look for ways to experience something you haven’t already?

RD: Both. Yeah, just something different. Like I told people before, it really had been presented to me, and then it wasn’t. I wanted to play something related to Don Quixote. And when I did ‘Lonesome Dove’ Mark Tree was influenced by Cervantes, I had heard. Man on horseback, saving ladies, that kind of thing. Sometimes when you plan something, something else comes around the corner and surprises you that just takes over what you’re planning, so you never know what’s around the corner. This guy’s got a script for me to read – have you seen ‘Wild Tales’, by the guy Damian Szifron?

Yeah.

RD: Wow, what a film!

It was awesome.

RD: And now he has a film western, he wants to do. I owe it to him! He wants to go up and everything. But you know, I do have the rights to ‘The Days The Cowboys Quit’, the novel by Elmer Kelton, the great Texas playwright. He was one of the greatest Western writers of all time – a lot of people in Texas don’t even known him. He’s a great writer who died recently, who wrote a novel, a true story, about some cowboys who went on strike, which they never do. They don’t unionize for anything! But they want to strike, because the big ranch owners wouldn’t let them have small bands of horses and cattle. So AMC is going to do it as a two-part miniseries.

Is that something you would be directing, or starring in?

RD: Oh, no. I’m back off of it. I’ve had enough for a while. No, I would play a part, and help produce, and help attract good actors, because there are so many good actors. Young actors now are better than ever.

Who do you like, in particular?

RD: Well, the performance last year by McConaughey – Brando couldn’t have done better than that. Whether or not he’ll ever be that good again, I don’t know. His older brother is a good friend, he’s coming today – Rooster McConaughey, crazy fellow. Lot of good guys! I saw a thing the other day about Brad Pitt doing a part when he was young. People knock him, everybody criticizes him, but he was wonderful, Brad Pitt. And now Joaquin Phoenix could be good, in a certain way. There’s a lot of good actors around. To me, they’re better then ever – black actors, white, Spanish, this, that. There’s more of a chance for people to go into it. I saw this little film here, two years ago, ‘Dynamiter’, better than some of the big Hollywood pictures. They picked people off of the street to be in it – it’s very pure. So I like small films. Like ‘The Apple’, by the seventeen-year-old girl from Iran. She was seventeen years old! Anyone can pick up a camera, anywhere in the world, and do something.

Just last year you were nominated for your second Academy Award but at this point, when you’ve done the ceremony so many times…

RD: I have been a lot.

But it’s been fifteen, sixteen years?

RD: It’s been a while.

But is that something, when you go back into it, are you kind of exhilarated, or are you kind of over it?

RD: No, it’s exciting. I want [my wife] to experience it as well – it’s great, to have her there with me. It’s fine. It was so interesting, because I was sitting there, and this guy sitting behind me, this Russian guy who did this nice film, he was practicing his victory speech. It was great, because the script won! ‘Leviathan’.

A beautiful film.

RD: It was. Very moving. Ida was my favorite movie of the whole year.

There were some fantastic foreign films last year.

RD: A good second place was ‘Wild Tales’.

‘Force Majeure’ was also excellent.

RD: That was pretty good. I saw one recently, from Denmark, a couple of weeks ago.

So, you being both an actor and a director, what are some of the added challenges for you, when you’re doing both. I know that ever since ‘Angelo My Love’, back in 1983, you’ve been starring in all of your directorial debuts.

RD: Since then. I did one other, before then.

The documentary, ‘We’re Not the Jet Set’.

RD: I was the only professional actor in that. I used Egyptian actors, not Romanian, but Egyptian nationals. I always think that being a good actor comes from being a liar, or being a truthful person. But that Egyptian is amazing! It’s still action and cut. Instead of having some guy out there saying, “What do you think?” to the director, “Okay, let’s move on.” I don’t have any of that. I’m there by myself. I kind of trust myself. I’ve done it enough that I can kind of trust my instincts. I don’t even like to look at the monitor that much.

Really? Do you just kind of go by the feel of the take?

RD: Yeah. I know when something is right. I’m superstitious. By the time you get back to the monitor, maybe it’s no good. It looks good for me!

What is it that usually throws you off? “That wasn’t the right take. Let’s do that again.”

RD: Little things. “It’s okay. Let’s try it again.” When myself, or the other people are going too much offhand. Even the big, emotional scenes in life, sometimes, you do things. There’s always something offhand. Let the process take you to the result. I worked with a director once, an old-school, who said “When I say ‘Action’, you tense up, goddamn it!” Imagine saying that to Stossi, when he’s playing the bears? There’s a difference between intensity and tenseness. There’s a difference. But that’s unique to me. A lot of them – when I direct, I went back to tell the folks. I don’t do tests. He was like a mentor, without even talking to him. I saw actors who weren’t as good as they were in his movies, because he got them to be very natural. So I try and do that – to try and let them, like a horse, to give them some sort of freedom.

Speaking of horses, tell us about Wild Horses.

RD: It’s something I inherited. A guy from around here had written a screenplay that was not very good. There was something about it, I liked it. Because of the part of a lady Texas ranger. There were actually only three in Texas in real life. It was very chauvinistic. They have women rangers now. And I wanted her to play a woman ranger, even though she had played one in ‘Tanglewood’. That’s when she took up jiu jitsu and law enforcement and everything. Studying to play the part. I took a look at the movie, and I kept that on my ranch – I have a ranch in the movie. It’s a Western, but not just a Western. It’s a family thing. Fifteen years ago, it was different. I kicked my son off the ranch because he was gay. Which, you know, things were different then. Now, years later, he comes back to the family, to read the will and set things right, and there’s been a disappearing person. The day he left, his young lover disappeared. It’s almost like there’s been a crime, but no one can prove anything. So when he comes back, for the second time, the woman who lost her son, who disappeared, I got Luciana Padraza, do you know that actress, was in ‘Babel’? The woman who lost the baby in the desert? She has her own theater company in Florida. I went and found her and put her in the movie. She plays a woman whose husband dies, and he says, “When I’m dying, I want you to re-open the case, and find out what happened to our son who disappeared.” And with the Texas rangers, with a closed case, a cold case is never really cold. It’s always open. So she goes to her, because she’s a woman ranger, to re-open the case, to find him, and she said she would help. That’s when we find out what happened, what I might have done to make that young boy disappear. And it’s kind of like uncovering that, but without being heavy-handed. That’s what it’s about mainly, and the family.

So you said you thought the script itself wasn’t very good, but there were compelling elements?

RD: It was terrible. You don’t have to say not good.

It was terrible?

RD: It just didn’t work. She was going to start a fire in it. It just didn’t work. I wanted to keep the lady ranger. I just wanted to make it. We worked on it, and worked on it, and worked on it. I had Billy Bob Thornton read it, and give me his opinion. To get it okay. We raised some money, and had a lot of problems – the money, who’s in charge, we only had twenty-three days to film it. With the Judge, we had sixty days. We only had twenty. We just had to jump in and do it. We did it in Utah, for Texas, because it was cheaper. But Skull Valley, Utah looks just like West Texas. At one point we used real Texas Rangers, because they’re great natural actors, because the undercover work they do anyway. So we did this scene on the Rio Grande and he texts some real Rangers in Rio Grande City, Texas, this ranger in Utah texted them, and said, “What part of Texas is this?” I said, “Rio Grande City,” he said, “No, Utah.” So we found parts of Utah that sufficed. It was kind of a family drama, a family thing, a little bit of a crime. Once again, offhand. When you look up the word tale in the dictionary, tale can mean a lot. A tale can mean a lie, but a tale also means a story, a small story of fiction. So that’s where I took a quote from the Bible, “A tale that is told.” That’s what I said for the movie: “A tale that is told.”

Was the gay character already in the original script?

RD: Yes.

And you kept it?

RD: I kept that.

Because it’s a very current subject, I guess. People have been more open to it. You said he kicks him out because he’s gay.

RD: That was part of the original script. I had to give him something. He was a nice young man. We kept that in there. We got Franco, he does all these movies about gay guys. He can take a paragraph like this, and learn it in ten seconds. So that’s why I think he can direct four movies in one year. Because of his memory. And then we got Josh Hartnett to be in it. We got Pedraza. We got Angie Cepeda from Columbia. So we had a very good cast.

How was your collaboration with James Franco?

RD: It was okay. He’s a handful! He’s a legitimate handful. I worked with him years ago, and he seemed different then. He could ride horses better than anyone in Hollywood. He’s a very talented guy.

How do you get Josh Hartnett out from not doing films, and just doing television shows to do this? I haven’t seen him in anything for years.

RD: I wanted to get him because he’s serious. So we had him smile, we had improvisation, we got him out and laughing and he had different colors. So we just kind of called him up.

So you just sent him the script?

RD: Yeah. And he said okay. I’m coming in tomorrow! He’s a talkative guy. But Franco more! I’ve known Franco for years now. So I went to see him in a Broadway play, and I liked him, and I gave him the script. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I was like, “Oh, come on! New York!” He looked at me like I was a frickin’ doorman. Hundreds of people waiting outside of the theater for Franco. He’s got twelve-million people on his Twitter list, or whatever you call that. The only guy with more is Downey.

Do people still recognize you on the street?

RD: Me? Especially in Texas. From ‘Lonesome Dove’. But Franco, that’s another thing, and Downey.

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Talking With Ross Partridge of LAMB

March 19, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Interviews, Lamb, Ross Partridge, SXSW

One of the most interesting, complex films of SXSW 2015 to date is Ross Partridge‘s Lamb. With the film, Partridge subverts our psychological expectations, flipping a difficult concept on its head and bleeding it for all its unsettling, deep dramatic worth. From our review:

Not one to worry about getting too literal with their metaphors, Partridge frames the eponymous Lamb as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A predator preying upon the trust of an 11-year old, Lamb’s intentions are shape-shifting and piercingly hazy. On the one hand, Lamb seems like a man of good intent and could just be seizing the opportunity to shape the maturing innocence of a neglected child. In his own words, he just wants to show her something beautiful. On the other hand, ew. That sentence alone is enough to conjure up all the yucky sentiments of 45-on-11-year old action. We instinctually associate any relationship between a middle-aged male and a twig-framed girl with a very particular (read: vile) expectation. When he reaches out to brush hair out of her face, you cringe. Even if the gesture itself might be innocent. In Lamb‘s purgatory of good sense and bad taste, we never know exactly we should feel but that rarely stops us from feeling a whole damn lot. (Full review here)

I had the chance to sit down with Ross and really dive into the tender meat of Lamb. Though I would caution you to seek out the film and consume all its juiciness for yourself before diving too deep down our rabbit hole, this is still a fitting avenue to familiarize yourself with the man and his work.

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There’s so much going on here – it’s so complex. The material is so delicate, and so fragile, that the slightest miscalculation in performance or directorial choice would have really made this house of crumble.

RP: Yeah, for sure.

How do you approach the tone, in each and every scene? How did you make it out of this balancing act?

RP: I think, early on we knew the challenges of it. I knew that I had to be patient, and I had to allow myself the truth of each scene, and not worry about appeasing. Not try to think about what’s entertaining,. It wasn’t going to try and be, certainly, seducing in any way. Really, my whole goal with it was to not get in the way of the story from the beginning. I read this book, and I adapted it, and I was like, “If I can just not put an imprint on it in a way where you can feel my involvement,” which is obviously so big, as a director and a writer and an actor. But I just wanted to tell the story as simply, and as quietly, as possible so that people can feel it on their own. I wanted to make it as intimate as possible. Tone wise, it was just a process. I was always trying to think about other characters, and my character, as subtly as possible. To take my performance levels down and not try and push anything.

It’s funny that you say that you want to get out of the way of the material, because in a sense, that is the approach, but on the other hand, without the finesse that you bring to the directorial chair, this whole thing just falls apart. Because you directed it, you wrote it, you starred in it, how much of a mindfuck is taking on all of these roles on this one project, especially on a project that is, as I said, as fragile and delicate as this is?

RP: I sometimes don’t know but I think that’s the key. There’s very few experiences you have as an actor, and as a director, or just being in this business in any rung, that is blind faith. And you read something, you read a piece of material where, for the first time in my life, when I read this, I had no fear. At all. I contemplated how it would land with people but my desire to want to do this, and take this risk, were so strong. That had never happened to me. I’m not that kind of person. I don’t make decisions very quickly, except for on this, when I was directing. It all became very clear, and it was very certain all the time. So I think sometimes you just have to give up to that. In life, sometimes there’s things you give up to. There’s an instinct that you’re supposed to be doing exactly what you’re doing, right in this moment. I just kind of held on to it, to try and make it and to try and keep clear of that.

So both yourself and Oona are just phenomenal in the film, and so much of the movie rides on these performances. She blew me away!

RP: Can we talk about her forever?

Can we?

RP: For real.

I know that she won a Tony, and she was nominated for a Grammy at 10 years old. Is that basically where you found her?

RP: Yeah. The casting director was never like, “You have to meet this person; she won a Tony and was nominated for a Grammy.” The casting director – Alison Esher – she’s from New York, she’s known me for years. We have a great relationship. In the pursuit of casting this, we knew that if we didn’t have the right Tommy, we would never do it.

Oh, totally! It falls apart.

RP: So it’s like, “Okay, let’s start the process.” Alison, early on, said it wouldn’t be that difficult. “What do you mean, it’s not that difficult.” You hear about people searching for years. She said, ‘It’s not going to be that hard. There’s only about five girls who actually, probably can do this role. And you’ll know.” I think that makes me feel better – I’m not sure. We saw a lot of girls, and there were a few that I walked into the room, and I met Oona, and as soon as I walked in, she had these little glasses on, she was kind of in her own little world. She was like, “Hi, how are you?” Just was non-phased about everything. I just looked at her, and she was this young girl who was so much an individual, and confident in who she is, and was so unique an individual at 11-years old. It’s infectious.

So, at some point did you kind of sit her down and go, “Look, this is a really delicate role, and we’re playing with some really culturally touchy issues”? Was that a conversation you had with her parents, or with her, and how did that go?

RP: I felt like I was going to have to have that conversation, and that was a worry of mine, but it never happened, in the sense that it didn’t have to happen. Oona, we don’t give enough credit to kids, and how intelligent they can be. She got this right away. She totally got this. And there were other families who, the parents of other kids, who understood the compassion and the empathy we were trying to go after. I thought I was going to have to do the sales job, and really talk to them about why I was doing this, and what my intentions were. Oona’s mother had read the script, she was in Chicago – one of her other daughters was working on a movie – and Oona wasn’t going to audition because she was so busy. She was in school – she could have done after-school stuff. She could have cared less. Her mom read the script, and called her husband, and said, “You have to get Oona to this audition. She has to play this part.” I met them as we were considering – we sat and had lunch. We talked about everything other than that, because they were like, “We get this. And she gets this. We would be so thrilled to have her on this, and she gets exactly what it’s about. She really wants to do this.” The irony is that we cast her, and two days later, she got a call from Harvey Weinstein, who basically offered her the lead in Anton Fuqua’s movie ‘Southpaw’ that’s coming out with Jake Gyllenhaal. And there was actually a moment where our schedule… where we thought we might lose her. But Oona’s like, “I’m doing both movies. I’m not not doing them.”..The performance is just phenomenal. As I mentioned in my review, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her pick up a Supporting Actress nomination, even though she’s very much a lead here.

RP: Anything that comes her way, I think, is well deserved. We were constantly.impressed. On day two, we shot the end of the movie – the last scene in the movie, which is such an emotionally charged end. Her second take, even the boom operator was crying. We were all crying. You could hear people being emotional and we were like, “This is something so rare to see.”

On day two?

RP: On day two. From that moment, everyone was just so supportive, and knew there was something special in this girl, in this performance, and in this story. It was a real collective effort. Everyone from my producers Nell Eslen, who really took charge of this whole thing. Jenn, and Taylor Williams, who has the balls to fund a movie like this. I can’t give enough credit to someone like him, who says, “You know what? I see this. I want to be a part of something like this. It’s different. It’s unique. How many opportunities do you get to do that?”

We’re giving a lot of credit to Oona, as we should, but her performance really pivots on yours. And you are just so perfectly disorienting in the role. There’s just scene after scene where I’m literally just standing on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, like, “Oh God, he’s reaching out to touch her. Don’t do anything weird! Please don’t do anything weird.” You play that so perfectly. There’s just this fine line that you’re riding and threading the needle so carefully. For you, from a performance perspective, is this something you could define as a pinnacle in your career?

RP: I don’t really have any control over that. I know it was a huge opportunity when I read it. I was like, “Wow, this is such a complex character.” The main reason I wanted to play it so badly was not, “Oh, this is going to be an amazing career thing.” It’s just that I knew that in order to tell this story, the intimacy the actor would have to have with girl would be so monumental. I don’t think I could have translated that while working with another actor, while having the energy, and the dichotomy between that. I had to make sure it was right and that’s just one more step in making sure that those two actors actually get along, and that I have the trust between them. It was like instead of having a straight line, it would have been a triangle. And, ultimately, when playing the character, all the other stuff, the fine line and the tension that were there, I had to trust that all of that stuff would take care of itself, and that I always had to come at the character from a place of love. And that every action and everything that he did and said was really genuine, and for the best intentions, and for the best reasons. Sometimes that’s the way human beings are – I think they come from a place of goodness. The nurturing gets caught in the way of that.

And you don’t know where to direct that love in many circumstances. I think one of the many interesting dichotomies of the film is just what audiences bring to the film, our abject biases, right? You see a young girl and a forty-five year old guy traveling cross country, alarms are going off all over the place. In most every case, as they rightfully should. For how culturally unacceptable this relationship is, there is a thing of beauty and grace to it. Talk about what that is.

RP: I obviously agree with you. I think there is. We can go to movies all the time, and we can make moral judgements on less things, or we don’t make moral judgements on other things. People spend fifteen dollars and watch people mindlessly kill one another. And then all of a sudden, this becomes a huge thing. THAT becomes entertainment to us. Nobody questions that anymore, at all. And so, I find it ironic when people are so pissed and up in arms about this. It’s like, these are human emotions, and people are frail and people make mistakes. And yet, where does our empathy lie, and how far will we go? And how will we actually cure the ills of our past or the ills of our future, if we can’t find a little more empathy in the world, and try and really understand, instead of immediately judging. To watch people just kill each other, I don’t go to those movies because I just get nothing out of them. That’s where we are, as a society. That’s become okay but a relationship that’s built on complexity, and you can’t really define what it is, that is less easy to see. People want to say, “He’s a monster,” or “He’s disgusting.” It’s not there. People want it to be. It’s like a Rorscach test.

And that’s where this movie thrives. It’s these expectations… you saddle up to them, you look over the edge, but you never cross that precipice, and that’s what makes it so fascinating and so interesting.

RP: Yeah. People have mostly agreed. We were testing it all along. It’s exciting that people are seeing the movie the way you’ve seen in. The story within is actually far more satiating than the confines of our own judgements, at this point. People are excited to be questioned, and they’re excited to feel something they can’t idenitfy. That becomes a new experience. Hopefully, it’s worthwhile.

And that, again, is another reason why this film is such a breath of fresh air. It takes you in these directions that you don’t anticipate and that comes down to the source material. I haven’t read the book, but I plan to – I’m so intrigued, and I’m so compelled to read it now. Can you talk about it. I read in the press notes that you were immediately like, “This has to be turned into a movie.” But what was that thought process and the process of it becoming a film and also some challenges that you didn’t anticipate?

RP: Right. Well, when I read the book, I immediately knew that I wanted to make the film. The rights weren’t available – a very well-known actor had the rights before me, and he was trying to develop it before me.

Really? Can you say who?

RP: He’s one of my favorites. I love him as an actor, too. Kyle Chandler had the movie rights. I think it’s okay to say. He was so busy, and he and his wife were going to team up on how to do this thing, but his schedule got crazy. He and the author are still friends, and it was a real honor to have him there. I just wanted to make it, and the challenges of it were the poetry of it. The language of David Lamb is what I wanted to hold on to as much as possible, because I felt that the heightened language he spoke in was so reminiscent of his heightened belief in who he can become. Somebody other than himself, somebody completely otherworldly, because he’s so stuck in this banal world of bleakness. He wants to believe in something better and more beautiful. Keeping that language was going to be tricky. I said this before; the first two-thirds of the movie made sense to me, in the book, but the ending, the climax of this film is a very psychological climax. It’s not action based, it’s more of an emotional peak. So, how do I make that as intriguing as possible? Ultimately, it was a feeling of relief, obviously. That would be climactic enough, keeping the tension and the stress of trying to figure this out. And then, finally, we start releasing. We give it in a way that offers some hope, in a very strange way. All the things that you want to think this person is, he doesn’t turn out to be. You don’t get that feeling, “Oh, I knew he’s going to do this.” Actually, you get just the opposite. You have to question everything about this character, because he’s just the opposite.

It’s funny that you mention the third act, and this idea of release, because, for me, I felt like until the very last frame of the movie, I didn’t let out a breath of air. Because you’re still so much on edge, even until that very final moment! Even then, fade to black, and you just have to process it. It was a film that I sat there for 10 minutes afterwards, dissecting in my head how I felt about it. That’s an unfortunately rare experience in this industry – where you actually have to think after a movie.

RP: There’s a moment in the credits, where’s there an extended period of black, before the first credits come up. The credit is the directing credit. It wasn’t like I wanted to keep it in black the whole time, but I felt like I didn’t want to put names on the screen right away. I felt like people would really be effected, hopefully, and wanted to give it as much time as we possibly could, where they could just be a little bit neutral for a little while, listening to this beautiful song by Angel Olson, a spectactual song. It was almost like, if you could just sneak the credits in, on the side, people are not going to be in the frame of mind to just start reading credits.

Also, going off the end of it, one thing I couldn’t stop think about was, what are the implifications and the ramifications of the events in this film? I just wonder where is she five years down the line? Where is he, ten years down the line? Is this something that crossed your mind?

RP: Oh, of course. Actually, the last day of rehearsal with Oona, we rehearsed together for about a week in New York – my last question to her, before we actually would have seen each other later in Wyoming, was, “I just want to know what you think.” The characters dropped off in the end, and you say goodbye. Where do you go? And she literally, without a beat, said, “I go home, and I tell my parents that I ran away for a while. And then I go into my room. I probably take a shower. And then I go about my life.” And I’m like, “Do you tell anybody what happened?” And she says, “No. Because he gave me something that I think is going to be a gift. It’s going to help me.” So that was the hope. To hear it from an 11-year old girl, at the time that we’re making the movie, that that’s how she assessed it, I was like, “If an 11 year old can understand this so clearly, then hopefully everyone else can.”

Then there’s hope for the rest of the world.

RP: You would think. My character, I believe, this is the one opportunity to make a lasting imprint on something, on somebody, before his demise. I’m not so hopeful for Lamb, I’m not so hopeful for his outcome. I know that there’s a moment in it, for him, like he always does – that’s he’s so conflicted about it, like he’s this awful person or beast, but yet, he’ll smile, once or twice, in memory of what she gave him, and what he gave her, and maybe that might make some sort of difference in his life, if it continues, at all.

That’s one of the things that’s interesting about Lamb as a character, is his acute awareness of who their situation could be interpreted, and you see that played out in so many moments, particularly in the moment when the girlfriend…

RP: Lydia.

Yes, arrives in a cab. And you’re like, “Oh no! This is going to be a disaster!” And it kind of is a disaster. That’s another thing where I’m like, “What happens there? What does she do with that information?” But I think, for him, there is a semblance of a spiritual rejuvenation, in his ability to give his love away, in a very pure, almost non-reciprocating way. He’s not doing it to gain something, necessarily.

RP: I don’t think he’s capable of gaining. I think that he wishes he was capable of gaining love he could have received; from his dad; from his mother, who split…

From his wife…

RP: From his wife. From his younger brother. Here’s a guy who’s just so damaged. It’s just too painful when someone says to him, “I want to love you. I want to care for you.” He doesn’t think that he deserves it and he’s probably very angry, and he doesn’t understand how he’s capable of being loved. And if people put that on him, he doesn’t respect them. “Why would they want to do that?” That’s not the right thing. It’s really sad. There’s a part of the movie, that’s always one of my favorite parts, when he’s out with Tommie, and he’s talking with her while his girlfriend is there, and he says, “Do you promise me that you will always call me Gary?” Which is not his name, which is the person he would do anything to be, to be anybody other than who he is. That’s really hard – it’s heartbreaking.

I guess, kind of in conclusion here, where are you headed to next? Are you planning on directing another feature?

RP: Yeah. We just literally finished, so I’m planning on doing another feature, sooner rather than later.

Behind the camera?

RP: Behind the camera. The next one, I’m not sure I’ll be acting in. I don’t feel the necessity to be acting in all of the movies. And, in fact, one of my favorite experiences on this shoot was when I just got to direct, with Scoot and Mary and Lindsay Pulsipher and other people who are in scenes. That will be, definitely, the trajectory – to find another great piece of material, whether I write something or not. We’ll be touring this around for some time, I’m sure.

Where are you headed to next?

RP: We’re not sure. We have a few festivals that are reaching out, and we’re just kind of still just here at the premiere stage. We’re hoping to get it in as many places as possible.

Joe Swanberg, Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt Talk DIGGING FOR FIRE

February 9, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Digging For Fire, Interviews, Jake Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Sundance 2015

Joe Swanberg‘s got a Joe Swanberg way of making movies. Working with a cast of hot shot, big name, creme da la creme names though means Swanberg being, well, a little less Swanberg-y. Instead of just “going for it” with Digging for Fire, Swanberg penned his most complete script yet. About ten pages worth of it. But such is the Swanberg way. Have I said Swanberg enough yet?

Although we had some minor issues with Digging for Fire at its Sundance premiere, the mumblecore maestro nonetheless managed to sink his independent teeth into some interesting territory with a stunning barrage of talent, including Jake Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston, Sam Elliot, Orlando Bloom, Sam Rockwell, Melanie Lynskey, Chris Messina and a glorified cameo from Jenny Slate. Swanberg, Johnson and DeWitt took to the stage to explore the meaning of Digging for Fire and to illuminate the process of Swanberg filmmaking, from making kids cry to spontaneously hanging dong. Read More

Leslye Headland, Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie Talk SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE

January 30, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Alison Brie, Bachelorette, Interviews, Leslye Headland, Sleeping With Other People, Sundance 2015

It’s 2015 and there are no less than 20 apps that serve to guide desperate, lonely people towards other desperate, horny people. And yet, solitude and loneliness is an issue people face more and more. The growing divide between sexual satisfaction and emotional closeness is one that interests director Leslye Headland of Bachelorette and now Sleeping With Other People. Joined by Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie, Headland revealed – in riotous fashion – what her creative process looked like (a lot of on-set crying), what it was like working with the actors, knowing where to draw the line and her many, many movie references.

Leslye Headland: I’m sure you guys have been sitting out there since 5 a.m. or something. It’s like a Grateful Dead concert. I think that just dated me. I can hear them say my name, I’m on cloud nine! Look at all these god damn motherfuckers! You perverts, what are you doing here at 5 a.m. in the morning. Holy shit! I’m going to introduce some people who are going to do this Q & A with me. We’re so excited to talk to you about the movie, and answer any questions you might have. We’re just so excited, and so proud of this film.

Q: How much of the acting was improvised, and how much was written?

LH: Do you guys want to talk about that?

Alison Brie: Most of it was written, a large percentage of it was written. The script was so tight, and so amazing, from the get go. But Leslie was so wonderful about letting us loosen it up, and discover little idiosyncrasies between Jake and Laney. Obviously, Jason Mantoukas and Andrea Savage did a fair amount of improv in their scenes; the end credit bit was fully improvised. And this guy comes up with really amazing, funny stuff all the time. It’s really fun, so much of it was scripted, but it’s also fun to see the things that made it in.

Jason Sudeikis: As far as improvisation goes, I think it’s kind of a misnomer, even with us not burning film anymore, it all being digital, which you can delete and re-format and save money on. It’s not just, “Roll the camera, and do something until you find something. Say whatever you want.” Because there’s the danger of inventing some new set that hasn’t happened. I mention, “I work at NASA.” That’s bad improv. Then Jess is like, “Great! Now I’ve got to add a space station to the set!” So a lot of it more comes in terms of fast re-writing, just sort of bantering through the rehearsals, which we did. And I think Leslie, coming from the theater, you don’t have that six weeks before you show it in a preview. And then this, especially in an independent film, we’ve only got five takes, and we’ve got to move the camera. We got to do shit, we’ve got stuff to do. We’ve got a space station to get to! So the idea of it being improvised is a misnomer. You’ve just got to think of the script, and Leslie’s words, and Leslie’s heart and soul, as being a jumping off point, almost like a suggestion in an improv show. You try to improvise within the character, within the tone. It’s all about being inspired by the original voice, and the voice you’re given, as a character, from the writer, and in this case, the director as well, coming through that. It’s less making things up on the fly, it’s more about catching the wave that’s already there.

Q: I don’t think anyone’s going to look at a green tea bottle again. Can you talk a little bit about that choice?

LH: I did let Jason pick the bottle. We brought like three of them, and I was like, “Which one do you want to use?”

JS: I was in the bathroom…

LH: And you bought him dinner?

AB: Glass bottles, dinner, and the best woman blood.

Q: Did everyone know one another, before the film, or was this the first thing that brought you together?

LH: I met Jason about three years ago, right before I started shooting ‘Bachelorette’. He’s heard me tell this story a million times now, I was so… we met up, and I thought it would be sort of like, “Hi…”, “Hello…”; and we sat there for like three hours; it was a long time. I just thought, “This guy is so fucking special. His point of view is so unique.” We just talked about everything, from theater, to film, to our personal lives, it’s like a real artistic connection there. I just thought, “I really want to write this guy something. I really want to write a love story, where he’s the lead. He’s the guy.” Because I think that’s one of the things that’s so hard about making a romantic comedy, right now, are the leads. They’re usually so, they don’t have any problems. It starts out, and the girl’s got everything, except the right penis to stick inside her! And Jason’s just a complicated, awesome person, and so I was inspired by meeting him, and the work he’s done. I’m probably the largest ‘Community’ fan there is, out there. When I met Alison, it was like… I kept it together, for like fifteen minutes at least, I acted cool. Then I was like, “I’ve seen every episode of ‘Community’ at least three times.” I’ll be at home, hanging out, and I’ll be like, “Let me just watch community again. Let’s just do that.” She was someone I always wanted to work with, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know her, socially, and she had read the script, and she was kind enough to come in, and meet me, and it was just love at first sight. And I got to see them read together, as well, which was really exciting, because I think that so much of a romantic comedy is the sound… it’s one of the first genres, where they introduced sound to film. Here you go, 20th century. When I heard them speaking to each other, I was like, “This is the sound of people falling in love with each other.” And I think you guys were talking about nothing. Shooting the shit, and I was like, “We’re going to make some money off of that.” The first time we were rehearsing, and they were rehearsing the drinking scene, and we didn’t have a glass bottle, and Jason was just sort of saying the lines, “glug, glug, glug”, and he started doing it. And I was like, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” My dad’s going to kill me! This has to be in the movie. So many people have to see this. Anyone with retinas is going to see this. Anyway, a long-winded answer, but as you can tell, I’m brimming with love for these guys. This movie’s my heart, and they met me so hard. They didn’t flinch once, man. I came at them, hard, and they came right back at me. I’m so proud of their performances, and of the film itself.

Q: Discuss the challenge of keeping the tone right.

LH: Oh, the tone. That’s one of those ethereal words, isn’t it? Keeping the tone right… I don’t really know how to answer that question, because I feel like it’s something that’s usually very difficult. With this film, even when I watched the assembly – if you don’t know what an assembly is, it’s when you basically see the entire movie cut together. It’s usually about three hours long. And you basically think, “Why did I do this? Why did I decide to become a director? I’m going to fade away into obscurity, and everyone’s going to find out that I’m a hack.” Maybe I should just go kill myself, in a peaceful way. And no one will ever see this. And so, that’s usually the reaction. And I have to say, when I saw the assembly, the tone was really there, already there. It is a little bit magical chemistry, kind of thing that I’m really grateful for. It wasn’t something at the forefront of our minds. We put a lot of work, my department heads did a lot of work. My editor, my production designer, my costume designer, my DP, line producer, Jessica, everybody.

AB: I want to say something about this, because I want to give you more credit! A lot of the material, especially with the Sobvechik/Laney scene, could be very intense! And I think that Leslie was very great about taking the temperature of it, every time we were shooting it, and getting a read on, like, “Okay, we’ve done the REALLY intense version. And now let’s do some where no one’s going to slit their wrists, right away.” And things like that. And I was also going to say, because I think it’s funny, with Adam’s schedule, we had to shoot all the Sobvechik scenes, the first week of production. And it was super weird, because we kept being like, “Are we just making a sexual, psychological thriller? What is this movie? It’s crazy intense!” And then Jason, suddenly, would have a scene, with some casual walking time, and we’d be like, “It’s fun and bubbly! Oh, thank God!”

LH: Poor Jessica would be like, “Holy shit!” I also wanted to add to that, the Adam Brody scene, in which Adam was so incredible in. He did me such a solid, to come in for one day, and do that scene. I just remembered, that day…

AB: I want to immediately piggyback on it, before you even get to say anything about it! Also, what you were saying about it, in terms of, not necessarily improving, but Leslye’s so great with rehearsal, that even without a lot of time, we would get to set, read through the scene, and figure it out. The Adam Brody scene, which I think plays so funny, and he’s so funny in it, but meanwhile, Laney’s going through really deep emotions! And it’s just one of those things, when we first got there, it was like, “Here’s the super serious version. Here’s the more silly version. Where’s the happy medium?” And once it finally clicked, everyone was like, “Ah, it’s clicking.” I think the same way, with the bottle fingering scene, that even going into it, Leslye was like, “All right guys, I hope this doesn’t turn out super creepy.” The more we did it, it ended up being sweet and romantic, I think. It was just great, and educational!

Q: With all of the references you made, you really reveal yourself as a movie nerd.

LH: You mean the movie references? Yes, absolutely! I’m a human. Speaks English. All of the references were very planned. I’m a huge, huge film nerd; really, it’s my first love, it’s my only love. Literally, the first shot is clipped from ‘The Shining’, that’s a shot from ‘The Shining’. When she sees Sobhichev on the bridge, that’s a sequence from ‘Jaws’. Jake’s first line to her, the ginger reference, is from ‘Casablanca’, and is also referenced in ‘When Harry Met Sally’, not to mention all the references to ‘When Harry Met Sally’, including the text montage. It’s almost exactly like the voiceover, when they’re on the phone with each other. It’s how people will spend their whole days interacting with each other, even though they may never see each other. Especially ‘Graduate’ references, from ‘The Graduate’… it’s a great film, I get a little bored after Mrs. Robinson leaves, but she deserves her own movie… Maybe that’s the next one. But yeah, they were all very planned. I think it’s just because I love movies. I think even the last shot, her and Ann… I love movies. I love referencing them, because they are my church, they’re my lover, they’re my friends. In a weird way, when you’re referencing things, you’re just saying thank you for being there, in a weird way. You’re just saying, “Thank you for giving me a chance to do this, and as a result, I’m going to give you a loving butt tap.” ‘The Graduate’ booty touch. Hashtag that, guys. I don’t know how to spell it.

Q: Can you illuminate us on the choreography of the fight scene? How was that all worked out?

JS: It was always… in the script, both Alison’s sex scene, and my sex scene, with Amanda, with the character, and the fight scene, were all conceived in the written way as being done in masters – only one shot, all the information. For the sex scenes, it’s a nice little lithmus test, seeing what kind of gumption the people reading it would have. It was like, “Would you be willing to do this? We’re not going to have you do this.” I asked him if we were really going to show d’s in b’s and penetration, the day before… Not that I’m shy with that kind of stuff. I just made the assumption that we probably would be bucking for an NC-17. But the fight scene maintained that, and it was done with that one tracking shot. I can’t remember how many takes we did; it was really hot that day. We had to do the fight choreography, with great stunt guys, and that was probably a couple of hours, and little bit, piece by piece, learning it. It was kind of like a dance – this, and this, and this, and sort of added things to it. Adam was super into it. He and I had tons of mutual friends, as well; we all kind of met during this movie. Pertaining to the fight scene, it was very intimate. You don’t want to hurt someone, or get a boner, or not get a boner. There’s all this stuff – your right brain’s in a different mode than your left brain. You’ve got to hit your mark, but you can’t hit it too hard. We’re just constantly checking in, right-click, and the foley sound effects help. It really makes it look like I’m hitting him harder. I remember watching, before the sound was done, and I was like, “I look like a first season WWE wrestler.” I didn’t have quite the comfort level, as the rest of it, but I see it here, and it all flows. I was standing outside, and I heard you guys react to it. I heard the music shift. My friend Julian and I were like, “It sounds like a horror movie, all of a sudden!” I didn’t realize that until I was watching it, then you hear the audio, it helps tremendously, to add that visceral nature to the fight. It was just checking in – I think we did three takes of it, only. No cutaways, or anything like that. And that was all written.

Q: With the synergy of the cast, was that something that was difficult to conceive and get together and make it all work?

LH: I would love to speak to the cast, and how that all came together, but I can say that once everyone was together, I really put my entire heart on the line with this film, emotionally. I cried on every take – even funny takes. Coming up to them, and really giving them that energy, “here it is.” Really not speaking a lot, or giving a lot of direction, but just standing and in this case, with Jason and Ali and Eva, especially Adam… Adam Scott… I think I gave Adam one piece of direction, the whole movie. The energy was so reverberating, and really experiencing it, emotionally, telepathically, spiritually, with the actors, as opposed to dictating to them, “Do this thing.” Because I feel like many directors do not do this – I feel like it is my job to make myself emotionally vulnerable for the actors, and to stand there with them, and go, “I know this is hard.” I have lived these moments, not specifically in the movie, but I’ve had heartbreak. I’ve had romantic obsessions. I’ve had rage. And I want to be there with you guys, and I want to feel that with you. Once we’re together, I felt like that was the emotional glue that held us together. I don’t know if you want to talk about the actual physical act of putting everybody together, really brainstorming about who should be in this movie.

Q: Please tell us a little more about your creative process, Leslye.

LH: That’s a great question but really difficult to answer. It’s incredibly ethereal; it’s weird. I had an ex that called it “montage-ing”; I’ll just go out and walk around. I’ll listen to music, or see a lot of films. I’m inspired, definitely, by things that happen in real life. I think if you’re an aspiring writer, give yourself that time to just stew in it. A lot of the ideas that this movie came from, are nothing like this movie, if that makes sense. Even the first idea I had for this movie, the very first inkling, was to tell ‘Fatal Attraction’ from Glenn Close’s point of view. And that’s where I came up with the character of Laney. I was like, “What if we just told it really sympathetically?” This poor chick is REALLY obsessed with this guy, and he’s being a dick! And definitely Jake’s pattern, the way that he spoke – I don’t if I ever told you this – not really by Jason, who I really wanted to work with, but I remember seeing Jen going… and watching Christoph Waltz just talk people into everything. I was like, “What if there was a dude who could just talk his way into everything!” His motive, instead of revenge, was just pussy. There’s this weird little balls that go on. For me, the creative process is just noticing which ones fall by the wayside, as you continue to gestate the idea, and you start doing drafts, and re-writes, and then starting to collaborate with the actors and getting their input, The wheat gets separated from the chaff, and you start to really see what the movie’s going to be, and what the story’s going to be. As far as comedy goes, which is really what your original question was, I had no idea that I was a funny writer. When I first did this, when I first started producing my plays, in black box theaters and basements and stuff. I was just mortified, when people started laughing at it. I thought I had written ‘Glengary Glenn Ross’, and I was like, “Here you are. The female voice of a generation.” And people were just like, laughing, they were dying, and I was just like, “God damn it!” No one is ever going to take me seriously. I think the key to comedy is, don’t write jokes, write people. I put that in a piece I wrote, about last night, this kind of heart thing that I wrote. I really don’t come from a place of jokes. I’ve gotten better at writing them, I think, but I really want to start with the characters. People are very funny, and pain is very funny. You can just trust that, if you’re working on something, that’s coming from your heart. If you want it to be funny, don’t worry too much about… but maybe you’ll disagree, though, with, like, SNL, and Joe Friday, and things like that. I just come from a place of “Are these people speaking truthfully?”

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Nick Nolte Talks A WALK IN THE WOODS

January 24, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged A Walk in the Woods, Interviews, Nick Nolte, Sundance, Sundance 2015

Of all the issues I had with A Walk in the Woods (our review) – the telling of Bill Bryson’s failure to complete the Appalachian Trail – Nick Nolte was not amongst them. In fact, he was the solitary beacon of hope shining through a film that otherwise stank of mediocrity. After the screening, the infamously crazed actor looked older than ever, shambling to a chair with the help of friends and family. You see, following the filming of Woods, Nolte had a full hip replacement. His spirits, medium-high, he sat to ironic applause and answered a few ambling questions with surprising tact and clarity. For such a wild man, Nolte has an astute, somewhat rambling outlook on nature, film and the great American trail. And nothing can beat out that gruffalo growl of his.

Q: Did you do all your own stunts while filming A Walk in The Woods?

Nick Nolte: Yeah, I did everything, except the one fall. Bob did that. We didn’t think we could survive it, but we felt that we had an obligation to finish the film. It was truly amazing area. It was like an hour-and-a-half to the location, by car or van, and there were the camels, or donkeys, and a couple of horses, and four-wheeled vehicles. And Bob would ride up on a horse. I was going to try a camel – he spit a lot – but I went up on a four-wheeler instead. The trouble was that they wouldn’t let Bob hold the reins of the horse. I guess they felt questionable over insurance responsibilities. So Bob got upset, and walked up the hill, which was quite brave of him. I always admired him for that. We’d get up there, and there he’d be… and of course all the guys would be up there and they’d say, “Oh, this is a great part of the trail. We can shoot this and this and this.” He would go up to the edge of the cliff, “Oh, you can come up here.” Well, let’s look at it first. Look out over everywhere. I thought we would run into a lot of hikers; we didn’t. We had to use a lot of actors, you know, to be hikers. Not a lot of people ever finish the Appalachian Trail. There are people who have walked it, straight through. It’s not a one summer deal. There are people who walk it for years. The trail runs about two miles from my farm in New York. There’s just a stake stamped into the ground, you know, a metal stake. And it’s up to the states to take care of the trail. It’s an amazing trail, because it had Thomas Jefferson’s dad’s initials up there, because he always said about the Appalachians that it was the barrier of America. We didn’t know what was west of that. It was quite a discovery, when we came upon that.

Q: Would you say that this filming experience changed you in any way?

NN: Oh, yeah. Every film does. They all change you. With this one, there’s a broader perspective. First of all, I didn’t ever imagine I’d be playing a contemporary guy. I’m not necessarily an easy contemporary person. I have a lot of nervousness and anxiety, fear and such… It was very strange to be getting into that, when you’re at this moment, just now, this is it, this is what we play. And Bob, too, I know it’s a struggle with Bob. Originally it was supposed to be Paul Newman and Bob, and Paul died. Paul had offered me a role in a cowboy film he had, and it took a week for me to read, three or four times, and finally told Paul, “Look, it’s a deputy that has to transport ten hookers from his town to another town. I don’t quite understand the humor.” And Paul said, “That’s exactly what Redford says!” We did agree on that.

Q: You said that the third main character of the film was the trail. One of the threads that runs through is the exfoliation of the whole forest, the appreciation of the environment, the whole thing, the awe and wonder of the natural world. How do you see that, given the crises the natural world is in, and the responsibility of the society to see that?

NN: Awe is probably the quality that the artist tries to achieve. But nature itself achieves it. Any activity that goes beyond what we think can be done, and it goes beyond that, creates a state of awe. It’s a very important state, and it’s very hard to create that, on film, or athletics, or whatever. Nature is a great provider of that, and that’s why we’ve got to… we can’t let it become mundane to us. We can’t get egotistical about nature, and consider it secondary, and “Oh, I’ve seen that.” No, you haven’t seen that. You haven’t seen what nature can do. We do have to become partners with it.

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Talking with Chloe Grace Moretz of IF I STAY

August 20, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Chloe Grace Moretz, Gayle Forman, If I Stay, Interviews

At the tender young age of 12, Chloe Grace Moretz suited up in purple spandex and dropped profanities like a pirate’s parrot. Offensive to some and provocative to all, her role as Hit-Girl exposed her to the world in a big way and it was a career moved that has since paid off ten-fold. She’s since starred in films such as Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo, the American horror remake of Let the Right One In, Let Me In, Marc Webb‘s beloved indie flick (500) Days of Summer, Kimberly Peirce‘s remake of Carrie, Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows and just this year filmed Laggies under Lynn Shelton with Keira Knightley. I would invite you to find a younger actor alive today who’s worked with such big names, but it wouldn’t be worth you time. You simply couldn’t.

Unfortunately, Moretz’s latest effort, an adaptation of Gayle Forman‘s popular teenage trag-mance (tragic romance) If I Stay, is a total miff. Nevertheless, Chloe had a chance to talk through her career and how she’s gracefully transformed from a little vitriol-spitting hero into a talented young woman with a long career in front of her.

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First off, let’s start with the cello. Your characters plays the cello in the movie, it’s an “instrumental” part of her character. Obviously there’s a little bit of movie magic going on with you actually playing it, unless you’re really that killer at the cello….

Chloe Moretz: No.

So talk a little bit about that. Do you actually play any cello? Do you play any other instruments?

CM: Pretty much, I trained for about seven months on the cello, to kind of learn it, and understand it. The biggest part of it was the emotionality, because I couldn’t learn that intricate of an instrument that quickly, so the number one was always learning the emotionality of it.

The passion behind it.

CM: Yeah, the passion behind it, and how it kind of takes over your entire body, as you play the cello. You become one.

So, are there any complete pieces that you can play?

CM: No. I had it in my hands, and I learned a couple of Bach pieces, and stuff like that, but as I was saying, I could get down the physicality of it, but the sound that was coming out of it was pretty horrific.

Fake it until you make it, if you will. It definitely looks like you’re ripping on it, so that’s good.

CM: That’s because they did a little bit of digital face replacement. My double’s sick!

You’ve worked with some great directors, so far. You’re only seventeen years old and you’ve worked with Scorsese, Tim Burton, Matt Reeves, Matthew Vaugh, Marc Webb etc. Has there ever been a moment when you’re going to one of those meetings, and you meet a movie legend like Martin Scorsese, and you are starstruck and taken aback?

CM: I think, I kind of look at it now where I’m kind of sad that I did that, that I did ‘Hugo’ when I was thirteen, because I had no clue. I had no idea what it meant to work with Martin Scorsese. It wasn’t like that, I understood it, but I didn’t UNDERSTAND it, you know what I mean? I look at him now, and I see him again, and I’m like “Oh my god! You’re in front of me, and I’m talking to you!” And then I remember, we made a movie together for like ten months. I know you really well. It’s funny, I just wish that I had done it when I was a little bit older, so I could comprehend what it meant.

Speaking of being a little bit older, rather a little bit younger, your vulgar introduction to the world was in “Hit Girl” in Kick Ass. I’m wondering, what did that do to the trajectory of your career, starting off in such a controversial way?

CM: Honestly, I think it helped me, because I didn’t start off playing the little sister, I didn’t start off playing the little kid. So no one ever had, in their mind’s eye, things like, “Little Baby Chloe”, it was more like adult Chloe. My transition into being more of an adult actor hasn’t been as hard for me as some, who do Disney and everything else. It’s a bit more intricate for them to have to try to make that swift change from child to adult.

And what kind of personal impact has this had on you, compared to some of your peers and contemporaries, around your same age?

CM: I mean, no personal impact, I think it’s just kind of helped my career a little bit. Personally, I’m the same kid. Maybe I’m a little bit less sheltered than probably a little bit more normal kid…

Right, because you don’t have to make that shiny, glimmery transition to adulthood.

CM: I don’t have to lie, yeah.

At this point in your career, you’ve done a lot of strong work, but you haven’t been in any big franchises, as of yet.

CM: No, not until Fifth Wave starts! I’m actually starting my next franchise on September 20th, called The Fifth Wave.

The Fifth Wave, can you tell me a little bit about that?

CM: It’s Rick Yancey’s new trilogy. Basically, it’s based on this alien invasion, and there’s this girl who’s trying to find her brother, to rekindle her life.

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Talking With Mark Duplass of THE ONE I LOVE, CREEP, and THE LEAGUE

August 12, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Creep, Interviews, Mark Duplass, SIFF 2014, SXSW 2014, The League, The One I Love

Mark Duplass threw his hat into the entertainment mix as a founder of the mumblecore movement before joining up with FX‘s the surprise hit tv show, The League. Since then, he’s associated with filmmakers big and small, working on Oscar nominated films (Zero Dark Thirty) and indie gems (Safety Not Guaranteed) alike. This year, Duplass has been seen on the silver screen in Creep, Tammy, and The One I Love and on television in The League, The Mindy Project and Togetherness. If you’ve watched a screen at some point, it’s likely you’ve seen the man’s face. So why is he so worried about burning out or becoming irrelevant?

Join me as I talk with Mark in detail about Creep, The One I Love and The League about a gamut of what his career means and where he thinks it may be going.

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One of the things I really like about the film was the concept really reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode from way back in the days. Mark, I was wondering when you are creating your characters for this, did you go about it thinking like, “Ok, these guys are both Ethan. There’s one more kind of normal version and then the more idyllic version” or did you approach it as if they were two entirely separate characters?

Mark Duplass: I don’t want to get too much into the specifics because we’re really trying not to spoil the plot- the fact that there are two characters. We watch people watch this movie- those who know that enjoy it a lot less than those who don’t know it. So we are going to try and hold that information, but I will say, as an actor this was a very new type of role for me. Part of this is something I’m very comfortable with and done a lot of, being in sort of like fumbley rom-com mode I feel good- I know what to do there. And then there’s another side of this that I’ve never really done before. So it was at once a little scary doing that but at the same time I did have one foot in the door that I understood.

Mark, you’re obviously used to seeing yourself on screen, but was it like a somewhat new experience being like, “That’s really weird- two of me up there!”

MD: Yeah. It’s interesting when you’re basically approaching a character that has all of these different facets to it. Essentially you are going to be playing something that is very much not like you, you know? Sometimes you approach a role and you’re like, “I’m going to play myself. I’m going to do a very good version of myself in this and I’ll do well.” And I always feel very comfortable watching myself do that. In a movie like “Creep”, which is also here at the festival, it’s uncomfortable for me to watch that. In a movie like “The One I Love,” there are things I do in the film that seem very strange to me- but it’s always interesting to watch.

Can you talk a little bit about what it was like working with Elizabeth and how you built your chemistry together?

MD: It is incredible how she can click in like that. We were a big group of collaborators. There was a core group: Mel Eslyn, our producer that lives in Seattle, and me and Charlie and Justin, our writer, and Lizzy. I would say we were probably the five core team of really getting the thing going; obviously the whole crew was important. Lizzy is first and foremost an actress and very much started that way, but then by day two, by day three, by day four- as we’re discussing character and improvising a lot of things – she started to turn much more into a filmmaker and started to become aware of the filmmaking process and became a co-filmmaker with us. I, on the other hand, I’m always half filmmaker, half actor, started to feel much more confident with Charlie, a first time director. By day one I was like, “Oh, he knows what he’s doing” so then I could start to recede a little bit more to become more clearly an actor in the movie.

Speaking of that confidence with Charlie, what was it about the project or the script or his pitch that gave you the confidence in him?

MD: There was no pitch. We built it together. Really the what it was, I just go on instinct, and sometimes I get screwed because of that, but I really liked him a lot personally, I thought he was really smart, I thought it was really sensitive, was right for this kind of material. We share a sense of humor. I find that those things normally tend to work out, but you don’t know until day one. I had a sense by watching how much he had prepped and seeing the storyboards and seeing things, I was like, “Oh, I think this is going to go well!” Still you don’t know. And our first day went well. “Alright, we’re good.”

That seems to be a similar through-line with your other work, say with Patrick Brice with “Creep”. I spoke with him briefly at SXSW and he was talking about how the two of you collaborated to build the story out. Can you juxtapose that process with this?

MD: Not completely dissimilar, though I would say this film, “The One I Love” was intensely prepped with storyboards. Charlie had every shot in his mind visually and knew how to tell that story. In “Creep”, Patrick and I basically stumbled out of a van stoned and tried to find a movie with an interesting idea and fell into something that was interesting but only half-baked. And then we kept going back and reshooting and testing and reshooting and testing and reshooting, and crafting this movie as we went along. “The One I Love” was built to be executed in a 15 day shoot. “Creep” was an arts and crafts project that evolved slowly through mistakes.

In that evolution process that was “Creep” — where did you tap into the character of Josef?

MD: He was always there. We always knew that at the end of the day, when you come to see “Creep” which is being called a “found-footage horror movie” you’re coming to see a different version of that— you’re coming to see a movie about a very odd Craigslist encounter. That is, a version of: what does it mean when you show up to buy a toaster oven from some stranger, and you walk into their house and you just trust that everything is going to be ok- and they start talking to you about their ex-wife and their physical space is a little bit close and things feel weird- but you don’t leave for some reason. We wanted to examine that very dynamic and take and wring it for everything that it was worth. The more we tested the movie, the more we shot, the more we really wanted to go down the wormhole. Everybody was saying, “Go down the wormhole- we want to see how far you can go.” And that’s what we did.

Was that a chronological process where the footage that we see at the beginning of the film- the idea wasn’t fully formed yet? You didn’t quite know where the shots were going?

MD: Each time we went up we would change the middle, we would change the ending, we would change the front. Because the found-footage form is so easy to shoot and so cheap and fun, you can afford to just keep throwing out footage- to keep making new footage because we’re a small, tight group.

You say easy to film. By easy I am assuming that you mean—

MD: —Cheap.

Yes, exactly, but what were some of the hardest things about having to be in that deep, creepy, eerie character and yet riffing for so long within that?

MD: When you watch “Creep” you’ll see. A lot of the movie is on me to try and keep the movie afloat and keep it buoyed, and that made me nervous— I was worried it would look indulgent. There’s also a big challenge to have credibility in a found-footage movie. To keep your conceit strong— “Why is this camera on?” We felt very strongly about keeping that airtight the whole time. From a purely macro-perspective, why does the world need another found-footage horror movie? There are so many, so I felt a responsibility to a certain degree to offer something new that has some genuine laughs and genuine different kinds of feelings inside of that movie. The way I describe it, it’s like every movement— this sounds pretentious but I’m going to try and make it not pretentious— every movement, whether it is art or music or something, it maxes itself out and then it has to reset. Right? You watch painting and it goes from crazy and then all of a sudden some guy is just putting a dot in the middle of the canvas and keeping it simple. “Creep” is an attempt to reset the bar on found-footage horror genre which has gotten so crazy with sound design and craziness— let’s just strip all of that away and go back to the basics. Unsettling human behavior. And that’s what we try to do.

Yeah, very effective. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed your performance within it, too—

MD: Thanks man!

—especially for something within a genre that’s not known for performance.

MD: I’m going to get an Oscar—

Oh, I’m fully expecting it. Speaking of potentially getting an Oscar, but obviously you have a lot on your plate. You’re doing writing, directing, producing, acting and not only within the films but also in the world of television. Which of those mediums do you think— I know that obviously you’d like to do all of them— but which do you think speaks most to your personal brand of creative process?

MD: I think feel most comfortable and confident curating a small group of people and going out to make a piece of art like “The Only I Love” and like “Creep”. It’s my comfort zone. It’s what I love. I love that Charlie was frustrated making the movie and then we get to do this awesome thing together. It’s his first movie, I could feel his excitement. It affects me and keeps me excited, so I win the most on that process. That being said, my HBO show has been one of the more creative filming processes I’ve had where someone’s given me money to make something and they’re not- they don’t have their hand up my ass the whole time. They’re really being supportive to make exactly the kind of art I want to make. That has been great and if they want to keep making seasons, I’m going to keep making them!

You’ve done a lot of small independent stuff but then you also dipped your toe into some more bigger budget things like “Zero Dark Thirty” or “Parkland” and yet you keep coming back to doing these smaller projects. Is that due to your proclivity for doing things in a small group and the freedom that independent film affords?

MD: Yeah, both actually. Part of it is the freedom but part of it is the impatience I have. I don’t want to write a script that costs 30 million dollars to make because I know it’s probably going to take me five years to get it made in order to get al l of those elements together. I would so much rather call Charlie and be like, “You got a window? Let’s throw something together. You’ve got three months, let’s go do it!” It’s impatient, but again, there is a vitality to it. I was a really rebellious kid, I hate authority, I always have- and this feeling that we’re doing it our own way in our renegade way, that keeps me vital. I’m terrified of burning out or becoming irrelevant. Some of my favorite filmmakers, they make great films for 10 years and then all of a sudden they are just gone. And I think staying around first time filmmakers, keeping it cheap, carrying lights— I think that kind of stuff keeps you relevant.

My readers would hate me if I didn’t bring up “The League.”

MD: Yes! Season 6! I start shooting in 4 weeks.

You guys also just locked down another season as well?

MD: We actually did five and six, the two together. Five already aired, six is our next one, the future beyond that? God knows what will happen.

In terms of that future, obviously you’ve had a bit of unexpected success—

MD: —totally! It’s the first time I ever did it!

And who doesn’t love that show? In terms of your chemistry with the other performers, can you talk a little bit about how that has changed over the season besides what we can obviously see on the screen?

MD: I’ll tell you what has been interesting— we’re all very, very close; we’re like cousins now, we’re like family. As we started to get closer, it made it harder for us to start to insult each other as we do on the show—

And yet you insult each other more and more—

MD: —but now season 4 clicked in, we really feel like family, the chemistry is—we know we like each other, nothing we can do or say can hurt it. So now we have the utmost freedom to just be despicable. So, it’s in the right spot right now.

If you did have the option to continue the show, if popularity stays where it is, and demand is up— do you see yourself wanting to continue doing this for years and years?

MD: I love going to work with those people. I love being able to improvise. And quite honestly that show affords me the ability to do what we do, making these little movies, so it is a great scenario in that realm. Will it be funny to watch me do that in my late 50’s? I can’t guarantee that. It might be a little sad, it might be great. Who knows. We’ll see.

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Talking with Bong Joon-Ho of SNOWPIERCER

June 25, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Interviews, Memories of Murder, Park Joon-ho, Snowpiercer, South Korea, The Host

I’ve said it one times too many already but for the purpose of this article, it’s really worth reiterating again: I’m a big fan of South Korean film. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I jumped at the opportunity to interview Bong Joon-Ho, a great voice within the oeuvre of South Korean films and a leader of the movement to turn it into a world wide product. Snowpiercer, his latest hit, is an even bigger, bolder move than we saw from his countryman Park Chan-wook who went from directing the OG Oldboy to last year’s ravishing Stoker. Read More

Talking With Chiwetel Ejiofor of HALF OF A YELLOW SUN

May 20, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Chiwetel Ejiofor, Half of a Yellow Sun, Interviews, SIFF, SIFF 2014, SIFForty

The name Chiwetel Ejiofor might still be hard to pronounce for some but it’s one that’s been hot on the lips of anyone who filled out an Oscar ballot last year. The star of 12 Years A Slave was, for most of the season, considered a front runner for the top spot but was shoed out in the last moment by Matthew McConaughey and his late rising star. But unlike some, Chiwetel Ejiofor hasn’t let his Oscar nomination get to his head. In fact, his first project proceeding the thunder that was 12 Years A Slave is something even smaller and more personal: a tragic tale of a love affair caught in the midst of the Biafran Civil War. While the film (brief review here) stuttered here and there, Ejiofor continued to prove why he will forever have “Oscar Nominated” accompany his name in trailers.

His signature quivering lip and beady tears give emotional honesty to each scene he steps into so even when Half of a Yellow Sun isn’t reaching for the stars, his performance is. I had a chance to chat with Mr. Ejiofor at the premiere of Half of a Yellow Sun here in Seattle at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival and we spoke about how his Oscar nomination has altered his career, why he choose to be involved in Half of a Yellow Sun and if Bond 24 might be in his cards. Read on to find out more.

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First of all, obviously you’ve had a huge couple of years with the success of 12 Years a Slave and being an Oscar frontrunner for such a long time, how has this just throttled your career and what kind of changes are you experiencing? Further, what’s that been like for you?

Chiwetel Ejifor: Well it was a film that we were deeply proud of so it was exciting to get it out there and have the film received in the spirit it was made and people really care about it and care about these people. I suppose in a way, going forward, you want to continue to do work that you’re as passionate about and as engaged with and that’s been an amazing part of it. I’ve always been very fortunate in my career to have opportunities in my working life so in a sense that’s a continuation of that so it hasn’t been a completely different universe in terms of being an actor. But definitely it was extraordinary to go on a journey like that with a film like that.

Then doing something smaller like this, after a role that presumably gave you a lot of options, must have meant that it was something that you were very passionate about and had a lot of faith in. Can you speak about what really drew you to this role and this film (Half of a Yellow Sun) in particular?

CE: Well this film is amazing and such an important part in my own personal history and my family history: the Biafran Civil War. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote a beautiful, beautiful novel about it called Half of a Yellow Sun and so I’d spoken to Biyi Bandele who had adapted the book and directed the book for years. I’d known Biyi about 20 years and we always talked about making a film in Nigeria and making a kind of big-ish film in Nigeria. Maybe attempt something that had never really been done before on that scale. So this perfect confluence of events happened with him adapting the book and me knowing about the story so much and falling in love with the book – my mother actually introduced me to the book many years ago – and I spoke to my grandfather at length before he died about the Biafran Civil War – so it was all a very personal history and journey for me. We were very thankful that we were able to get out to Nigeria and make this film.

There’s been rumors and talks about you potentially starring in a big franchise like Bond 24. Obviously I’m not asking you to confirm or deny that because I’m sure you’re hogtied into never saying anything about that but how would doing a big franchise like that, be it Bond or something else, be a necessary and yet organic step forward in your career?

CE: Well I don’t know if, in a way, there’s any such thing. You’re kind of just drawn to parts and drawn to stories and characters, directors, you know. I don’t think it’s really necessary to do any one specific thing. I think it’s just necessary to do things that you’re passionate about and care about. I’m as much a film fan as an actor so there are loads of things that I get excited about.

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Talking with Fernando Coimbra of A WOLF AT THE DOOR

April 23, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged A Wolf at the Door, Brazil, Fernando Coimbra, Interviews, TIFF

2014 looks to be the year of the twisted headline movie. With Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, we saw the real life story of a doomed Japanese misanthrope come to America and damned to stubborn and horrifying resilience. The Monument’s Men and Cesar Chavez brought horror to the screen for all the wrong reasons (*yawn*). Fernando Coimbra‘s A Wolf at the Door (“O Lobo atrás da Porta”) is similarly based upon a true story of relationships gone terribly awry, charged by a headline that will leave you in shock and awe. To be any less than stunned, stupefied and all but weeping in a depressed pile of nauseous disgust is less than human. Intrigued?

Then you might want to look into A Wolf at the Door, which opened at last season’s Toronto International Film Festival before moving to the Zurich Film Fest, The Brazil Film Fest of Paris and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. During its journey around the world, it has left viewers largely haunted. I chatted with Fernando to talk about his TIFF success, Greek tragedy, Brazilian film, women’s rights and murder. Be warned, spoilers are included in the interview.

You mentioned that you see ‘A Wolf at the Door’ as kind of a twist on the Medea story. Do you see it more as a modernized take or a distinctly Brazilian take on that Greek tragedy?

Fernando Coimbra: Yeah, the film was inspired by a true story that happened in Rio De Janeiro. And I had read about this story, and there are similar narratives to Medea the Greek tragedy. I thought that was interesting because of the drama, and details, and then the tragedy at the end. But the inspiration was this true story. It’s not an adaptation because a lot of things are different in the story. The way she killed the girl, the way she got close to the mother. It’s very similar to what happened in the true story.

Wow I didn’t even know that it was a true story.

FC: It repeats sometimes. Before shooting the film there was another story that was very similar to this story.

And this is in Brazil as well, the more recent story?

FC: Yeah, it was in Brazil and it was in Rio De Janeiro. Same town, same place.

Do you see this as a distinctly Brazilian/Rio De Janeiro film? This story, do you see it as something that could only happen here?

FC: No, I think the story could happen anywhere. It talks about very basic instincts and very basic emotions that I think every human being has. That’s why I wanted to tell the story. When I read about the story, the old newspapers and all the press treated Bernando like a monster, like a beast, like a kind of non-human being. I think it’s a passionate crime. It’s something very close to us. I want to tell the story to understand how humans could behave like that. I think it could happen in any culture. Medea is a Greek tragedy that is very basic to all human beings.

Was the forced abortion part of the real story as well or was that something you added?

FC: I decided to make the film from two different points of view because they tell different stories. The men never thought about the abortion because originally he had never harmed her. But in court she said it happened in a very similar way as it happens in the film.

Wow. So, one of the things you play with very early on is this idea of the unreliable narrator. From the get-go we’re getting these three different tellings of the same story that don’t necessarily make sense in the context of one another. We know that somebody is making something up. As we go on, Rosa becomes the main narrative thread and her tale becomes almost a reality. From my initial reading of the film, not knowing that it was based on a true story, I felt there was room for doubt in her version of the story. Was that at all intentionally on your part? For instance, maybe the whole abortion thing was made up or maybe, in the context of this film, she never committed that heinous final crime. Or do you see it as more cut and dry than that?

FC: Yes, I want the audience to doubt. I begin the film at the police station and I present all the characters because you don’t know at this moment who’s telling the truth, who they really are, if they’re telling their version of the story. You haven’t seen their lives and their relationships. People sometimes think, ah this is true, but you never know because of the two points of views. He could be lying, she could be lying. We don’t know what’s happened between them.

The film deals with some rather dark subject matter: the murder of children, forced abortions. Do you see that as an obstacle to getting the film into larger markets or do you think this is a film that people are prepared to see?

FC: I think when you are ready to screen the film to film professionals it works very well with that audience. But for bigger screenings, you worry if it’s gonna be a problem. But once you get into the story and understand it, you aren’t as shocked by the crime. It’s a challenge because when you tell the story, you get a little bit afraid. It’s so brutal. But when you see the film you see that it’s not so bad.

The way you film it, it’s like this John Steinbeck moment where she’s putting the child down in almost the nicest way possible. She takes it like, “Oh just look at the ground honey, everything will be ok”. She’s not doing it out of hostility but it seems to her like a necessity. Obviously the film relies heavily on the actors because it’s more about characters than anything else. I was wondering what your approach was to directing your actors. Did you leave them alone for most of it to do their work or were you more hands on with them?

FC: I worked a lot with them. We did a lot of research before shooting. We worked very hard on the rehearsals and they’re really great actors. We had to work together and find forms of acting that are very intimate. I used to be an actor. I’m not an actor anymore because I’m not a good actor. (Laughter) It would’ve been a lot different if I didn’t have the right actors for it.

Absolutely. So, one of the things that the film deals with is this issue of women’s rights. It’s one of the subtexts that continues throughout the film, giving a voice to women who maybe in other situations would be more demonized. Were you trying to make any particular statement about women’s rights or was that more incidental?

FC: It was not the main thing in my mind. I know that I talk about forced abortions, rape, when the child has problems, money problems, and the rights of the woman to have an abortion or not. Men kind of dominate the mind of society about these things. This is part of society but I know that it’s become part of the subject of the film.

I’ll admit to not knowing too much about Brazilian cinema. Can you give me some examples of works from Brazilian cinema that have inspired you, or that you grew up on?

FC: There are some directors from the 60’s and 70’s that I like a lot. One of them is maybe the best director that we have: Wagner Rocha. He was a great director, very different than my films. He has inspired my films. There’s another director that has a name that does not look Brazilian. It’s Leon Ishmael. He did a film in the suburbs in the 60’s based on a Brazilian play-writer that was all about passion and relationships and tragedy. He really inspired me about the way to shoot this film.

Do you plan on continuing to make movies in Brazil or do you think you’ll ever try Hollywood on for size?

FC: I have a lot of projects in Brazil that are starting to develop. But I have talked about some projects in Hollywood. The film Wolf at the Door got a great reaction so agencies and managers are talking about some new stuff. I cannot say now because we never know. What I have now… it’s perfect in Brazil and I’m starting to write some new projects. I hope it goes far.

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