I won’t easily admit to being one to be star-stuck but let’s just say I have developed a life-long BFF crush on Jason Schwartzman. From his debut in Wes Anderson’s electric Rushmore (and onward through a certifiable library of Anderson films) to his cult HBO amateur detective comedy Bored to Death to his truly standout indie-rock band Coconut Records (seriously, listen to them. They’re great) I would count myself amongst the Schwartz’s dedicated fanboys. Having the chance to speak with him not once, not twice but three times over a weekend proved my long-time suspicion: the dude is also an incredibly nice guy.

For our final series on The Overnight (a film I’ve lovingly recommended to many) I had the privilege of sitting down with both Jason and director Patrick Brice, whom I also spoke conducted a more in-depth one-on-one  (and you can find that interview here) to talk awkward screenings, reaction cams, penis prosthetics, the infamous butthole paintings, cracking up on set, how to make a good comedy movie and, finally, whether to expect more Coconut Records.

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As I probably have already said to both of you before, The Overnight is one of my favorite films of the year. Since it premiered at Sundance, I have been pining to see it again. Just last week, me and my girlfriend watched it with a couple, some friends of ours. We sat on the couch, in the dark, watching this movie. They gave us the eye, like, “Did you guys pop this on to initiate a four-way or something?” and I love that this movie is able to do that. Can you talk about an experience you guys had, showing this to your own friends and family, where they’re giving you the cross-eyed examination; the what’s going on here?

Jason Schwartzman: You can probably answer it better. I’ve only seen it with an audience. I’ve never had…

Patrick Brice: You watched it with your wife.

JS: But with an audience. She watched it alone first. In New York.

PB: I thought you guys watched it together.

JS: No, I was peeping in because I was nervous to watch it. I was peeping in at the beginning. But I’ve never watched it with another couple. We watched it together, but I never watched it two people in a room, with two other people in a room or anything.

PB: I watched it both with my mom and my wife.

At the same time?

PB: Yeah. I watched it with my wife, my best friend that I grew up with, and my mother- and father-in-law.

JS: Can I throw out an idea?

PB: Yeah. Go ahead.

JS: We should start a little channel, a YouTube thing, where when this movie comes out at home, we ask people to set up a camera on top of their TV, and film themselves, and put up them watching the movie.

A reaction cam. Like you would a horror movie.

JS: I would like to see everyone watching it. But specifically, watching it with their mothers. That’s the thing about it. I want to see that. I want to see everyone watching it with their mom, in the same room, and film it.

It’s interesting you go down that route. That’s a marketing tool often used for horror movies. One of the reasons I love this film so much is because it uses a horror movie structure to tell a hilarious comedy. There’s this piano wire tension throughout the whole thing, that as we talked about earlier, you’d done it in Creep. Jason, did you watch Creep before you did this at all? If not, what was your onboarding like?

JS: I didn’t watch it even after I did this. I haven’t seen it yet. I’m waiting to see it.

It’s not out until later this month, right?

JS: At this point I’ll wait until June 26, and buy it on iTunes and watch it.

It’s really good [review here].

JS: I know; I’m sure it is. For me, when you’re getting…it’s so weird, how a movie gets made and put together, and how you meet people and stuff. For this, I get this information sheet emailed to me about what this movie is. And I don’t know Patrick Brice when I’m looking at this—I see Adam Scott, and it’s produced by Adam and Naomi. And knowing that Adam is a tremendously thoughtful person, a very talented man. And I know if he and his wife are producing this, it must be special. If they’re vouching for this guy, it’s like, I don’t know the opening band, but if they’re opening for that band, they are great. That is a great thing in the art world: if you can learn about someone through someone else, that vouching—that’s a great thing. So I didn’t need to see Creep. Honestly. And I read the script, which he wrote, and I said, “Unless I get on the phone with this guy, and he is a belligerent racist, I’m not gonna do the movie.” Now I know he’s really evil. No. But unless he was a racist asshole, there’s no reason to not do the movie. I didn’t need to see Creep, in a way.

Patrick, you and I have already touched on this, but let’s talk prosthetics a little bit more. I know that you said you wanted to push the sense of reality, kind of like the Farley brothers did in the nineties, with the use of prosthetics. Jason, A.) was it comfortable to wear, And B.) did it give you an added sense of confidence walking around the set in the buff with this giant horse member?

JS: Yeah, well, the big penis—I don’t think it gave me confidence.

But bigger is better, right?

JS: Yeah, it is. But putting it on, comfort-wise, it was not uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable, not physically, but maybe to apply it, there’s a lot of twisting from your core. Your center’s—there’s a lot of…leg moves. And, fine: you put it on, it’s great. No, I think that, honestly, I would be way more uncomfortable if I had to walk around this movie in a bathing suit, to be totally frank. I’m not in incredible physical condition, and I think that would be—most people in movies, when they have to take their clothes off, get in really good shape: that would be very nerve-wracking to me. But because you’re basically naked, there was something so extreme about it, that we kind of leap-frogged that. You feel free because you aren’t totally nude. And you feel free because, if you were nude, you also have to be very cautious of how other people feel about your nudity. You have to become aware on a whole different level of—if you’re naked, you can’t just walk up to someone sitting down here, or talk to someone over here. Honestly. There’s something about the fake penis that made everybody feel comfortable on the set, in a way.

Ironically comfortable.

JS: Yeah. It became as if you were wearing a bathing suit or a shirt. You could talk about the movie and work on it, and it’s not like there’s a real penis. Everything changes if it’s a real penis. So that’s what the press said it kind of allowed us to do.

PB: It was kind of like a mask for your penis.

JS: Yeah. And I wanted everyone to feel like, it’s not my penis, it’s our penis. Mi penoso, su penoso.

Following up on the penis question: the butthole paintings: was this something you commissioned? Did any of you have a hand in painting these?

JS: Good story.

PB: They were painted by our production designer, Theresa Guleserian. It was one of the things we were all excited about, going into it. She had actually hired an artist to paint the paintings for her. She was wearing so many hats for such a small movie. And the person dropped out the night before. And she had to paint something like 25 variations of butthole paintings in a 12-hour timespan before we shot that scene. They’re amazing.

Where are they now?

PB: They’ve been dispersed to the four winds at this point. I know a couple are being given away as part of the contest in the UK. And there’s a couple maybe here

So I don’t usually ask this question, because I think it’s a dumb and lazy question to ask, but I’m actually curious in the circumstance, because I do think the movie is so funny…

JS: I ask a million dumb questions. Don’t ever say dumb question. I love dumb questions.

It’s just an over-used question—every reporter asks this, but here it goes: On set, was there a particular scene that you guys couldn’t stop laughing at as you’re doing it?

JS: That’s a great question.

PB: From the crew point of view, there was the scene downstairs when Jason is showing Adam the paintings, was one I think that started to bust people up. There’s actually gonna be a blooper reel coming out, when the movie eventually comes out on iTunes and DVD and everything where you can see some of those moments where the camera starts shaking because the camera operator couldn’t help himself from laughing. It was because it was such a tight schedule making this movie—there wasn’t a lot of room for us, everyone laughing and high-fiving and watching back the take we just shot or anything like that. That was not an option.

JS: And also, I know this is a weird thing to say—it was extremely focused moviemaking. And at the same time, because it was at night—we shot the whole thing at night—there’s a sense of—if it was in the daytime—this is a weird thing to say—it would have changed the whole way we made the movie, because people would be texting people, and people would be having conversations. But because it was nighttime, nighttime was almost a location to us. You know how they say when people go away on location it bonds everyone? But also because it’s nighttime, and that’s unusual on the body, to be driving to work as the sun is going down, and to be driving home—And the whole time we made the movie, there was a stranger deliriousness, so the whole time, in a way, it’s never as quiet…and then people are busting up. It’s made with a certain—that is in the air anyway, a kind of joy and fun.

PB: There’s an inherent goofiness in even being awake at that time.

JS: Exactly.

PB: The fact that we were making a movie like this, it made that even more intense.

Comedy is often credited as being more challenging than drama. As someone who’s often off-put by comedy movies, I can see what that is. It’s in large part because comedy movies are fairly formulaic and bad. And yet I think this film really hits the nail on the head of what makes a comedy movie good.

JS: That’s nice. Thank you.

So I’m wondering, what is the challenge, as you guys see it, as comedy as a genre, and how do you overcome the challenges inherent in that?

PB: I don’t think about it at all. I don’t think about that at all. I only think about the script we’re having to shoot, and the movie we’re having to make, and the specific day-to-day, moment-to-moment problems we’re having. The only time I can even respond to a question like that, or stop to think about it is now, when everything’s already done and those decisions have been made.

But is there ever a conscious effort to be like, this Hollywood blockbuster comedy would go down route A, so we should go down Route B?

PB: No. I never— That’s another thing that comes out of hindsight. I can look at that in hindsight for sure. But while I’m doing it, all I can say is I’m creating a situation for myself as a writer. And I’m creating a situation for these characters to work their way out of.

JS: When I was reading it—I don’t know anything, but—I did think there were a couple times—the scene in the hot tub, for instance. That’s a great scene; Adam’s really great in that scene. There’s a few others, too, that I feel like—I remember reading it, saying, This wouldn’t be in a big-budget movie. I remember thinking that. I don’t know if you made a conscious decision. That’s an attractive element to this movie, the way that it’s serpentining through a bigger type centerpiece, hopefully, with moments like that, which are gentle. That said, too, I think the movie is more than a mash-up of like, Wouldn’t it be cool to take a big kind of thing and a small kind of thing and smash them? It does it naturally; that’s clear in the writing, and in your answer just now: it really wasn’t on purpose, you were just following it. When you read it, I could feel, this is unusual, in the way this movie is unusual.

I’d be remiss to not ask you, as a fan of Coconut Records—your band is awesome—do you have any effort on that front? Is there gonna be a new album coming out soon?

JS: Honestly, I make music as much as possible. Now I have a year-old kid and I’ve been working, so it’s slower, but I try to do as much music as I can. I have lots of music written and recorded, just demos. I just haven’t found the person that I’m gonna go make the record with right now. A lot has to come together. But I got a lot of songs. Rock on.

Listen to the Full Audio Here: Talking With Jason Schwartzman, Patrick Brice “The Overnight”

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For more Silver Screen Riot interviews, check out more of our “Talking With…” series here.

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