Interview: Patrick Brice on the Very R-Rated Comedy “The Overnight”

Posted on June 25, 2015 at 3:01 pm

Writer/director Patrick Brice talked to me about his funny and provocative new film, “The Overnight,” about a couple new to Los Angeles (Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling) who are invited to dinner at the lavish home of an impossibly hip and creative couple (Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godrèche). Once the children go to sleep, the evening gets pretty wild.

I like the way this movie takes on the difficulty and complications and challenge of forming friendships when you have to factor in the interests and chemistry of four different people.

I think it takes twice as much effort and that’s kind of what the film hopes to explore. That difficulty is one of the driving factors that keeps the couple from leaving from leaving the house no matter how weird things are getting. You know, there is still this idea that “Well, maybe things will be okay,” and “Well maybe this is our chance to make friends and we need to make this work for us.” A lot of the film came out of me observing and understanding what a lot of young friends of mine are going through right now, having to reconcile a social life with being a parent at the same time.

Where did you find that amazing house?

That house came after a long long search. We had looked at probably 15 houses before that. And finally we ended on that one. It is a Spanish styled house up in the Hollywood Hills. It’s actually right above Lake Hollywood. Originally, the film was going to be kind of more pointed satire of my neighborhood, Silver Lake. But it’s not a real Silver Lake type house. It is much more of a traditional Los Angeles house. And so I’m happy with where it ended up because it feels kind of surreal. It feels a little more gaudy and not really of any particular time. It feels like they kind of go to Mars.

When the gate opened up, it was like going into the Emerald City.

I definitely wanted things to feel more surreal as the night went on. Having a location like that gives you a lot to play with. And you know, keeping all the spaces within it dynamic was definitely a big goal for me and for Theresa Guleserian, the production designer.

You’ve worked with the Duplass brothers, who were producers on this film. What did you learn from them?

One of their biggest considerations is trying to make the most out of a smaller budget. And that can be something you think of during production, but one thing I learnt right on this movie was that it is okay if this is something you can think of during the writing process. And it doesn’t have to be something that hinders your creativity, or keeps you from telling a story just as big as you want it to be. It can actually be kind of an interesting challenge and at the end of the day a refinement. So not being afraid of not having enough money to make the movie is a huge thing. There’s a trickledown effect with those guys in terms of their kindness and generosity and creativity and doing it for the love of movies. And I’m just so lucky to have been able to work with those guys. I think one of the biggest things we tracked on besides the strength to build this is, the sense of humor. We think the same stuff is funny and we like the same blend of sadness and pathos and humor. We don’t think all those things are mutually exclusive from each other.

One of the stars, Adam Scott, and his wife were also producers. How did that happen?

Once Mark and I were happy with where I was with the script, we started taking it out to actors. Judith Godrèche was the first person we showed it to. She jumped on board and quite quickly and then the Scotts were the next folks that we took it to. I had met Naomi once she had come and helped us. She gave a critique on my previous film “Creep.” We had a talk back session on the screening and she was there. I knew she was wanting to produce a feature at some point. Most of her background has been in television production. And then Adam, I have just always been a big fan of stuff. Mark and I were having discussions and thinking about Adam as a possibility for the character of Alex and then, remembering that Naomi was interested in being a hands-on day to day producer, we thought, “Why not bring it to the two of them at the same time?” And I feel so lucky that they both said yes. They both read the script separately apparently and working with them was just a dream.

Adam is just someone who in the pocket and in the zone so often that you almost forget that he is acting. Or you forget that there is a chance that he could get a scene wrong emotionally, because he never does. He’s always been able to carry his own weight and he able really help out the other performers. I think he is a really good improviser, and I think a big part of that is knowing how to kind of save a scene emotionally or just keep things moving and he has a real knack for that.

Your style reminds me a bit of the very intimate, improvisational style pioneered by John Cassavetes. Are you a fan?

Thank you so much. Yes, I was thinking a lot about Cassavetes when I wrote it. I love the tension that can come from a kind of forced intimacy living with characters in real time. That was something that he was able to do so well. He was able to make a dance out of that with his actors. So I approached, with what as essentially on the page a broad comedy but I wanted to approach it with both the actors in terms of moment to moment, emotional growth in terms of how we shot it. Having something handheld and using only available lighting kept us nimble in terms of making it. I feel very validated by good response to this film so far and am excited to continue playing with this tone.

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Interview: Antonia Bogdanovich of “Phantom Halo”

Posted on June 22, 2015 at 3:17 pm

Antonia Bogdanovich is the co-writer and director of “Phantom Halo,” the story of two brothers and their father, a one-time Shakespearean actor who forces them to steal to support his gambling and alcohol addictions. The brothers are named for the famous British playwright: Samuel and Beckett. While Samuel looks for inspiration from a comic book superhero who gives the film its title, Beckett tries to solve the family’s problems with a counterfeiting scheme. Bogdanovich talked to me about being “a product of LA” (her parents are director Peter Bogdanovich and production designer Polly Platt) and about how she was influenced by both her parents and her son in creating this story.

The music shifts and evolves over the course of the film.

I wanted to have that retro feel because the film got that kind of noir quality and we are seeing another side of L.A that is not a typical L.A, South Central, a different environment than you usually see when you get there to visit. I also wanted to have that kind of Americana folk feel because the boys are kind of struggling. Kind of simple and not a lot of instrumentation. But it was really just to feel like the songs go with the scene and I think I wanted that from my dad. It is an internal instinct as well. And I had a great editor who helped me to choose some of the more “shake your moneymaker” songs. He said “Your film can support this kind of music” and it really worked. I’m really happy with the way the music moves with the story. When I started to listen to alternative hip hop, it was just great. Why not use this and support artists that are up and coming or trying to get their name out there, like I am. It is always good to have one or two iconic songs in your film that people recognize, like the one that was perfect for the heist scene.

There are a couple of different points in the movie where people say that they don’t want to think about their past. Is that something that is particularly resonates for you? Is it an LA thing?

It is definitely not an LA thing although I am a product of LA in many, many ways because I grew up there. But I will say that people in general and specifically in my family, deal with the past in one of two ways, either by dealing with it and talking about it and working through it emotionally or not, like basically saying it never happened or not talking about. Not saying that it didn’t happen, but trying to move on and say “I don’t want to talk about the past.” So I would say my mother was a lot like that. She had a tough childhood and she had a lot of challenges, and she chose to kind of, I won’t say bury it, but she just chose to live more in the present and not deal with her past. And I think Miss Rose in the film is like that, though she is not based on my mother in any way. It is clear that she’s had some rough times, and that is the way she deals with it. Samuel, on the other hand, is acknowledging “we are in the mud and we are going to be stuck here until we get out of the situation” and “we need to talk about this” and his brother Beckett’s whole thing is the future. He is like “we are going to be able to get the money for this house, we are going to be able to do this”. Samuel says they need to deal with it now and recognize what already happened. So you know that is kind of my inspiration. I tend to be a little of both. Probably I talk about the past too much but am working on not doing that.

Samuel loves comic books and makes money reciting Shakespeare. How do those two kinds of storytelling, one considered high and one considered low, combine in the film?

My inspiration for the comic book was actually my son. At the time, he was three or four. I had decided that the youngest son escapes through some medium that is contemporary to his time. My father didn’t let me watch television when I was growing up. So I didn’t watch television but now television is so good. So I didn’t think that was appropriate. So I needed to find something that the father wouldn’t approve of. Comic books. My dad’s wouldn’t let my father read comic books. Sometimes, when you come from an intellectual family or a highly creative, artistic family, they are snobs about certain things. So I wanted the father to be a snob about comics and not be able to relate but for Samuel it’s like, “No, it’s a beautiful art form.” And there is a lot in it which we all know about it now. Those of us who appreciate comic books. But my son, who was about four, really loved superheroes. There’s an innocence to Samuel that was like my four year old who wanted to be Superman or Spider Man. And I started buying comic books to do research and he was like four and he was reading them. Of course I watch superhero movies but I’m not a fangirl by any stretch of the imagination. It was something that I chose for this character to have and I wanted to do the research. He is using comic books to escape. We all use art to escape our lives. The worse our lives are, the more we want to escape. I remember when Eminem hit it very big, I would listen to him for long because I was going through a hard time. I was young, and I could relate to his lyrics. So Samuel is relating to the character in the comic book because he is trying to escape his present situation. He is a dreamer.

What do you want people to learn from this film?

I want people who have alcoholics in their home, who are young who know they can get away now. Their fathers don’t have to die so they can get away. I wanted people to see the characters disappearing to a better place. We can change our paths. We don’t have to end up like that. That is why I didn’t have either brother, drinkers or partiers at all. These boys are not doing that. I wanted it to be the boys arguing and making use of their intellect that they inherited clearly from their father to make a better life. I want people to know that they are not alone and that there are other people out there that have this situation in the home. And sometimes the most unlikely person is the hero. And if you have family you can’t depend on, the children are depending on themselves. And also maybe for people to get a taste of Shakespeare. It is accessible to the masses. You don’t have to be highly educated to enjoy Shakespeare. I tried to really use passages that are pretty clear on what Shakespeare is saying.
People get turned off by the language but Shakespeare was kind of a street guy. Actors during that time of Shakespeare, they were considered the lowest on the totem pole. They were low class people. I was just telling a story that I could relate to and I think everybody is going to take something different away from the film. It is interesting how people relate to different things in a movie.

What is the best advice you got about directing?

Have a really good script. First and foremost ensure that your script is in top shape before you direct. Really know how to talk to actors, and really know what you want. Go in there extremely prepared because if you are just trying out, you are not going to have a lot of time to shoot. And you are going to have very little time and probably have to shoot six to eight to nine pages a day. And you really can’t mess around. You have to know exactly what you want. Once you have shot, you can’t really go back. You can’t be in the editing room, going, “we did not get what we needed.” You have to be prepared, if not over-prepared. You have to know what you want. You have to know the vision of your film. You have to do your homework and do the legwork to know how you are going to shoot the film, what your vision is, what you are trying to say. And then, actors change dialogue and I think you have to be open for that. That is totally legit. I think it’s important to make actors to feel confident and that they can be part of this process. But also when they are suggesting something that you don’t agree with, just be confident enough to say, “No I don’t agree with that.” Because you can’t be intimidated by your actors, even if some of them are more experienced than you. You have to know how to talk to your actors and respect them and work with them as a team in collaborative fashion, but remember that you are ultimately the boss and will definitely take the fall if the film that does not turn out right.

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Interview: Maya Forbes on “Infinitely Polar Bear”

Posted on June 19, 2015 at 3:25 pm

Writer/director Maya Forbes did not just base her new film on her own childhood; she had her sister contribute to the soundtrack and cast her daughter as Amelia, the character inspired by Forbes herself. The film covers the period when Forbes and her sister were living with their father, who has bipolar disorder, in Boston, while their mother was getting her MBA in New York so she could support the family. Cam, the father, is played by Mark Ruffalo and the mother, Maggie, is played by Zoe Saldana.

Most movies are not very accurate in portrayal of people with mental illness. What did you want to make sure to avoid in creating a more realistic, three-dimensional character?

Yes, there are some movies that are great and there are many that are terrible. And I didn’t want it to be this sort of cute characterization or assembly of quirks. It was very important to me that it felt like the core was Cam, who he was. The mental illness was something he experienced but not everything he was. I had my father and other people who are bipolar in my family and I sometimes are wonder, “Are you manic right now or are you just really happy?” And that sort of anxious feeling because you don’t want to tell someone that they’re manic when they’re just happy. Because they’re not that different. It was very important to me to make it feel holistic. And I was trying to avoid making light of it but I also wanted to show a person who is loved and loves other people and is lovable. A lot of families have mentally ill people and it’s somebody they love who suffers from addiction or mental illness. It is a family issue and so it is important to me to portray that.

What were the challenges of making this evoke the 70’s?

I wanted it to feel like a vivid memory. Sometimes memories pieces are kind of faded and sepia, but to me it felt like memories that are sort of vibrant and alive. And I was drawn to that style of doing it. Especially doing a smaller budget movie you are looking for these evocative environments that have a sort of neutral quality. There is a movie called “Small Change,” a Truffaut film that I love. He shot that in a French village and it’s very simple because it’s mostly the stone facade of these big old French buildings. I was kind of looking for brick and stone and wood. I’m going to look for texture. I’m not going go to Harvard Square because Harvard Square doesn’t exist anymore. I didn’t shoot in Massachusetts actually; I shot in Providence because Providence looks more like Cambridge in the 70s than Cambridge does now. So Providence had all these great locations that have not been gutted up and changed. Also with the clothes I wanted it to evoke the period that does not bludgeon you over the head with “Hey remember the 70’s, wasn’t it cool?” I wanted it to have a bit of a timeless quality but with just smaller touches so working with my whole design team we were looking for these textures and these little touches that would evoke the period without trying to recreate the whole period, which is something that we wouldn’t be able to do anyway.

Speaking of “Small Change,” like that film, this really gives us the point of view of the children, though we understand more of what is going on than they do.

Being embarrassed, that is one thing children do definitely understand. They understand how to be embarrassed by a parent’s annoying behavior. The wonderful thing about the kids is that they really are in the moment. The main thing is just getting them to listen to the other actors. That’s the key; they are listening and they are responding, they also need to seem quite natural. I didn’t go looking for kids that were highly trained because I don’t feel like this movie needed that. It needed a freshness and a naturalness. There was a lot of anger, there was sadness. My daughter plays the older one, so I would take her off into the corner before some of the sad scenes. We talked about the context of the scene then I would start crying and then she would start crying and I would say, “Okay, now….” So that was part of the process of working with her, sort of sharing the emotion in a context with her was helpful to her in terms of bringing her to that place.

Did you see your childhood differently as you worked on this?

I knew always that my sister and I we were a team, we were a team as children going through the world, and we still are. The main thing is I resolved a lot of issues with my mother. I had never felt that she abandoned us but then when I had children of my own…I had two little girls, just like she did, so it was almost like I was reliving something. All these memories came flooding back. I was just catapulted back into my childhood and reliving it somehow.

My mom is an ardent feminist. She has always wanted my sister and me to go out and be in charge. So for her to see me direct this movie, that’s what she thought I should be doing. She thinks it’s important for women to step up and be leaders. But we were having some conflict in the areas of motherhood and career when my kids were younger. She pushes the career so hard and I wondered if she was just trying to validate her choices. I said, “Maybe I don’t want to make those choices,” and she said, “Don’t drop out. It’s hard to get back in. You’ve built a career, don’t drop out.” I was resentful of some of those messages. Then as I was writing the movie I saw things so much from her point of view, what she had been up against and what she had wanted for us and what she had given us in terms of sending us to good schools. My father’s family sort of have a culture of “don’t try too hard.” You want things to come naturally to you. You don’t want to be a striver. And it’s easy to kind of absorb that attitude but it is a crippling attitude; it means that you don’t go out and try because you are not supposed to fail. But my mom is not like that. It almost didn’t matter to me whether it got made because what it did to my relationship with my mother was so profound. She became my hero and I realize she was right about a lot of these things. And, on my mother’s side she had read it and it did the same thing for her seeing my perspective as a child and what it had been like. She was there but I don’t think she as deeply understood some of the painful times, just the complicated emotions that we had, that my sister and I had just because of the situation that we were in it, a lot of different feelings and exposure to things that you maybe don’t want to kids to expose to or to have to deal with. Seeing each other’s stories was really amazing.

She was working really hard at school, she didn’t have a great apartment, she came back to our apartment and it was not like anyone was trying to make it easy for her. We weren’t all taking care of her when she came back. She came back and took care of us. It was very, very difficult and I’m so grateful to her.

Interview: Brett Haley, Writer/Director of “I’ll See You in My Dreams”

Posted on May 21, 2015 at 3:12 pm

Brett Haley wrote and directed “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” a bittersweet romance starring the luminous Blythe Danner as Carol, a widow taking some tentative steps toward love with Bill, a handsome new neighbor played by Sam Elliott. Haley talked to me about why he chose to make his story about people in their 70’s and why music plays such an important role in the film.

Blythe Danner is magnificent in the film. In the scene where her beloved dog is put to sleep, she is mesmerizing.

Yes, that was a very challenging scene to film because we’re obviously dealing with an animal and animals are unpredictable. We have really amazing trainers and they really got the dog to a level of calmness that I’ve never seen. He’s trained to just get very, very calm and then I just let Blythe take her time and do what she wanted in there and she knew the script, she knew what we were doing and I just let kind of roll with it and we just set multiple takes back to back to back so that the dog would just stay calm. I didn’t want to come in and say cut and reset and all that. So we just rolled the camera and Blythe would just do the scene and then stop. And then she’d take a breath and then she’d do it again. It was a really tough scene to shoot obviously. It was a very sad scene and I thought, “Oh boy am I being manipulative? Am I being exploitative in any way?” But no, I really stand by it. I think the way it’s done was honest and truthful and that is my ultimate goal with everything that I do.

What interested you in writing about people of that age?

I’m very sort of intrigued and curious and fascinated by older people because I think they have a lot of life experience and they’ve gone through so much more than what I’ve gone through. I’m starting to ask questions about life and loss and why are we here and why do people die and how do you deal with loss and things like that. I think older people have experience quite a bit more of that. So to me it was a no brainer if I wanted to make a movie about those themes I should make it about older people. And then I think on the same hand when you think about it and you go yes, it’s like older characters especially in films are marginalized. They always put on the sidelines, supporting characters or plot movers, wacky characters. They’re never the leads, they’re never fully dimensional, three dimensional leads or rarely I should say. And especially rare being romantic in any way and that was something that I was really intrigued by.

What are the biggest differences between romance early in your adult life and romance near the end?

People who are towards the end don’t have as much time to mess around. They cut to the chase more and I found that actually really refreshing to write. Bill certainly knows what he want and he goes for it. And I think there’s less time to sort of beat around the bush so to speak. I think when you’re young you think the world is ahead of you. You just don’t think about the realities as much when you’re young. You’re sort of caught up in a moment which is a great beautiful thing but I think when you’re older you can feel the weight of that ticking clock a little bit more. I think you’re a little bit more decisive. You just go after what you want more. I thought that was really fun. That was really fun to write.

Music is very important to the film.

Music does play a huge role in the film. There’s karaoke and Carol was a singer in her younger years and Martin’s character, Lloyd was in a band and a poet. I don’t want to spoil it for people but there’s a huge emotional moment in the film that is centered around the song of the title and I think it’s really crucial. I love music and I felt that it a really fun way to explore some of the emotions in the film.

Malin Akerman plays Carol’s daughter. What do we learn from the relationship between the two of them?

I think it’s unfortunately a bit of a common one. I think we get pretty self-obsessed in this world. I think we kind of we forget about the other people around us, who we love and who we think about. I think that they both had sort of been drifting naturally. No hard feelings but living in their own lives. They live on different coast and that sort of adds to the drift. I was trying to get at something to show a different side of Carol, that she is not perfect and neither is her daughter. I think they both should probably put more effort in their relationship. I wanted it to just be real. I didn’t want her daughter to show up in the movie and just be this perfect daughter and have this perfect relationship because that’s just not the way people are. There’s always something more there; there’s always something more layered. To me it rang true to pick them as slightly distant but then it’s really about them realizing how much they need other, how much they truly love each other and that they shouldn’t take each other for granted. The film is all about relationships really, and connection.

One of the highlights of the film is Carol’s relationship with her friends, played by three fabulous actresses, June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, and Mary Kay Place.

Everyone was my first choice and everybody just came on board this small budget movie without too much hoopla. They just responded to the material, I think they appreciated a three dimensional role that was on the page for all of them and I think that they just wanted to be a part of it. I was just super blessed to have them want to join the party. Blythe described it as a repertory company, in this together and not in it for the money but in it for the passion of the piece. And we just had a wonderful time, it was just a wonderful experience and so lucky to have these amazing actors believe in me and put their fate in me to go and make this film and gosh, I’m a lucky guy.

Did they have a lot of fun filming the pot smoking scene?

Yeah the girls were having a great time shooting that scene and it just shows how funny they are. They’re all comic geniuses. Obviously they were not really smoking pot, but everybody has been asking me if they were really high! Of course not. I think it’s very interesting that these ladies, they didn’t go for the cheap laugh. They went for the really honest stuff that comes out of that scene and I think that’s why it works. They don’t yuck it up too much. They keep it really grounded and honest.

What’s the best advice you ever get about directing?

The best advice I ever got was to be kind and gracious to everyone who works on your movie. Understand that no one is better or worse than you on a film set. A lot of directors take their power into their head and feel like they can treat people without respect. I’m a big believer and especially on the set but in life you should treat everyone with kindness. And then you should be grateful to everyone for their hard work especially when they’re working on your film. It’s very important to me that everybody gets treated with equal amounts of respect and no one is better than everybody else on a movie set or in the world. If you’re kind to people they’re going to be good to you and I think that’s the big life lesson. I think we forgot that. The energy that we had on that set did come through on the screen as well, from Sam Eliot down to the PA. Everybody wanted to be there and felt a part of this film and there was a really nice energy and I think it translated to the film.

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Orson Welles: Happy First Century

Posted on May 8, 2015 at 3:14 pm

Happy 100th birthday to the writer/director/star of one of the greatest films of all time, Citizen Kane. Everyone should see that movie, and then everyone should see it again, listening to Roger Ebert’s shot-by-shot commentary, a master illuminating a master and together both of them illuminating the best and worst of the human spirit.