Why Is There Only One American Actor in a Movie Set in NY?
Posted on August 20, 2012 at 3:55 pm
“Cosmopolis” is a new movie based on a book by American author Don DeLillo. It is a story about Americans who work in the world of finance and takes place entirely in New York City. It stars British actor Robert Pattinson, best known for another American role, Edward in the “Twilight” series.
A number of British actors play Americans very convincingly, including Hugh Laurie in “House,” Tom Hardy in next week’s “Lawless,” and Christian Bale as Batman in the Dark Knight movies. And Americans play Brits, too, like Gwenyth Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love,” “Emma,” and “Sliding Doors” and Meryl Streep’s Oscar-winning role as Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady.”
I understand that compromise is a part of any project as expensive as this one. But I am sorry to think that decisions so central to the quality of a film are being made for reasons that have so little to do with the quality of the film.
Writer-director Tom McCarthy gives us stories of the families we choose. In “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor” the main characters were loners who found themselves unexpectedly drawn into caring for people who were very far outside their usual circles. In this, McCarthy gives us a man who already has a loving, stable family and a best friend (“The Station Agent’s” Bobby Cannavale) and is under enormous stress trying to take care of everyone. But he, too ends up meeting someone who at first seems a threat, then a burden, and then, somehow, family.
Paul Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, a lawyer with a solo practice that is not bringing in the money he needs for repairs at the office and at home. Most of his clients are indigent but Leo, a man in the early stages of dementia (“Rocky’s” Burt Young), has a comfortable bank account. In a guardianship proceeding, Mike impulsively has himself appointed as guardian so that he can get the fee. Then he puts Leo in an assisted living facility, contrary to his assurances at the hearing that he would keep Leo in his own home.
Mike did not know that Leo had any relatives. But a teenage grandson who has never seen Leo turns up. His name is Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer). He has dyed blonde hair and he smokes. His mother, Leo’s daughter, is in rehab and he has come to stay with Leo. Mike and his wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) reluctantly take him in. Mike coaches the high school wrestling team part-time. Kyle turns out to be an exceptional wrestler. He begins to work out with the team.
There is a wonderful decency, naturalism, and humanity to this story, thanks to a sensitive script and superb performances. Ryan and Giamatti have the rhythms of a long-married couple, with a real sense of established teamwork, and appreciation. Her “what is that?” expression and his “it’s okay and under control” gesture to her are eloquent in conveying their depth of trust and understanding. The look on Mike’s face when he wishes Kyle luck in keeping his secrets reflects more than a decade of seeing her ability to get the truth out of anyone. And yet Mike himself is keeping bigger and bigger secrets from Jackie. He thought it would not hurt anyone. But there really isn’t any such thing as win-win. Someone always pays a price.
Interview: Tom McCarthy and Alex Shaffer of ‘Win Win’
Posted on March 23, 2011 at 8:00 am
Copyright Searchlight 2011
Tom McCarthy has appeared as an actor in movies like “Duplicity” and “Baby Mama” but he is now better known for his writing and directing the acclaimed films “The Station Agent,” the Oscar-winning “Spotlight,” and “The Visitor.” His film “Win Win,” stars newcomer Alex Shaffer as a teenage wrestling champ who ends up staying with a lawyer/coach played by Paul Giamatti when his grandfather, who is in the early stages of dementia, is placed by Giamatti’s character into a nursing home. I spoke to both of them about wrestling, writing, what it feels like to be good at both, and doing whatever it takes.
I don’t know much about wrestling so I was surprised by how fast you moved.
TM: Especially the lighter weights. They are really exciting. The lighter weights it’s just wicked to watch. That match that I went to at your school – even the refs couldn’t keep up.
AS: Over 130 or 140 it’s more about strength.
One of the key moments in the film has Paul Giamatti’s character asking your character, Kyle, what it feels like to be that good at something. Kyle says it feels like being in control. Is that how it feels?
AS: For Kyle, for me it just feels good to be that good. It’s a very comforting feeling.
TM: That would have been a good answer for Kyle, too.
What makes you feel that good?
TM: I like being immersed in work. I like it when I’m in a sweet spot in the work. When I’m writing I have a ritual or a regimen and I get really lost in it, get out of my own head and follow an idea, or a story, or a character. I really like being in that space.
What was the beginning of the idea of this movie for you?
TM: I have this mental folder that I drop things into and when they feel like they’re of the same world I start to put together the movie. It certainly was the wrestling at the beginning. I called Joe , my co-writer, and said, “Have you ever seen a movie about high school wrestling?” We started to joke about our own bad experiences and then talked about the good ones, the world in general, how unique a world it was, looking back on it 20 years later.
And the other idea was about where we are in society, the title, “Win Win,” like “Oh, you can have a mortgage and pay nothing and a car and put no money down” and we all believed it for a while. Oh, that’s great, why wouldn’t you do that! It will cost nothing! The other idea that aligned with that thought was that we are polarized in society. The bad bankers did bad things – but those people are our neighbors. We ride the train, the bus with them. They’re not bad people; they just made some bad choices.
So wrestling with that part of our human condition – we all have that aptitude, to so surprisingly and sometimes shockingly bad things in certain scenarios. Mike is confronted with that and that I felt very interested in. It’s not enough to say, “I have a family, I have a good job, I’m a good person.” That is not an excuse or a guarantee. That I found interesting.
Alex, you went from doing something that you knew very well and were very good at to something that was completely new to you, and you were surrounded by some of the most experienced and talented actors in movies. What was that like for you?
AS: I wasn’t nervous because it was something I didn’t care about that much. Sorry, Tom! Halfways, no more like one-third of the way through, I began to think, “I really want to do good. I like this guy, I don’t want to ruin the movie for him.”
TM: I think that’s a good way to go into it! I think that’s a problem for a lot of actors who go into an audition wanting it so badly, they sabotage themselves because they’re so anxious. I think when I stopped caring about acting quite so much, when I got more involved in writing and directing, either I’m right for it or not, I started getting more jobs.
How did you like being a blonde for the filming?
AS: I was a blonde before the filming.
TM: He came to us like that!
AS: It wasn’t my idea for the movie. Our team before we wrestled Phillipsburg, not every year but when the team’s good, we want to psych them out, so that year the whole team bleached our hair blonde.
I thought it was very funny that Amy Ryan’s character Jackie called you Eminem.
TM: We got a studio note about that: “Emeneim, isn’t he a little bit past now?” I don’t think Jackie’s cutting edge! And besides, now he won the Grammy!
The defining moment of our beginning as portrayed in the outstanding “John Adams” series on PBS. Let us all take inspiration from their courage and vision.
One of my favorite films of the summer is “Cold Souls.” Paul Giamatti plays an actor named Paul Giamatti who is anxious and depressed as he prepares to play Chekov’s Uncle Vanya. When he reads in the New Yorker about a place that stores souls, he decides to try it. The immensely inventive writer-director Sophie Barthes has concocted a world just slightly off-register from the one we know and Giamatti’s literal and spiritual journey is funny and provocative and always surprising. So was talking to Barthes. I have some bigger questions, but I want to start with one small one. We see Paul Giamatti rehearsing “Uncle Vanya” under very different conditions — with his own soul, with a borrowed soul of a Russian poet, and without any soul at all. How did you and he work together to create three very different versions of Vanya?
That was the trickiest part of the film in terms of acting but we were nervous for different reasons. He thought he could act badly but not play Vanya well. I could certainly imagine him playing it well but thought it would fall flat to play it badly. It shows you how modest and humble he is. We had both seen “Vanya on 42nd Street,” and he knew his version would not be like Wallace Shawn’s. He doesn’t like rehearsal much. He is very intuitive. But when it came time to do it badly, for those we took time and rehearsed them. I said, “Let’s not make it robotic, but let’s be the opposite of whatever is called for. Confidence is something Vanya doesn’t have, so show confidence. Take directions very literally.” On the DVD extras we will have some other versions. In one he starts to mimic the wind, taking the direction he is given very literally. The one he does with Elena, he did unconsciously a William Shatner interpretation.
That is the beauty of working with such a talented actor. He is not someone to talk about technique and method. You roll the camera and he delivers and he is excellent — in a different way — in the first three takes. I read an interview where he says he is always being asked to play the anxious man.
Directors keep asking him to play the anxious man because he is so good with it, so vulnerable, such a sad sack, so funny. Jerry Lewis says that comedy is a man in trouble. That’s what Paul is. He always looks like he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. He is very human and vulnerable and has the skills of a comedian. He can go from total slapstick to very melancholic. As a film-maker he is like a grand piano. You can play any note and he gives you this performance. We didn’t know how to choose from the takes. They were all interesting in a different way. He can do deadpan and ultra-emotional. One of your other actors, David Straithairn, who plays the man in charge of the soul storage, was in a role that was quite different from his usual characters.
David was a bit anxious. He has not done much comedy and this is a melancholic kind of comedy. How much larger than life should this doctor be? It was very different from “Good Night and Good Luck.” But he and Paul had played in a Chekov play together and had chemistry like old buddies on set, very playful. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Paul looks into his own soul. One of the images he sees is of a toddler, walking and crying.
It is a completely absurd moment and it came about by accident. We had a part in the movie that was a dream I had a long time ago about a baby factory where babies are manufactured. I’m going to put that in another film because it did not work out this time. When the casting agency came with the babies I was expecting four or five month old babies. But they brought toddlers who could walk, so we gave up on the factory idea and used the set next door with the white space. Tell me about shooting in St. Petersburg.
Russia was a very surprising and pleasant experience. We had heard it was tough but from a logistical point of view the crews were super-professional and we never had a problem. Aesthetically, we decided not to shoot it as a postcard and turned the camera the other way. Now a bigger question, maybe the biggest. Paul Giamatti is very distressed in the film to find that his soul looks like a chick pea. What would your soul look like?
My soul would change every day, maybe liquid. I go through all those moods.
“Cosmopolis” is a new movie based on a book by American author Don DeLillo
