Alexander Skarsgard stars in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” as Monroe, an emotionally stunted man who finds himself in San Francisco, California and in a relationship with the free-spirited Charlotte Goetze (Kristen Wiig). But then he meets her daughter Minnie (Bel Powley) who is in the midst of her own sexual awakening, and she begins a complex love affair with him that will lead to even more awakenings about each other and their own self-worth.
I got to hang out with Skarsgard along with a few other journalists while he was at The London Hotel in West Hollywood, California to do press for “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” Greg Srisavasdi of the website Deepest Dream asked Skarsgard how he goes about preparing for a role, and his answer illustrates why his performance as Monroe is so good.
Alexander Skarsgard: The very first step is to connect with the material obviously. In this case, I thought it would be a really interesting challenge to play Monroe. I felt he could easily be a villain or just like a predator and I wanted to avoid that. I felt like I don’t think it will be interesting if you play it that way, and you make it too easy for the audience if they can just lean back and go, “Oh, bad guy,” and it’s not going to be interesting to the film. And that really intrigued me and I thought this would be a cool challenge to make this real and find moments where you might feel empathy and you might connect with him and almost like him, and moments where you don’t. I think it’s important to not have an opinion (about the character) in the beginning and to be open, and that’s when you go into that creative process of discovering and developing that character. You have to be very non-judgmental and be very open.”
Skarsgard is best known for playing the vampire Eric Northman on the HBO series “True Blood,” and he has turned in memorable performances in movies like “What Maisie Knew,” “Melancholia” and “Kill Your Darlings.” What’s interesting about him as an actor is how he is able to derive such strong complexity in each character he plays. It made me wonder just how much he brought to the role of Monroe which wasn’t in the script, and I asked him if he prefers playing characters like Monroe over others. For Skarsgard, it all comes down to one thing.
AS: It’s all about finding depth and it doesn’t matter in what genre it is. I just wrapped a movie called “War on Everyone” which is a comedy by John Michael McDonagh who did “The Guard” and “Calvary.” It’s a weird, fucked up comedy about corrupt cops in Albuquerque. I play a coke-snorting alcoholic cop who beats up criminals and steals their money with Michael Pena as my colleague. I had an amazing time. It was so much fun and, tonally, very different from “Tarzan” that I finished just before that or this one. But what it’s always about is that you need to find depth in the character even if it is comedy. You can’t play a caricature, or you can but I just don’t find it interesting. I don’t subscribe to good versus evil unless it’s within you. I think we’re all struggling with that, good and bad, and I think we’re all capable of good deeds and bad deeds. It’s interesting in literature or movies when you find characters that are struggling with that, and if there’s no inner struggle then it’s not interesting to me.
Watching “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” reminded me of just how much I love movies which take adolescence seriously. Some of my favorite examples of those movies are “Pump up the Volume” and “The Breakfast Club,” and I’m convinced that everyone has their own favorite movies which really spoke to them about life as a teenager. When I asked Skarsgard to name a movie that spoke to him about the truth about adolescence, he instead thought of a book.
AS: The most obvious example would be “Catcher in the Rye.” I guess as a boy growing up, as a teenager you’re like yeah, I get it dude. But I don’t have one movie that stands out or where watching it was a pivotal moment of my adolescence. What was I into as a teenager? It was the 80’s, so it was “Star Wars” I guess.
Watching Alexander Skarsgard in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is proof of just how gifted an actor he is. The role of Monroe could have been reduced to being a mere one-dimensional character, but Skarsgard dove right into the complexities of this character and made him an empathetic one even though no one can condone his actions. It’s a fascinating portrait of a man who still needs to grow up, and it’s one of the many reasons to check out this movie on DVD, Blu-ray or Digital at your earliest convenience.
He received critical acclaim for his film “Berberian Sound Studio,” and now British filmmaker Peter Strickland follows it up with “The Duke of Burgundy.” Now while the title might have you believing this is just another stiff period piece, it proves to be anything but that. It stars Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna as Cynthia and Evelyn, two women with a keen interest in butterflies who are involved in a sadomasochistic relationship. Despite what sounds like a harsh situation, Cynthia and Evelyn are very much in love with one another and enjoy playing the roles of the dominant and the submissive. But as Cynthia begins to yearn for their relationship to become a more normal one, Evelyn becomes increasingly obsessed with playing the submissive to where it becomes an addiction which cannot be easily fulfilled.
I got to speak with Strickland over the phone while he was doing press for “The Duke of Burgundy,” and we talked about how the movie is not what it appears to be. Strickland described how he achieved the movie’s beautiful look, what he wanted to see onscreen in regards to a sadomasochistic relationship, and of the challenges of shooting a six-minute scene in one take.
Ben Kenber: “The Duke of Burgundy” is a fascinating and mesmerizing movie, and what I liked about it was that while these two women are involved in a sadomasochistic relationship, it still feels like any other relationship in terms of how it runs on routine and gets run down by it as well.
Peter Strickland: Yeah. Ultimately what I found really interesting was that one of them is doing that out of the purest joy. There are two levels: one level is the joy of sex which makes us happy but also the joy of feeling desired I think especially as she’s (Cynthia) feeling that she’s getting older, but only have so much mileage to that. To me the film is about anybody who’s in a relationship with someone who has different needs and how you navigate those and how you find compromise, and I think coercion leads into it somehow. To be honest I was making the movie as a way to argue that afterwards or at least have discussions about who should compromise. Should it be one person doing things to somebody else that they find distasteful? It doesn’t matter what that thing is. It could be the most basic sexual acts. Or should the other person compromise and just withhold their desires and not express themselves? I don’t have the answers to that. I’m just showing this domestic drama really.
BK: Yeah, in any relationship those questions of who’s going to compromise the most comes up. In the end when you take away the sadomasochistic elements it really is like any other relationship.
PS: Yeah, I think so. And I think that, despite some of the harshness, there was a tenderness there as well. What I wanted to do was to start the first 10 minutes like your classic 70’s sexploitation film which would serve that kind of fantasy where they are all in character where the stern mistress is the stern mistress but then somehow unpeel that, and I want to see that stern mistress in her pajamas. I want to see her snoring at night, I want to see her get her lines wrong and miss her cues just to see what ticks underneath that somehow.
BK: This movie has such a beautiful look to it. It looks like it was shot on film, but I read that you actually shot it digitally. How did you make The Duke of Burgundy look like it was shot on film?
PS: That was Nicky (Nowland, the Director of Photography). He has literally been shooting on film for many, many years and he has been shooting stuff since the 60’s so he’s got a good feel for that. We were very close to shooting on 16mm but we just didn’t quite… We could’ve applied for more money, but the more money you get, the less control you have. So, we kept the budget around $1,000,000 pounds which meant I had complete control, but the consequence of having complete control is that we had to make cuts, so film was the first one to go. Nick can talk more about it in terms of the lenses he uses which were older lenses which I think were uncoated. That haze machine is quite important for him in terms of having this very diffuse quality to the whole movie. But also during the scenes where Evelyn is having her sort of excitable moments he was using doubles and mirrors so all that is done in camera, and I think we just did a lot of trial and error just moving the camera and moving the actors. Sometimes you have two doubles crossing into the mirror and crossing into another mirror and cover that up with the haze machine, and that really has a certain tasty look that’s reminiscent of the 70’s. We didn’t want to try too much to go down that route. Now you can make film looked distressed and so on, and that was the danger of sort of being a pastiche. We just wanted to do the most beautiful job we could, and I think the production design played a huge part in that and the costumes played a huge part as well.
BK: The movie kind of looks like it takes place in the 70’s, but in the end, it could be taking place in any time period. Was it your intention to leave the movie’s time period ambiguous?
PS: I wanted it to be kind of like a fairytale in that you don’t know where it is, you don’t know when it is, and you don’t know how in the hell they make their money to live in that place. It’s all those things that fairytales have been in a sense. Hopefully, you’re not worried about social elements of class or gender. There’s no counterpoint in that sense, so hopefully you’re just immersed in the dynamic of it. What was important as well was to be open to the fact that other people enjoy these practices so it doesn’t feel like this unusual activity. It’s kind of normalizing it so it’s not about treating it like it’s this odd thing. It could be any act in that sense, it’s just one person doesn’t like it, that’s all.
BK: I also got the impression that you designed “The Duke of Burgundy” to mislead viewers in a way starting with the movie’s title. Also, with the relationship between Cynthia and Evelyn, it looks like Cynthia is the dominant one, but it turns out to be the other way around.
PS: Yeah. Very subconsciously, I knew people wouldn’t watch the film so I just tried to make it like this kind of tasteful period drama, but I think it was kind of like a perverse pleasure having one concession to a masculine presence especially given that, being a male director, you can’t avoid that element of it. I’ve seen a lot of films on that subject, not everything, but I think what often happened was they would prop up the fantasy of masochism and never show the dominant out of character. What I wanted to look at was the idea of the masochist controlling the whole scenario, and the whole paradox is controlling the situation where you are controlled by someone else. The whole paradox of the submissive controlling the dominant is that it is being dominated on her terms. It’s exploring all these dynamics I guess.
BK: One of my favorite scenes is where Cynthia and Evelyn are in bed, and you see on Cynthia’s face a yearning for something normal in their relationship. The acting by Sidse Babett Knudsen who play Cynthia is extraordinary. How did you go about directing that scene?
PS: That was a weird one. There wasn’t enough space for me in the bedroom, so I directed it from the bathroom. Normally I talk to the actors in person but there was just so many wires that I had to sort of shout to them from the bathroom. Obviously, we spoke about it prior to that. In one sense, it was quite easy to do because of the whole dynamics of it, but it was very difficult in another sense because we had to do it in one take. If you get one line wrong, you have to go again. There’s a weird kind of meta thing going on because obviously if one line goes wrong for Evelyn’s character it’s gone wrong for her, and if one line is wrong for me it’s gone wrong. Since there was this double pressure, I actually think it was quite easy to do that scene. It was quite tense because it was actually six minutes long, and even though we got it in one take at the very end it was just too long. It’s a weird thing because when you’re on set time just flies by, and when you look at it at in the edit room out of context you think, oh my god this is so long, it’s just not working anymore. So all that effort to do it in one take was just kind of wasted; we had to do it like a sort of insert cut. But yeah, that scene kind of sums up the film: to being ordered to order someone. It sounds kind of preposterous but it’s really an interesting part of human nature.
BK: The music score by Cat’s Eyes is wonderful and sounded very unique. What was it like working with the band on the score?
PS: I loved working with them. They are really, really, really talented and woefully overlooked. Hopefully that will change now. They come from very different disciplines. Rachel (Zeffira) comes from a classical background and Faris (Badwan) comes from this rock ‘n roll, experimental background, and they just complement each other really well. They’re completely fine if it’s not right; they’ll just keep going. The main thing at the beginning is just setting them up for the right mood and just playing the music. In hindsight, I feel a bit guilty sometimes that maybe I’ve gotten too attached to some piece of music, but I think it was setting the mood for them and discussing the instruments they would use. I remember I put Mozart’s Requiem over that long montage towards the end, and I knew I shouldn’t do it because it’s such an obvious piece of music and everyone’s used it. Then Rachel just came on and said, “I don’t care. I can just write my own requiem.” It was just an amazing piece and I didn’t miss the Mozart at all. I assume that they will be asked a lot more to do soundtracks. I bought their first album in 2011 and it just blew me away. They’re the first band that made me say, “Okay this is The Carpenters if they were doing music now without any kind of ironic take or pastiche.” I highly recommend the first album they did. I was really, really lucky that they said yes (to working with me).
BK: It’s compelling to think that the use of butterflies in this movie serves as a metaphor for the relationship between the two women, but it’s my understanding that you never actually intended that to be the case.
PS: No, not really. I’m not a big fan of putting the audience through that (laughs). For me, it was a framework for the film. Obviously, there are connections you can make, but you can do that with anything if you wanted to because of the metamorphosis and the cataloging of the insects. But there’s something about the absence of these insects when they’re emigrating and their hibernating which really added to the atmosphere of this very autumnal love story where you just feel it might be coming to an end. And that last lecture that Cynthia gives with the mole cricket going into hibernation really connected with Evelyn’s dormant desires. So, you really feel this extreme hibernation that is coming.
Thanks to Peter Strickland for taking the time to talk with me. “The Duke of Burgundy” is now available to own and rent on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
As Father James in “Calvary,” actor Brendan Gleeson succeeds in giving one of the very best performances of his career. What I loved about his performance is you never really catch him acting. Instead of just playing the character, Gleeson inhabits him to where you’d think he’s been a priest all his life. Father James attends to the townspeople of the small Irish town he lives in, and he tries to keep his faith strong even as everyone else struggles with their own or have long since given up on finding goodness in life. We see the various emotions flow over Gleeson’s face such as grief, anger, sadness, disappointment and confusion to where he makes film acting look so easy. But anyone who knows the craft of acting in front of the camera can tell you it’s bloody difficult work.
After watching Gleeson in “Calvary,” I was very eager to learn about his style of acting. When it comes to awards seasons, the performances that get the most attention are the showy ones which scream out Oscar, but the subtlest ones like Gleeson’s don’t often get the credit they deserve which is a shame. I got to meet him when he was at the “Calvary” press day during a roundtable interview, and I asked him how he was able to pull off such a naturalistic performance. His answer showed how it has taken him a number of years to learn how to do just that.
Brendan Gleeson: You know, I had to quite meticulously look at my own performances when I started because I was 34 years of age before I started doing anything in front of a camera. I had to actually figure out how my face worked because it’s a different craft from stage work which I knew, but I knew theoretically that something you do on camera is magnified to such an extent. So I knew that I shouldn’t exaggerate by way of communicating where you have to talk to somebody there at the end of the room and all that in the theater. I knew I had to bring it down to a natural level. What I didn’t understand is that my particular face at least had a way of expressing itself. You kind of go, what’s going on there? You’d see it back and kind of say, it’s telling lies. I look angry there. I didn’t feel angry at the time. What’s going on? So there was a long period of kind of working at your craft, but at some point it becomes very dull just not making mistakes. It becomes very dull playing safe, and at some point you have to start trusting. When it comes down to it fundamentally, if you trust the person behind the camera and the person in the editing room, you can then let the walls down and just be, and that’s what your striving to do. They always say it’s that John Hurt thing about trying to get it into your DNA, and ultimately that’s what you’re trying to do; you’re trying to access it and then trust that it’s going to carry.
With that, Gleeson perfectly captured the challenges of film acting and of how hard it can be. A craft like this can take years to perfect, and Gleeson has paid his dues for quite some time now. His performance in “Calvary” contains some of the best acting I have seen in a 2014 movie. Here’s hoping we get to see more great performances from Gleeson again in the near future.
James Vanderbilt has been a prolific writer and producer in Hollywood for several years. His screenplay credits include Peter Berg’s “The Rundown” which remains one of Dwayne Johnson’s best action films, David Fincher’s “Zodiac” which was about the notorious serial killer who terrorized San Francisco back in the 1970’s and Roland Emmerich’s “White House Down” which dealt with terrorists attacking the White House. In addition, he was a writer and producer on “The Amazing Spider-Man” movies and “Independence Day: Resurgence.”
Vanderbilt now makes his directorial debut with “Truth,” the political docudrama about the 2004 “60 Minutes” news report on George W. Bush’s military service and the subsequent controversy which came to engulf it and destroyed several careers in the process. It is based on the memoir “Truth and Duty: The Press, The President and The Privilege of Power” written by Mary Mapes, a noted American journalist who was the producer of Bush news story, and she is played by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett. The movie details meticulously the research Mapes and her team did on this story and of how many came to sharply criticize the veracity of the information given. What started out as an expose of Bush’s service, or lack thereof, in the Texas Air National Guard becomes focused solely on the reporters involved to where broadcast journalism would never be the same.
I got to sit in on a roundtable interview with Vanderbilt at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California while he was in town to promote “Truth.” His desire to adapt this memoir into a film came from his infinite curiosity about broadcast journalism and how people in a newsroom work and put a story together.
Ben Kenber: What made you decide that the time had come for you to step behind the camera to direct?
James Vanderbilt: I don’t know. Uh, foolishness? No, I was at a film school with all these people who really, really wanted to direct, and I always wanted to be a writer. It seemed like they were all looking at screenwriting as the stepping stone for the real job and so, being an angry young film student, I was totally resentful of them. Screenwriting is a craft and it’s got a great history, so I wasn’t the guy who was like “what I really want to do is direct.” I was lucky enough to have some films made and to produce some films and work with some really great directors, and watching them was actually the thing that made me go, I’d be curious to know if I could do that” Watching directors work with actors was actually the biggest thing which was fun for me to see and wanting to be a part of that, but as the writer and producer you want there always to be one voice to the actor. You never want the producer to come in and go, “You know what would also be great?” So, I always wondered if I could do that, carry the ball all the way down the field, and it came out of a very misguided desire to see if it would even be a possibility for me and if I would enjoy it.
BK: Did you enjoy it?
JV: I really loved it. I really loved every part of the process. It was just so exciting and fun.
BK: Doubt has become such a powerful tool over the years, and it really came down hard on this particular news story when it aired on television. Were you ever worried as a writer or as a director of getting caught up in that realm of doubt to where it was hard to distinguish between both sides of the argument?
JV: I don’t know about worried. We tried to present a bunch of different arguments in the film. It was important to us and important to me that the film was, although some might characterize it as trying to prove a point, not a film that’s trying to prove a point. What I love is seeing people come out of it discussing it and arguing about it, and that’s great to me. Seeing a married couple come out of it and one of them saying absolutely she should’ve been fired, and the other one going, “What are you crazy?” Apparently, I just enjoy discordant marriages (laughs). But the goal for me first and foremost was just to tell a really interesting story about this woman and what she went through and make it an emotional story. We didn’t want it to be homework. You want it to be a real tale and an emotional story. If audiences go on that journey and then maybe if they also think a little bit about media and where we are right now, all of that would-be gravy.
Enough time has passed since this “60 Minutes” news story premiered to where we should be able to view it more objectively, and “Truth” will give audiences a lot to think about as it is not so much about whether or Mapes got the story right or not, but of how much a casualty truth can be when it comes to presidential politics and personal bias.
“Truth” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
It should be no secret by now that Anna Kendrick has quite the singing voice. Whether it’s the independent musical film “Camp,” “Pitch Perfect,” “Pitch Perfect 2” or “Into the Woods,” she consistently dazzles us with her singing whether she’s appearing on the silver screen or on Broadway. In “The Last Five Years,” Richard LaGravenese’s adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway show, she plays Cathy Hiatt, an aspiring actress who falls madly in love with the very talented writer Jamie Wellerstein (played by Jeremy Jordan). But as Jamie’s star quickly rises, Cathy finds herself struggling in her acting career to where she begins to feel invisible around Jamie. Essentially, “The Last Five Years” looks at a relationship’s exhilarating highs and its emotionally draining lows, and it proves to be a musical which is far more character driven than one which thrives on spectacle.
I was lucky enough to attend the press conference for “The Last Five Years” held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and Kendrick was in attendance along with Jordan and LaGravenese. I was particularly interested in how Kendrick was able to keep the songs she sang fresh for her in each take. By this, I mean how she kept the songs alive for her to where she wasn’t just giving us something which felt emotionally dead or sounded over-rehearsed. You can perform a song or a monologue so many times before it becomes stale and uninteresting, and you have to keep shaking things up so you don’t end up looking like a robot.
According to “The Last Five Years’” IMDB page, Kendrick had to sing “Still Hurting” 17 times straight through. I brought this up during the press conference and LaGravenese quickly said it was because of all the different camera setups which had to be done for the scene, and this led Kendrick to joke about how much easier it would be to make movies without the camera. When it came to keeping “Still Hurting” fresh from take to take, her answer was complex to where it sounded like she is still trying to figure out how to do that.
Anna Kendrick: You know, if I trained at RADA I might actually be able to verbalize that kind of thing and the fact is I didn’t and I have only learned by working, and I’ve been working since I was a kid,” Kendrick said. “I don’t know and to try to put it into the words would be to destroy the thing. I guess you try to find a balance between going into the material and going to a personal place because you never want to tip it too much in one direction. I feel like I drew a lot of energy from the support of the crew who were unbelievably compassionate and understanding, and nothing gave me greater inspiration than seeing the 40-year old dolly operator in his classic Hawaiian t-shirt listening in. He had the same earpiece in his ear that I had, and watching his face as he counted and I could feel his body counting, all these people are honoring a thing that you’re trying to do and that gives you an unbelievable reserve of energy.
So, after all these years as an actress, it still sounds like this is something she is still working on, and that’s okay. An actor’s, or actress,’ work is never done as the best ones continue to work at their craft year after year to improve upon it dramatically (no pun intended), and it was refreshing to hear Kendrick admit she doesn’t have all the answers because most actors do not. If you think you’re the only one who is struggling with trying to keep a piece you have performed several times fresh and meaningful for yourself, you’re not. Every actor does whether it’s a movie, a play or a TV show they’re working on, but they keep going because they’re passionate about their work. Kendrick may have accomplished a lot as an actress so far, but her work as an actor is never done. Once it is, she may have to retire.
“The Last Five Years” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
Whether she has the lead in a movie or is just playing a supporting role, you can always count on Joan Allen to give a compelling performance. In ‘Room’ she plays Nancy, a mother reunited with her daughter, Joy (Brie Larson), who was kidnapped years before. She also discovers Joy is now a mother herself to five-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a product of the abuse she suffered while in captivity. As thrilled as she is to have her daughter back in her life, Nancy now has to face the immense struggle of acclimating Joy back into the life she was taken away from and forging a relationship with her surprise grandson. It’s a journey full of awkwardness, but also one which comes to be filled with hope.
Allen appeared at the “Room” press day held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California and talked about her experience making the movie which was one of the most acclaimed movies of 2015. While it deals with such dark themes as kidnapping, abuse and captivity, she also feels “Room” examines the many truths of parenthood. I asked her what kind of research she did to better understand her character and the nightmarish situation she is forced to endure.
Joan Allen:I just did some reading about abductions and parents. I looked up in particular Terry Probyn who is Jaycee Dugard’s mother. I was hoping to speak with her but I wasn’t able to make that happen, but she had some YouTube footage of what it was like to be reunified. She said one thing that was very helpful to me, that it was a very difficult thing to reunify and you need a lot of help in order to do it. In fact, she and her daughter have created a foundation that helps people and families in this situation unify not only from abduction cases but veterans who had long periods away in the war zone where they’ve been traumatized. It’s very difficult for families to find a way when they’ve had such radically different experiences for extended periods of time and are sad and traumatized by them. And I’m a mother of a 21-year-old and have been sufficiently scared enough by various choices she’s made in life (laughs) to understand what that’s like, to feel that scared for your child and how it’s a ripple effect. It’s certainly not an ouch contest. If it were, the mom would have the biggest ouch. But everybody has huge ouches and that’s just the way it is, and what I’m so moved about by all the characters including Jack is that everybody is trying to move forward and they don’t really know how. They are just not really a throw in the towel kind of people. There is that forward movement, no matter how hard it is, to try and figure it out and to be loving and to try and understand the best way to move forward and get closer to a whole family life back because it’s a tremendous loss. It’s a tremendous devastation to not have that. But they are characters that do try and that do move forward and there’s a tremendous amount of love there, and that’s why I think that the story really reflects that.
“Room” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
Brie Larson is best known for her performances in movies like “Short Term 12,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” “21 Jump Street” and “Trainwreck,” and she also has a singing career and released an album entitled “Finally Out of P.E.” But if you’re not familiar with whom she is, that’s alright because you won’t be able to forget her after watching her emotionally exhausting performance in Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room.” She plays Joy (a.k.a. Ma), a young woman who was kidnapped several years ago by a man who tricked her into helping him find his lost dog. Joy has since been imprisoned in that man’s garden shed located in his backyard, and she occupies it with her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay). But as time flies by, Joy becomes increasingly determined to escape the prison she and her son have been forced to grow up in, but the outside world provides them with even more challenges than they could ever have expected to endure.
Larson was at the “Room” press day held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California where she was lauded by many reporters for her brave acting. I read how, when she accepted the role of Joy, she decided to lead a more reclusive life and reduce her social interaction with others in order to better understand her character’s mindset. I asked her what that preparation specifically entailed, and her answer proved to be endlessly fascinating.
Brie Larson:I really love the myth about my reclusive life (laughs). The words that have been used today have been so interesting. How it started was in trying to understand those two years of basic silence of being alone in this place, and I meditate so I was little familiar with trying to get to mental silence and how hard that is. And then I had some friends who had been on silent retreats and I was fascinated by the reactions because some of them could go 10 days and they do it every year and it’s just this time that they absolutely love. You’re not allowed to speak and you’re not allowed to look at anybody because that’s also seen as a form of communication. There’s no connection to the outside world. But I had other friends who couldn’t last 24 hours. They just panicked and left and so there was this sense of just sitting with yourself and imagining Ma at 17, 18 and 19 years old sitting with herself in the way most teenagers don’t. That’s a period of time where it’s all fleeting. It’s all just getting away from everything and wanting to move out and pushing away a parent. In some ways I felt that period of time to be this bizarrely mature experience and set in a horrible setting, but in a way that she has to come to terms with who she is now and this new individual that she’s become that is completely separate from her friends, from her home and from her parents, and it’s the time right before she has a child which becomes her next identity as being a mother. So for myself, it was just seeing what that mental chatter felt like and if it was something to feel that painful moments of it, to feel eureka moments. They were moments that I remembered from my childhood that I had forgotten that were so beautiful and other moments that I completely had forgotten that were more painful. And so having that time to just very simply reflect I felt became a huge part of getting to know her better. But it wasn’t like painful. I found it kind of fun to be honest. I didn’t mind it.
Larson later won, and deservedly so, the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance, and it has since opened up a number of opportunities I can’t wait to see her take on. “Room” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
“The Founder” recently had its press conference in Los Angeles, California, and it took place the week before President Barack Obama is set to leave the White House and Donald Trump will move in. While no one brought up their political views during this press conference, the movie felt more timely than perhaps its filmmakers intended as it illustrates the birth of unrestrained capitalism. Considering we have a die-hard capitalist set to be the next President of the United States, it’s hard not think about the corporate world and corporations as we watch Michael Keaton play Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois who discovered a different kind of restaurant run by Maurice and Richard McDonald and eventually turned it into a billion-dollar franchise. But in the process, Ray convinces just about everyone around him that he was the one who founded McDonald’s, and he eventually steals the brothers’ business right out from under them.
Directed by John Lee Hancock, “The Founder” deals with a number of different subjects like capitalism (sustainable and unrestrained), business, greed, the corporate world, etc. The movie also makes you wonder if it is even remotely possible to run a corporation without losing your heart and soul in the process. But most of all, it makes you see how everyone doesn’t see the American Dream in the same way.
Laura Dern also stars in the movie as Ray’s wife, Ethel, and it was fascinating to hear her talk about the elements in the story which were hiding just beneath the surface. Also, she talked about seeing the movie with her daughter and how they reacted to a key scene involving the McDonald brothers.
Laura Dern: The piece that interested me, which was probably the piece I knew about Ray Kroc or McDonald’s, was this question of the introduction of the filler. I was fascinated that the film pointed it out, but also this question of how did it turn from real food to how we can make a fast buck and potentially poison people. What is that? And the subversive question which interested me the most was this question of, can capitalism hold compassion, and what is that story? And so, that moved me so much when John (Lee Hancock) first spoke to me about it, and hearing all these amazing people were involved. I would just love to add because I thought it was so incredible, I got to see the film last night with my daughter who is just turning 12, and to hear from her perspective, because I like to think it’s politically subversive and a commentary on this question of empathy versus corporations and can there be a place for both; I was talking about my favorite shot which just brings me to tears of these two gentlemen with their arms around each other watching the McDonald’s section of their sign be removed. I was talking about it, and when we go in the car my daughter said, “Mom, you know when those brothers were holding each other at the end?” I said, “Yes.” She goes, “That’s how I felt after (President Barack Obama’s) farewell address. We just don’t know what’s next.” And that was the film to me, and I just loved for a 12-year-old the details of the story, the point was she got what I think you all intended, and I was really moved by that.
John Carroll Lynch (above on the right) co-stars as the hard-working Maurice McDonald who is excited to see his brother’s restaurant become an even bigger success than it already is. He excitedly spoke about what he knew about Ray Kroc, but more importantly, he described how Ray’s level of thinking has become the typical kind of thinking for everyone in this day and age.
John Carroll Lynch: I knew Ray Kroc in kind of the way that Michael (Keaton) was talking about. I thought of him as the founder even though I knew there were the brothers before him. I also knew that he had owned the (San Diego) Padres, and I also knew that after his death particularly that his wife gave away massive amounts of money, and I would hear her name on National Public Radio all the time. So, that was my personal relationship with it, but knowing the story a little bit and seeing the things that are absolutely bedrock, admirable American traits of entrepreneurship, of persistence, of salesmanship, of a sense of seeing something and how far it can go, of vision, all of those things are incredibly attractive. And what I love about the way the movie unfolds was how there’s a moment when he could tell the truth about the origin of the company, and you might not feel so badly about what happens if he could just give somebody else credit. If he could just be humble enough to go, there were these two brothers who had this amazing idea, and I figured out a way how to make it on every street in America with this other guy’s help. He could have said any of those things, but every moment he has any opportunity to tell the truth, he can’t do it because he needs to be the guy. There’s also a moment in the story where you watch him kind of digest the lie over time, and it becomes the truth to him. That is very indicative of where we are right now which is what we are told is in some ways, to many of us, more important than the actual truth, and we just want to believe the easy part of what’s said and not the hard parts, and I include myself in that. I don’t want to have to deal with the hard parts. I don’t want to have to deal with the fact that people are destroyed or land is destroyed. I really, really like Egg McMuffins (everybody laughs), and that’s where my dilemma is.
Now whatever you may think about McDonald’s before and after you see “The Founder,” their breakfast menu is simply delicious. Even if eating there threatens my cholesterol levels, I have to have a Sausage McMuffin with Egg or an Egg White Delight every once in a while.
Then there was Keaton who talked at length about how the meaning of the American Dream has changed drastically over time into something which is largely unrealistic. The more he talked about it, the more one had to wonder if it even exists in its most simple form anymore. With wages failing to catch with cost of living increases, you have to wonder if it is even within one’s reach these days.
Michael Keaton: I did some press early on in Europe. I heard it there and I heard it from a few journalists from outside the U.S. yesterday, and this morning on the phone they bring it up. It’s interesting because the U.S. journalists don’t bring this up, and that is the issue of the American Dream. This is fascinating to me unless I missed something. We can go on and on about consumerism, waste, greed, etc., etc. Their perception of what the American Dream is, and let me be a little more specific, not to miss the issue with such a generalization, when they talk about the American Dream, they do it in relation to billions and mansions, and they kind of make the assumption of an extravagant lifestyle of private jets, owning islands and everything. That’s fascinating to me because my concept of the American Dream, unless I missed something here, in its simplest form, is work hard enough and there will be a job available and you can buy a house, and you can buy a car to get you back and forth from work so where you can afford that house, and have couple of kids who can attend a good school, you get a good vacation maybe, and maybe a second car. Unless I missed something, that ain’t a bad thing. I think that’s what it was. That’s not what the perception is. It’s this other thing. I want to say it is an ugly thing. I have no problem with billionaires, especially billionaires like Bill Gates who do the things they do or my friend Yvon Chouinard who I keep referring to. Pick one. There are a bunch of them out there. But there’s this other perception out there. Am I nuts? That’s not what the idea was.
Now while these discussions might have taken away from talking about the making of “The Founder,” they stayed with me long after the press conference had ended. The movie is largely about capitalism and of how it can be exercised in both healthy and unhealthy ways, and it’s hard not to think about our dysfunctional relationship with the corporate world in the new millennium. Whatever way you want to look at it, “The Founder” is a compelling cinematic experience which chronicles the rise of a franchise we are all very familiar with and which plays a significant part in our lives whether we want it to or not.
“The Founder” opens in theaters this Friday, January 20th. Be sure to check it out!
Poster and photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company.
Check out the video, courtesy of Movie Maniacs, to view the entire press conference.
On the surface, “Miss Lovely” might look like a typical Bollywood movie, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a Hindi feature film which digs deep into the sordid back alley of India’s film industry of the 1980’s which churned out countless horror and soft-core porn movies. In the midst of this sleazy atmosphere are the Duggal brothers, Sonu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and Vicky (Anil George), who are among the most prolific producers of trashy C-grade films for Mumbai’s underground market. But while Vicky has no problem with what he does, Sonu is desperately looking to escape this underground reality. When he meets the beautiful actress Pinky (Niharika Singh), Sonu sees not only his chance for escape but also the opportunity to make a real romance movie with her as the star. But as he works to make this a reality, he ends up going down a road from which there is no return.
“Miss Lovely” was directed by Ashim Ahluwalia who is said to be part of a new generation of Indian filmmakers who prefer to avoid working with Hindi film stars, and his films have been described as unconventional in how they blur the lines between documentary and fiction. This is certainly the case here as Ahluwalia’s film deals with an industry he has seen up close, and he invites us to journey into its murky depths. It was originally supposed to be a documentary, but when Ahluwalia couldn’t get those working in the C-grade film industry to be involved, he decided to make a fiction film instead. What results is an unforgettable motion picture which is as unsettling as it is intoxicating to sit through, and it’s one of those movies I sarcastically describe as being good fun for the whole family.
I got to speak with Ahluwalia while he was out to promote “Miss Lovely,” and he was super excited to talk about it as the movie looks at an industry which has long ceased to exist due to changes in technology and the widespread availability of pornography on the internet. It was fascinating to hear him talk about this as filmmakers today are dealing with a shift in technology from film to digital, and it’s a shift many are not quick to embrace.
Ben Kenber: I was blown away by it and it was not at all what I expected. It’s more of a movie you experience than just watch.
Ashim Ahluwalia: Exactly. I think that’s really a good way to describe it.
BK: I especially liked how you shot this movie on Kodak Super 16 and 35mm film as it gives the movie a really rough feel which in turn captures the sleazy nature of the business these characters are engulfed in.
AA: Yeah, it was also about the end of celluloid. The whole period that these films were made in was kind of the end of celluloid and then you have VHS replacing it. In a way, that was the precursor to the digital age and this whole way of consuming sleaze I guess. It just moved to the internet in the 2000’s and then that was the end of that. So I think a lot of it has to do with this material that was so critical in the way these films are made and consumed. It’s crazy to think that they were shooting that sleaze on 35mm (laughs), and now people would just die to get their hands on that kind of access to celluloid, so it’s pretty much part of what the film is about.
BK: Now some have suggested that “Miss Lovely” is part of a new wave of Indian cinema. How do you feel about the reaction this movie has had so far?
AA: It has random individuals doing random things and they’re not really connected, and that has more to do with the fact that now people are more exposed to cinema and they’re getting excited by what’s happening in the rest of Asia and the possibility of digital, etc. I think this whole idea was kind of overblown. It was sort of a moment when they were trying to tie everything together. I think “Miss Lovely” is a very odd film honestly. It’s not unique. It’s not odd just to India; it’s just odd generally because it’s such a hybrid film. It’s just taking very comfortably in a way that most art-house movies don’t just take it from the musical, taking from a 50’s noir, taking from sex horror, taking from porn, maybe documentaries or experimental films and stuff like that. I don’t think it represents a new specific type of film from India, but I think this is definitely a moment where there is new stuff and it’s not just Bollywood, Bollywood, Bollywood.
BK: To be honest, I’m not too familiar with Bollywood films…
AA: Well you’re lucky (laughs).
BK: I think the closest I’ve come to Bollywood so far is “Slumdog Millionaire,” but I’m not sure if that counts.
AA: Well yeah but it’s borderline Bollywood honestly. New Bollywood is kind of like that.
BK: How difficult was it to re-create the Mumbai of the 1980’s as you remember it?
AA: It was really hard because most of the places were being bulldozed as we were shooting them. So sometimes at a location, half the building was already knocked down and we just got them to hold for like a week until we shot a scene. It was literally shooting the last remnants of that kind of 80’s one-hour hotels and cabaret halls and stuff. I would say that about 60 or 70% of the locations are gone now and it’s not even been two years. It becomes kind of a document of those places and that kind of time. It doesn’t exist anymore.
BK: I read that you were not looking to romanticize or do a parody of the 1980’s. How did you manage to keep yourself from doing that?
AA: Well I think there’s sort of like a hipster 1980’s thing and I really wanted to stay away from that. I didn’t want to just make like fetishes of all those little 80’s objects. For me, the reason is because I spent a year and a half hanging out with a lot of these people from the C-grade industry because I initially wanted to make a documentary. So, by the time I was done with that one-and-a-half-year period, it was very hard to poke fun at anyone because these are people that you spent so much time with and saw so intimately. It was hard to caricaturize them.
BK: During the movie, we don’t see a lot of the real world outside of the one the Duggal brothers inhabit. When it does intrude on their sleazy underworld, you feel almost as lost as the characters do as they desperately try to escape their circumstances.
AA: Yeah, it’s kind of claustrophobic. I wanted the film to be like this kind of maze that you were trying to get out of and you can’t. The whole point is this kind of escape ends up being a fantasy of a film that could maybe get you out of there, but it’s sort of like endless passageways that lead into other passageways. It’s just a very interior, claustrophobic kind of environment which I think, for me, I relate to that. When you work sometimes in film you feel like that. You don’t have to really only work in secret cinema, but sometimes a bad day job can be like that. So, I think that idea of you were always trying to escape but you can’t, I like that somehow.
BK: This is your first feature film as a director, and your previous film was a documentary. What was the transition like for you from making documentaries to directing an actual feature film?
AA: The first film I made was “John & Jane” and that was a documentary, but it was shot on 35mm and looks more like a dystopian sci-fi film than a documentary. Somebody told me that my documentaries look more like fiction and my fiction looks more like documentaries, so I’m really interested in this idea of what a fiction film is and what a documentary is. “Miss Lovely” is not a conventional or traditional film. It’s still quite loose in terms of its language and it’s quite experimental, so I don’t find much difference. I feel like I could slip in and out between these two worlds quite easily in some ways.
BK: You once said that the raw energy of these C-grade filmmakers reminded you of why you set out to make films in the first place. What was it specifically about them that reminded you of that?
AA: Well I think what happens is that when you start working in any capacity like in an industry or an environment, what ends up happening is that you become quite jaded as a filmmaker. You’re just like always thinking about how do I get money, do I put it in this thing, if I put this person in it then I get this money and then if I work with that person then I get this distribution, etc. I think what ends up happening is that you lose that energy and spirit of why you really love cinema. You don’t watch films anymore because you’re so jaded by it. But when I experienced these guys making films, although the films are very bad admittedly, the way that they would make the films would be so like run and gone. It would be like, “Oh are we running out of film stock? What we do? The actor’s not available? Get another actor to stand in for the guy.” So the character is now played by a different actor, or if you don’t have a shot then you put a stock shot in, or the police are coming into the building so you have to finish the scene like within 15 minutes. The whole anarchic energy of the way the films are made really reminded me of what independent film should be; just making it with such passion. It’s like the passion is going to make the film happen. It really inspired me in a way to just make something which I really love with some degree of madness and passion which I think sometimes gets filtered out of you.
BK: I’m always waiting for the independent film world to explode again like it did in the 1990’s.
AA: Yeah exactly, and then you see how it’s just been co-opted and it feels like such a tired kind of thing.
BK: The characters in “Miss Lovely” are basically composites of the people you met in this industry. You said you originally wanted to do a documentary, but a lot of the people you talked to didn’t want to be involved in it because of the illegal nature of what they were doing. How accurate is this movie to those types of filmmakers?
AA: A lot of the people that were going to be in the documentary initially, I got them to just play themselves in the background. So all the background characters are all like real C-grade people. All the secondaries are actually people that, when I cast them in a fiction film, were like, “Okay I’ll do it.” But they didn’t want to be in the documentary somehow. So, a lot of those real elements I just kind of brought back into this movie in another way through another backdoor and just brought the realism back into it.
BK: That’s surprising to hear that they did find a way to be in this movie without compromising their true identities.
AA: Yeah, and as long as they were in costume they felt like they weren’t revealing too much of themselves, but they were playing themselves essentially. That just gave the whole thing a bona fide genuine authentic atmosphere that is just almost impossible to re-create artificially with actors who don’t know anything about that world. I felt it just brings another energy to it.
BK: The cast is just spot on with their performances. What was the casting process for “Miss Lovely” like?
AA: Well a lot of them are real people that, when you meet them, are so performative anyway. There’s a midget casting director, the little guy, and when I met him he was just so charismatic when he was talking to me about what he did. He is actually a casting director in real life, so he just had to do what he always does and he was really comfortable. A lot of them were really comfortable around the cameras somehow. It’s almost like they were waiting all their lives to be in front of the camera, and suddenly they just did that thing. And of course, if I gave somebody lines, finally they would never remember the lines but they would do their own thing which would be better than the lines I wrote. I would be like, “Yeah let’s just keep that. It’s much better.”
BK: All the actors seem to have a wonderfully natural quality whenever they appear onscreen. It’s like there inhabiting the roles instead of just playing them, and it really sucks you into the atmosphere of the movie even more.
AA: Well that’s because a lot of them really are those people, so that’s partly it. And the others who were more professional actors were now having to match their performance with someone who’s so bona fide and so real that they are like, “S—t! I need to get better at what I’m doing because I’m looking fake now in relation to this person.” So, putting nonprofessional and then professional actors in the same space together creates a very interesting dynamic.
BK: “Miss Lovely” reminded me a bit of the Coen Brothers’ film “Barton Fink” as both movies have protagonists who really want to make a difference in the industry they’re working in, and then they see their dreams get shattered in the worst way possible.
AA: Yeah, I like that film a lot actually. That’s a very atmospheric film. The atmosphere is very much a character in the film, and it’s not just about the narrative. It’s just about the texture of that space and stuff. It’s a good reference I think.
BK: Another movie reminded me of was “Boogie Nights” and the scene where the producers are talking to Burt Reynolds about switching from celluloid to videotape since it’s a lot less expensive.
AA: Yeah. I think probably there are similar interests from filmmakers because we grew up in a certain time and a certain place, and you’ve seen this shift happen to digital and it’s such a radical change in terms of what it means to make a movie or what a film even is. I think it’s all about a certain generation of filmmakers grappling with the shift.
I want to thank Ashim Ahluwalia for taking the time to talk with me. “Miss Lovely” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
“May in the Summer” may look like the typical romantic comedy on the surface, but it’s really much more than that as it delves into a culture many of us have not seen. Cherien Dabis who wrote, directed and stars in this movie as May Brennan, a sophisticated New Yorker and an acclaimed author who travels to her childhood home in Amman, Jordan to prepare for her wedding. But shortly after reuniting with her sisters and her divorced parents, May begins to question whether she should go through with the marriage after experiencing a number of familial and cultural conflicts.
It was a pleasure talking with Dabis while she was in Los Angeles. While she talked at length about her movie, she also described just how much Jordan has changed from when she was a child. In addition, she spoke of the challenges she faced of acting and directing at the same time, what she was proudest of being able to capture onscreen about Jordan, and she talked about how actors Bill Pullman and Alia Shawkat came to be cast.
Ben Kenber: What I really liked about “May in the Summer” is that it gives us a unique look into a culture that most people have seen from a distance, and in some cases a rather biased distance. How was it for you capturing Jordan on film?
Cherien Dabis: It was great. Jordan’s a country I know very well. I’ve been traveling there since I was a kid. My parents are Palestinian and Jordanian and I was born and raised in the US, but we would return to Jordan almost every summer. For the last three decades I’ve watched the country grow and change so much that it’s been really shocking the amount of growth and change. I knew I always wanted to do something there because what I find really particular to Amman specifically is that it’s not only become super westernized, but it’s also quite Americanized. There’s a lot of American schools popping up, there are a lot of young people who are speaking English with an American accent, there’s so much American culture and American products; there’s fast food chains and Starbucks. So it’s just the side of the Middle East that I didn’t think people would find really surprising, and I wanted to feature that and to be able to feature the country and parts of the country that I’d been going to since I was young and places where I really discovered myself. It was really, really cool.
BK: You both acted in and directed this movie. Initially, you were looking to cast someone else in the role of May, correct?
CD: Yeah, I didn’t write the role for myself. I spent about a year looking for someone to play the part and I wasn’t finding someone who I felt was really authentic to the culture and language, but also someone who really embodied the spirit of the character. At the same time, I kept getting people, like random people, who would suggest that I consider myself for the part. It was really shocking to me that people kept saying that to me, but enough people said it that I just finally was like okay, this somehow feels like I am meant to do this. I am meant to consider this, that maybe this is part of my journey. I think ultimately that’s what I found. I very hesitantly put myself forward. I put myself on tape, I watch myself back and it’s always such a trip to do that for the first time. It took a little while for me to find a sense of objectivity or at least as close to objectivity as I could, but I saw something there that was raw enough that felt like I could work with it and that embodied the spirit of the character and what I had been looking for, and I surprised myself a little bit. So I called myself back, I made myself go through this rigorous casting process only to discover that wow, I think I might be able to do this. It was kind of an amazing journey and one in which I kind of paralleled May in a way. May is on this journey of self-discovery, and by putting myself in the film I was also on a journey of self-discovery in having to make myself vulnerable just like the character in the film. And when I realized that I was like oh God, now I really have to do it. It really feels like the right choice for the film, but it was a tough one to make given all of the hats that I was wearing.
BK: In terms of acting, did you have someone looking out for you when you stepped in front of the camera?
CD: I did. When I made the choice to do it, I brought on someone who became a very good friend. He’s an acting teacher in Brooklyn and he became somewhat of an acting coach to me. So I worked with him for about a year and a half before making the film, and it was great because my training was really about getting as much experience in the skill of acting and directing and not back and forth in directing myself. It is a very specific skill and I wanted to have as much experience in it as I could before getting to set, and it was really important that I did that because I would’ve been a mess if I hadn’t. But he came to set and he was there for me. He was sort of my eyes and by then we had a short hand because we had been working together for so long, so it was really great to have them there.
BK: I really loved how the Dead Sea looked in this movie. It’s just beautiful to the point where the name seems a little contradictory considering how lively the atmosphere out there seems.
CD: Right, and yet strangely appropriate given what’s on the other side of the Dead Sea. It’s (Palestine) so close. The Dead Sea’s so small and narrow, and the other side of the shore is the West Bank. It’s sort of shocking when you’re standing there looking out and you’re at a resort where there are these really beautiful infinity pools and spas and food and drinks and people partying by the pool. It’s a very contradictory paradoxical experience, and that was something I wanted to capture in the film.
BK: What would you say you were the proudest of being able to capture in this film about Jordan and its culture?
CD: That’s a really good question. I think the surrealism almost of being in a place. I have not seen that yet in a film, and I do think that what sets this movie apart from other Middle Eastern films, or Middle Eastern themed films, is that it really explores family. It’s a story about family and it’s a story that’s really relatable about relationships, and it looks at divorce but through a wedding. In some ways, it’s a sort of a divorce drama disguised as a wedding comedy. So it’s this really relatable film that’s set in this really specific part of the world, and it shows a part of that world that we don’t ever really get to see. The surrealism of that world I think is really interesting. Being in a place like Jordan which is just surrounded by conflict is at times really surreal because you can find yourself living this totally seemingly normal existence where you are going to cafés with friends or going out to dinner. You’re just going about your work, your life and you’re interacting with family, and then a fighter jet flies by and it rocks your entire world and you suddenly remember where you are and you remember that anything could happen at any moment. It gives you this incredible sense of perspective on your life where suddenly what you’re going through is not so bad and your problems seem really trivial and you remember the greater suffering in the world. I think it affects you in your life and your choices and who you are in a way that’s very unique to that part of the world, and that’s something I really wanted to capture and I think that’s something that’s there in the film. It’s something that I don’t think you get to see very often.
BK: We see a number of women in “May in the Summer” wearing a full hijab (a veil which covers the head and chest). Is it something that’s still imposed on women in Jordan or is that something women do by choice?
CD: Both. I think a lot of women do it by choice, but for a lot of women it’s not a choice. It’s imposed on them by their families or by society or by the culture. I do think this is a movie that looks at expectations like that. Our main character is definitely on a journey of self-discovery where she’s trying to figure out what kind of future she wants. She’s trying to strip away a familial expectation, a parental expectation or a societal expectation or even a political expectation, and she’s really trying to connect with her own inner voice and her own truth. That’s the only way she can really move into her own future, so it looks at those levels of expectations.
BK: Bill Pullman plays your character’s father and it’s great to see him here. Was it hard getting him cast in this movie?
CD: Surprisingly not and I was really presently surprised by that. My producer sent the script to his agent and he really responded to the script and the role. He’s just a very adventurous spirit so he wanted to travel to Jordan, he wanted to have that experience and he really wanted to go to Petra which was amazing. He was just fabulous. The moment he arrived in Jordan he just immersed himself in the culture and he wanted to just soak it all in. He was making friends right and left and he was having dinner with people he just met on the street. Within the first day of shooting, he knew everyone’s names. He was really just a special, special person and I’m so glad that he came over and wanted to be a part of that. People appreciated him so much for being so open in the culture.
BK: Alia Shawkat, who plays your sister Dalia, is also wonderful here, and she was also terrific in “The Moment” where she acted opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh. How did you go about casting her?
CD: Well I had worked with Alia on my first film, “Amreeka.” I was a huge fan of hers from “Arrested Development.” I just loved her. My executive producer on “Amreeka” actually told me that she’s half Iraqi which I had no idea, but I was very excited by that because I’m always looking to cast very authentically. So when I found that out I approached her for a role in my first feature, and when I met her she just so was that character in my first feature. When I worked with her I just absolutely loved her. We had a great time and we became friends and we kept in touch. When I conceived of the idea for “May in the Summer,” I immediately thought of her for the role of the sister, Dalia. She just has such a similar voice to that character; witty, sarcastic and subversive.
BK: Was there anything that you wanted to put into “May in the Summer” but were not able to for one reason or another?
CD: Well there are always things like that. You quickly realize when you’re making independent films that you have limited resources and there always comes a time when you have to make really painful decisions, and I definitely did on this film. I had to cut things out that I think would’ve added a lot of fabric and texture. There were a number of sequences, one where May goes downtown and we see a whole other part of the Middle East and we see it go from the really nice sort of upper-class neighborhood to the more downtown, shoddy kind of refugee camp neighborhoods. We are more used to seeing that probably on the news, and I wanted to show that transition and a little bit more of the society and give a little bit more of the political context of Jordan and the refugee situation. But ultimately the heart of the story is this family, and I had to keep the essence of that story. When I had to make those difficult decisions, Fort Lee a lot of that texture had to be cut out because we just didn’t have the time or the resources to capture it.
BK: My understanding is there’s a film industry growing in Jordan right now.
CD: Yeah that’s right, there’s definitely a burgeoning film industry. The Royal Film Commission in Jordan is great; they’ve been there for I think about 10 years now and they help facilitate production. They were enormously helpful to us and the crews are gaining a lot of experience. Kathryn Bigelow’s last two movies were shot there and a lot of the people I worked with worked on those movies. Also, John Stewart’s movie (“Rosewater”) was shot in Jordan which was another great experience for the country. It was exciting to be a part of that, to be a part of the really up-and-coming film community.
My thanks to Cherien Dabis for taking the time to talk with me. “May in the Summer” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.
