Archive for the ‘Interviews’ Category
Interview: Judd Apatow (Part Two)
Interview: Judd Apatow (Part Two)
Read Part One of this interview right here
When Judd Apatow‘s latest film, Funny People, was announced, many critics and audiences hailed it – even before they saw it – not only as an evolution of the filmmaker’s style, but a return to the kind of drama-laced comedy that flourished in the 1980s and early ’90s thanks to folks like Cameron Crowe and James L. Brooks. When it was released, the film more than satisfied those expectations, offering an unflinching but frequently hilarious portrait of an A-list comedian rediscovering himself, but there seemed to be a sense that audiences knew themselves less well than they felt like they knew the film’s main character, resulting in a less enthusiastic response than perhaps even they expected.
The film arrives on Blu-ray this week, offering what is indisputably the most complete and comprehensive look behind the scenes at a comedy ever produced, and offers audiences a second chance to check out Apatow’s most meaningful and resonant work to date. Cinematical got a chance to catch up with the writer-director via telephone to discuss the contents of the expansive, 2-Disc Collector’s Edition; in the second part of our chat, Apatow talks about precisely what made the movie so personal for him, and offers a few insights about its place in his growing body of work, and its potential influence on his future films (including a Harry Pottermovie, maybe?).
Cinematical: With or without talking to you at the time of the film’s release, people seemed to assume that this was a very personal film, I think because it was more serious than your previous work. Was it really personal, and if so in what way or why?
Judd Apatow: Well, I find that things can be very personal without pointing out to people what is taken directly from your life. If I do it right, it shouldn’t feel like I’m just talking about personal experiences that happened to me or people in my world. So it’s good that it doesn’t seem – that you can’t track it (laughs). But the ideas are very intimate and they relate to a lot that’s happened to me over the decades, but it’s all thrown into a blender to make it more amusing or dramatic. But yes, it does feel very personal, to the point of being embarrassing, but it’s because it’s how you feel about the world that’s out there. It’s kind of showing one’s pleasant side and one’s crazy voices; I’m just better at hiding them in a character that can act them out. You make a movie and think, ah, this is about other people, but slowly you realize it’s all about you. It’s also about everyone who’s involved in the collaboration, but it surprises you when it’s done how much is based on things that you’re struggling with.
Cinematical: Given the sort of line-o-rama process by which you work when shooting scenes, how do you decide what ends up in a film or works best for it?
Apatow: Every joke is meant to illuminate something, whether it’s how funny someone is or a piece of their back story or how they’re feeling on that particular night. So there’s literally no punchline that wasn’t in there that wasn’t debated for hours and hours, but how I like to shoot it is to shoot Adam or Seth doing half an hour of material, not obsessing about what I will use when we’re shooting, and then decide what fits best after. But when you keep it loose and the comedians are really in character, other things happen on stage that are surprising and they do fit into what you need. People do subconsciously start living the story, so Adam one day said, “hey, tonight I’m going to improvise something on the piano,” and he just sits down and sings this mad song. The audience doesn’t know that he’s sick, but in a way it’s a strange goodbye to his audience, and it’s really sad and filthy. I never could have written that in a million years, and Adam did it off the top of his head; and because it’s improvised, it’s sloppy and emotionally raw in a way that’s very truthful. He just went there, and that’s why I try to create some extra space for those moments to happen.
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Cinematical: How much is there a degree of sort of self-satirization in this film, whether you’re taking direct jabs at your or Adam’s movies? Or, even if it’s not in the movie, how much do you guys sort of rib one another about the movies you make?
Apatow: Every time you make a movie, it’s a risk. It’s easy to take for granted the work of comedians, but it’s insanely hard to make people laugh out loud and be really happy for an hour and a half straight. And sometimes you do it with the silliest thing in the world and sometimes you do it in a more thoughtful way or emotional way, but it’s hard as hell (laughs). How I looked at that aspect of the movie was that this character valued being on top more than the quality of his movies, so he tried to make decent movies, but his ego made him try to hit a home run every time out. That being said, while we were making the movie, we kept saying, “we’d make Mer-Man right now!” There’s a funny version of Mer-Man, there’s a funny version of Redo. And it genuinely made us laugh; even though we knew we were goofing on movies like that, we also thought, we could probably do a good one of these!
But one thing I appreciated from Adam was that he never said, “oh don’t do that – people will think you’re goofing on me.” The truth is, I’m not goofing on Adam because Adam has a ridiculously wide range of movies he’s made. He’s just covered so much ground. Some are incredibly silly, some are truly experimental art films, and his level of success is so high he’s just been amazing for a very long time, and I don’t think George Simmons would have tried most of what Adam has tried to do. Again, there’s a subtle difference there, so it’s easy for people to say, “oh, you’re goofing on your own movies,” but I really thought what was more interesting to me was what happens when a shallow person gets sick? He doesn’t want to be thoughtful, so his movies can’t be thoughtful; he’s not making introspective comedies. When he gets sick, he doesn’t tell anybody, he doesn’t know how to talk about it – he’s not that kind of person. He’s more like a Rodney Dangerfield kind of person; he’s telling jokes and being silly.
Cinematical: What I think is one of the things he and the film communicates is that comedy is a way for someone to conceal their true feelings, and ultimately a prison that keeps them from being able to express them.
Apatow: Sometimes it’s easier to hide when you’re that famous. It was strange when Michael Jackson died and there were so many similarities to how we were presenting this fictionalized comedy star in our movie and what was coming out about Michael Jackson. The opening conversation about our movie is Adam having a conversation with his doctor about sleep medication. And all of these images of this rich guy alone in this giant house, never feeling satisfied with the amount of affection he’s getting from the world – which is an enormous amount of affection. A lot of times people want to make you laugh not because they want to make you happy but because they want to know if you like them. Your laugh signals “you’re okay” – and that’s a tough way to live. I think a lot of us as we get older think, is there a healthy way to do what we’re doing? We didn’t start this [for our] mental health, but can we spin it at some point and be creative for normal positive reasons?
Cinematical: Having done this movie which was so much more personal and serious than your other films, do you feel inclined to continue going in that direction?
Apatow: I try to be very passionate about the movies I’m making. I can get passionate about something that’s ridiculous and absurd and silly in the same way I can be passionate about something that’s more intimate and thoughtful, but I just have to care about it. So I don’t know; as of right now, I’m trying not to think too much about what I’ll do next and see what strikes me, but every once and a while I think it would be great to do something really dumb next, really goofy, and just make people happy. Create a joy machine. But most of the time I think let’s do another really dark, melancholy movie about a different subject, and then I think, you know what? Maybe I need a longer rest (laughs). So I don’t know; I’ll just wait until someone needs a director for the 14th Harry Potter movie and hopefully I’ll be at the top of the list somewhere.
Cinematical: Do you have any idea what the next thing is going to be for you?
Apatow: I really don’t. I’ve never had two ideas in my head. I mean, my brain is completely blank. I covered a lot of ground with these last two movies, so I may need something to happen to me in life before I can write again. But I don’t know – then something hits you out of the blue and it could happen in an eighth of a second; oh, it’s that! And then you’re off to the races.
Cinematical: Whether they’re conscious or not, do you see ongoing or repeated themes emerging in or from your growing body of work?
Apatow: I don’t think about it consciously, but there are certain ideas that recur and then you start thinking to yourself, well, should I make sure that never happens in Cinematical: How much is there a degree of sort of self-satirization in this film, whether you’re taking direct jabs at your or Adam’s movies? Or, even if it’s not in the movie, how much do you guys sort of rib one another about the movies you make?
Apatow: Every time you make a movie, it’s a risk. It’s easy to take for granted the work of comedians, but it’s insanely hard to make people laugh out loud and be really happy for an hour and a half straight. And sometimes you do it with the silliest thing in the world and sometimes you do it in a more thoughtful way or emotional way, but it’s hard as hell (laughs). How I looked at that aspect of the movie was that this character valued being on top more than the quality of his movies, so he tried to make decent movies, but his ego made him try to hit a home run every time out. That being said, while we were making the movie, we kept saying, “we’d make Mer-Man right now!” There’s a funny version of Mer-Man, there’s a funny version of Redo. And it genuinely made us laugh; even though we knew we were goofing on movies like that, we also thought, we could probably do a good one of these!
But one thing I appreciated from Adam was that he never said, “oh don’t do that – people will think you’re goofing on me.” The truth is, I’m not goofing on Adam because Adam has a ridiculously wide range of movies he’s made. He’s just covered so much ground. Some are incredibly silly, some are truly experimental art films, and his level of success is so high he’s just been amazing for a very long time, and I don’t think George Simmons would have tried most of what Adam has tried to do. Again, there’s a subtle difference there, so it’s easy for people to say, “oh, you’re goofing on your own movies,” but I really thought what was more interesting to me was what happens when a shallow person gets sick? He doesn’t want to be thoughtful, so his movies can’t be thoughtful; he’s not making introspective comedies. When he gets sick, he doesn’t tell anybody, he doesn’t know how to talk about it – he’s not that kind of person. He’s more like a Rodney Dangerfield kind of person; he’s telling jokes and being silly.
Cinematical: What I think is one of the things he and the film communicates is that comedy is a way for someone to conceal their true feelings, and ultimately a prison that keeps them from being able to express them.
Apatow: Sometimes it’s easier to hide when you’re that famous. It was strange when Michael Jackson died and there were so many similarities to how we were presenting this fictionalized comedy star in our movie and what was coming out about Michael Jackson. The opening conversation about our movie is Adam having a conversation with his doctor about sleep medication. And all of these images of this rich guy alone in this giant house, never feeling satisfied with the amount of affection he’s getting from the world – which is an enormous amount of affection. A lot of times people want to make you laugh not because they want to make you happy but because they want to know if you like them. Your laugh signals “you’re okay” – and that’s a tough way to live. I think a lot of us as we get older think, is there a healthy way to do what we’re doing? We didn’t start this [for our] mental health, but can we spin it at some point and be creative for normal positive reasons?
Cinematical: Having done this movie which was so much more personal and serious than your other films, do you feel inclined to continue going in that direction?
Apatow: I try to be very passionate about the movies I’m making. I can get passionate about something that’s ridiculous and absurd and silly in the same way I can be passionate about something that’s more intimate and thoughtful, but I just have to care about it. So I don’t know; as of right now, I’m trying not to think too much about what I’ll do next and see what strikes me, but every once and a while I think it would be great to do something really dumb next, really goofy, and just make people happy. Create a joy machine. But most of the time I think let’s do another really dark, melancholy movie about a different subject, and then I think, you know what? Maybe I need a longer rest (laughs). So I don’t know; I’ll just wait until someone needs a director for the 14th Harry Potter movie and hopefully I’ll be at the top of the list somewhere.
Cinematical: Do you have any idea what the next thing is going to be for you?
Apatow: I really don’t. I’ve never had two ideas in my head. I mean, my brain is completely blank. I covered a lot of ground with these last two movies, so I may need something to happen to me in life before I can write again. But I don’t know – then something hits you out of the blue and it could happen in an eighth of a second; oh, it’s that! And then you’re off to the races.
Cinematical: Whether they’re conscious or not, do you see ongoing or repeated themes emerging in or from your growing body of work?
Apatow: I don’t think about it consciously, but there are certain ideas that recur and then you start thinking to yourself, well, should I make sure that never happens in one of my movies again? For instance, I like when sad people find a way to get happy, even if it’s only for a moment; should I avoid that now that I’ve noticed that in a bunch of my
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movies? That’s an interesting question for me as I walk around the house. I can see the stitching on the ball now more than anybody, and then you start thinking about new terrain, but you also don’t want to suddenly make a movie about Icelandic people just because no one expects you to do that. I would like always to write about things that matter to me and I understand, but I was reading this graduation speech that Larry Gelbart delivered at UCLA a few years ago and a big hunk of it was about writing about things you don’t know anything about and how ultimately it will still become a personal story. I usually go against that, but I thought, well, if Mr. Gelbart says that then maybe my philosophy is wrong.
Cinematical: What was the thing that you took away from this experience that was maybe different than your other movies?
Apatow: Well, it’s much more challenging to make a movie that’s meant to be more than just fantasy fulfillment. It is hopefully a big, funny, enjoyable experience but it’s also kind of an independent movie, you know; it’s a character study, and it is a different world when you’re trying to have that relationship with the audience. A lot of people got to the movies just to numb themselves out from whatever other difficult things life is presenting to them, and I’m exactly like that; when a girl broke up with me, the first thing I did was run to see What About Bob? But this is the first time for me where I tried to share a more complicated experience with people. And you get a larger array of reactions to it – some people, it completely knocks them out, other people, you can tell that they emotionally shut down from thinking about any of this, and the movie is hard for them to tolerate. And that’s the point of it: it’s supposed to stick with you for a while. That’s all I thought about when we were ending it, and I hope people talk about this for a while. I hope it’s something that stays on people’s minds.
Interview: Carla Gugino
Interview: Carla Gugino
Carla Gugino has spent the better part of the last decade playing some of the most complicated and interesting female characters in Hollywood. After early roles in lighthearted fare like Son in Law, she played an appropriately combative counterpart for Michael J. Fox’s deputy Mayor on Spin City before appearing in Wayne Wang’s The Center of the World as a troubled seductress, Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City as a tough-as-nails parole officer, Ridley Scott’s American Gangster as Russell Crowe’s exasperated ex-wife, and most recently in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen as a sexpot superheroine with a pitch-black past. This month, she’s acting in Sebastian Gutierrez’ Women in Trouble, where she plays a porn star coming to terms with the news that she’s pregnant.
Cinematical recently spoke to Gugino at the film’s Los Angeles press day, where in between pointing out some of the bruises she earned while shooting Zack Snyder’s Watchmen follow-up, Sucker Punch, she offered a few insights into her character in Women in Trouble.
Cinematical: What immediately jumped out to me about Elektra is that even though she’s at her own crossroads in Women in Trouble, she seems to have the most certainty of the characters about who she is.
Carla Gugino: It was interesting. I was kind of intrigued by the fact that this woman who was a porn star, which was all have varying ideas about what that means and what that kind of person might be like, [and] I think that’s where Sebastian really kind of deserves the credit, because it was a structural thing, which was she is at the very top given a piece of information that is a wake-up call. It’s a real “uh oh – I’d better take a look at my life, and I’d better look at it really clearly really fast.” So therefore it did seem like all the scenes had this kind of resonance of, yeah, I have to look at what I’ve been doing, and I have a 13-year-old saying to me, “do you have fake boobs?” and sort of having to be like, I have to be accountable for all of these things, and kind of realizing like, oh wow, somebody else might have taken my childhood and done something better with it. Do I still have that chance? It’s not even better like a judgment of someone who is in that profession, but I think for her, I think she definitely has become very famous for something that she isn’t that proud of.
That was a really interesting thing as I was sitting there in the elevator; we were shooting that and that was one of the first scenes I shot. [Actually] we shot the Even Reverse Cowgirls Get the Blues scene and then we shot that, but I was sitting there and I thought, what an interesting thing! Because I reveal myself on an emotional level as an actress a lot; actresses, actors, that is what we do. We have to strip down, and you do it in a fairly private way [when] there are maybe 100 people on set, in this case it was ten people on set because we had such a small crew, and then you give it to the millions of people – you just give it to the world. But this is so interesting for her because she’s physically completely revealing in her profession, but nobody knows anything about those people; you know very little about what they’re like for real. Many porn stars have very faithful relationships they’ve had for many years, they’re very homebodyish people, and it’s a really interesting juxtaposition between their profession and their personal life, but from that I wanted her to be really no-nonsense and to be kind of unadorned, and that’s what I think maybe is what you’re saying, which I’m so appreciative that it came through.
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Cinematical: Did that empathy and understanding of her come from what was on the page, or did you do any research into the private lives of real porn stars?
Gugino: It was kind of both. I think as an actor you end up being more empathetic than most people because you end up getting in the skin of other people so you see it from their perspective. I just finished doing Desire Under the Elms on Broadway a few months ago, and that’s a character that literally has never had love in her entire life – [she] falls in love with her husband’s son, has a child with him, and ultimately kills the child. So Elektra’s a saint! (laughs) I mean, I really had to get into the heads of some people, and you end up understanding where they’re coming from. You end up understanding the nature of humanity and the complexity of it. I’m not a very judgmental person anyway; I never say, “oh, I would never ever do that.” We’re all capable of everything, and life is complicated, and people are trying to do the best they can. But I think that he wrote this character and he wrote all of these characters with multiple levels, [and] I think we are all empathetic of people when we understand them. Which is of course the meaning of empathy, but I think if you are standing outside someone and you cannot see it from their perspective, then there is an innate separation. But even in something like this, with Connie Britton’s character and my character, at first – and I think Connie plays that moment so beautifully too – she’s like, “oh, you’re an actress? What do you do, film, television?” And I’m like “porn,” and she’s like, “oh?” You can see the moment of this is a different woman than I thought she was, and she does it so well, but then very soon she also is like, (whispering) “so are you famous?” You realize we all want pretty much the same thing you know; we all want to be seen for who we are and we want to be loved.
Short of that, everyone goes about it in different ways, but in terms of the question you asked, yes, some of it was from the page, but also I watched this really cool documentary that I had Tivo’d so I’m pretty sure it was on HBO, and it was a bunch of porn stars talking about their profession. Some of them were extremely successful, some of them were just starting out, so I was like this is so fascinating because they’re talking about these things just as if [an ordinary person were saying] “yeah, when I wanted to become a secretary I could only type 20 words a minute, but then I ended up being able to…” and meanwhile they’re saying “I could only take one guy but now I can take three.” Then you also realize, how cool is that, the power of words? It’s just words, but words make people so uncomfortable, and that’s the thing about this movie too, that I love is that there’s nothing really physically explicit. I mean, you see women in lingerie and hopefully they look sexy, and there’s that aspect of things. But the truth is it’s much more of an emotional bareness, and verbally it’s very evocative and provocative. I love that – the simplicity of like, you could do all of these things but mostly people just want to see their neighbor naked. it’s nice because Sebastian loves women but it’s not like, “she’s smart so she can’t be sexy,” or “she’s sexy so she must not be very smart.” It’s like, they can be everything – they can be complicated and everything that we are.
Cinematical: You’ve had some really interesting opportunities to play strong female characters. Whether or not it’s out of a sense of responsibility – because certainly no one asks men if they feel a sense of responsibility to portray men in a flattering way – do you feel a sense in a film like this which is representing so many different kinds of women that you might tend to play up a character’s, say, resilience rather than her vulnerability? Or is vulnerability an inherent part of female strength?
Gugino: I do, actually. I guess I feel like Elektra is super-vulnerable ultimately, but resilient, and I guess that’s the thing. I feel like human beings are really resilient; people have survived just insurmountable things. Did you ever see Steve Jobs’ commencement speech for Harvard? It is one of the most inspiring speeches I’ve ever heard, but one of the things he says is, “all of the pieces connect, but you just don’t know when you’re in it how they’re going to connect. But you will know later, so just trust that they will.” I do think people are resilient, and also, I’ve played some really tragic characters too, but I guess for me, I want you to come out feeling a little hope. I want a shift to have been made. There are characters I’ve played, like inCenter of the World, this Wayne Wang movie, she’s pretty tragic and you don’t ever really get out of that hole with her. But that was also what I needed to serve in that movie, so that’s a woman who’s sort of stripped-down and hasn’t found her way back yet. So it’s not like I feel like they always have to be resilient, but nor am I afraid of vulnerability in those instances.
[But] I think you said it perfectly – they don’t ask men these questions – but the reason they ask women these questions is because there are so few portrayals, [so it's like they're saying] you have a full character here so you really owe it to the women to get everything in there, you know? If I looked at it like I was in any way representing my entire sex, it would be too overwhelming and I wouldn’t know because you’re sort of boxed in. the only thing I can do is be true to the story and the character, and maybe kind of like a little hidden thing I might want to [include] is to go, “you might think there is no way to get out of this situation, but there will be some way.” I think that’s the good thing with Sebastian as well; he has the ability of cutting to the core or the heart of somebody, but he’s innately optimistic.
Cinematical: Is it challenging then to play a character where you know what their trajectory is going to be? Or is it freeing to know that endpoint and in the process of getting them to that you can construct the formative moments in between?
Gugino: It’s funny because I’ve asked writers that question too, and mostly they don’t know where it’s going, or they might have a sense where it’s ending, but then it’s that thing of like, all of a sudden a new character appears and it’s like, “oh, I didn’t know she was coming in.” So I kind of like the beginning, middle and end, because in that I have no idea how certain things are going to manifest, but it does give me a sense of, if I have to get there, if this scene doesn’t deliver what it needs to deliver, I never want to be in a position where you don’t believe how I got there. So laying groundwork, just as a technical thing, it’s actually really helpful. I’ve been a part of movies where there’s a lot of improve; …Center of the World was a film where things were changed by how we shot it. Like after the scene where I came into the hotel room, that scene changed everything so much; they were supposed to have a big sex scene right after that, and they were like, “we would never be having sex right now – that was too intense.” So it’s cool when you can change those things, but you still kind of know somewhat of a sense where you might be going.
