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Under discussion:

The King Is Alive  (2000)

Fear Me Not  (2008)

Danish director Kristian Levring is probably best known for his feature The King Is Alive, which was the fourth film put out under the Dogme 95 rules. His new movie Fear Me Not resides as the other end of that spectrum as a dark thriller that rests on the edge of becoming sinister at any moment. It’s a great commentary on modern day pharmaceuticals, and what they might or might not be doing to us.

Read on for our in-depth interview with Levring, in which he talks about pharmaceuticals, his favorite filmmakers, and the Dogme legacy.

You mentioned in the Q&A that you were inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Yeah.

Was the pharmaceutical aspect of the film always an element of it, then? Because it was in that story.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. Pharmaceutical, you know, life is strange, but you know, I think things you experience when you are a child or a teenager, the books you read, you know, they stick. And then, you live a life, and all of a sudden they come back.And then, you have experiences, you see people when they’re drunk or take drugs, and you know, people that are perhaps very silent and all of a sudden they get very violent. And you start thinking, oh, there is truth, there’s some kind of truth in that book I read once. And that’s what that book is about.

Right.

It’s just made in a very Gothic way, which is of that time. So, I felt it could be fun to do something inspired, but of our time.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned later that same evening that you thought it was interesting that we play around with our minds every day with drugs and it’s accepted.

Yeah.

It’s fine if a doctor prescribes, you know, something to alter your brain chemicals, which is definitely true, and which is what I think makes Fear Me Not so terrifying. It’s like, this could happen to anybody.

Right. You know we wrote, I think, six drafts of the script, and slowly I took out all the violence. I felt it’s not really me to make that violent film that way. I just think there’s something much more interesting, sort of something scary, without knives, and you know, so that was a choice in the end.

Well, it was very scary because you did feel like at any moment he was just about to do something extremely bad, which I thought you did a great job with, walking that line, because it’s a very scary movie without being, I mean, there is not much violence, really, in the film. It sort of reminded me… Steven Spielberg said the reason Jaws was so scary is because you really don’t see the shark until the very end. That does have violence in it, but…

Of course, I’m of that generation, you know? I actually feel when you see the shark it’s a bit disappointing, even though they spent millions of dollars on it, you know? I would much rather never have seen the shark.

Interesting.

And I think that actually, it almost becomes a different movie when you see the shark in the end.

When you set about casting for this, what was that process like? Because all the actors, even the little girl, gave really good performances.

Some films just come together so easily. Some films are not great scenarios. This was the easy kind of film because the actors I wanted were all available. And then we found this girl, and it is quite a complicated part for someone who’s never done movies before, and she was just like an actress. She was there, I looked at many, many young girls, and she was just like, years above everybody. And on the set she was just like, in two days, you know, they forgot that she was a girl, the other actors improvised with her like she was a grownup, or a really educated actor.

So, the casting was, because Ulrich, we more or less wrote the part for him, because Ulrich has this quality, he does so little, but it’s like he carries a secret, so you are always interested in seeing, looking at his face, while doing very little, which is a very cinematic quality, and I feel, very good for this specific film. The other, Paprika, is an old friend. I’d never worked with her. And I called her, she was, I mean, she was obviously right for the part. And it was easy. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

The use of silence in the film, silence almost becomes a character, and in some ways, it’s a way for Ulrich to emote, like you’re saying, even though so many times he’s not speaking, but you’re processing what he’s going through mentally.

Yeah, yeah.

You said you worked a lot on the sound for this.

Right.

And I did notice throughout, there were amplified sound effects and a lot of attention to the sound. Was that a separate process after the filming was done, or just how it came out?

Oh, yeah. First of all, the sound is, for me, I’m very bad at dubbing, so with the sound guys, a fantastic sound engineer, everything is, there’s not one line in the film that’s dubbed. So, that’s like one challenge, because then you have a very realistic sound. So, the work was to fade that down and build up images like a universe, because in a Scandinavian context, this film could so easily have just become like what I would call a kitchen table film, you know, everything is like in kitchens, and…

Talking heads.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, and that was a big challenge, to make a movie that actually takes place in a house and not just having too, I didn’t want the world in which it was set to be too realistic. It should be so you can relate to it, but there should be oddness to it or something, and the sound was a very important part of that.

Yeah, like the snap and crackle of the pills is almost like a character.

Yeah, yeah. Of course, all these sounds we worked a lot on, they were all added, all those kinds of moments like that one.

Yeah. That worked really well.

So, there’s some kind of almost like a ritual in the sound, you know, when he takes the pills, it’s the same sound every time.

The cinematography in the film was stunning, it was really gorgeous. I mean, that opening shot with the boat along the water, the rowing or whatever, that was fantastic. And I noticed a lot of the framing, like when his wife is in bed and he’s laying next to her, it’s almost a mirror image, and just some amazing shots. This cinematographer, had you worked with before?

We are like a team, because I originally came from commercials, so I’m very much into framing and lighting. We’ve done three, three films I’ve done, we’ve done together, and we’re like, we don’t need to talk. He knows exactly what I want, and I know how he’s doing it. The whole film was actually storyboarded, every frame. And I like that because I feel that this is a quite controlled movie. The whole film is about control, so I felt it was fun to make a thing which was really controlled.

Yeah. I noticed that a lot of times when American audiences see foreign films, there tends to be a lot of nudity because they have a much more lax attitude in Europe. But, this, you almost seem to go to lengths to not have any nudity, even in the scene in the sauna when he goes in, she covers up before, and then the girl in the car, it doesn’t become as revealing as you’d think. Was that a conscious decision, to have it be like that?

Yeah. I felt it was good, it was same thing as with the violence. I felt it good to play all these things down. So, it didn’t become gratuitous, gratuitous, that’s what the saying is?

Yes.

I have… actually, I made one film which was incredibly nude, or whatever, and I just felt, is it really that interesting? Does it add anything? Does it add anything to this movie? And in a way, this movie, it’s all about holding back.

Right.

The character’s holding back, so let’s hold back the tricks and the things you can do to storm or to shock or, just hold it back, and in a way, it’s like holding back all the time, all the time, and yeah, then it goes.I thought a lot about that, actually, because in our tradition there’s a lot of nudity in films, yeah.

Did you ever think about making this more violent than it is?

In the beginning, the script was much more violent. And I just felt that it was a bit uninteresting. And it was not really me, I don’t like violence anymore. I used to love it, like most people, I mean, I’ve seen Chainsaw Massacre, the Texas, like 20 times or something, but it’s just I’m a little bit fed up with it. So, I felt, why should I do one when I’m really fed up?And it’s also a challenge to do a film where you don’t use all those tricks, so that’s how that…

Are there filmmakers that inspire you, you know, either American or world directors?

All over. All over.

Who do you sort of enjoy watching, maybe that doesn’t inspire your work, but who do you enjoy watching?

In the history of time, I will tell you my directors. When I was a kid, I was a huge Western fan. I’ve seen every John Ford movie. Then, I lived in France for many years, so I was a big fan of all the New Wave movies. In that way, I’m a film buff, or whatever you call it, a film nerd. And Italians, Bisconti is a good thing, for me. Fellini, of course, Bergman, pretty basic in that way. And then I… There’s so many directors, I mean, Kurosawa, of course, was huge, but in the modern, I must say, I really, those are, I really enjoy Haneke. I think, he’s a fantastic director.

Really fantastic. He’s so disturbing. And you get so angry at him, but that’s such a quality, you know. I tell you, I think you have to almost be a filmmaker or a critic to realize his craftsmanship because it’s absolutely huge. Then, of course, my friend Lars von Trier, who’s a big influence in my life. And then, Almodovar as well, you know, in a different genre.I love American film, like every film person. I love lots of films.

So, you had worked in the Dogme tradition of films.

Yeah, I was part of the original Dogeme 95 group. Yeah. But, actually, that was like a break away, because I came from commercials.

So, you kind of left that world. And now you’re back to making…

Controlled, yeah.

More controlled films. We talked to Jonathan Demme yesterday who said that Dogme is dead, but his film Rachel Getting Married is shot almost in that style. He uses available light and they have real musicians in the scenes playing the music you hear, and it’s all handheld camera. Do you think we’ll ever see a return to that sort of…

I think, there will always be a return. You know, I mean, Dogme was Dogme, and there was something, I mean, the New Wave was what is called breathless, you know, sensitive, and I think there’s like waves. And then, film gets too controlled, and then, you know, all the directors want to do something free. And even every director, you know, you can have, even every subject, you should think about what fits the subject.I’m not very pretentious about films, that’s sort of… For me it was great, I enjoyed it. But, I think, the great thing about it was not saying, because there is a tendency in the industry of saying, this is how you make movies, because Dogme was saying no, you can also make movies in this way, but you can also make it in that way and that way.

And I think that’s really, that’s what writers do. You can write in so many different ways. But, in movies, when I did commercials, that was quite, you know, I shot in Russia or in L.A. or Mexico or Scandinavia, France, and everybody seemed to shoot the same way. When you walk into a room, the OP would come in and he would say, OK, we’ll put the light, 18 Ks, HMI there, that’s kind of formula of how you shoot. And I think that becomes a little bit uninteresting.

So, I think, it’s all about finding a way to shoot something. And sometimes, at the moment, I have a feeling that European film is a little bit freer for that. But, that’s not always the case, you know. In the 70s, American film was much more, you know. It goes backwards and forwards, and should be inspiring both ways.Of course, if film gets too money controlled, sometimes it, you know, for the kind of filmmaker I am, it becomes a little bit uninteresting.

That’s what’s happened to American film.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s the most terrible thing about it. What was the hardest part about shooting this film? Was there a particular scene, or was it just setting the right tone, or what did you find the most challenging?

There are some scenes which I will have to shoot, which I was scared   like, is this going to work? Like, I’ll give you an example, the scene in the end when he was fighting with his daughter, that’s the kind of scene you say, “Is Emma,” I knew what we were reckoning with, “but is she going to be able to go into that kind of terrifying act?” So, when you start the scene in the morning you are a little bit, “ah,” because if it doesn’t work we don’t have any movie.

The other scene was the scene in the car with the girl. That girl also has never done a movie, and for a young girl to come in with a film crew to do something, to bring her into that kind of land… I think, we were on a trailer and all like that, the car was on a trailer, and when the car started rolling she started laughing, because Ulrich was not driving then. She had really never done anything much to bring her into that kind of emotional. So, OK, she’s not hugely huge, but she’s still human, she’s only 16… 17 years old, she says.

That’s also a scene where you go, “Are we going to be able to do it?” It’s nice on paper. Those scenes, of course, you’re scared not scared, I don’t know what the word is; and you’re having anxieties if it’s going to work. Also, if it doesn’t work, you have a problem, you know.

Sure. Maybe, that’s why it worked so well, because she was such a new actress.

Yeah.

She seemed very literally scared in that scene.

Yeah, I think she was.

Yeah, the audience really… Well, everyone that I left with was talking about it. It’s one of those cerebral films where you like to sit down afterwards and talk about, “What do you think this meant, and why?” So, I thought that’s a good sign.

I’m very aware of that, I don’t have any emotions. It’s the kind of film some people will like it. I hope that emotion is big enough, but also some of people are going to hate it. That’s what comes into mind.

Well, there are other types of films you hate, but still enjoy, it’s a reaction.

Yeah. Yeah, but also you don’t want people to say, “What should I go see this for? I want to have a good time tonight.” You know what I mean?

Right, true.

I can understand that, it’s a response too.

One audience member said at the Q&A, he said, “You guys did a really good job of balancing between making the character on the edge of likeability.” I was like, “Really? Wow!” because I didn’t find him that likeable. Other people I talked to a totally different reaction. Some people were like, “Oh, I pulled for him the whole time. I kept hoping he would break out of this and be a good father.”

It’s interesting that you still liked the film, and did not like him.

Oh, I did, yeah.

OK, I tried to play with that likeability. Sometimes, in movies, identification has become… it’s hard to be identified. That’s why you’re always told when you start, to identify. I mean, do you identify with Scarlett O’Hara? Is she likeable?

Right. That’s a good example.

It’s the biggest film, most viewed film of all times not the biggest proceeds, and it has a very sad ending. Do you know what I mean? [laughs]

Actually, they say if you adjust for inflation it is the highest grossing, even today.

OK. You like to see what she does. You don’t say what a lovely person she is. [laughs]

No, no you definitely don’t.

You can say that about Travis in Taxi Driver. I mean, you kind of like him, but you don’t really like him.

Right.

What is this thing that we have to like him? I mean then you can go back to “Crime and Punishment.” In the history of art, it’s not always been about liking all the time. I mean, film or anything, is also about showing the condition of human beings. I mean, you kind of like it to a point.

What I like is that the way the film opens, you don’t know how long this has been going on, how long he’s been… clearly, they don’t have the best marriage, because they have problems. It’s not like they’re super happy at the beginning, and then something happens. You come into knowing obviously something’s going on.

Of course, in the first clip they were super happy in the beginning. If you know that’s nice, it’s also quite implausible that idea of people getting unhappy over two weeks. It’s a long process. So, often when you start on scripts, they’re much more caricature and then what you do is…

Massage it.

Yeah, sure.

How long did you work on the script before you shot it?

It was like a two year process. We didn’t work for two years; we worked on it for three or four months, then we wrote a draft, and then we didn’t work on it for four months, and we read it and said, “Whoa, that’s really bad!” [laughs] and gave it a new, sharper focus. We had a total of six drafts.

It was a quite complicated film, the trial. So, yeah, it was quite complicated, because it’s out of our dozing role of balancing things. Also, the film was 90 minutes, the script was 90 pages. That’s not because I wanted it like that, but there’s not like one scene in it that’s not in the film.

Towards the end we tried to take out a scene, but it just seemed wrong. In the end, we would say all the scenes ended up… they were there for a reason. There’s probably a couple of scenes you would take out, but even then I think it works very well.

Did you put the subtitles in the film?

The translation, I worked it all on solo. I have an English assistant. We sat together with every… just to make sure, Bridgett, so that it meant what I wanted it to mean.

I was glad we could actually read them. So are you already working on something for your next film?

Yeah, we actually started like a couple of months ago a new script, which is a novel subject. It’s about a guy who had to remember a specific period of his childhood, who starts to investigate it.

Are you just in the writing process?

Yeah. Very much in the writing. I mean, we haven’t even wrote the first script, the first draft yet. We’re throwing around ideas.

Under discussion:

Raising Victor Vargas  (2003)

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist  (2008)

Director Peter Sollett turned his short film Five Feet High And Rising into the 2003 Sundance darling Raising Victor Vargas, and now he’s moved into studio fare with the Sony Pictures flick Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Thankfully, it doesn’t feel like a powerhouse of a film, and he manages to make a night in New York City feel honest, and not like a slickly produced starfest.

Read through the break to find out what it was like making this movie, why he thinks Union Pool is “retarded,” the skinny on MPAA censorship, and how much improv Michael Cera did in the movie. [He also swears and then apologizes for it, which Karina finds super endearing. -- Ed.]

Wow. Hi. I better have something interesting to say with this recording device. [laughter]

We’ll just add in the edit.

Cool. That’s what I do too.

When you guys adapted this, how closely did you work with Lorene and changing the novel into a script and adding things that obviously weren’t represented in the book?

Lorene was on the movie for probably a year, year and a half before I was. So, she had written a draft that was very true to the book. But, there were a few things that I thought I was going to have problems doing with the movie, with the way that the script was.

So basically, I thought Nick and Norah needed an additional objective, in addition to trying to find Fluffy. So, what we did was we had Caroline go visit. Hardly an innovative concept, the Macguffin, but an effective one and, I think, welcome in this type of movie. So, that was a big one, and we did a lot of work on the opening of the film. It’s an ensemble film, a lot of people to establish. We sweated a little bit about how to organize all the distribution of all that information. So, that’s a little bit different than in the book.

Well, some elements of New York are different. Brooklyn Pool is Union Pool in New York. Did you guys change that on purpose? Or did they not want you to use the name?

Union Pool did not want us to use the name Union Pool, because they want to stay an underground place, which is, quote me, “retarded.” Because, it’s not an underground place. They advertise in the newspaper every week. And they could use the business.

So, when you signed Michael Cera, had the “Juno” sensation happened? How did you…?

No, it was before Juno and before Superbad, so when I met him I’d never seen him in anything, because I just hadn’t caught up with Arrested Development, with the program. So, I was meeting an actor I just had never seen act before. Kerry Kohansky, my producer suggested him to me. I met him, and he was an incredibly sweet, bright, dry wit, who was very soulful and seemed good for the part. And he’s cute as hell. I want to eat him.

How did you choose the music? How did you get a band like Bishop Allen, which a few people know about, but they’re not on MTV. Well maybe they are, I don’t know.

No, I don’t think so. Well we just wanted to try to find the best music you haven’t heard yet. That was our objective. And then secondarily, we wanted it to be the best music you hadn’t heard yet from New York City. And then it had to be the best music you hadn’t heard yet from New York City that was additive to the film and each individual scene. So, that really narrowed everything down. You sort of, creatively what we were trying to do is make a break up mix CD for Tris. And that’s sort of what the soundtrack is. It’s Nick expressing his feelings to Tris, for the most part.

What kind of teenager were you?

You know, not dissimilar to Nick, I think. Shy, didn’t fit in very well. Movies were my escape to sort of explore our wider world. I grew up in Brooklyn and in Staten Island. And when you live that close to Manhattan, you really feel the gravitational pull of the city, but it also seems like a totally different world.

So, I looked at a lot of movies that were set in Manhattan, imagined what it would be like to live in Manhattan. I liked the way it made me feel. I thought well, being a filmmaker must be like living in a movie, which sent me to film school, but also is totally incorrect.

Because making movies is the opposite of living in a movie. You can’t enjoy the movie, because you’re the one putting up a puppet show, so you know what the tricks are. It robs the movie and the movies of their magic in a lot of ways. And that’s sort of something that I really identified with Norah, when she says, “I love music, but I’m afraid if I work in it, I won’t love it the same way anymore.”

And I don’t think the character really totally gets…she’s suspicious that there will be something unfortunate that happens to her relationship with music if she takes that job. But, she doesn’t really know what it is yet. She just kind of senses it. And I did not sense it.

But on the other hand, it’s not too bad. We’re in the Four Seasons. You guys think what I have to say is interesting, or you think somebody else will.

Can you talk a little bit about working with Michael and why you think he’s become so popular so quickly?

He’s an incredibly authentic, sincere soul in a very inauthentic and insincere society. And he’s funny as hell. And I think he’s somehow just really representative of the sort of vulnerable, sensitive, honest inner self that we all carry around in there.

And he’s a very new kind of man, you know? It was very interesting. This was my first studio movie, so it was the first time I really tested a film. Maybe the best version of the film, we couldn’t show too much, kids were trying to understand. But, they were getting where they were bored, where it was clicking for them.

To watch them watch Michael was really a revelation, because just to see the degree to which they relate to him was really encouraging, actually, in a way. Just about those young men and their ability to accept and respect a sensitive guy.

It’s really interesting they just did a box set of the John Hughes movies with extended stuff on it. And back in those days the Anthony Michael Hall character is the one that would seem the most like Michael Cera characters. And he was the geek. He was somebody to laugh at. Now he’s the leading man.

Yeah. Well, if you think about Eric Stoltz in Some Kind of Wonderful… I know It’s not a John Hughes film, but if you think of Lloyd Dobler, in Say Anything. They were doing similar, sensitive guys with arty interests, kind of thing. But, I think that that was lost somewhere in there. And I’m just kind of thrilled that it’s back and that that can be cool to be a nice guy with interests. You know?

Yeah. Michael tends to ad lib, we’ve heard. Does he do that in this film much?

Yeah, tons. And he’s a brilliant improvisational comedian. Want some examples? OK.

OK, written in the script: “So, your friends are all gay, right?”

“Yeah, they’re all gay.”

But, in the movie: “So your friends are all gay, right?”

[Cera says]: “Yeah. They’re gay. Gay, every day, all the time. If somebody’s going to get raped in that band tonight, it will be a guy.”

Here’s another one. He’s so fucking good at this. I don’t even know how he came up with this. Sorry I said ****. In the scene where, it’s all improve, and Kat’s terrific at it too. If Mike does it and Kat’s not supporting, building it around him, then it’s not going to work anyway. There’s a scene where they pull up in the Yugo outside of the Waverly Diner just before they trash the Yugo.

And as written, it was, they pull up. She says, “My dad works right around the corner.”

He says, “Oh, really? Do you want go to in?”

She’s like “Eh, You know what, no, probably not. Let’s just get out of here.” Crash.

In the movie it’s they pull up and he says, “Hey, this is a really interesting parking job, because if another car wants to get in between us and the curb, they can pull right in here.”

And then Kat says, “Oh yeah, OK, I’ll get closer to the curb, just for you Nick, just because you’re so picky.” And she crashes the car.

He goes, “We’re close enough to the curb now, we’re right on it.”

So, that scene doesn’t even have any resemblance. I mean there are tons of scenes where those guys just invented their thing. Ari Graynor, forget about it. Everything she did in the movie was her own invention. Things like, “Guys in a van, talking about going balls deep. Sounds like fun right? But not always.”

And things like, oh and, **** why haven’t we been talking about this… the entire turkey sandwich thing was an improvisation.

So, that was not in the script. That wasn’t even, basically the actor who does a cameo in the scene, Kevin Corrigan. We all liked him, and we asked him if he’d be in the film. He said yeah. I was like, “What do you want?”

He said, “What do you want me to do?”

And we said, “Well, we want to make a scene where Ari talks to somebody in the Port Authority Bus Station.”

He said, “OK, I’ll do it.” And he comes in. It’s like four o’clock in the morning. And he said that he didn’t want to speak in the movie. So, Ari and I are like oh, ****. What are we going to do about this? Because it was going to be, she was going to ask him for money, basically. He was going to reject her, or scare her off or something.

And he didn’t want to speak, so the whole thing was on her to create this whole thing. That whole, that’s like a minute and a half, two minute scene, where she’s emotional. She’s up, and she’s down. She’s like [crying] and then pushes his face all over the place. And yeah, none of that was scripted. All her own invention. She’s really, her whole relationship with gum, the toilet, I know it’s like a high low moment in the movie.

It’s not for you guys. It’s for kids. But, like that whole prolonging the moment where she’s trying to decide whether or not to put her hand in there, because that’s really where the comedy of the scene is. It’s not like you pull a thing out and that’s the payoff. But, it’s like the longer she can hesitate on it, the funnier it’s going to get. So, the whole [sighing] , she’s just brilliant. I just want to see her in another movie.

Speaking about that van, why do these guys have a box full of bras in the van?

It was actually a little bit of a phantom limb from the book and then from the script that these guys were going to… well, the gay burlesque scene was going to be a cross dressing scene. The MPAA didn’t like that. It got pulled back. It got pulled back. It got pulled back. And then it made that bra thing a setup for something that then didn’t pay off. Because the scene got…

So you shot that?

No.

Oh, you didn’t.

But you know, it was sort of censored as we were making the movie. Did I say censored?

Yes, you did. [laughter] But, the MPAA doesn’t censor. [hint: this is sarcasm]

Yeah. Let’s do a sidebar on the MPAA. Learned a lot about that on this movie. Pretty interesting organization.

Was there much that you shot that didn’t end up in the film?

Because of ratings and stuff?

No, no, just because of trimming it.

No, pretty much everything we shot is in there. It was a very short shoot. It was 29 days, and there wasn’t a lot of time to risk investing time in things that maybe wouldn’t make it.

You’re using real, authentic locations. The geography seemed to make sense to me. It seemed like it was pretty logical.

I just didn’t want to walk down the block in East Village and have people say hey, what the ****? Halston Street is south of 14th Street.

Right.

For me, and I know this is probably limited to people who live in Manhattan or have lived in Manhattan, but it always takes me out of the movie when someone takes a left on 14th Street onto Halston Street. But, it does suspend my suspension of disbelief, I guess. I just didn’t want to do that. And it didn’t seem necessary, although it does have a real impact on the making of the movie.

So, were you then having to shoot in the middle of the night then to get access to some of these streets? How did that affect your schedule?

Well, in some ways it chewed up our shooting time. Because if you’re shooting a scene on this street, and then you have two scenes to shoot. Well we never had the luxury of only shooting two scenes on that. But, say if you’ve got six scenes to shoot in a night, the most time efficient thing to do is to shoot one here on the corner, one here on the other corner, one there across the street, one there across the street, not show any of the other backgrounds in the shots, and then go around the corner, turn the big light around, and then shoot.

So, if you decide not to do that, you’ve got a lot of shooting time. Because then everybody’s got a move. So, I just tried to keep that to a minimum.

There was sort of a multi year gap between Raising Victor Vargas and this film. What have you been doing in that? Obviously developing a film like this, but what else have you been working on?

Movies that haven’t gotten made yet. A few different projects. One I wrote with my writing partner from Victor Vargas, a couple of studio movies that they decided not to make, things like that, some television commercials.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

[Photo courtesy jkarpala]

Under discussion:

After the Wedding  (2007)

Rachel Getting Married  (2008)

Rosemarie DeWitt is best known for her role as Don Draper’s beatnik-artist-in-residence Midge on AMC’s hit show Mad Men, but her turn as Rachel in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married is already getting rave reviews. She’s been acting since 2001 and has done a lot of television work, but after this performance she may be ready to turn the corner and move into film.

Read the full interview after the break to find out how she got the role, and what it was like working with Anne Hathaway and Jonathan Demme.

I wanted to ask you, did you guys start working on this film before Mad Men became such a big hit? And has that show really done anything for you in your career yet?

It’s so interesting, because people watch TV so differently now. We shot Mad Men and then it aired last summer, I think. And then we shot this movie. But I don’t know, it’s become almost more of a hit this year. Like it got a lot of nice reviews last year, and then it was on On Demand, and came out on DVD. And my friends are like, “Oh, I just watched Mad Men.” So the answer is no, I did it after. I don’t think Jonathan had seen it.

Oh, yeah, you know what? They were so kind on Mad Men they let me fly back for a meeting with Jonathan. Moved the schedule around a little bit. So that was all happening at the same time I think.

So how did this movie come along for you?

I had an audition in New York with the casting director, Bernie Telsey, who does a ton of theater, and has seen me maybe in plays or auditioned me for some roles in plays. That was one those lucky moments where he though, “Oh, this might be a good fit.” So maybe they didn’t see a hundred actresses for this part. Maybe they started a little bit on a smaller list.

And then I didn’t hear anything for a month or so, and the I got a call, “Could you come in and meet with Jonathan?” And is was just like a five minute meeting. He just wanted to say hi. Which of course I flew myself across the country for, because it was Jonathan Demme.

And then I came back a third time and Jonathan held the camera and he sort of videotaped Anne and I doing some of the scenes. Then I just prayed that I would get it. He called later that day and said, “Why don’t you be Rachel?”

With how improvised the shooting style is, is the dialogue as improvised as the shooting? How much was scripted and how much was improv?

I think Jonathan said the other night that he likes to say it was 90% the script and 10% something extra. I think that’s kind of accurate in that that’s the script. That is the script. And in some of those scenes, some of the really intense family scenes, some of us are saying word for word. Maybe there’s a line added in or something like that.

In a scene like the dishwasher scene, that was short of sort things that just described what that scene was. And all those actors weren’t in it. And when we got to that scene, Jonathan just said, “Why don’t we bring everybody. I think everybody should be in the room for this one, so that we can really have fun.”

And then we did it. It’s not like those actors were going to stand around and say, “I don’t have a line here.” Everybody threw them in, and of course you know everybody’s throwing in as much as they can. He probably, in those kind of scenes like the rehearsal dinner, another example of very short on the page. The takes were about 45 minutes long, of everybody making a toast.

Everybody who was moved to speak got up. A different sequence each time we did it. He probably had a hundred million hours of footage he then had turn into this movie because we probably had 10 movies in there.

It’s very interesting how the balance shifts between your character and that of the character of Anne Hathaway in terms of who the audience is pulling for. Were you aware of that?

No. I kind of felt that no one was ever rooting for me. But just as my character, my god, I’m on my own here, what’s going on? [laughter] Someone throw me a lifeline. But, no, I wasn’t aware of that. I was more aware of, I read the script and I love it, but at the same time I was afraid that Rachel’s always complaining about here. I felt that she’s so whiny and yelling and stuff.

And this was kind of the openness and collaborative nature and how wonderful Jonathan was to work with. I get to a point where the scene is written, the scene after the salon. I get into the car and she chases me out with foil on her hair. And I said, oh, it’s written with all capital letters and exclamation points.

We already shot the scene in the sari shop, and I really laid into her. I don’t want to be yelling at her this whole movie. He’s like, “So don’t yell. Just be quiet and see what happens.” And then the movie that you thought you were going to go in and make becomes something else, because he really allows room for that. I don’t if that answers your question. I wasn’t that aware of it.

I read that this was not really rehearsed. What does this guerilla shooting style do to you in terms of your nerves, your anxiety, your adrenaline? How does it affect you?

I think it calms everything down. Because everything’s allowed. You don’t ever have some moment where you’re like, oh, I did it wrong. I missed that. Or it was supposed to be a certain way. Again, I keep giving examples, but the scene after the rehearsal dinner where we sort of get into a fight, we don’t rehearse.

It was on the page, about 10 pages, I think; seven or ten or twelve, I don’t remember. But it was a long scene. And I’m thinking in my head, how do you not rehearse that? Where are we going to go? And Jonathan’s like, “I don’t know, let’s just see where you go.”

So I walk in, I go, I get a glass of water, we start fighting. And then I walk out of the room. Or maybe he said, “At some point get out of here, go into a different room.” And then I go into the dining room, but there’s no lights on.

So now we’re playing the scene and it’s sort of not lit. And then I walk into the living room. Because I got the idea that he wanted me to move. And then I went into the living room and I’m like, man, I ought to turn a light on in this scene. [laughter]

And then, OK, I’ll sit down. And in a weird way. Jonathan and I talked about this, is it weird that there’s this fight going on and everyone just sits down in the living room and starts talking about it for a little bit and then you get up again? I’m like, “I don’t know. That’s what happens.” He’s like, “Great.”

So I guess it’s not, and we just did it. I think that kind of stuff calms you down, because there’s no time to thing, there’s no way to break it down. Because the camera on one take might be filming   because sometimes there this many people on the scene. And maybe it’s filming you guys and there’s some exciting stuff over there.

And Declan, who really was a character in the movie, because I think he would feel like the hairs on his neck would stand up. He would feel something going on and just go. And then all of the sudden you were in   the take before you were kind of like, well, no one’s going to be on me, and then all of the sudden…

So it made every actor, and sometimes there are this many or more, like theater. Always as if there were an audience, except we don’t see them.

Did Jonathan tell you to watch any movies to prepare?

We watched After the Wedding. Not because I think he wanted to make that film, it was just a film that inspired him. Yeah. I think I was inspired by him in that. We watched that movie and I didn’t see what the correlation was, because the script was very well built. It was like a well built script.

In terms of like, I don’t know if Hollywood standards is the right, but you could see it landing on someone’s desk and them saying, “This has all the points and this happens, ” even though it’s odd and unique.

And then Jonathan showed us that movie and I’m like, “You’re going to make this movie? This inspired you?” And then he never let me behind the monitor to see it. I’m like, “What are we doing? What’s that?” And he’s like, “No, no, no. Don’t worry about it.”

But then I was inspired by him because I thought that was a great leaping off point because he didn’t make that movie. Granted there was a certain style, a certain freedom and breaking certain rules. In that film, sometimes there would be a close up on somebody’s fingers, or lips, just a certain perspective. I was impressed with him in that. He didn’t copy that. He just said, “This is interesting.”

Did he say why he wanted you to watch that film?

He didn’t tell you why of pretty much anything. He just got us together for sushi. You need that night with the cast, because you’re not going to rehearse, where you sit down and share a meal and just say, “Oh, I saw you in that play and you were so good,” or “It’s so nice to meet you.” Just get over the nerves a bit.

He doesn’t say much, actually. Maybe he does to you guys when he talks about the film. But in the directing of the film he says very little, very specific.

Was the wedding scene itself choreographed?

No, it wasn’t choreographed. Somebody asked me something about some particular of the wedding, like did you know that was going on? Oh, I think I was talking about how I thought it was cool that Kym and Kiernan don’t get together. He dances with another girl at the wedding.

Well, I didn’t know that was going on, because like the bride, I was involved in what I was involved in. And there was so much going on that   it’s almost as if it’s like you’re the bride and you’re able to watch your wedding video. You’re like, “Oh, they were there, and they had such a good time!” [laughter]

Because I didn’t even see half of that stuff going on. I knew the Brazilian dancers were coming in; that was in the script. At one point Jonathan said, for the ceremony, “I think I might have you come in on a pony.” I’m like, “Really? What movie are we making?”

And then all of the sudden that was just gone. But I think he had been to a wedding where the bride and groom fed everybody. So when we got to work one day there were aprons made that said, “Sidney and Rachel” and we fed everybody. So it was spontaneous.

Was it like a party being there?

Yeah, it was like a party. I had some idea in my mind that that’s where the release was going to happen. Like all the family drama, all the hard stuff. Because it was written with such abandon. The dancers come in, and the hair is   Rachel’s throwing her hair around.

And it didn’t happen. it was like cold and it was raining out. And I was just not… I’ve said this before, talking in the TV stuff. It was the last scene when said goodbye to Anne in the driveway, that I’d been like this the whole movie and all of the sudden my shoulders came out it’s like, oh, there’s the release.

But you know, you plan this stuff at home and you write it down in your notebook or you work it out in your head, and then you get to work and you’re so surprised by what happens.
Was it difficult to keep that tension between you and Anne Hathaway? I don’t know if you were friends on the set or if you felt close to here or anything.

I felt close to her, because she’s immediately likeable. She’s very generous in spirit. But I didn’t know her before and we had dinner once, once we found out we were doing the movie. And then we didn’t   maybe we both had the same instinct not to get too chummy, because there needed to be this awkward… They’re not good at it, at being together. But they love each other so much I think it kind of overrides any kind of …

So how did you relate to the character? It seems to be pretty far from where you are, right?

I don’t know. Yes and no. But you know what those things are. You don’t choose your family but you choose your friends. You have girlfriends who are like your sister. You take a little bit of that one competitive friendship that you have and hen that other really easy best friend that you’ve had from kindergarten.

And then you just kind of, I guess, try to mush it together. [laughs]

You said you have a notebook where you take notes before shooting and during production?

Yeah. I don’t know. Some people write down to do lists, its just more, I have to get it out to remember it and process it. I think I read somewhere that Hume Cronin said, you know he was married to Jessica Tandy, said, “I don’t know why we write, sometimes we do that, sometimes we keep a journal or a notebook. We probably never open it once we go to the set to shoot, but just having it, we feel like we can show up that day.”

Like you think you did some work, or you think that you can get there, because you never  I can’t speak for other actors  I never feel ready. I always feel like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, why did they cast me? I’m going to get fired. I’m not right for this part.”

I used to tell Jonathan all the time, “I’m not Rachel; I’m not like this in life.” And he would just laugh at me.

Have you ever been to a wedding where someone got up and, lets say, gave not such an entertaining speech? In real life, I mean?

I don’t think so. Well, I did go to a wedding where the father of the bride said to the groom, he just stood up and said, “Now she’s your problem”, and sat back down [laughter] I was like, Oh, that’s a keeper.

Do you like weddings?

Yeah, I like them. I just said to Sarah, I like seeing my friends happy, so if they’re marrying a good guy, that’s a good… I mean sometimes it’s a pain in the neck to get the dress. Especially when you are right out of college, if you go through that first wave of all your friends getting married and you have no money. It seems like every weekend someone’s getting married.

You said when you saw the film it was like being the bride and seeing your wedding video and then having missed half of it and seeing that’s what happened. What surprised you most about this event that you’ve when you finally saw it on film?

That there was as much joy in the movie and buoyancy as there was. Because being inside it I felt very crunched up with tension a lot of the time. Even though I was having fun, I recognized that sometimes we were doing something that really could work. Last night was the first time I saw it with an audience and I was like, “God, people are laughing.” It felt different in my body.

So you’re working with Toni Colette now?

I’m working on something with Toni Collette right now on Showtime, a TV show for Showtime, called The United States Of Tara and I play her sister. Only sisters, that’s all I play from now on. [laughter]
She’s amazing, and she plays another fraught relationship, another fraught family. You realize its all over the place, everyone has a dysfunctional sort of family. She plays a woman with DID, multiple personality disorder, and it’s about integrating those people inside of her. Its funny, the woman who wrote Juno, Diablo Cody wrote it. It was Steven Spielberg’s idea and Diablo Cody wrote it. And I must say, I go back to work tomorrow.