Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, and Michael C. Hall on 'Kill Your Darlings'
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As beat poets, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and David Cammerer were set on destroying the old, formulaic, rules of the then-traditional literary world, and create a "New Vision" of expansive, free form, truthful language. In the 60's counter-culture set biography/murder mystery, Kill Your Darlings, Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, and Michael C. Hall play the aforementioned roles, respectively, and bring a commanding life to each of the real-life characters. At a Four Seasons press conference, I learned how each actor prepared for their roles, and how the famous literary icons' writing inspired them.
DANIEL, WHAT HAS THE JOURNEY BEEN FOR YOU, FROM CHILDHOOD ACTOR TO MORE ADULT ROLES?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: Since finishing [“Harry Potter”] there’s been a huge journey for me, like, I had never worked with different crews before or different actors before… doing Kill Your Darlings was a huge thing for me because I wasn’t going to be working with anybody I knew. It was like starting fresh in a way, and that was really exciting.
LIKE THE BEAT POETS YOU PORTRAY, DID YOU HAVE ANY ANGSTY WRITING AND THOUGHTS THAT YOU PUT DOWN?
MICHAEL C. HALL: I definitely have some journal entries…
[LAUGHTER]
MH: They’re ultimately just run-on sentences.
DR: Yeah I definitely wrote my fair share of real bad poetry from when I was about 13-18… Some of mine were actually published under a fake name when I was 17. Don’t look them up.
[LAUGHTER]
DANE DeHANN: Yeah, also guilty of teenage poems of trying to achieve naked self-expression.
WHY DO YOU THINK THE BEAT POETS HAVE THAT "STAYING POWER?"
DD: I think their affect on today’s society is kind of amazing. Their books are still celebrated and read, they were the original hipsters. In where I live in Williamsburg/Brooklyn, I can’t walk down the street without seeing at least 10 people dressed exactly like Jack Kerouac.
[LAUGHTER]
DD: It’s insane. Their books obviously have this huge impact and also what they stood for, how they dressed, all of that still resonates today.
IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE IN PLAYING CHARACTERS IN THE 1940'S AS OPPOSED TO CONTEMPORARY CHARACTERS?
MH: Yeah, the script is so well rendered that a lot of it could be unconscious, you could [easily] give over to living in a world that is contextualized in a totally different way… I was excited more specifically, about the opportunity to humanize and sympathize [with] this guy who’s sort of a footnote of the beat generation and was, if anything, characterized as a bit of a 2 dimensional villain/stalker. I liked that the movie aspired to round him out a bit, and that was appealing.
DR: Allen [Ginsberg] is one of the characters that is probably easiest to find empathy or compassion with. There are moments where he’s so easily manipulated by Lucien where there’s a part of you that wants to shake him. Also John [Krokidas, Director] took the pressure off by telling us not to really research our characters too much past the point where we find them in the movie, so there wasn’t really a sense that we were having to live up to the icons they became.
DD: Yeah Lucien’s a tricky one because Lucien worked so hard to make sure this story was never told. My responsibility is to honor this person by trying to figure out truthfully who they were at this point in their life, not necessarily how Lucien would want himself to be portrayed in the film.
WAS THERE ANY SORT OF RESEARCH YOU DID INTO THE TIME PERIOD?
DR: The thing I found really helpful was [listening] to music of the period. I listened to a lot of Jo Stafford, who I had never come across before, and his songs “No Other Love” and “You Belong to Me.”
AS ACTORS, ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY THAT YOU CAN TAKE TO CHALLENGE THE RIGID, MORE FORMULAIC PARTS OF THE FILM INDUSTRY WITH SOME OF THESE ROLES YOU'RE TAKING?
DR: I’d like to think that if the choices I make are slightly unexpected or challenging people then that is good. I don’t know if it’s like we’re railing against the industry but I also do think that that we [Dane & Michael] are fairly right-minded people in terms of what we value in scripts and storytelling.
'Kill Your Darlings' is a Love-Letter to the Beat Generation
Keen on dismissing the past, more formulaic and expected rules of the old literary writing method, the famous 60's beat poet Allen Ginsberg was set on creating a "New Vision" of language, full of confronting fragrances that re-birthed the once dull and dead language into one, fresh and alive.
Daniel Radcliffe might've taken a page out of Ginsberg's book in deciding his post-Wizardry film projects.
In the Ginsberg-entering-college set Kill Your Darlings, Radcliffe assumes the role of the bohemian writer as the young, unlearned student in his first year at Columbia University, which proves an interesting time to set a biopic about a person whose fame had come much later, with writing efforts including the definitive poem "Howl." But the decision is made by screenwriters Austin Bunn and John Krokidas, with Krokidas directing, to set this movie in this chapter of Ginsberg's life in order to introduce perhaps the most influential figure to shape his romantic view. That person is Lucien Carr, one of the earliest champions of "The New Vision," which included a friendship with Jack Kerouac as well. Curiously, history books have little to no recording of Carr's involvement in this monumental period in writing history, or that he existed at all. Which means that we didn't know that Carr was once Ginsberg's roommate, potential love interest, and an alleged murderer.
Played with laser-like intensity that continues to captivate, Dane DeHaan plays the free-spirited and rebellious Carr, such a fixating young romantic himself that he draws in all wanting men around him. If one-third's ingredients of the movie is a new-jazz biography, the other two-thirds are romance and murder/mystery, making for deliciously appealing movie-making, and watching.
This love-letter to the beat generation imagined by Krokidas and Bunn (not coincidentally, film school college roommates themselves) is such an adoring ode to this romantic period that simply watching the film feels as educational as it does entertaining.
Radcliffe and DeHaan, both young talents with heavy-lifting franchise experience (DeHaan will be seen in next year's The Amazing Spider-Man 2), prove that they have both the chops and, ahem, manhood, to slide into trickier, more demanding roles. As young, troubled teens confronting issues of homosexuality, the risky fare here is tested in only how well Krokidas gently guides the relationship and how the actors attempt to find the truths in them. Radcliffe shows once again his fearlessness though publicly expressed as nonchalance, in committing to scenes depicting male intercourse.
That Carr dismisses his homosexuality is what leads to the film's larger plot, in which the much older male figure David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall), continually tormented by his rejection of his once young partner Carr, ultimately is met with tragic circumstances. In this real-life event, it is Ginsberg that is met with the decision of whether or not to move forward with helping cover up a murder that may or may not have rippling consequences of his own.
The film runs in a well-measured spurt. Only that competing elements of the story are inevitably needed to be drawn in which to authentically and fully tell this true story are what make the film appear as broad, self-contained, strokes on a canvas, rather than a more specifically focused composition. In needing to show Ginsberg's sickly mother, his voice-over poetry, the drug-laced counterculture, and the joining of the young great minds of the beat movement, by the time the murder mystery comes around, it only feels like another card being stacked.
Though some extra ingredients of the recipe appear to boil over, it seems the only testament to how good a meal the filmmakers wanted to make. This love-letter to the beat generation imagined by Krokidas and Bunn (not coincidentally, film school college roommates themselves) is such an adoring ode to this romantic period that simply watching the film feels as educational as it does entertaining. Adding to the popping aesthetics of the counter-culture feel is (I am remiss to mention this late in the write-up) the always fantastic Ben Foster as a spaced-out William Burroughs, and Jack Huston, as a lived in Jack Kerouac, both adding integral flavors that compliment the group chemistry with Radcliffe and DeHaan and the picture as a whole.
In fact, it was the great William Faulkner that once said that "In writing, you must kill your darlings." Meaning, to be a great artist, you can't simply tread in the successes of your idols. In scope, these fine actors and filmmakers appear to walk away having done just that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxGgkEHmHHg
Randy Moore, Roy Abramsohn, and Elena Schuber of 'Escape From Tomorrow'
Our exclusive video interview with Escape From Tomorrow's writer/director Randy Moore, Roy Abramsohn, and Elena Schuber! We talk about the unbelievable production and how Roger Ebert tweeted it as the most buzzed about film at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENGUZ3vxMPo
00:24 : What is the film about?
01:24 : What was the production like?
02:52 : What was the experience like bringing the film to Sundance?
05:58 : Did you ever think that this movie might not end up seeing the light of day?
07:34 : Were there any edits made between the Sundance and theatrical releases?
08:51 : What's your favorite Disneyland ride?
'Escape From Tomorrow': Shot Guerrilla-Style on the Grounds of Disney
When you hear the words 'fantasy' and 'Disney' together, you definitely won't think of what you're about to see in this film.
Morphing nightmarish faces. Sexual perversions of giggly underage girls. Sci-fi benders of mind-controlling corporations. Until now, these elements had nothing in common with the Disney brand. Now, thanks to writer/director Randy Moore and his daring cast and crew, these things have all come together in a movie that you will not soon forget exists. Escape From Tomorrow is one of those movie's you need to see to believe.
The most prominent water-cooler conversation that will arise from this film is likely to be that the majority of the movie was filmed inside the actual park of Disney World (and Land), without the House of Mouse's knowledge. As a guerilla-shot feat, using prosumer aimed Canon 5D digital SLR cameras with minimal audio recording, the attempt is made (and achieved) to pull off a feature film production in the famed theme park. And yet...
Further propelling the film into buzz-worthy territory is the psycho-sexual dips into madness that beset the film's narrative that manipulate the iconography of the theme park that we all know and love. When grouchy father Jim (Roy Abramsohn) takes his vacationing family to the Happiest Place on Earth, demons from his personal life slowly infiltrate the Magic Castle's walls to find him, be it in the transforming evil faces of the international animatronics in It's A Small World or in the very nude woman who appears on another ride.
Further propelling the film into buzz-worthy territory is the psycho-sexual dips into madness that beset the film's narrative that manipulate the iconography of the theme park that we all know and love.
Included in its larger narrative is an even weirder plot of the park's princesses as high-priced escorts, mysteriously threatening illnesses, and secret corporations controlling memories and happiness. I can only imagine work on Monday morning in Disney's Legal Department when they heard about this movie.
Coming out of Sundance Film Festival earlier this January, the film became one of the must-see/must-talk-about films, even garnering rave reviews from the now deceased, legendary film critic Roger Ebert. However, nobody thought that Disney would let it out alive to find any chance of distribution for a larger audience to see.
And yet...
There is so much to love about this movie. While as a "movie," it might suffer from a semi-aimless structure, at least until the second half, when the crackpot craziness comes flying fast and hard. But I contend that this movie should be appreciated in its own right, as an entertainment experience that centers around its mythological production. Stellar black and white cinematography by director of photography Lucas Lee Graham and a wonderfully appropriate dark fantasy soundtrack composed by Abel Korzeniowski definitely lift the film, giving it a stronger cinematic experience.
Escape From Tomorrow should definitely be included on your films to see this year, as its very existence should alone be appreciated. A glorious achievement that would best play to midnight audiences looking for a fun B-grade alt-art movie, the film is sure to excite all audiences.
Well, maybe not for Mr. Mouse and company...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nfU_5NWBoE
'The Summit' Relives the Deadliest Day in Modern Mountain Climbing History
In cinema's earliest beginnings, there stands the Lumiere Brothers' historic film, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895).
There is one main reason why this short film, less than a minute long and comprised of only one shot, is so important. For audiences who had never even seen "moving pictures" before, the sight of seeing a locomotive pull into a train station, towards the camera and incidentally, themselves, the feeling of realism scared audiences into believing the train was plowing straight towards them.
Boy, how those people would Gasp at watching a film whose camerawork transports them to the death-defying Summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth.
A feature-length documentary, The Summit is a mixed collection of film devices, including interviews, real footage, and reenactment, that serve to tell the gripping, real-life account of the deadliest day in modern mountain climbing history.
The mountain is K2, located along the northwestern Himalayan mountain range and second-highest only to Mount Everest. Known as Savage Mountain, K2's fatality rate claims one of every four climbers who attempt to summit (climb to the top), earning its reputation as the second most murderous mountain. And though its deadly power is known, it did not stop 22 climbers of several different international expeditions from attempting the climb on one fateful day in August 2008, leaving only 11 alive to tell the tale.
The threatening conditions, insurmountable odds, and dooming luck, all might beg to question why anyone would want to do this in the first place.
Directed by Nick Ryan, The Summit stands as his first major work as a feature-film director, a totally impressive feat for how much material is brought to the screen. The accomplishment of watching the camerawork, from helicopters above the mountain, on rigs and pulley systems to capture shots from stomach-churning angles, does as good a job to put the viewer right on the mountain save for being right there on the mountain. The impressive visuals alone are noteworthy, and add the right touch of tension while highlighting the power and beauty of the location.
As a narrative, the story shows, through real-life footage, the entire journey of the mountaineers. Focusing on a few veteran climbers, the first Irishmen to summit K2 Ger McDonnell, and a local sherpa to help others climb the mountain, Pemba Gyaljie Sherpa, the film tells all angles to attempt to discover what many are still unsure of; how exactly eleven veteran climbers were claimed by the mountain.
The takeaway is this: after seeing this film, you will feel immense respect for the all-powerful fate that nature has over man, and for the brave men and women whose thirst for adventure and exploration dare to defy it. The threatening conditions, insurmountable odds, and dooming luck, all might beg to question why anyone would want to do this in the first place. Though when you watch the scene of each mountain climber reaching the top of the mountain, taking pictures with their native country's flag, hugging and kissing loved ones, and simply watching them look at the never-ending view around them, you can't help but understand why the risk was worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV6iZRvilwc
'Una Noche' Shows One Night in the Life of Three Teenage Cuban Natives
While it may only be 'presented' by the esteemed director himself, Una Noche takes, and furthers, the themes of oppression and self-empowerment of an individual in a minority that has made Spike Lee a champion of exploring socially conscious issues throughout his residency in film history.
Written and directed by Lucy Mulloy, Noche marks her first feature film directorial effort, and the experience of watching is a reward.
Running at a solid ninety minutes, the film, as you might expect, centers around 'una noche,' or, 'one night,' in the life of three teenage Cuban natives, living another frustrating day in their poverty-stricken life in Havana. Employing a similar 'Spike Lee' cinematic device, the film uses the narrative voice-over of a primary character which links multiple characters, with shared points of view. Partly narrating the story is the young and pretty, yet shy and bullied Lila (Anailín de la Rúa de la Torre), whose only social comfort is with her nearly-twin brother, Elio (Javier Núñez Florián), who tends to her insecurities with care and affection. It is when Elio's attention turns to focus on Raul (Darriel Arrechaga), an attractive yet frustrated and troubled friend, that Lila notices her relationship with her brother is interrupted. With Raul nearing his breaking point, feeling trapped in his sub-squalor life, he plans to sail to Miami with Elio, hopeful of a better life that could be offered only in America. Yet Lila's unshakeable bond with Elio only serves to further jeopardize the boys' plan, against an unforgiving world that may devastate them at any moment.
While small, digital cameras could be easier to maneuver and work with, the task is still insurmountably hard, and this is where Mulloy hangs most of the emotional payoffs.
Mulloy proves herself here, as the film stands on solid legs throughout its runtime. Perhaps employing more documentary-like techniques (the film looks as if it were shot handheld on a digital video camera, and wonderfully so) allowed for capturing authentically-calling footage of the world of Cuba, revealing an underbelly of a world that so traps these characters. Equally impressive is the film's sprawling story structure, which extends to show us more characters afflicted by hardship; seeing Raul's sickly mother working as a prostitute, and a compassionate medic underpricing HIV medicine for Elio reveals an even richer world of characters, further strengthening the film's themes of the individual's triumph through oppressing forces.
Yet the film's most impressive accomplishments occur in its final reel, of the trio's rafting journey to Miami. Never has it been an easy thing to shoot a movie at sea, and that is exactly what happens here. While small, digital cameras could be easier to maneuver and work with, the task is still insurmountably hard, and this is where Mulloy hangs most of the emotional payoffs. These moments are set alongside environmental conflicts, in the sky, and below the sea.
If Noche swings and misses at anything, it may be in its relatively un-stirring emotional range. While the argument could be made that these characters are so desensitized and unaffected by the brutal and unfair justices of their loves, where, in these cases, we see Raul react by lazily getting drunk and Lila and Elio only quietly internalizing their emotions, the audience is never given any show-stopping or vulnerable moment to connect with the characters, which the film could have masterfully used.
This strongly scripted and directed effort brings all that is good in this movie to the surface; even its 'first-time' actors add a spark of authenticity in roles that couldn't have called for anything else. All of the visual riches and scenes show a side of the typically tourist-ridden Havana that a non-native wouldn't know, in artfully crafted fashion, while themes of finding identity through frustration, desperation, and liberation are channeled in a unique, impressive form. Perhaps the only thing more impressive than all of this is seen in one of the film's final frames, a black title card reading: "Inspired By a True Story."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKLXDk4NFrA
Director Jill Soloway and Jane Lynch Talk 'Afternoon Delight'
Longtime friends and performers from the Chicago improv scene, firstime writer/director Jill Soloway and Emmy winning Jane Lynch turn in a real winning effort with "Afternoon Delight." When Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) invites young stripper McKenna (Juno Temple) to live in her home, her life gets turned upside down, threatening to tear her marriage with Jeff (Josh Radnor), apart. Helping with Rachel's woes is her therapist, the intellectually dry Lenore, played by the wonderful Jane Lynch. I recently sat down with the director and co-star, who offered amazing insight and perspective about the world of comedy, the "revolutionary plot" that centers around the female anti-hero, and much more. Special thanks to Ginsberg/Libby.
CINEMACY: What made you decide to shoot in Silverlake? It felt like such an intimate portrait of the city.
Jill Soloway: I live in Silverlake, and at some point as we were getting closer to shooting it was like, you know I think my first dream was to shoot it in Chicago. I had an idea of Jane and I going on a victory lap, shooting the movie with all of the people from The Annoyance (Comedy club in Chicago where both performed)
Jane Lynch: Right, yes. Hiring and firing them randomly. "No! Yes! Yes! No!"
JS: Go back and rule Chicago! Then there was a moment where it was like, "Oh, what if it was in San Fransisco?" And they did a rewrite, and then it was like, "Nope, the movie's gotta happen in LA. And I thought, "OK, What do I know of LA? My neighborhood, Silverlake," and I wrote it in Silverlake and it was actually the best version of it cause I knew every little nuance and every little detail.
CINEMACY: And also, congratulations on winning the Directing Award (In the Dramatic Category at Sundance Film Festival).
JS: Thank you.
CINEMACY: We were just talking to Josh and Kathryn, and they said that they had to fly back before you received it?
JS: That's right they didn't get to be there.
CINEMACY: So you received it by yourself?
JS: Yeah, my producers were there, everyone was gone!
CINEMACY: What was that experience like?
JS: Just...
JL: You were almost gone!
JS: Yeah, I was thinking about leaving, actually.
JL: And they said, "Don't go..."
JS: Yes, somebody gave me the heads up not to miss the awards ceremony. I tell people that Sundance is like being inside of a dryer with a shoe, it was like GUNG-GUNG-GUNG-GUNG-GUNG! (Onomatopoetic license taken). So that was the moment where somebody took me, took the shoe out of the dryer. They were like, "And that's all!"
I think as artists, and you (to Jane) probably know this feeling from winning your Emmys, I think we're all in some ways waiting for that moment where you're on stage holding our award in the air. "I did it!" You know?
JL: Yeah.
JS: And to have that moment for the first time on this movie, and to have that "I did it" moment, I think when we're little kids watching the awards ceremonies it's almost like what makes us even get into this business.
JL: Were you able to take it in?
JS: Yeah, afterwards!
JL: Cause when I won the Emmy I could not, I didn't take it in.
CINEMACY: (To Jane Lynch) What was going through your head?
JL: Oh, let's make this about me for just a second!
JS: That's fine! I'd be happy to!
JL: It was kind of like, I felt I should give it back, and they do have you give it back, because they give you the real one later, I think that's the Emmy.
But yeah, that's why I was interested, because I would've been surprised if you were to say that you weren't present for it, because you were so present in the making of this movie.
JS: Oh, thank you lady.
JL: I was, without sounding condescending, very proud of her, because she did it in a really organic way. And she empathized with every character, she was right there with you, it was one of the safest places to create and go to emotional places you never thought you would. And it was kind of a love fest, and you were so present for that, that I bet you'll never be un-present for anything like that in your life.
JS: Oh, lady, you're so sweet! Yeah I think afterwards I danced my head off at that big party
CINEMACY: Was there a stripper pole? (Laughter)
JS: There was no stripper pole, but um, a lamp post outside in Park City had to do the trick that night.
CINEMACY: I think I read that one of the things you were interested in was taking these established comedians, specifically, and giving them a deeper role, which made me think of what Jerry Seinfeld once said, that comedians are always wanting to be taken, for as funny and hilarious they are to everyone, seriously?
KS: Well, we come from from this improv world in Chicago, which is a "Yes, And...," "Be in the moment," "Safe space," "Anything can happen," We're playing,"...in fact we were playing. Our first play together, we were pretending that Jane was Carol Brady and we were doing the Brady Bunch, just this feeling of play, play, play. And then you get in the TV business and comedy gets sort of reduced down to, the joke is on the page, did you hit the joke or not. And I just got excited about coming to a place where we were marrying sort of the past and the present, which is marrying this sort of improv-y feeling of Just be present, these are funny people, you can write jokes or not write jokes, you can cut the joke or not cut the joke, they can quote-unquote land the joke or not land the joke, they're funny, if they play it real, the movie will be funny, as way of just kind of reinventing process for ourselves.
JL: And I think that "funny" people, people who do comedy and are kind of adept at that, are your better actors anyway, if I can claim that. I think there's a certain amount of risk-taking and jumping off the creative cliff that happens when you're a "funny person." You know, cause sometimes it doesn't work, and you have to get back up and do it again, and I think if you just are schooled in drama, I don't know how you're able to portray life's ironies.
And the truth of anything, unless you can also dive into what is funny about yourself, and what is maybe not so attractive about yourself, and you have to be more open to exposure, and so I think that I will take someone who knows their sense of humor, and is naturally funny, over someone who can maybe, shed a tear.
CINEMACY: Comedy almost seems like it's on the opposite side of the coin, or it's just one push away from being totally tragic.
JL: Exactly.
JS: Yes.
JL: That there's a rawness and a vulnerability that I think was so clear in this movie that people walk away, everybody that I know walk away from this movie says they find themselves so invested, and there's such a particular flavor that really inspires an emotional truth in people, and I think you get that from people who aren't afraid to make a fool out of themselves!
CINEMACY: Jane's character is so particular down to where she puts her feet on the foot rest, and her glasses; can you guys talk about how you crafted that, and is she based on somebody that you know?
JS: My real therapist! That's my real therapist's chair, and foot rest. We went over to her office and got the chair and the foot rest the morning that we shot. And we even, one of those lines, "Baccarat Crystal," "Clear Mirror," that's something my therapist has said. And then she's kind of Lenore Benny Smith! Jane and I, before the days of viral videos, we were making viral videos that no-one ever saw.
JL: And I always played a very particular, kind of, (in character) precious, female empowerment person, be it a lawyer in one scene and a therapist in the next. Or a talk show host.
JS: Professor of feminist theory.
JL: Yes, exactly, and every time Jill talks about this character, "her voice does this." And she's a very particular...one of the hardest scenes to shoot because we kept laughing was, "I brought some quinouae." (Laughter) That was her line, in her little container.
JS: Yeah, we were very specific about her container.
JL: Yeah! Remember you had to go out and get the right-
JS: I had to go out and get another container. Well, because Lenore would have a certain kind of, actually Lenore is also my middle name, so I think in some ways, this character is my shadow, very serious feminist. And I get some of my best moments when I'm falling asleep or waking up and I just had this moment where I was like, "Tilda Swinton! Hair in the air! Hard glasses!" I've never seen Jane like that. Hilarious! Just that, swept back, diva, intellectual, academic diva. It was a home run for her.
CINEMACY: Did that inspire any additional conversations between you and Lenore, making a movie about your real-life therapist? Did she say, "Now let's talk about why you'd want to make a movie about your therapist...
JS: We definitely have talked about it.
JL: Yeah, we flung the depths every time.
CINEMACY: Another thing I found really interesting about the movie was the presence of that strong female voice. When we've seen a lot of these male comedic characters as flawed people. Do you think the playing field is even among both genders? Can women have the same issues of being...
JL: Lost in what it means to be a woman. Yeah absolutely, I think that the culture just doesn't pick up on those stories. We love them for men, and their long suffering wife standing next to them, and it's great that they're getting their story told. But I think that it's just as important for women to tell their particular stories, you know, what it's like to be a mother, where you feel like you have to sacrifice everything in order to be a wife and mother, and the way she (Rachel) breaks out is she goes to a strip club...
It's kind of like the Madonna/whore complex, is alive and well in so many women. It's like, I've gotta shake out of this so I'm gonna go see how sex workers do it.
CINEMACY: We were talking earlier that usually in movies when we see Kathryn on screen, she's hardly recognizable, or really comedic in her appearance, so to see her in this movie, very vulnerable and stripped down and very raw, it's amazing. So how did you come to the point where you knew you wanted to cast her, and how did you guys kind of craft that character?
JS: Well I've been a longtime fan of hers, and she definitely fits into that paradigm we were talking about of like funny people who can play it straight. And I had a Skype with her, and she was so emotional about how much she loved Rachel, that I felt like the way Kathryn felt about Rachel was the way I knew Rachel was going to feel about Mackenna. She was like, "I know her! I know this woman, I can feel her!" And Kathryn's so empathetic.
JL: Yes, she is.
JS: She's just, she lives empathy as a person. And you know, it is a bit of a bye, you have to be on her side as she goes back to the strip club and brings a stripper home. When you talk about the heroes that we're used to, the bumbling, they're anti-heroes, they fuck up. They do the wrong thing. Even "The Heartbreak Kid," which is sort of a movie that has been made twice, which is a classic movie about men, his wife's hanging out in the hotel room, and he's sort of out there chasing this "blonde object," you know we're rooting for him, we're used to that story. It's the Philip Roth story, it's the Albert Brooks story, it's the Woody Allen story. Ok, what does it mean to take a Jewish woman and make her the person that's going after this ideal of youth, this ideal of other, and potentially harming her marriage, you know, putting her marriage at risk by this flight of folly. Well men can do it, the anti-hero can do it. To have Kathryn do it, to have our lead do it, as odd as it seems, it's revolutionary. As odd as it seems, it's a revolutionary plot to ask audiences to root for a woman who's doing something that's...
JL: Maybe not the best for her wife and children, for her husband and children.
JS: Yeah, and then to ask audiences to root for her and to still love her when she's risking her kids and her husband, I think that it feels like we're doing important work even if it wasn't funny. If it was just a documentary, kind of be like "America needs to see this!" But luckily it's also funny.
Kathryn Hahn and Josh Radnor Talk 'Afternoon Delight'
Perhaps better known for their other comedic efforts, as seen in "Step Brothers" and "How I Met Your Mother," Kathryn Hahn and Josh Radnor star here in first time writer/director Jill Soloway's indie hit "Afternoon Delight." The pair play Rachel and Jeff, whose unsatisfying marriage leads Rachel to bring young stripper McKenna (Juno Temple) into their home, leading to unexpected revelations that challenge the couple's faithfulness to the core. With its distinct tone and strong feminine point of view, the film landed Soloway the Directing Award in the Dramatic Category at this year's Sundance, while also giving Hahn and Radnor the opportunity to showcase their dedicated acting chops. I had a chance to sit down with the pair of longtime friends to talk about all things "Afternoon Delight" in this winning effort of a film. Special thanks to Ginsberg/Libby.
CINEMACY: So you took the film to Sundance, it had the reception that it did winning the Directing Award for Jill, what was it like when she won that award?
Kathryn Hahn: Well we had all left at that point, but it was so exciting, I mean I got a flurry of e-mails and texts when she won, I was just so excited for her. It’s awesome for her first feature, just so thrilling.
CINEMACY: As far as pole dancing, and the exercise form that it’s become for women, is that part of some larger feminine “owning of sexuality”? It’s a relatively new thing.
KH: I don’t know, I mean I’m not sure myself but I- yes I think there definitely seems to be that happening right? Like we were, Jill and I were talking about like how moms that go install stripper poles, and that’s just how they work it out at night. It sounds exhausting to me, to be totally honest. I can barely go to a spin class. But yeah, I get it. Especially post-children, for a lady, if you want to reawaken that
Josh Radnor: Inner pole dancer
KH: Exactly
CINEMACY: Was this the first time that you had learned about pole dancing?
KH: Yeah they wouldn’t let me pole dance in this movie for some reason.
JR: Insurance wouldn’t cover it.
KH: And also who needs to see it!
CINEMACY: Moving on, I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who once said that in every comedien, there lies the desire to be taken seriously. How does that work into both of your efforts as comedians and taking these sorts of projects?
KH: (Laughter) How serious do I take myself?
CINEMACY: What’s that draw, or that balance?
KH: I mean I probably should take myself a little more seriously. It’s so weird, because I don’t look at is as, I just so can’t believe that I’m able to work so I think any kind of project that comes my way, that I’m lucky enough to be cast in, I feel like it comes from the same starting point, right? I mean I think that you can smell that a mile away too if someone’s taking themselves too seriously with their work or their “precious-ness.” It’s just never that fun to be around even on a set, so I feel that you have to have loose borders, and not take yourself so seriously, in order to just be open.
JR: I also feel like there’s an idea that actors are constantly like, mulling over which direction they’re going to go-
KH: There’s like three people that can do that.
JR: Yeah. It’s like fifty percent, “OK, I have an intention or this is kind of what I’m looking for,” or maybe, well OK, it’s like twenty five percent that, and seventy five percent is like, “This is what’s in front of me!” Like, this is my next job . And one of the things for me, I never though of myself as a comedic actor, I just thought of myself as an actor, and I got known for this big comedy, which I still get to do pretty serious stuff on, but I’m just looking for interesting stuff to do, like very simply. Like one of the things that’s kind of hard about doing a long running show, like I love going from thing to thing, and doing lots of different things, so when I’m not doing the show I want to do something that feels like it’s exercising muscles that aren’t getting used, more than anything else. But if I do something super heavy, I want to do something light next time, if I’m doing something too light, I want to do something a little heavier.
KH: I don’t have those options by the way. That would be amazing!
JR: Well I get to, I write stuff.
KH: And he makes his own, I just make children.
JR: What I do is more important.
CINEMACY: Can you talk about any specific challenges you faced while making this? While it’s very intimate, and there are moments that are light and funny, but then it also is very heavy towards the end.
KH: The thing that I’m the most proud of with this actually is this relationship that we were able to make because I feel like it’s really, I shouldn’t say rare, but it was very imperative that it not be, to me and to all of us, a cliche marriage, that you see immediately this history like the second you see them together, and I’m really proud that we were able to get that. Like we know each other socially, which sometimes even makes it that much harder to get that intimate with somebody like in front of cameras! Especially knowing my “hubs”-
JR: Yeah, I know her husband.
KH: But I’m really really proud of that. I remember us talking, like one of our code phrases early on was like, we kept talking about “soft belly,” about how like when you’re with someone for a really really long time that you don’t have to like...
JR: Suck in.
KH: Suck in!
CINEMACY: That’s true love.
KH: That’s true love!
JR: Jill had a line in the script that I really loved, she said something like, “Casual married nudity,” like the kind of like, you’re just not thinking, it’s so not a first date, it’s like your fifty-thousandth date, so things change, and a certain self-consciousness goes away, that also in some ways can hurt things. You know, you hear different people talk about like, the genius of separate bedrooms, or like separate bathrooms-
KH: Or separate apartments!
JR: Yeah to keep, you get the sense that there’s a danger of overfamiliarity, you know? I love the scene, it’s just a one shot when they’re in the bathroom together, he’s flossing and she’s, what are you doing?
KH: Cutting my bunions.
JR: Cutting things off her toes! And then you know, you think, ten minutes later we’re going to make sweet love. Like, no! There’s too much that’s been seen.
KH: Yes, this is real. No party manners.
JR: And I think there was also a thing, we talked through how we met, when we were together, when we were not together, what was the arc of this fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, however long they were together...Kathryn’s actually had this kind of, she met her husband in college, I haven’t had that long term relationship, so it was just about creating a very specific world where we were together.
CINEMACY: Can you guys talk a little bit about Juno, because I feel like you share a really-
JR: I’d rather not (Laughter)
KH: She’s not here to defend herself.
CINEMACY: A really natural chemistry!
KH: She’s amazing, are you kidding me? She just sets the bar like, I just think she’s extraordinary. The way the schedule was set up, was that it was kind of very “Juno-heavy” at the beginning of the shoot, and then it was our marriage towards the end. And so it was actually, there was a second where I thought like, “Oof, we gotta believe in this marriage, but this relationship is so intense, I’m so glad we were able to like, I mean we really did, it totally not only balanced out but I feel like you really want Jeff and Rachel, you root for them, but we fell madly in love. I just think she’s extraordinary. I’m so excited to see where she goes.
JR: Yeah, you hand kind of two marriages in this movie, I mean you had two relationships that you had to really-
KH: And it was like really a fulcrum in the middle, it felt like there was just a fulcrum right at about like two weeks in.
JR: I always think of, like a chemistry experiment, like you have this marriage in this petri dish, and then, the “McKenna” character is like this dropper, or some other element that’s dropped in, and what it does to that existing thing-
CINEMACY: It alters it.
JR: Yeah.
KH: Oh that’s good!
CINEMACY: And I just have to say, I couldn’t even recognize you watching the movie initially, because of the characters that you’ve played before, but in such a great way.
KH: Ah, thank you!
CINEMACY: I feel like this movie totally expanded your range, like, completely.
KH: Oh that is the sweetest. I feel that way too, like I will hold this experience to my heart because it was so fun and meaningful to be asked this of, I guess as a performer, rather than just growing out my armpit hair and wearing a long gray wig. And on that note, “Afternoon Delight!"