Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
One of my absolute favorite films that I saw at this year's SXSW Film Festival was a little two-person drama called THE FREEBIE (which also garnered high praise at Sundance), written and directed by one of the two leads, Katie Aselton, who just happens to be married to one of the movie's producers, filmmaker Mark Duplass (THE PUFFY CHAIR and CYRUS, in both of which Aselton has roles). If you've seen any of the films Mark and his brother Jay have made over the years, then you have some idea of the style of THE FREEBIE (which co-stars Dax Shepard, in the single greatest performance of his career, going the straight dramatic approach). Aselton's "script" was really just a six-page outline that she used to direct the narrative, allowing all the actors to improvise their dialogue.
And while THE FREEBIE does have a kind of loose and free-floating feel at times, the story about a loving married couple who decide to each sleep with another person one time in an effort to spice up their suffering sex life feel much more deliberate and guided than other films of this nature have in the past. The film's non-linear structure really brings it to life (congrats to editor Nat Sanders, who also edited last year's magnificent HUMPDAY, starring Mark Duplass), and turns this simple story of a couple over-thinking their relationship and making a bad choice into a bit of a mystery. The emotional rawness of the movie is dead-on perfection, and Aselton and Shepard (playing a character not unlike the one he plays on NBC's "Parenthood") are phenomenal. It opens this weekend in New York and shortly thereafter in Los Angeles, and I'm really hoping it gets a wider release on top of that. I'd love to do a screening in Chicago (hint, hint).
As funny and spontaneous as Dax Shepard has been as part of the "Punk'd" gang and in films such as IDIOCRACY, ZATHURA, LET'S GO TO PRISON, THE COMEBACKS, BABY MAMA, and WHEN IN ROME, I like this new direction his career has taken. "Parenthood's" second season started this week (I believe it repeats Saturday night). Meanwhile, if you want a look at Aselton, she's a regular on the FX series "The League," which begins its second season Thursday. And guess who else is in that series? Mark Duplass. But the two don't play a couple, so it's cool, I guess.
This interview was set up in a conference call fashion, in that each of us dialed into a number. I arrived first. Katie showed up soon thereafter, and Dax was late and very apologetic, but we still got the chance to talk for quite a while. And while I tend not to get overly conversational during my interviews, that's basically what happened with Aselton and Shepard, because those are the kind of people they are and why they are so perfect for the characters in THE FREEBIE. Please enjoy Katie Aselton and Dax Shepard…
Katie Aselton: Hey. How are you?
Capone: Good, good.
KA: Do you have Dax?
Capone: No, I’m the only one on as far as I know.
KA: Ah, okay. It’s you and me, kid.
Capone: (Laughs) That’s fine. I’ve got plenty of questions.
KA: Let’s do this!
Capone: Okay. I saw the film for the first time at SXSW.
KA: Oh yeah?
Capone: Yeah and I think it was the film's last screening of the fest. It was a rainy morning, really early.
KA: Oh my gosh, yes. I remember.
Capone: It was the perfect day to see this kind of movie, though, since so much of film takes place in bed, which is where most people want to be on those rainy mornings.
KA: I’m glad you said that, because I remember walking into that screening and being like “Uh oh…”
[Both Laugh]
KA: “People are in a bad mood,”
Capone: It wasn’t raining that hard. But at the time, all I wanted to do when I talked about the film with people was talk not so much about the film, but about the things that you bring up in the film. Then seeing it again the other day, I noticed more of what you were doing stylistically as a filmmaker and really being impressed by that as well.
KA: That’s good, thank you.
Capone: THE FREEBIE feels a little bit more, especially in the editing, a little bit more deliberate and a little more structured than some of the films its getting lumped in with that your husband and his brother make, or Lynn Shelton's HUMPDAY, or Joe Swanberg's movies…
KA: I appreciate that. That’s a really great compliment, thank you.
Capone: Was that always the intention, to edit it as a mystery?
KA: Well I know that when I sort of conceptualized the movie… We shot it from just a six-page outline, but when I was sort of coming up with an idea… The thing about this movie is that there’s no subplots. It’s a pretty simple story, very straightforward, so I felt like there had to be some type of interesting…not a hook as much as just we had to make a stylistic choice with it. So the outline, before we even started shooting, was very nonlinear and sort of choppy and I felt like it was the only way to keep the audience really engaged.
Capone: Right.
KA: Or at least it was a way to attempt to keep the audience engaged. I don’t know if it worked, but we tried.
Capone: I absolutely think it did, and part of the reason that I wanted to talk about it so much is because you left a lot of the big questions unanswered at the end.
KA: Thanks. The thing is we are putting the audience in their position. I feel like a lot of movies try to tie everything up very cleanly in a nice little bow at the end for the audience, which is great except for that's not reality. I just wanted to present this window into this world and show the week before and the week after these traumatic events. So I liked the idea of having the audience be in their position and put you in as if you were actually in that couple and it’s like “Do you move on from there? Do you not?” I like the idea of just keeping it ambiguous, you know? I don’t know. I know a lot of people want to know sort of what happens and I understand that too.
Capone: I won't insult you by asking what happens to them.
[Both Laugh]
KA: Not at all. Truthfully, we shot for safety what did happen in case we sort of needed that in the edit room.
Capone: Whoa.
KA: Yeah, so I sort of know our idea in the moment of what happened, but then when I watch it now, it’s still sort of fun to go into it as an audience member, and I still every now and again have different endings for myself, so that’s kind of cool.
Capone: Yeah.
KA: I’m a huge fan of those “Choose Your Own Ending” books anyways, so maybe I did a movie form of that.
Capone: I don’t remember this coming up in the film, but in the press notes it mentions that they had been together seven years. Is that right?
KA: Yeah. I think it comes up very… I don’t know, it might have come up in something that was cut.
Capone: What is it about that time frame that seems to be the number of years when trouble rears its ugly head? That’s the “seven-year itch.”
KA: You know, I think we did it without even really thinking about it. It was long enough for them to get really comfortable, but not quite long enough that they would maybe be having kids or before that question is raised for them, which probably is what they should have done, but when a couple is together for ten plus years, you start looking at them and you are like “Why aren’t you having kids? Is it a choice or is it not?” So I think that was sort of where we were at where it’s like finding that happy medium between definitely getting overly comfortable and then not too comfortable.
Capone: And yet, that’s the number of years people always seem to squirm.
KA: I know, and as soon as you said that, I was like “Ah, SEVEN YEAR ITCH… The was a movie about that!”
Capone: There have been more than one that have placed a couple in turmoil at seven years.
KA: And it’s also the “Seventh Inning Stretch.” There’s something about seven that makes people uncomfortable.
Capone: That’s when you start to get uncomfortable and feel the need to move around and do something different, right. Exactly, there you go!
KA: Just shake it up a little bit to get the blood flowing.
[Both Laugh]
Capone: Can you talk just a little bit about where the idea for the story came from and were you interested…
[Dax Shepard Enters the conversation.]
Dax Shepard: Dax!
Capone: He’s here.
DS: I am so sorry.
Capone: That’s okay.
KA: Buddy!
DS: It’s totally my fault. I started editing something like an hour and a half ago and I thought 20 minutes had gone by. I looked up and I was like “Oh my God.” I’m so sorry--it’s totally my fault.
Capone: That’s okay.
KA: I did the same thing too, this poor guy has been sitting on the phone forver waiting.
Capone: They told me that I only had until 4:25 your time, which is about five minutes from now, so I’m not sure if that still holds.
DS: I’ll email someone right now and tell him to push the next one 15 minutes.
Capone: Thanks. So let me finish this question, then we will move to something that both of you can talk about.
KA: With the story a lot of, it was more of just… I had been sitting for a while talking to Mark, and Mark was like “You should make something.” I was like “I have no ideas, nothing that inspires me for a movie’s worth of talking.” There were little things that I liked, but I didn’t know where it was going to go, and this was the first thing that sort of struck me, and it came out of a very innocent conversation with a friend, but was just… [A voice in the background says something and Aselton laughs]. Mark just said “Not that innocent.” I had this innocent conversation with a friend of ours where we were sort of reminiscing about when we were single, when you don’t have to talk about your relationship or you don’t have to talk your relationship to death, which is sort of what Annie and Darren ended up doing. So when that idea came to me, I was like “Oh my God,” for the very first time I could see something start to finish, so it was kind of exciting, and that’s why this was the one that I made.
Capone: Do you feel like you’ve gotten it out of your system now, or are you itching to do another one?
KA: Wait! Getting what out of my system. [laughs]
Capone: Sorry. The directing thing.
KA: No.
DS: You can’t ever get making out with me out of your system.
KA: Never. I’m like a sick addict. No, I had made the movie because I wanted to get more acting jobs and I thought maybe this would be the way to do it and now I have opportunities to make films, which is so exciting and I’m going to explore that. I’d like to do some more acting first, but I'm definitely going to do this again.
Capone: Dax, before we were talking about--maybe you have some insight into this--the seven year element to how long they have been together and why is it that’s the number of years tthat people are together before they start getting that itch.
DS: I think because of the Marilyn Monroe movie.
Capone: It’s just embedded in the culture now?
DS: Yeah, I don’t know what’s the chicken or what’s the egg. Were they the first to come upon that seven-year thing?
Capone: I’ve got to imagine it came from somewhere before that…
KA: I said it’s something like the Seventh Inning Stretch, like there’s something about the number seven that makes you very uncomfortable.
DS: It’s a lucky number they say, “Lucky number seven.”
KA: Hey go for it, maybe it’s the year you can get away with it.
DS: I don’t really have a theory on why after seven years people seem to get into that pattern, but I guess you would be inclined to go like “Well that’s when the sex cools off,” but who’s kidding who? It cools off way before seven years. I’d like to meet the couple that’s like…
KA: You just speak for yourself.
DS: Yeah, right.
KA: I’ve got Mark in the car, it’s uncomfortable. [Laughs]
Capone: I spoke to him and Jay at the same SXSW I saw THE FREEBIE. Please tell him I said hi.
KA: Did you? Oh wait. He’s grabbing my daughter to run out, because she just said she has to go to the bathroom “very, very, very bad.” So he’s going to take care of that one. Three “very”s are serious.
Capone: We talked about the editing before and that first flash-forward where your character comes home in the morning, that’s a real jolt in the film, and I assume you shot this in something resembling chronological order?
KA: Yeah, we shot I would say probably 98 percent in chronological order.
Capone: I think what Lynn Shelton told a me was that for HUMPDAY that the film, although it sort of wrote itself with the actors and I assume it was the same way with you two, that it really came together for her when she was editing it. And I think it’s in the editing that this story really comes to life and makes it compelling.
KA: What’s interesting is we had this outline that was sort of all chopped apart and was all color coded for before and after and during the "freebie," and it was there and then we shot a hundred hours of footage or even hundreds, I don’t know how many hours of footage, but a lot. It was like documentary style, because we had these really ridiculously long takes, and Dax and I would talk for an hour, just talk and talk and talk, and because I’m the director, no one is saying “Cut,” because I was enjoying myself. It was Nat Sanders, who also edited HUMPDAY, but he just found the story. He really brought it back and narrowed it down and really honed in on the original story that we had and then let that sort of rise up, and he built it from the ground up. It was amazing.
Capone: There’s this great wave I think and certainly CYRUS is film like this, but this film I think in just as much, this new wave of using improvisation to not necessarily get to comedy the way it has been used, but to get to the heart of a story and these characters and these relationships. Dax, you’ve done both.
DS: Oh no, I was only going to say that I just read today a quote from Peter Krause, who’s on "Parenthood," and he said that he had worked with Aaron Sorkin and Allen Ball and all of these people that are very specific about how you say what you say, and then he said “Our guy [series developer Jason] Katims is more specific about moments.” We were allowed to explore anything we want in order to find moments, and I thought “That’s kind of a great way to sum up this shift in focus.”
KA: It seems very natural. It’s surprising to me that more people don’t do it, because I feel like instead of forcing a scene over and over again, if it’s not working, then use your actors to help find what will make it work, and you can always come back to the script, but it breathes some life into it. I feel like you get a lot more of a natural moment. They do it in comedy all of the time, and it doesn’t seem like there should be any reason why it’s not done in drama. It makes just as much sense to do it in a dramatic set scene than in a comedic scene.
Capone: I think you’ve constructed a film that will make every couple that goes to see it want to dive right into couple’s therapy, so congratulations.
KA: Dax, I love what you said on Kimmel last night! You were so cute.
Capone: What did you say?
DS: Have sex with your wife before you go.
[Everyone Laughs]
KA: Dax is letting people know to have sex before they go to the movie.
DS: If it’s your big date night, bang first then go to the movie. Don’t try to reverse that order.
KA: Because that way you will not question yourself or your relationship.
Capone: Did you want people to really think about their relationship. You force us to think about what’s worse, just going on happily without sex or trying something this radical.
KA: -[Laughs] Not particularly. I mean, I do like the idea that they could look at this couple and be like “Okay, so we see that that doesn’t particularly work.”
DS: I don’t want to put words in your mouth Katie, but I never felt like this movie was about the concept as much as the concept was going to service this weird emotional story between two people.
KA: Exactly. It really was about this particular situation.
DS: It didn’t seem like she was waving a flag.
KA: I don’t have a stance on monogamy. I have a personal stance on monogamy, but I don’t have a message about monogamy.
DS: You don’t have a unilateral policy on monogamy?
KA: I don’t. I’m not trying to change the world here.
Capone: Was it important that it didn’t appear that one of the characters was pushing the idea more than the other or pushing someone into it?
KA: I certainly did not want it to feel like someone was getting bullied in, because then that’s kind of just gross. Then no one wins, because that one character whoever it is is just--I’d like to say “villain,” but it’s not a villain--he or she is just gross to do something like that.
DS: Do you know what’s weird? When we shot it, we both had the feeling that it was a 50/50 agreement, but then when we watched it at Sundance with a largely female audience, there was kind of a visceral vibe in the room that I had orchestrated this whole thing, and it was so uncomfortable. I was like “Wait a minute, that’s not the movie we made, is it?” Then I started thinking “Well, maybe I didn’t realize it,” and then we went and saw it at SXSW, and there wasn’t that reaction. It was clear that it was 50/50, and it was really neat to see how much an audience reaction can sway.
[At this point, the next interviewer comes on the line, and Dax and Katie kindly as him to wait 10 more minutes since they'd been late on the call.]
DS: This is the craziest experience.
Capone: It's like those old party lines from the '90s.
KA: I know, right? "What are you guys doing?" "Where are you right now?"
DS: [laughing] Party lines.
KA: Where were we? Oh, yeah. The idea that both parties would sort of enter into this willingly I think was what was more interesting to me instead of one being… That’s not much of a movie that I wanted to make, someone being guilted into this. That’s just not a strong character. If it were me getting bullied in, I’d like “hell no.” I’d only do it if I was excited to do it.
Capone: The second time I saw it, I really watched and asked “Is somebody pushing this a little more?” The only reason that Dax’s character might be looked at as the instigator is because he kind of had someone in mind before they agreed to it.
KA: See, I don’t even know if he had her in mind aside from the fact that I think he was maybe just a little lazier and was going with the obvious.
DS: I think there’s like any number of people you come into contact with daily that you are like, “Oh they are cute. I’m a little more upbeat when I talk to that person.” I wouldn’t say it was like any kind of premeditated or an obsession or anything.
KA: Yeah.
Capone: Is this film a little bit of a dig at couples that sort of rationalize their way into or out of situations that most of us just go “Yeah, that makes sense. Of course that's a dumb thing to do.”
KA: Yes. It’s a dig at those people who are saying “Oh my gosh, we are so open and honest and we are such a healthy couple and we are so evolved. We are more evolved than everyone around us and we are going to judge ya’ll because we go to therapy and talk through our issues.”
DS: Which Katie and I both admitted that we have been victims of this thought process in the past.
KA: Absolutely.
DS: We definitely fancied ourselves the super-evolved couple.
KA: We were digging at ourselves.
Capone: When everyone is just so heartbroken by the end, you just kind of realize that “Yes, even smart people make stupid decisions.”
DS: Yeah.
KA: Exactly.
Capone: So before I let you go, let me just ask you about a couple of things you both have coming up. Dax, first of all I’m a fan of "Parenthood." I know it starts up again Tuesday, right?
DS: Yeah. That's awesome, thanks.
Capone: You are one of the first ones back.
DS: I hope that’s a good thing.
KA: It’s great.
Capone: I’d love to think in a perfect world that doing this film had something to do with someone going, “Hey, he can handle this kind of material.” Is there any truth to that?
DS: It isn’t, but they are related. I had auditioned for "Parenthood." probably a week before I got a call to do FREEBIE, and I hadn’t agreed to it, because it was going to shoot in Philadelphia, which I didn’t want to move there, so there was like two weeks of grey area where I didn’t know if I was going to do the show or not, because it was going to be set there. In the meantime, I got a call to do FREEBIE with a 12-hour heads up and then started that and then the day after I wrapped FREEBIE, I went directly up to Berkley to shoot the pilot for "Parenthood," so they are related.
KA: I would like to think that’s why he’s so good on "Parenthood." [laughs] Because he really worked out all of his kinks on FREEBIE. He polished his chops.
Capone: But you tapped into something in FREEBIE that maybe you hadn’t before. Had you ever done anything like this before?
DS: No, I haven’t, but you know, I have not been hired in the past to… Just be honest, I’m supposed to be carrying the comedy and make set pieces work and bring laughs, so it’s a much different responsibility. So this was the first time I had been asked to just be honest and be me, which is great and then, by coincidence, "Parenthood" wanted the same of me.
Capone: I forgot about that timeframe. You mentioned in the Q&A that you were hired like literally, yeah you said hours before shooting started.
DS: Oh yeah.
KA: I feel like the movie gods just sort of shined down on me real quick. They were like “You should make this movie and you will make it with Dax.”
DS: Yeah, Katie and I had never met and within…
KA: We met like four hours before the dinner party scene. Five hours, if I'm generous.
DS: And then 24 hours after that, we filmed all of the bedroom scenes.
KA: That whole bedroom conversation was shot in one night, and it was the second night that we even knew each other.
DS: It was a crash course in intimacy.
KA: Yeah. It’s very easy to do that when you are like nose to nose in a bed.
Capone: True.
DS: Yeah.
Capone: So can you tell us anything about what’s up for Crosby on "Parenthood"?
DS: They keep sticking me with these weird cliffhangers, like even in the pilot…we shot the pilot and then we did a bunch of press before the show started, and I wasn’t really even allowed to say I had a kid on the show. So I can’t really say anything with press for the show. They did it to me again where last year I declare I’m moving to New York at the end, and now we’ve got to find out what happens, so I’m going to continue to deal with the stress of a long-distance, bicoastal situation and then also we deal with how much am I going to step up and become more of a 50/50 parent.
Capone: And then Katie, you are in Mark and Jay’s new film with Jason Segal [JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME], right?
KA: Yes, I like to say I have a strong series of cameos in the Duplass Brothers' films…
DS: She’s got a seven-picture cameo deal.
[Everyone laughs]
KA: I do. It’s pretty special, so keep an eye out for me. My hair is a little different than it was in CYRUS, and that’s all I can tell you too, it’s a cliffhanger man.
Capone: It’s funny about CYRUS, the first time I saw it I didn’t know who you were, so I’m sure I saw you in that party scene. But then the second time I saw it after I'd seen THE FREEBIE, I immediately recognized you.
DS: So have you not seen THE PUFFY CHAIR?
Capone: I had seen that, but it’s been a while. I collect Mark's work as an actor and a director. I think he’s pretty great at both.
DS: He’s kind of intoxicating.
KA: He is a little bit.
Capone: That was the first time I actually ever met him. I come to Austin all of the time and our website is headquartered in Austin.
DS: You’re not in Austin?
Capone: No, I’m in Chicago.
DS: Oh, okay. Will you be down at the Austin Film Festival?
Capone: I won’t be there for the Austin Film Festival, but I’ll be there for Fantastic Fest at the end of this month. Are you going to be down there for something?
DS: I have a movie I directed that will be there.
Capone: Oh, I was going to ask you about that. That’s BROTHER’S JUSTICE, right?
DS: Yeah.
Capone: Oh crap, tell me about that, because that looks really great.
[Everyone Laughs]
DS: It’s the opposite of FREEBIE. Any progress I made in THE FREEBIE, I’m going to negate.
Capone: It looks nuts.
DS: It’s a mockumentary, but there’s a lot of real stuff in it. It’s about me trying to set up an action movie and trying to get everyone I know to be a part of it and then I kind of unravel, but it’s pretty darn funny, I have to say.
Capone: So are you pulling like a “Joaquin” here in your unraveling?
DS: Oh God, I do fear people will compare it to that.
KA: It’s kind of a bummer with the timing.
DS: I know and I did mine two years before him, but I feel like his is more of an exploration into ego. I’m the buffoon in mine. I’m not trying to fool anyone.
Capone: I’ve seen his movie, so I’ll know the difference I think.
DS: Is it good?
Capone: That’s a tough question. Like I was saying before to Katie, if I’m still thinking about a movie days after I see it, to me that means it’s a good movie whether I liked it or would recommend it. And I can’t stop thinking about his movie. To me, it’s not about whether I think it’s real or not, but I was mad at it the whole time I was watching it.
DS: Yeah, I feel the same way. I’m probably just jealous of him period.
Capone: Well you wouldn’t be after you saw this movie probably, but yeah.
KA: Really? Is it bad?
Capone: I thought it was. Some people really like it, so who knows.
DS: There are a ton of really hilarious cameos in mine.
Capone: I read the list, yeah.
KA: By the way Dax, we still quote your movie, and I haven’t even seen it yet.
DS: Why don’t you come over and we will all watch it.
KA: But you know that we quote it all of the time, right?
DS: What part?
KA: “Lights our, motherfucker.”
DS: You know Dave Koechner obviously, the great Dave Koechner?
Capone: Yep, sure.
DS: Well, I had typed up a script for him and I typed wrong. There was a typo, and it was supposed to say “Light’s out, motherfucker,” but instead it said, “Lights our, motherfucker.” It's a Western. And every take he was going “Lights our, motherfucker!” And I was like, "That is the most next-level improv I’ve ever heard," but I go “Dave, you’re a fucking genius, ‘lights our,’ that’s so weird.” He’s like “That’s what it says in the script, “lights our.”
KA: I thought that was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard, so now Mark and I always say “Lights our, motherfucker” when we’re really excited.
Capone: I’m going to add it to my repertoire. Katie, are you back on "The League" this season?
KA: Yes! The next season premieres on Thursday.
Capone: You both have show premiering this week.
KA: I know.
Capone: You guys have been more than generous with your time, so thank you so much for talking to me. It was really fun.
KA: Thank you so much. I’m dying to come to Chicago. I am so pissed off, because I have never been to Chicago, and "The League" takes place in Chicago. We still have not gone to Chicago! For our season premiere, we shot in Vegas. “We could be in Chicago…” “No, Vegas.” Vegas in July, baby. Well, thanks so much, take care.
DS: Bye.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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