Chris Messina has been one of the most reliable and busiest actors in film, as well as on stage and television. His first credited on-screen role was in the 1998 movie ROUNDERS, and before long he was regularly appearing in several films per year in such works as TOWELHEAD, Woody Allen’s VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONE, BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN, AWAY WE GO, JULIE & JULIA, GREENBERG, DEVIL, CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER, RUBY SPARKS, and ARGO.
In more recent years, Messina has upping his profile and reputation by being a reliable presence in indie films (CAKE and the upcoming features MANGLEHORN from David Gordon Green and DIGGING FOR FIRE from Joe Swanberg) as well as television (“Damages,” “The Newsroom,” and as a series regular on “The Mindy Project”). The guy has become so popular, he was even cast as a cheating husband in the Sam Smith video for “I’m Not the Only One,” alongside Diana Agron. But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that Messina decided to dive into the directing game with his first feature ALEX OF VENICE, the story of a woman (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who is trying to be all things to all people in her life—a wife, a sister, a mother, a daughter and an environmental lawyer. Her world is turned upside down when her husband (played by Messina) leaves her, and she realizes she’s at a crucial turning point in her life.
Last week, I had the chance to chat with Messina via phone about ALEX OF VENICE as well as a few other recent projects in which he’s been involved, and got his take on whether “The Mindy Project” will get another season, after a fairly dramatic cliffhanger season finale. He’s as charming and personal as I’d believed he would be, and I had a great time talking with him about acting, directing, getting naked. You know, the stuff dudes talk about. Please enjoy my conversation with Chris Messina…
Chris Messina: Hey, Steve.
Capone: Hey, Chris. How are you?
CM: Good, how are you doing?
Capone: Great, man. My brother saw this film at last year’s Seattle Film Festival and has been talking it every since. So I’m glad I finally got a chance to see it.
CM: Thanks, man. Sometimes someone talks it up and you’re like, “Eh, it wasn’t that good.”
Capone: That’s true. But that festival was almost a year ago.
CM: Yeah, it was a while ago. We had the great fortune to go to a lot of film festivals with it, so that was great.
Capone: Have you had the urge to direct for a while leading up to this, or did you get this script and go, “I think I want to direct this one”?
CM: I did. I was directing in New York, small theater pieces—black box theater. I wanted to do it for while. But the right script and right time didn’t present itself. And I think I got to a place as an actor where I found a way of working that I really liked, and I found myself hard pressed to find directors that worked that way, to be honest with you. I was like, “You know what? I’m going to direct a movie and work the way I want to work, and invite actors that may be interested in working that way to do it with me.” And that was the engine behind it.
Capone: Does directing scratch a certain itch that maybe acting doesn’t quite cover? Or is it not quite that simple? Can you qualify that somehow?
CM: Yes. I like having a voice. As an actor, I don’t like being told to stand here, louder, faster, funnier. You know? I like having a voice, and I’ve worked with a lot of directors who appreciate that voice and really want to collaborate, and then I’ve worked with a lot of people that have no need for that voice and clip your wings. So I think I’ve been a frustrated director for a really long time.
Capone: So what was it about Alex and her family’s story that grabbed you when you first got this script? I understand you made some pretty significant changes to the script you had originally gotten. But what was it about that family that struck you?
CM: When the script came my way, it was a collage of all of these different characters in Venice, and at the core of the collage was this family—it was called A DIRTY LOVE STORY. It was quite different. At the core of the collage was a family that was quite interesting to me. A family that was Alex, George, and Dakota. They reminded me of people I knew, my own family, and what I liked about them was they were flawed. No one was good, no one was bad, they were all just everything. And that’s the reason I wanted to be an actor—those ’70s movies where people are complicated. I really respond to character-driven pieces. This was definitely one of them. I felt like it was an actors’ piece.
I don’t know much about the camera, I didn’t know much about editing, pre-production, post-production—some of it I didn’t know anything about—but I knew about acting. I might not always know how to do it. I might not always know how to be good at it. But I know how to speak “Actor.” I know what actors need. That was half of the battle.
Capone: You hear that about actors that become directors, that they do have that intuition about what other actors need. But did you find as you were going through this that there were a few other things that you were coming up short on?
CM: Oh yeah. [laughs] Time management was interesting, and how to stay calm, stay strong, and get performances out of people, and also make your day. That was something that was very difficult to adjust to, and because it was a 21-day shoot, probably by day 18, I started to get it down better.
Capone: Day 18?! [laughs]
CM: Yeah. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do it again and make a whole other slew of mistakes.
Capone: I love that you take time out and show us that Alex is many things to many people, but you also show her at work, which is something that a lot of movies don’t do. They don’t show someone just doing their job. We realize when her sister comes to her and says let’s go out and find a guy for you, it’s not about she doesn’t want to do that, it’s that she doesn’t have time to be something for someone else at that point. It’s very slice of life in those moments. Was that the objective?
CM: Yeah, definitely. I wanted to make a slice-of-life film where you felt like you were living and breathing with these people. There were a lot of things unanswered, a lot of small movements. There are a lot of characters in the movie that could easily…there could be just be one movie about Don’s character, one movie about the kid. Where does my character go and what does he do? This was one solid piece with Alex at the head of it. I’m glad you picked that up. I wanted to show how Alex and all of them behave differently, relate differently to different people and different situations. One minute you go, “You know what? She’s mean to her husband. You know what? I feel bad for her. You know what? Why is she neglecting her kid? You know what? She’s a good mom.” Because it’s just life. I’m an okay guy, and then I’m also an asshole.
Capone: I was talking to Mary Elizabeth earlier about in that scene where George announces that he’s leaving and why, you want to be mad at him, but he has a point. And he’s right, to a certain degree. Leaving might not be the right thing, but his reasons are solid, and you can’t hate him. You don’t villianize him.
CM: I’m glad you feel that way. I’ve had this and I’ve seen this in my life where we may not be together anymore, but that doesn’t mean we have to hate each other. We have this child together, so there will always be love. It might not be love in the same way. And truthfully, some people will think George is a jerk and that he did a bad thing in the way he went about, but I always felt like this couple was destined to break up. They weren’t doing well; they’ve been together since they were kids. The movie is about change, and unfortunately, change is painful, but it’s also beautiful. And on the other side of change is a lot of growth.
Capone: This seems like a very California film. The clothes, her job, the hobbies people have, even the sunshine haze that you’ve got in a lot of the scenes. It’s so much a part of the story. Was that important to you?
CM: Oh yeah. Definitely. I think that’s another character in the movie. I live close by and have friends that live there, and I spend a lot of time there. It kind of feels like Brooklyn by the sea to me. It’s great people watching, and such a great vibe. The light there is incredible. The people there were really kind to us, open arms, and very inviting. I wanted that place to be just another character in the film. So I had a great DP, Doug Emmett, who shot a lot of films that I acted in, and he shot the hell out of it.
Capone: I was lucky enough to see DIGGING FOR FIRE at Sundance this year. How was that experience for you? Because that had to be, just in terms of the freedom that [director] Joe Swanberg gives you, something really unique.
CM: Yeah. I like to improvise, and that was completely improvised. No script whatsoever. We didn’t know that I’m going to get naked and jump in a pool.
Capone: That was shocking.
CM: [laughs] Yeah, it was fun. Because I’m on a network TV show, in my off time, I like to push the boundaries as far as I can, and do things that are outside of the box, certainly different than the show. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I got to work with my buddy Sam Rockwell, who’s like a brother to me. We got a couple of nights in there. We just had fun and experimented. That’s the nature of it.
Capone: I was sad to have missed MANGLEHORN at SXSW. When you get to work with Al Pacino, do you ever stop saying “Holy shit”?
CM: No. You’re literally in scenes thinking, “That’s the Godfather, and he’s playing my dad in the movie.” He’s amazing. I did a play with him, “Salome,” on Broadway, now I get to play his son. So I’m very lucky, I have this relationship with Al Pacino—one of the guys I had on my wall as a kid. He’s spectacular.
Capone: Speaking of “The Mindy Project,” you guys left it on a cliffhanger this year. Do we know yet whether you’re coming back for another season?
CM: You’ll probably know before I do. I’m like the last to know. But no, we don’t know. I think Mindy and her writing team have a lot in store for another season; I just don’t know the fundamentals of all that stuff or what will happen to it. It certainly was fun to do, and I learned a lot about comedy.
Capone: I have to ask, this Sam Smith video—they’re still playing the hell out of it. How the heck did you get involved with that?
CM: My agent called and said, “Sam Smith is a fan of yours and wants you to do this video.” I know a lot about music, but I don’t follow all the new artists, and I didn’t know of him. And then I played the song, and I thought it was beautiful, and my wife goes, “Oh, he’s fantastic,” and she started playing me other songs of his. I can always trust her, so she was like, “I love this artist.” So I went off and shot it. He’s a great guy, and I know Diana a little bit. It was fun. The director was really cool. Again, outside the show, it’s just fun to stretch. I just did another video for this band D.O.L.—they’re like an Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, Velvet Goldmine makeup. I love characters. I like to stretch. Because in Hollywood, if you do one thing decently, they only want you to do it again and again and again. I’m constantly trying to push up on everybody. I like to do a lot of things.
Capone: You seem to go out of your way not to repeat yourself. Even if it’s a small role in something, you’re really good at that and I’ve noticed that over the years. Is that important to you, switching it up?
CM: Absolutely. For a while, I was a nice guy, Republican lawyers, things like that. I’m thankful for all the experiences I’ve had, but you get into acting because you have something to say, and you want to get lost in things, you want to get out of your shoes and into other people’s shoes. Part of the fun of it is trying to be other people. Who the hell wants to play one character over and over again? There are tons of stuff that I’d like to do that I don’t have the talent to do, but I’d like to push on it as hard as I can. I know when I’m scared. I say, “Something good might happen because I’m scared of this part,” or “I’m scared to direct,” or whatever it might be.
Capone: Chris, best of luck with this. I’m glad it’s finally getting out into theaters. And it was great to talk to you.
CM: Yeah, you too. I really appreciate the support and the kind words, and maybe we’ll talk again for another movie. Appreciate it. Have a great night.
