Filmmaker Craig Johnson made a name for himself as a writer-director with his 2014 dark comedy THE SKELETON TWINS (starring Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig), but if you were paying attention five years earlier, he made the terrific debut TRUE ADOLESCENTS, starring Mark Duplass, Linus Phillips, and Melissa Leo, which I saw at its premiere at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival. At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Johnson debuted WILSON (adapted by Daniel Clowes, based on his graphic novel), once again tapping into the darkly humorous with a tale of a man named Wilson (Woody Harrelson) facing great changes in his life when he discovers that his ex-wife (Laura Dern) had a baby fathered by him after they split up and gave it up for adoption. He makes it his mission to find the child, now 17 years old (played by Isabella Amara), and connect with her in some way. The film co-stars the likes of Judy Greer, Cheryl Hines, Margo Martindale, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Brett Gelman.
I had a chance to sit down with Johnson at Sundance to chat briefly to go over the thrills and perils of directing such a beloved story, especially when it’s been written for the screen by the author himself. Please enjoy this talk with Craig Johnson…
Capone: Let’s just start at the beginning. Is this something that came to you?
Craig Johnson: It came to me. Daniel had written the script for Fox Searchlight, and it slid across my desk at a certain point after THE SKELETON TWINS had come out.
Capone: They were looking for a director?
CJ: I was looking for my next project, and my agent sent me all kinds of scripts, most of them were not great, and it had nothing to do with my agent; it’s just that most scripts are not great. When WILSON slid across my desk and I saw it was WILSON by Daniel Clowes—I have the graphic novel on my shelf. I was a Daniel Clowes fan, so I was like “Oh my god.” I will admit, my first thought was “How the hell did they turn that into a screenplay?”, just because it’s so unique in style and the way the story is told. And I read it and I was like “Daniel did it. This is a movie.” And I became obsessed with directing it. I came in on bended knee to Searchlight and begged them to let me do it. And Woody was my idea; I thought he would be perfect. I think Searchlight dug that.
Capone: Back to what you said about crappy scripts coming your way—I won’t ask you for names, but SKELETON TWINS is a hard sell. It’s a hard story to explain or classify.
CJ: You’re telling me. Nobody wanted to make it.
Capone: So do you think that people weren’t quite sure what to give you? “What’s suited for this guy?” This feels pretty perfect for you. Do you think that’s the reason people didn’t quite know what to use you for?
CJ: I think there was a bit of that, especially for studio films, which tend to really fall into genres. So they would send me some really broad comedies, because I had a little bit of a comedy thing, and I wasn’t interested in most of them. They sent me some pretty sentimental dramas that I wasn’t so much interested in. I tried to explain the intersection of dark and light and comedy and drama that I like, and there are just so few scripts out there that live in that intersection. Of course at the time, I’m writing my own stuff. But then this showed up, beamed down from the heavens, and I knew how rare it was to get a script this good. And I grabbed onto it.
Capone: You said you were a fan of the original graphic novel. I’ve got to imagine that capturing the tone—again, it’s a really tough tone to pin down. Was that there in the script? Had Daniel done that, or did you have to finesse it with Woody’s performance? What was the balancing act there?
CJ: Gosh, it’s hard to answer that other then it was a balancing act, and the most difficult balancing act in the movie, any movie, especially ones that are not straight-forward genre, ones that are trying to balance comedy and drama. Tone is everything. I say that I work a volume knob where I’m shifting things and checking tones. “Is this too much? Is this too little?” You don’t get it right in a movie like this until the final pieces of score come in. We took a long time to edit this movie, a long time to get it right. So much of that had to do with finding the tone.
Capone: When you’re making the film, are you asking the actors for different versions of the same thing so you can find the tone?
CJ: Absolutely, absolutely. That’s where my volume knob metaphor really comes in, when I’m working on performance on set. “Let’s try something that’s a little more at an 8. Ok, let’s turn the volume down and do a more internal version,” and then we find that in the editing room.
Capone: Wilson feels like a guy of the times. He seems well suited for how the world is right now and this country is right now. Speaking his mind, not always the popular opinion. Why do you think this is an important film to have out right now?
CJ: Daniel Clowes and I were talking about this a couple of days ago when we first saw each other, because like the rest of the country, we could not have predicted where we would be right now, and Laura Dern said something in an interview yesterday, which for Dan and I made it make sense with our political situation. We have a movie about someone who’s unfiltered but telling the truth and telling a very human truth, and that can be a tonic to those unfiltered people who are not telling the truth, who are not speaking on behalf of a better world. Wilson for all his curmudgeonliness and unfilteredness, everything he says I agree with.
Capone: I’m not trying to imply that he’s like a Trump person. I’m saying he’s more like the Bernie Sanders type.
CJ: He’s totally a Bernie. he’d be a Bernie bro. Or else he’d have a weird write-in candidate that’s on the local school board or something. I don’t want to talk too broadly, but it speaks to our country being sick of not hearing the truth, whether it be from our friends and neighbors or our politicians. There’s something like telling it like it is that I think everybody’s looking for on both sides of the spectrum.
Capone: It’s an interesting story too, because he’s surrounded by women. How does that inform the story do you think, that the key people in his life are women?
CJ: It’s really, really true. For me, I think that women tend to be a little more interesting and often a bit smarter than men in general, certainly a little more insightful and in touch with human nature. And Wilson being a sensitive guy, a snail without a shell, everything effects him. He’s an emotional dude too. He’s not cut off from his emotions. I think he’s got a feminine side and relates to women that way. He’s also a bit of a teenager who needs someone to take care of him and look after him.
Capone: This is a coming-of-age story. And he even says it. He says prison made him turn into an adult. You’re suddenly shocked like “Oh yeah, I’ve been watching a coming-of-age story of a 50-something-year-old man.”
CJ: I know. It’s funny, it’s in some way close in themes to my very first movie, a movie I did called TRUE ADOLESCENCE.
Capone: With Mark Duplass. That’s one of the first things I ever saw him in.
CJ: Yeah, yeah!
Capone: Did I see it at SX?
CJ: SXSW, yeah, yeah. I always called it a coming-of-age story of a 35-year-old rocker who is still a 14 year old.
Capone: What happens to Wilson feels very organic. It doesn’t feel like plot. There’s a flow to it. Was it important to make it feel natural and reality based?
CJ: It was important that it was more about the people than it was necessarily the plot, and that’s a testament to Daniel Clowes. I think why you feel that is, if you actually take it apart, each scene is giving you a little piece of plot and story, but you’re so in love with these little minor characters and these run-ins that is happening that it feels more like an effortless journey that he’s on. I give Dan Clowes all the credit for that.
Capone: Not that there aren’t jarring moments in the film, because there certainly are.
CJ: Oh no, there are left turns. Yeah, and that speaks to Wilson as a character too. He’s a guy who takes his hard knocks and tries to look at the bright side of even being in prison in some ways.
Capone: Thanks for talking. Best of luck with this.
