Although he had made several indie features and shorts since the late 1990s, filmmaker Azazel Jacobs first popped onto my radar with the wonderful 2011 film TERRI, starring John C. Reilly and relative newcomer Jacob Wysocki, a Sundance premiere that year. Since then, he’s been the primary writer-director on the very funny and awkward HBO series “Doll and Em” and he’s about to become one of the primary creative forces on episodes of “Mozart in the Jungle” for Amazon.
But it’s his darkly humorous and sometimes powerfully emotional return to movies that is the reason for my getting together with him last week. THE LOVERS is stellar work starring Debra Winger and Tracy Letts as a married couple whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. Both are engaged in love affairs, and both have promised those other significant others (Aidan Gillen and Melora Walters) that they are prepared to end their marriage very soon. Still, with the end in sight, the couple start to notice each other again, and before long Winger and Letts are cheating on their respective lovers, much to the dismay of their college-age son (Tyler Ross) and his visiting girlfriend (Jessica Sula). The film is sometimes brutal, often quite amusing and always a blast to watch from a performance perspective.
I sat down with Jacobs in Chicago recently to discuss his combination jilted romantic-comedy/family drama. THE LOVERS is in theaters now and opened even wider this past weekend. Please enjoy my talk with Azazel Jacobs…
Azazel Jacobs: Hello.
Capone: Hi. Great to meet you.
AJ: You too.
Capone: I didn’t realize until I was doing research for this that you had directed I think all of the episodes of “Doll & Em.”
AJ: Wrote and directed, yeah.
Capone: I love that show so much. And every time I see Dolly pop up in some movie, my mind immediately think “I bet Emily is jealous.”
AJ: [laughs] Just for getting the close up.
Capone: I know, it’s so funny. Even though THE LOVERS deals with some pretty heavy emotions and it’s very serious at times, my reaction to a lot of what happens in this movie is laughter. I immediately recognize that the plot in a slight variation on a romantic comedy, and I’m wondering if that was something of an inspiration for you, to turn that on its head.
AJ: Absolutely. I don't know if I think about turning things on the head, but I was curious about what happens after those movies end. What’s the next scene? Whether it’s 20 years later or the next day, what does it feel like after they carry off with this big music, and there’s just this weight of life? What is that feeling but still keeping that sense of those movies in there? That is also part of it. Your life, it doesn’t change that much. You’re not a totally different person. So if you’ve just gone through a romantic comedy as a character, you’re still in some way going through it later on but in a very different way.
Capone: Even the idea of married people having affairs and then falling back in love with each other—there’s a rich history of very old films that have done variations of that.
AJ: Yeah. Those movies I’ve always thought of, I’ve always been curious about, especially if you think about how they wind up—if it’s MY MAN GODFREY—or just how they wind up and everybody gets together, and it’s been crazy, but now they’re together. What is the next day? And that was my jumping off point in a lot of ways for this film. I’m glad that you saw it, and I’m hoping that there are some elements in there, whether it’s the music, but definitely some of the humor that you can see. He’s racing around. That whole racing around is exactly for me one of those movies where he’s running around. So there’s this broad humor and there’s this drama, and it’s somewhere in between that I’m interested in, something that can go back and forth between those two.
Capone: Some of those films from the ’30s, they’re particularly vicious at times, and that in your film as well, even if the viciousness is silence. You use silence so well here too. That can be the sharpest knife.
AJ: Yeah, well that is also too, the thing when I’m watching these older movies sometimes they feel like they’re made 100 years from now. They seem so advanced, they seem so daring. Especially a pre-code films where you’re going “Nobody would talk about these things this day and age.” So that kind of daring, those are things I’m aiming for. I feel like I’m not trying to reach into the past; I’m actually trying to reach ahead to what those films did.
Capone: With all of that in mind, was it difficult to find actors that had a sense timelessness?There is a timeless quality to them, especially to Debra Winger. Was it tough to find people that kind of embodied that?
AJ: Well, I did write with hopes for Debra Winger. I had this interaction with her. But I also knew that she was extremely selective, and for me to not get attached to the idea, because just in case she says no, which was a very big probability. I had gone to her with everything, wether it was “Doll & Em” or anything and just said “Hey, would you want to do this?” For whatever reason, even if it was with something she liked, she just couldn’t see herself in it, so it just I found a lot of freedom by actually thinking of Myra Loy and William Powell—people that I couldn’t get. It just opens up this world where you go “What about Charles Laughton?” He would be an amazing Michael, an incredible Michael. Imagine getting the chance to make this.
It’s something I found that gave me this freedom where you’re picturing actual people that are bringing in things and bringing in life, brining in their physicality that I can’t write. I’m not going to write in that way. This is not a book. I’m not interested in putting that much detail onto it, but it gives me details when I just have it in my mind and at the same time, it prepares me for whatever journey it’s going to take to find the right actors.
Capone: Were you looking for people that embodied those actors to a certain degree?
AJ: Once Debra Winger said yes, I was really confident that the right actors would follow, that whoever was up for the experience and the challenge to work on the level that we all know Debra has already proven herself to be, that would be the right person. And I felt like I was a hungry filmmaker. I’m still trying to make films that I haven't made before. I’m really looking to not do what I have done and to go to other places, and I felt that Debra was also in a similar place, even though she’s proven herself a zillion times I felt like there was a hunger. That’s why we were meeting up, that’s why she responded to TERRI. There was something that she still wanted to do that she hadn’t expressed
So when I talked to Nicole Arbusto, my casting director, about that “Who’s proven themselves but is still hungry? Who hasn't been given this chance, who I would never get otherwise?” and she thought of Tracy Letts,I was like “Wow, you’re right.” I had just seen him in THE BIG SHORT, which I know was a role, a type of character that he’d played before, but he still brought in this full person, this full life, and just having this conversation over the phone with him, it became really clear like this is right.
Capone: Did Debra Winger say specifically what it was about this that made her say yes to this?
AJ: She felt like it matched up into—I’m just hearing from what she’s now saying [doing press for this film], but I think that she’s been married, I think she said 26 years, and this idea that you’re supposed to feel the same thing. How to make something permanent in such an impermanent situation. This contract that happens in marriage that “I’m going to be there for you through thick and thin, I’m going to be there.” How do we actually stay true to that contract when we’re changing, when the person you’re marrying is a different person? I felt like she saw something she could relate to in her own way
Plus, I’m somebody that’s been working with the same crew over and over and over again for about 13, 14 years. Same camera operator, same editors, same costumer, same script supervisor, same casting director. And I think that was particularly appealing to her. The other thing is that I told her that A24 was giving me full control of this movie. That was a big, big thing for her and a big thing for Tracy, where I said look, “This movie’s going to be mine. They’ve just handed over so much control. As long as I do it on this certain type of scale, this budget, they really want me to make the movie exactly I want to make. They’re not just saying “Here’s the money, go make it.” They’re saying “How can we help you make it? How can you make this even more? How can you be more precise?”
So when I brought up Debra Winger, yes that’s something that other directors weren’t going to them with for a film like this. That was compelling. They were not interested in movie stars in that way, “Who’s bankable? Who brings in this budget?” It was just like “define what you’re interests are.” So when I expressed that to Debra, not only liking the script but seeing that for better or worse, there’s going to be nobody else to blame at the end of this but myself, that was a lot of comfort to her.
Capone: I would be terrified to hand Tracy Letts anything that I had written, because the man has written some of the great plays of our time. Was there any hesitation about handing him something?
AJ: [laughs] You know, I have this blessed stupidity. I really do. I have this naivety that’s I’ve just learned how to function with. I don’t know exactly where it comes from. I think that my parents did give me a sense of feeling, from very early on, that I had something to say, and that it was something worth listening to, so that’s probably given me hopefully—not just a sense of ego—but at a certain point because I started working with such great actors I had to let that go.
I remember I really had to drop it early on TERRI with John C. Reilly, because I remember the first day working with him just thinking Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, just going through all these people and then talking to him, becoming totally tongue tied. So in this case, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? He’s just going to say this is no good, this is bad. The grammar’s terrible. All these things, but he just read it as a reader. I think he is also somebody who is able to kind of separate himself in the way that I was able to separate him from the amazing work he’s done as a writer.
Capone: One of the things I love about the film is it underscores this wonderful human flaw that we seem to want things we can’t or aren’t supposed to have. The minute these two can see the light at the end of the tunnel of their marriage, that’s when they start to notice each other again. They make these commitments to these other relationships, and that’s immediately when they start to notice each other again. Why does that happen? What is it about us that makes us nuts like that?
AJ: Well, I wish I knew but I relate to that. I definitely relate to that feeling of not knowing what you have until you see it ending. That’s just this quality and I wish… I think as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, the peace I’ve made with it in my own life is by collecting these ideas. Potentially, I’ll be able to revisit them in some way. They’ll resurface. So some of those scenes in there are scenes that I’ve been carrying around with me for 25 years, whether they’ve stories that I’ve heard or that I’ve experienced or that have come to me. And this is a way to come to peace with that feeling. Knowing the value, feeling like this is something important and it’s gone, and realizing that after it’s way too late.
Capone: I want to talk about your younger characters, because I fell like the son is something of an outside observer who comes in and he’s immediately enraged, almost over-the-top enraged because he doesn’t understand completely what’s happening with his parents. But then this girlfriend character is a lot more distanced from it and more of an observer than he is. Talk about that role of having those people come in from the outside who don’t have the history that this couple has and judging it somehow, or not judging it. I feel like the girlfriend is more sympathetic.
AJ: She is. I think there are a couple of things. For me, we talked about these romantic comedies, but for me the son is the innocent person in this. He really is the person that didn’t sign up for any of this. Any of it. That’s where the real consequence of these choices come back to the house, whether it’s the consequence of being together and having a child or doing these other things and raising somebody in a house where people aren’t discussing what’s going on or talking about things. This is the bill that comes at the end of dinner in a certain way. I think that for me, he’s angry at getting used to a certain amount of bullshit. He’s still angry about that in a way that I think a lot of us have gone through.
We’re dealing with it in politics. “What? What? How does this make sense?” And we have to learn how to be okay with that. We can’t function as a society. It doesn’t mean we have to say that it’s the right thing to do, but we have to learn how to live with it. I think that Jessica Sula, who plays the girlfriend, is in the most difficult position, and something she pulls off so beautifully and delicately is that she’s there because she wants to know what made this person she loves. You can only love somebody that much without learning where they came from. I think the whole reason this showdown happens is because of the girlfriend saying “We’ve been together for a year, I’m in love with you, I know what you feel about your parents but I need to see, I need to be there, I need to meet them, I need to know who exactly you are before going on farther.”
Capone: And the other two characters, these people that they’re having the affairs with, I love that you portray them both as clingy and a little bit desperate, which I understand to a degree because they’re not in a committed relationship.
AJ: And they see people that are in a committed relationship. Tracy has said something really interesting, which is people have affairs to make themselves feel better, and it has very little to do with the other person other than that person sees you, that person wants you. That’s it. That feeling of being seen, being wanted, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a lot in common with them when it all comes down to it, especially a lot less in common than the person you’ve been living with for many years. The challenge that I gave to both Melora Walters and Aidan Gillen was “You two are playing people that don't feel like themselves right now, they themselves are not happy with who they are. That feeling when you’re in the midst of an argument or whatever it is and you're seeing something gross in yourself and you can’t stop it.” They’ve been shaken by this lack of progress in this relationship. They’re ready for something stable and they’re no longer able to do. He cant do what he’s out there to do. Whatever made him attractive to begin with, he can’t even do that right now because he’s lovesick in a certain way. He either needs this to move forward or to end, and that throws them off balance.
Capone: Because you’ve done series television and you’ve done movies, do you have a sense of what will be next for you?
AJ: The exact opposite.
Capone: The opposite of this?
AJ: Yeah, I really want to do different things. I’m very happy, I’m really proud of this film, so it makes me feel like I want to do something very different.
