The Freak and the Geek have no greater champion than Paul Feig. As the creator of one of the greatest shows in television history, Feig approached the stumbles and heartbreaks of young nerdy adulthood with uncommon honesty. As the author of KICK ME: ADVENTURES IN ADOLESCENCE and SUPERSTUD: OR HOW I BECAME A 24-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, he crafted a wincingly funny bildungsroman based on his own harrowing trials of youth. Now, as the director of BRIDESMAIDS, Feig has depicted with big-hearted brio the anxiety of the last single woman standing - and delivered the funniest film of 2011 thus far.
The key to Feig's best work is empathy. He's been there before, down in the muck getting laughed at by his peers (then again, who hasn't?), so no matter how exaggerated the situations get, he'll never have a laugh at the expense of character. This is especially important in the BRIDESMAIDS, which gets a great deal of comedic mileage from showcasing women at their believable worst. In most recent "chick flicks", the female protagonists are one-dimensional careerists who get subjected to random, idiotically-contrived indignities; with BRIDESMAIDS, Feig gives his talented cast the space to create genuine characters who work against their own happiness in amusing, yet painfully familiar ways. When things spiral out of control in BRIDESMAIDS, it's due to easily identifiable insecurity, not some narratively-inorganic need for an outrageous set piece.
It helps that Feig is working from a Kristen Wiig/Annie Mumolo script that plays like a Nicole Holofcener comedy hijacked by the Farrelly Brothers. But it takes real skill behind the camera and in the editing room to blend such disparate sensibilities, and Feig - with an assist from producer Judd Apatow and editor William Kerr - has somehow brought them together. Some will say Feig is working in the Apatow style, but, as he's quick to point out in the below interview, this is really the FREAKS AND GEEKS aesthetic. After years of television directing and a couple of cinematic efforts (I AM DAVID and UNACCOMPANIED MINORS), Feig's voice is apparent once again; he is, as ever, at home amongst the misfits. It's wonderful to have him back.
When I sat down with Feig at the BRIDESMAIDS press day a couple of weeks ago, he eloquently held forth on his creative process, his "feminized" side, how they determined what was too far over the top, his belief that Jon Hamm could be the next Cary Grant, and a whole lot more. Here's Paul!
Mr. Beaks: When last we spoke, you were finishing up UNACCOMPANIED MINORS. I remember you talking about the visual style of that film, and how you were trying to inject a bit of John Landis into it. BRIDESMAIDS is very much of that cinematic aesthetic that Apatow has popularized. I don't know if you agree, but it feels to me like the next iteration of James L. Brooks.
Paul Feig: I think that's very accurate.
Beaks: Since that style is so firmly established, how did you infuse your voice into the film?
Feig: This feels very much like FREAKS AND GEEKS to me. That's what I like about it. Whereas I was experimenting with stuff on UNACCOMPANIED MINORS, playing around with more of a '70s style, this feels like I'm back in my wheelhouse. It's the same way we approached FREAKS AND GEEKS: tell honest stories about people in a bad position, or who are stuck in a weird place or time in their life, and trying to figure it out. It felt very much like a homecoming to me. It's also kind of a group comedy in the way that FREAKS AND GEEKS was; you had a strong group, but two main characters going through something specific. This process was very much the same: we had a good script that we were working on really hard, making sure the emotional story of it rang true, and then trying to put some bigger comedy on top of that, then casting it and doing the rest of the writing with the cast there. We brought the cast into the process, and did rehearsals and improvs with them. We hired women who were very good improv-ers. Every audition had a big improv component to it; we made sure they could do that as well as just doing the script. And then we built it organically much in the way we built FREAKS; we took performers' personalities and built off that, and let them show us who the characters are.
And then on top of that, since this was a movie about women, we needed that input even more to make it an honest voice - so it's not just guys going, "Ladies, you talk like this!" Or sometimes when women write comedies for women, they go too far the other way, or make the male voices not real. So this had to be a collaboration between everybody to make sure we were honest.
Beaks: Being the sole guy directing all of these very funny women in, as you say, a comedy about women, how did you find your comfort level?
Feig: I've always loved working with women. I've always been more comfortable in general around women because I grew up around a lot of women. I was an only child, but my next-door neighbor was this family of eight kids; six of them were girls, and they were all my friends. Most of my best friends in high school were girls, and they were the funniest people I knew. This has been true throughout my life. So I was very comfortable with it.
I've always not liked what women have had to do in films, and how they've not gotten to be honest in films. They're either stuck in these subservient roles, or they're the drag, or they're the one who's ruining the guy's life, or they're the Madonna who's perfect... none of it rings true to me. In general. I mean, there are plenty of good performances and characters. But to have it all about women, and women driving the movie, it was very important to make sure that was honest. (Laughs)I don't know. I just know how to work with women. Jake Kasdan and I always say we're the most feminized geeks in town. We're sensitive that way. I feel like I think like a woman sometimes, just in my sensitivity; I'm very in tune to how sensitive they are. And I just know what they need: they need reassurance and a safe environment. And my whole goal as a director - especially with a lot of improv going on - is to create a very safe environment. That's what we did on FREAKS, too. It should never feel any different in front of the camera than it does behind the camera; you should never feel this pressure when you get in front of it.
Beaks: Did you find that Kristen was protective of the script?
Feig: She was as protective as any writer would be of a script - especially with this being one of her first writing projects. And while Judd is fantastic, he's done mostly guy comedies, so there was also a legitimate fear she had of "We're going to to turn you ladies into guys!" - which is what none of us wanted to do, but there's an understandable fear that would happen. But she very quickly saw that we were going for the same thing, and we were all trying to make this the most honest thing we could do. We were going to ground the dramatic throughline and then try to heap the comedy on top - but also make sure the comedy was coming out of the truth of the situations, and not just going, "Here's a set piece we're going to jam in!" That whole scene in the dress shop comes out of the fact that Annie has fucked up by taking them to a cheap restaurant trying to save money and trying to look good; she can't admit that she screwed up. And in the face of overwhelming evidence, she's still going to pretend that it's not happening. That was a natural outgrowth of that, which we then took to the limit. (Laughs)
Beaks: That's probably one of the best projectile vomit gags I've ever seen. The cut to her vomiting is right on the money.
Feig: (Laughing) Yeah, we like to put your face right in there.
Beaks: Before you went into the edit, did you have an understanding of what the pace would be? And once you did start editing, how long did it take to shape the film?
Feig: The film kind of dictated itself to us - even during the filming of it. We would do a lot of improvs, and we'd also be on guard that this story can't go on for a minute; you have to find a short way to say this, or these jokes have to be more concise. But at the same time it was not an unnatural pace. We wanted the pace of life. When a group of funny people are together, they're talking pretty fast and on top of each other, but still ideas are coming up in the moment - and either they're funny or weird. So to let that play out that way, it was always like, "Is that scene in the diner too long in the beginning when they're bonding?" We want to establish this relationship. We want you to watch that for all that time and not hear, "We've known each other since high school!" We want you to say, "Oh, look. They've known each other forever. Look how comfortable they are together." Especially that scene. The whole movie rests on whether you care about that friendship or not. You want to see the fact that Maya's character is the one who always protects Annie. She's like, "You deserve better than him. You can't sleep with that asshole." That's how important this friendship is to Annie. So when she's in danger of losing it, it means something.
It's just a pace we like. It's a very natural pace. It's why FREAKS AND GEEKS was an hour long and not a half-hour long. You can sit for a moment, and go off on a little tangent, or let someone have an interaction with somebody.
Beaks: How did you guys decide what's just broad enough and what's too far over the top?
Feig: You go for it. You just shoot it all, and know you're going to sort it out in the editing room and in test screenings. Kristen was, rightfully so, a little nervous about vomiting and shitting and all of that stuff. "Is this going to become a different movie?" I agreed with her. In the wrong hands, not that we're so great... but I've seen those things done, where you just don't trust anybody and it just becomes a cartoon. So when we were putting it together, we were like, "We may use a ton of the stuff that's going on in the bathroom. We might not use any of it. Or we'll see just a little of it." It was all about that showdown between Annie and Helen out in the other room, and the payoff of "And this is what's happening in the other room". (Laughs) But you go through, and we board everything... and Judd's really a master of knowing, "Okay, we need something big to happen here."
Also, I just love Kristen so much, I'm such a huge fan of hers, and I wanted to showcase all the elements and aspects of her. Her original script was really good, but she almost was trying to let everybody be so funny around her, and she was going to be the one in the middle reacting. And I was like, "I don't want to see that either. I want to see moments where you lose your mind. You've got to be funny."
Beaks: Kristen reminds me of someone like Gilda Radner, who could go so far over the top, but if you gave her the chance, she could also play very human and down to earth. While I really want to see Kristen do something more grounded, I selfishly want to see her cut loose.
Feig: Totally. I've seen movies where she's turned in great performances, like EXTRACT. But it was kind of like, "Oh, I wish she was being funnier in this." That's a supporting performance, so that's fine. But [BRIDESMAIDS] is her showcase. This is her one shot. I want this to be what I call a Movie Star Machine: you feed in someone in a way you like them already, and then they go through such a transformation within it that when they come out on the other side, you're like, "Wow, that person is fully realized as a performer and a movie star." To do that, you have to have all of these aspects in there. For example, that's why the scene on the airplane was important to us. Originally, they went to Vegas, and things fell apart in Vegas because she ran out of money and she was trying to hard. I was just feeling, A) THE HANGOVER has done Vegas so great, why would you take that on? And B) What's the intense situation that could be a set piece and really showcase Kristen? So we said, "What if they just don't get there? What if she just gets drunk?" So she's going to cause all of this mayhem, but in a very real and understandable way. This is a woman who's in over her head, she can't afford to go, she's already freaked out about that, and she's terrified of flying, so understandably she's grasping at whatever she can to get through this, and it makes her lose her mind. It's the thing that gets her thrown out of her [maid of honor] duties. So it's all on point. It's all on story. It's not like, "Let's stop the action and have a crazy scene where someone gets drunk." It's advancing the story. I think that's the key to a successful comedy. Everything that's happening, whether it's the big set piece or not, is advancing the story. We're not just stopping for craziness.
Beaks: Did Kristen have a voice in the edit?
Feig: Not a ton, no. But we passed everything by her. She saw everything. We have a very strong editor. Bill Kerr, who did SUPERBAD, SARAH MARSHALL, GREEK. He's very opinionated and very talented. And we shoot so much stuff, because of improvs and all that stuff... we're handing so much stuff to Bill, that there's a trust where we all kind of go, "Do your thing." It's one thing if you're cutting a set script. But here you have so much stuff, you're kind of building the storytelling, even though you've got a strong structure. So Bill extracts the stuff out. He goes in and cuts it first as if it's a drama, just to make sure the whole story tracks, not worrying about what jokes he's putting in or how funny it is. Then once it's working emotionally, then you start heaping the jokes on. For a lot of the process, I stay away from it a little bit and let him do his thing. And once he gets his editor's assembly, I'll come in and do my notes, and then we'll kind of fix stuff, and then we'll immediately go to a test screening before I can get precious about it - before anybody can get too precious about it. This is the style of comedy we're doing. When you're doing a big commercial comedy, you want to please the audience. You can't say, "Well, they didn't laugh, but I don't care. I think it's funny." No. You're trying to get people in. They have to laugh. You have to have a consensus. The majority of the people in that audience think it's funny for whatever reason.
So the standard way to do it is you get your ten weeks as a director; you kill yourself over it, and then at the end of the ten weeks you're supposed to come out and go like, "This is the movie. It's done. This is my perfect, dream version of the movie." But how are you supposed to have any perspective on it when you come through it like that? As opposed to, like, three weeks in, "We tried a bunch of stuff. I think it's in a good place, but I'm not sure. Let's throw it up and see what it does." And then you go, "Okay, that didn't work. We don't need that. Throw that out. Put that in." This way, you don't get that attachment immediately. Instead, you get that attachment as you go along, and you start honing. And at each test screening, you're like, "Ooh, this stuff's working. This stuff worked twice. Now I'm going to get precious about that, but I'm getting precious about something that works."
When you're a writer and a performer, there's stuff that you remember happening on the set or something you wrote, where you go, "This stuff's so great!" As a director I have this, too. There's stuff that just killed me; I thought it was so funny. But then I consult with Bill, and he goes, "Look, it's really funny, but it's kind of throwing the story off. We don't need it." Our whole theory now is that we'd rather take a character moment over a joke - and If they're one in the same, fantastic! That's what we always hope for.
Beaks: It's the old "Kill your darlings" thing.
Feig: We are killing babies constantly. (Laughs)
Beaks: I'm wondering where you'll take your career from here. I always feel like there's this witty and urbane sensibility trying to get out of you. This is a very smart and funny film, but I miss sophisticated comedy. I'd love to see someone strive for Lubitsch. That seems like something you could do.
Feig: That is the tone I really like. I love doing this, too, but all I care about is making movies about characters who don't normally get the spotlight put on them. That's why I was drawn to this. There are projects I'm developing that I can't really talk about now. One is a very unlikely love story about somebody you would not normally make a love story about - because of who they are and how they look. That's important to me. I would also love to do the first commercial gay comedy; a completely hilarious film where the gay has nothing to do with it other than that's this group of people - much like with BRIDESMAIDS. But I feel like, where BRIDESMAIDS can get very crude and raunchy, there still is a sophistication in the sense that none of it is gratuitous. It's pushed for comedy's sake. And I am not at all ashamed of the dress shop scene because it is so in keeping with this character. I love when you fuck up so bad that you cause all of these horrible things to happen to people. That's very understandable and very relatable. But, look, I'd love to do Preston Sturges-type films or Lubitsch-type films. I love that level of sophistication. I have a place in New York, and I'd love to do more New York-centric movies. Everything I'm sort of developing at the moment is that way. And I like style and all of that. That's why I love a guy like Jon Hamm. I feel like he's kind of the next Cary Grant.
Beaks: We've just got to find him a Miriam Hopkins or Carole Lombard. They've got to be out there, right?
Feig: Oh, they are. Trust me, they are. Hollywood just has to let them do it.
And let Paul Feig direct it.
BRIDESMAIDS opens this Friday, May 13th. Do not miss it.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
