From that, Mark went away and pulled things from all the people in the room.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Where did this idea come from?
MARK DUPLASS:Directly from my melancholy, basically.
Credit: Alex Lehmann
Is that enough to make a movie out of?
I didnt know for sure, but I hoped it would be.
So I started thinking, okay, what can I do thats kind of short and cheap and easy?
Even though I might want to connect with them.
Thats a weird thing that you do.
You dont know how to act.
So I was like, we can definitely do something together.
I dont know what it is yet.
Well all meet up and figure it out together.
DUPLASS:Most of it was in those therapy sessions and in the writing.
It was some very deep things, but not a ton of them, I would say.
What was it like once you actually got to the set?
DUPLASS:Day one was awkward as s, because we were shooting that grocery store scene.
Its the most unprepared Ive ever been, on purpose, to see what we could come up with.
A lot of times bands write all their songs and then they go and record them.
Nice and comfortable I know what this musics gonna be; lets go record it.
Sometimes they go into the studio and they say, lets write a record in here.
Youre like, is it gonna happen?
Are we gonna get anything?
And thats how we were feeling on day one, combined with the awkwardness of the scene.
And that is terrifying.
Then day two, we started getting it.
And then Clu Gulager showed up in that liquor store with his romanticism.
PAULSON:There was something so open about him.
All the sudden, were still those people.
He was like, ah, yeah.
We didnt have to explain some childlike thing.
He was like, Yeah, yeah, I getcha.
DUPLASS:And the wonderful accidents started to happen.
We were like, F!
PAULSON:One of the great things is there were two cameras.
So you got it and you had it.
You didnt have to venture to make that moment happen again that happened very organically.
Because you kind of knew you were going to get it.
So it lights you up.
Youre like, were getting this thing!
Its just really invigorating.
The playacting was so specific.
I guess I was trying to get at something like that.
Theyre so stupid to think it could be that easy.
PAULSON:But its also so common to kind of imagine.
I remember thinking that my 40-year-old English teacher was like,reallyold.Reallyold.
Doing some weird s like that.
It struck me as being very true.
And also bats crazy.
[Laughs]
DUPLASS:Really dorky, really sweet.
At the end, you have the reveal of why you guys broke up.
Did you ever consider not having that in there, of just letting it be a mystery?
DUPLASS:Would you have preferred that?
I am always prepared to change the ending of a movie.
When we shotThe Puffy Chair, we changed the ending of the movie right there.
Same thing happened with my movieBaghead.
PAULSON:That would be hard to come back from.
Because once that innocence membrane is broken, its very, very hard to go back, I think.
DUPLASS:You cant get it back.
DUPLASS:Thats the question of the movie.
We talked about thata lot.
And is this real at all?
But when youre in the middle of it, who knows and who cares, really?
[Laughs] And it sometimes happens really immediately, or sometimes an hour into the dinner.
Like, why does she want to go back to the house?
Well, cause, shes just curious.
Its helpful with her own identity.
And she didnt even know how tied that was to Jim.
I feel like nostalgias often seen as a bad motivator.
Do you think it is?
DUPLASS:Its dangerous.
In filmmaking, its super dangerous.
In life, theres no choice for me.
I dont think about it as bad or good, because I live with it.
Youre gonna spend your whole time wallowing?
Youre gonna miss out on this stuff?
But I like it, because Im turning 40 this year, Im barreling toward my death.
And on that note, why black and white?
DUPLASS:I brought up the idea.
I really liked it, I was nervous it was going to be pretentious.
And then we were just like, f it.
Were gonna do what we want to do with this movie, and were gonna own it.
And if were the only people that like it, thats okay.
Ive never done that before.
Im acutely aware of my audiences.
Im building movies for my audiences, because thats what makes you successful.
And Im glad I did that for 15 years.
But on this one, I didnt want to do that, and it was really fun.
