Interview: Director Alexander Payne on "Sideways" by Jenny Halper / CINEMA CONFIDENTIAL NEWS / October 27, 2004 In “Citizen Ruth,” “Election,” and “About Schmidt,” Payne brilliantly depicted endearingly screwball Midwest towns. With “Sideways,” the director and co-screenwriter (with Jim Taylor), turns his attention to the California wine country. Following two middle-aged men (Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church) through one week of pre- and post- marital confusion, “Sideways” meshes picture-perfect scenery with a bitingly funny, human story. Talking to the trim Alexander Payne (who looks much younger than his forty-three years), I got the sense that he was after something much larger than filmmaking. “Films serve as examples for other films,” he told press. “We need, more and more, a cinema which is a mirror of our society! Our culture needs it desperately- especially in this era of lies.” Never one to lose his sense of humor, Payne was quick to add: “I’ll get off my soap box now.” Payne, who introduced audiences to his quirkily realistic sensibilities via “Ruth”, has a quiet, subtle humor that I didn’t expect (I envisioned a Matthew Broderick-type jokester, don’t ask me why.) I did expect to meet a serious, passionate filmmaker, and Payne’s possibly the most dedicated director I’ve ever interviewed. Recently in New York City, Payne took time to discuss adapting “Sideways” from Rex Pickett’s novel, directing wife Sandra Oh, and casting his refreshingly real ensemble. Q: How did you find this book? I heard that when the producer (Michael London) read “Sideways” is wasn’t published yet. ALEXANDER: A lot of stuff reaches me unpublished. “Election” was unpublished. There’s a way in which I’m almost more open to unpublished things, I feel kind of special. And I think maybe it wasn’t published for a reason, like it’s not commercial enough. And not commercial, in today’s world, maybe means interesting. Q: Some of the major scenes in the book, like the Miles/Maya wine scene, were very different in the movie… ALEXANDER: You may remember it (the book) more than I do. The wine scene- he talks a little bit about the importance of Pinot- What did you think of the ending...? Q: I liked your ending better. ALEXANDER: Less like a movie. Q: Exactly. ALEXANDER: Yeah, we thought it was too- too movie-ish. This one was more hopeful. Q: Since “Election” you’ve been adapting books. Why adaptations as opposed to original screenplays? ALEXANDER: It’s just nice. You finish a film, and then you’re like “Oh, god, will I ever think of another movie idea?” And so I’m a little bit open to reading things. And it’s so nice to get a book where you like the characters, like what they say- the most important thing in a film, really, is the idea of it. If the concept of the film is executed honestly, not always brilliantly, that’s what audiences respond to, I think. If you have a boring section, or a lamo ending, or a bad piece of casting, basically the idea is good. So, from the filmmaker’s point of view, that idea- more than any other thing- is what gives you the feeling that you can see it through two, three, four years of having to work on it every single day. From beginning to write it, through mixing and color timing. Then having to talk about it afterwards! There’s got to be something, if not you’re fucked! So, there was something about being presented something a novelist has considered an idea- even if we change it later, it just feels good to have a set of characters and a human situation. And in this- and “Election”- comic set pieces. We then enter into a kind of dialectic with the original material, take what we like, get rid of what we don’t like, add on what we think are missed opportunities. Don’t forget, someone like Kubrick- who certainly was a personal filmmaker- ninety-five percent of his movies were adaptations. Q: You’re one of a generation of directors everyone wants to work with- ALEXANDER: (laughs) I am? Q: Yeah, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, are you aware of that? ALEXANDER: Well, now I am! Q: Do you ever see the other guys? ALEXANDER: ‘99 was the year when “Election” came out, “Three Kings,” “Rushmore,” “Magnolia” was out that year, and Spike’s film, “Being John Malkovich,” so (people) were starting to discern this generation. So we’ve heard about it. I’m really good friends with David O. Russell. Spike and I know each other but not well, he’s really busy, but David is very good friends with him. PT Anderson I’ve met once, he’s not a team player. Perfectly nice guy, we were at Cannes together, but he sticks to himself. Spike and Sofia- you can’t say that anymore? (Laughs) they were always very nice, and friendly. Q: Do you see any commonalities in your films? ALEXANDER: They are all thirty-five millimeters, twenty-four frames per second, color, motion pictures. I don’t know. We’re all around the same age, the same ten to twelve year age range. I don’t know. That’s really not for me to say. Q: Your films have a very specific sense of location and place- is that intentional? ALEXANDER: “Citizen Ruth” does not, “Citizen Ruth” is anytown USA. Q: Still, it feels very Midwestern, I really get a sense of place and geography. Is that something you start to do before you shoot scope out a location to get a sense of it? ALEXANDER: That’s very important. I make fiction films, but I still have a very documentary sensibility. I try to get the reality of people, even though I’m selecting it, recreating it, observation in a way, even though it’s got a comic style. But I really want place to be accurately represented, it’s very important to me. Q: “Sideways” is a California story, did you have to spend a lot of time there? ALEXANDER: I spent time there. I barely knew Santa Barbara County, I didn’t know any of these wines at all. So I just went up there and lived for four months until we started shooting, and took notes. Be as accurate- part of the genesis of that split screen- it’s got the cattle and the horses and the ostriches- it was an attempt to have a bit of a postcard to that area. I like things to feel right- based on reality. Q: How did you find the house where Jack leaves his wallet? ALEXANDER: Have you asked anyone else that question? What interests you about that house, may I ask? Did you hear it was a Meth lab? I wouldn’t say that place is a Meth lab, but the lady who owns it- nice lady, too- but she’s got a couple sons who are local gang guys, and have maybe been in prison, and sure enough the cops- or set cops, who came to work that day- said: “Oh, yeah, we’ve knocked that door down.” And I went and looked at the door, you could see it had been repaired. We just needed- I like to use found objects, more than creating them. Rather than finding a hose and making it look low-rent, I’d like to find a genuine low rent hose. The lady too, the mother- she was sort of- “Oh, you want to se this place?” Bt she got some nice cash out of it, and we painted it for her, gave her some new furniture, so when we se locations, no matter what, they have strict orders for me to leave it better than we fond it. Because usually, you never let people shoot in your hose, ever, but if people are stupid enough to let us shoot there, or need the cash, then we really try to make it a good experience for them. Cause it’s very invasive. And often, things are damaged by a film crew. Q: Did you have a special affinity for wine? ALEXANDER: I did. I’m not a connoisseur, or an expert by any means, but I’ve always liked wine. In particular, these last ten or fifteen years, I’ve been trying to learn more about it. So that’s definitely an element I thought would be fun to get into, making the film. Q: Can you talk a bit about directing Sandra, you hadn’t directed her before… ALEXANDER: Easy. She made it easy. She’s a pro. Q: Thomas (Hayden Church) said you seemed a little frustrated- they couldn’t seem to get the sensuality of their sex scene… ALEXANDER: I was frustrated by it? Q: You kept telling them to make it more real. ALEXANDER: Oh, I think they were doing it in a cartoon-ey fashion. Yes, it should be real. It’s slightly exaggerated, slightly more vigorous, but, yeah, no, I needed it to be real. But they did it. Especially for those three seconds you see in the film. There was editing, you know. Q: Can you talk about the casting? All the actors auditioned, which is rare for a big movie like this… ALEXANDER: Except for Sandra, yes. You know, the nice thing was, it’s the first movie since “Citizen Ruth” where while we were casting there was no studio looking over my shoulder. It was just me. And the producer, we together were financing casting. So I just worked the way that I always want to work, which is meet a ton of actors, audition them, and then select those that I feel are most appropriate, whether they’re famous or not. So I met with the famous, I met with the un-famous, and this is the cast I felt most appropriate. Had I picked movie stars, which I easily could have- I certainly would have had more money, with which to make the film- and not just going into their pockets- but, really, easier schedule. Bt it doesn’t matter. The thing is, when you make comedies, you just can’t screw around with casting. And you just can’t slap some famous person on there as an insurance policy for the studio! Because it will screw up the movie! And often in movies the element that is most going to make the studio breathe easier, is the thing that most sinks the movie, which is the wrong casting. And when we began engaging with studios about my preferred casting, and the budget of the film, (they said) “haven’t you thought of so and so and so and so.” And I said: “I understand your desire to have people as famous as possible in the film as an insurance policy. But I understand comedy more. And this is the cast that I think is going to hit the tone right. Cause my tones are specific. And they can’t be made generic. And the other thing, too, that I’ve got to say about casting, and I’m quoting Desika here, you know, in his day, there were three billion people, and what are we now, five or six? And your telling me I can only se thirty faces? Every face tells a story. And I just don’t understand why you are so limited by famous people to make a movie! And I’m hoping that this film can serve as an example to other films, both to filmmakers and to studios- “Sideways’ didn’t have an A list actor and it made money, sideways didn’t have a car chase, fighting terrorists, or an explosion, and it made money. “Sideways” didn’t have a neatly tied up ending and it made money.” Because films serve as examples for other films. They always do, I’m very aware of that. I’m hoping now we can begin to enter an era where, like in the seventies, it wasn’t the same old big famous movie stars anymore. You could have a Paul Giamatti or a Thomas Hayden Church, you cold have an Elliot Gould or a Dustin Hoffman- leading men who are more like everyman. Because we need more and more a cinema which is a mirror of our society! Not ridiculous, movie star, fraudulent projections! Our culture needs it desperately, especially in this era of lies. We don’t need a cinema, which continues to lie to us. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Q: Why didn’t Sandra audition? ALEXANDER: Because we had a casting couch at home. (Laughs.) Q: Did the actors spend a great deal of time together? ALEXANDER: The two guys, I insisted- I cast them separately, and then brought them together two weeks before we started shooting. And they wanted to do so anyway, ca-se they’re pros- spend time together hanging out. And we went through the script together, it was a long script, 140 page script, and I didn’t want a two hour forty minute movie, so I said “You’ve got to really know this script, I want you to talk fast. And they needed to really practice their dialogue together and hang out together, because if the audience didn’t believe their friendship, the movie would really stink. Q: How is this movie personal? ALEXANDER: I don’t really know, other than it has my sense of humor, and my sense of pathos. It’s not autobiographical, exactly, but it’s personal in it’s exactly the way I’d make a movie if I had that opportunity at this point in my life. There aren’t compromises in it- or any major ones. Like if someone asked me to make a movie right now, and have complete control, this is what would have come out. Really, it hits me as a filmmaker, and I think that’s really personal. When you’re allowed to make a film, and have a great deal of control, it’s a very intuitive experience. And exactly what those facets are, I’m not so self-aware to know. Q: What did you learn from Nicholson about acting? ALEXANDER: The first thing that comes to mind is something I’m able to tell actors now- a lot of them already know, but I’d never heard it before. He had learned from Jeff Corey, an acting teacher of his in the fifties, that when you approach a role you must have the confidence that you are eighty percent of the character you’re playing. What you have to create is that other twenty percent. I thought that was a good, liberating way for actors to think about what they do. Q: And he said that? ALEXANDER: Yeah. It could be 82, 22, 78, I don’t know. And then the other thing is, it’s not really from Nicholson, but before I directed Nicholson- I’m starting to name drop- I called p Mike Nichols, and I said, “You who have directed Jack Nicholson four times, could you please give me advice on directing Jack Nicholson.” And he said: “Just tell him the truth.” And I was like: “Oh, that’s liberating”- you’re always looking for liberating things. Because early in your career, in film school- I talked to a lot of film students, and its always like- “I think I know camera pretty well, but how do I talk to actors.” That’s always a frustrating thing for young directors, how to deal with actors. Like when you take directing class, don’t give a line reading, always give an actable verb. You just want to say: “Do it, fucker! Just do it, mother fucker, do it!’ Actors always scold directors, “You should really take an acting class, because then you’ll know how to better deal with actors.” Well, I say to actors: “You should take a directing class! Because then you’ll know how frustrated we get with you.” But it doesn’t have to be one of antagonism or frustration. You really just tell them the truth. There are some idiot actors you do have to manipulate somehow, but that’s a drag. And I try to avoid that. It’s so nice when you can just say cut, and go up to the actor and say: “that really sucked, can you do it better please?” Or, “that was really great, can you do more of that?” You try to keep those other things in mind- deliver actable verbs…like I’d say to Nicholson sometimes, in our first week- and he’s admittedly a slow actor, he doesn’t read things fast- and I’d say, “You know Jack, this is great, everything you’re doing is great, but because of the circumstances, there’s a little more urgency…” (Here, Payne does a dead-on Nicholson impression.) “Oh, you mean faster?” (He’s Payne again.) “Yes, faster.” And I remember seeing Gene Hackman on Jay Leno, many years ago, and he said: “At this point in my career, there are only four directions that I like to hear- louder, softer, faster, slower. And I think, man, if I cold work with an actor who is so good all he needs me to say is faster, slower, louder, softer, I’d be so happy. Q: Who brought you on as executive producer for “The Assassination of Richard Nixon”? ALEXANDER: The director (Niels Mueller) is one of my closest friends. He co-wrote it with Kevin Kennedy. I’m just helping out a buddy. I am so not interested in being a producer. But selectively I’ll do it, to help friends who have projects I believe in. Five years ago I read it, and said, “This is great, brilliant, you should do this.” And so I gave it to a producer, and even though that fell through, it gave some momentum to the project. This year I was- then I saw cuts, and gave comments, and then I helped a little bit- it premiered at Cannes. So I’ve been a friend of the project. I didn’t get a dime out of it, but they were kind enough to give me an executive producer credit on it. I’m sometimes friends of films, like I have a credit on “City of God.” I worked with the screenwriter for about a week at a Sundance lab in Brazil. And “City of God” is amazing, one of the best films of this decade. And sometimes I just work on films, unpaid, I just help out some filmmaker friends, and they give me some credit. Q: Does it say something about Nixon's presidency that we didn’t know? ALEXANDER: It’s not about Nixon at all. It’s really like “Taxi Driver”- it’s about a guy’s descent into madness, and frustration, which culminates in a moment of violence. And it’s based on a true story about a guy, Sam Bick, who I think was the inspiration for Travis Bickle, actually, for Schrader’s naming of that guy. And I remember seeing it on the news, actually, a guy went to the Baltimore airport and tried to hijack a plane and fly it into the white hose. Well, five seconds in the plane, they shot him dead. So it was pretty pathetic. But Sean Penn plays this really pathetic guy. It’s not for every taste, this film, but it’s very very well made. Q: You talk about character actors- In “About Schmidt,” Nicholson is a character actor, but he’s also a movie star. ALEXANDER: Oh, thank you. He’d appreciate that too. Q: Would you considering using a movie star, if he fit the part? ALEXANDER: Oh, absolutely, and I have, always. I used stars in all my films except this one, and they’ve been appropriate. It’s just for this particular one I didn’t find stars I thought would be as appropriate as these guys. And actually, I think they are stars. Certainly Giamatti is- he is a star. You know? Guy carries the movie- you can’t take your eyes off him, you see thoughts ripple across his face, as they happen, and he can carry a movie. And in this he’s funny, he’s pathetic, and romantic. The guy can do it all! For peet's sake! For the love of life! Q: I read that Jim’s directing a movie that’s coming out soon? ALEXANDER: It’s not coming out soon, he hasn’t made it yet, but Jim has a wonderful screenplay, which will be his first feature film as a director. Q: Did you write that with him as well? ALEXANDER: I helped out a little bit. I was behind the scenes. Q: What’s next for you? ALEXANDER: Jim and I are going to start writing something probably in the first part of the year. Q: Is it an adaptation? ALEXANDER: This will be an original. Q: Why that now? ALEXANDER: Because we thought of an idea.