At the South by Southwest Film Festival, I had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable discussion with the writer-director, Thomas McCarthy, and Alex Shaffer, the 15-year-old first-time actor who played opposite Giamatti and Amy Ryan.
Here is what McCarthy and Shaffer had to say about the film, in their own words (our interview with Giamatti and Ryan is coming very soon):
Was it always your intention to cast somebody with no background in Kyle’s role?
Tom McCarthy: Yeah, it was. I think early on I decided I needed a wrestler for that role, not only because I used to wrestle but because I’m sort of a sports nut. I can’t stand when I’m watching movies and I feel like the actor can’t actually play that sport or play it well, especially when that character is supposed to be very good.
Like Stemler. I wasn’t as concerned that Stemler couldn’t wrestler. But David {W. Thompson} did, in fact, have some wrestling experience. Moderate, as he said. He actually said,“I actually used to wrestle like Stemler.” But I knew that with Alex’s character I needed that. It was kind of an early decision. We saw a day or two of actors, who were all very fine actors, but we said“Nah, we need a wrestler.”
Could you go a little bit over the basic story?
Tom McCarthy: A small town lawyer, Mike Flaherty, in an attempt to ease his financial strain, makes a questionable ethical decision, and takes on the guardianship of an elderly client and this brings into his life the elderly client’s grandson who’s a runaway from a broken home. Mike is forced to take him in, and there are pros and cons to that situation.
Anytime that you’re doing a film that involves sports, inevitably there can be injuries. Where there any injuries on the set with Alex or with anyone else?
Tom McCarthy: No, these guys are young. If we tried to do it, it’d be a different story. Like the one where he keeps dropping that guy and throwing him into the table, that dude was tough. Because you were really dropping him onto the table. You could tell because every time he did it all the extra would all say,“Ooooh.”
These guys are all really good wrestlers. They could really go at it, so I could loosely choreograph it and then set up the camera. I would tell the kid,“Really try to get an ankle. Try to get a single leg.” Alex was tough to take down any way, but if he knows someone is trying to get a single leg on him, it’s never going to happen. So that kid could really go for it. That hopefully gave the wrestling some reality.
Alex, speaking of wrestling, was it hard to do some of the more emotional scenes, like the scenes with your mother?
Were you given direction to play a stoic character? Nothing seems to get to you, or was it your idea to play the character that way?
Alex Shaffer: I mean I guess that’s how Kyle is, you know? Its not like he goes with everything, but nothing bothers him, that much, except when it comes to Leo and his mother.
So, Alex, are people back at home giving you crap about all this?
Alex Shaffer: Yeah man, my friends tease me so much. Not like a lot, but if we’re all at Chili’s, for example.
Tom McCarthy: Where you might be, of course.
Alex Shaffer: Yeah, so we’re at Chili’s and they’ll be like“Oh my god, is that Alex Shaffer?”
Tom McCarthy: I actually met his friends. They’re nice guys. I thought they’d be merciless.
Your other films that I’ve seen, it seems like they’re about family, but it seems like they’re about family being created out of totally disparate moments. How did you decide this time around to have sort of a do-good family? Was that risky?
Tom McCarthy: What was more risky to me wasn’t so much dealing with family, that just kind of happened. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision like,“I’ll show them, I’ll actually make a movie with a family.” It was risky setting it in that environment, in a conventional suburban American environment. It’s not like I’m a champion of the suburbs and wanted my whole life to make that movie, but that’s just kind of where the story had to be told. It was challenging because how do you make that compelling to an audience? Especially because I didn’t think what we were setting out to do was to represent that world authentically without commenting necessarily to much on it. On some level, I had to make that world something Mike wanted to fight for. So I couldn’t shred it, you know.
This is a place where, as a young man, even though I had a good family and a good upbringing, I couldn’t wait to get out. My whole thrust was get me the hell out of here. So to go back and make a movie was pretty interesting. Maybe I’m just at an age where I could do it without going after it. I’m now able to see what Mike likes about this world.
The film’s about family and financial hardship; do you think that the recession is a creatively fruitful time to make movies?
But I wanted to have fun with this movie. I wanted to lighten it up. I wanted it to be a little loose, a little sloppy, especially afterThe Visitor, which was such a delicate movie. I kind of wanted to throw the needle the other way. It was important that it didn’t become too preachy or too solemn. So it didn’t become a movie about something that happened two years ago. Problems aren’t going to go away for a while. Things are gonna continue to be bad in the recession, but its more about how to recover responsibly and with a bit of grace.
(Spoilers in this question)At the beginning of the movie, Mike says he doesn’t want to be a bartender, but that’s what he ends up doing at the end. Both this film and The Visitorsort of end on a note of disappointment. Is that something you do on purpose or is it where the script took you?
Tom McCarthy: Where it took me. I think it’s realistic too. Trust me, a big part of me wanted to take Kyle’s character down to Atlantic City and win state. They’re holding each other’s arms up. I can see the poster. Can’t we all? I say that jokingly, but I mean it truthfully because visually I thought,“Aw that’ll be really cool.” Because I felt so cramped in this movie by design. I wanted it to feel like if a guy wants to have a cigarette he has to go behind the Quik-Check. But I didn’t want it to be claustrophobic either..
I think it just felt honest to that world. It isn’t everything tied up at the end and it isn’t a wrestling victory at the end. The victory is pulling in the driveway and seeing the kids playing without thinking about it. That’s the victory. That’s why people move to the suburbs, for that conventional, consistent life for the children. There’s nothing better to give a kid than that, a place where they can just be kids. As un-cinematic as it might be, that was the emotional victory of it. So I tried to follow that emotional lead instead of“what would be cool here?”
What do you like so much about suburbia?
Tom McCarthy: Nothing. Again, it’s a challenge. What fascinated me was can I set a story here? And it was something personal going back to the world and trying to see it with fresh eyes.
What was that like?
Tom McCarthy: Tough to quantify, you know? It was trying to see it in detail where I could make this story as specific as possible and it would hopefully resonate. And people would see it in all parts of the country and parts of the world. I’m very curious to see how this movie does abroad, certainly in Europe. I’m excited to travel with this movie and see what people take away from it. That’s an exciting part of the process. It’ll be interesting.
When Alex’s character shows up, it seems like Mike and his whole family are stuck in a rut, but it seems to be the change they so desperately need. At the same time it was a change that Alex needed in his own life too. At what point did you decide that the family elements were going to outweigh the wrestling side of it?
Tom McCarthy: Yeah, just because it’s fun too. Even for people who don’t know anything about wrestling. I have a friend who is a novelist who sent an email afterwards that said,“I can’t believe that sports exists, but I was so into it at the end. I think I want to do it.” It’s an addictive element of the story for a lot of people and it was nice to know we had that in our back pocket, in terms of story and an intellectual level.
But I don’t think the family is in a rut and if they are, it’s the happy rut of life. Routine is important to them. I think they’ve settled into that. I think for Mike all he wants to do is be in that happy rut, he just wants to be able to afford it and he’s not. I think that’s important. It’s not like Kyle comes into their lives and because of his athletic prowess he changes everything. I don’t think he even changes Jackie in that way at all. She eventually finds it cool and cheers him on, like any parent might, but I think its her emotional connection with this young man. Especially if you’re a parent and you have young kids, but suddenly you have a 16-year-old running around. It’s very different. ”Hold it, adult.” The way they talk and interact. I think that is engaging.
When it came to casting, did you write the role specifically for them or was it just a happy coincidence?
Alex, talk about the scene where you throw Paul to the ground. How did it work out? And were you scared that something might happen?
Alex Shaffer: No, I remember there was a double, but the double did not do that scene. I remember having that conversation with Paul and Paul was like,“They never let me do it. I want to do it,” and we ended up doing it. I was not nervous, I mean, Paul is a tough guy. But he did tell us later that he woke up the next day sore.
Tom McCarthy: It’s a pretty good takedown. It’s a violent takedown, even for wrestling.
Alex Shaffer: A blast double.
So Tom what kind of wrestler are you; were you on the A team? B team?
Tom McCarthy: I was trying hard to get on the A team. I was pretty good. I started wrestling at 13. Not nearly on Alex’s level. I never made it to state or regionals. But I was decent. By my senior year I was burnt out and quit. I just realized it was a brutal sport and I was not having fun anymore. But I enjoyed it, the research side of things is fun to do now, the going and watching these matches. But when I heardabout Alex, he had a match that weekend and I knew the guy he was wrestling. It’s like Shakespeare, once you understand how the language operates, it opens up in this beautiful way. Joe {Tiboni} and I were dropping stuff all the time to go to these matches. ”Guess who’s wrestling this week?”
Alex, how did it feel the moment you knew you were going to be in the film?
Tom McCarthy: {laughs} This is a blow by blow.
Alex Shaffer: But then he told me not to dye my hair purple. Because in one of my auditions I said I was going to dye my hair purple for States.
Tom McCarthy: Why purple by the way?
Alex Shaffer: Its just really cocky. {laughs} That’s the best way to put it.
Were the tattoos and dyed hair a way to get into character?
Tom McCarthy: Oddly enough, he came to us with that blonde hair. I liked the idea of him doing it because his team did it. And the tattoos because you see a lot of guys tatted and I liked how it said something about where he is coming from. Each tattoo had its meaning, to me, as a writer.
Alex Shaffer: That one actually wasn’t cocky. We had to wrestle our rival. So we all went over to a friend’s house and dyed our hair.
Tom McCarthy: Hair party.
Alex Shaffer: Little crazy.
Tom McCarthy: You guys cut it loose.
Alex, did you have any input on how the fights went down? Did you choreograph at all?
Alex Shaffer: Yeah I had some input. We all got together in rehearsal and went over it with the stunt coordinator. We went over what moves would happen.
Tom McCarthy: I wrote it pretty specifically, and I would ask for ideas just like you would for an actor and a script. Just like that really cool throw Alex does were he pins Kenny Randall, that was Alex’s move.
Do you consider yourself a jock or an athlete and is there a difference?
Alex Shaffer: Hmm, an athlete. Just because I’m an athletic kid. My interpretation of a jock is that Nerds movie.
Tom McCarthy: Those hair parties. Jocks don’t say,“Alright everyone, my place at eight. Hair party.”
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