The first film of my SXSW 2014 experience was Bad Words, the feature film directorial debut of actor Jason Bateman.
The film is about an adult man that finds a loophole in competition rules that allows him to compete in a kid’s spelling bee. Bateman plays a mean, cynical man and much of the humor is derived from his inappropriate interactions with the children, especially a young Indian boy who attempts to befriend him.
After the film I was invited to partake in a roundtable interview with Jason and his co-star Kathryn Hahn. For clarity’s sake, all reporter questions and comments are italicized. I’ve also bolded my own questions, so you know I’m not the weirdo saying women shouldn’t curse and Yale alumni can’t be funny.
Bad Words opens in limited release tomorrow, March 14th, before expanding on March 28th.
Kathryn Hahn:
Is it ok to look at you while we ask questions? (This is in reference to a running joke in the film where Kathryn’s character does not like to be looked at during the act.)
No! Please avoid eye contact.
I have to ask, was that drawn from some sort of personal experience? Maybe not necessarily from you…
You have to ask that? Boy, this just got real personal. That’s from the sicko mind of Andrew Dodge, the writer. That was kind of the parameters of the sex scene.
I’m sure when you’re looking at that in the script you’re like ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait.”
Could. Not. Wait. I knew it would be twice and I also knew that with Bateman it was going to be a beautiful launching pad for us to kind of fill it out and make something happen. Yeah, very funny.
It’s sort of a great structure for your relationship.
I love that every time he looks at her she has to start completely over. Like literally from the very beginning. Like, ‘This is gonna go on all night. Back to one.”
Was that also one of those things that when you’re shooting it you are trying a variety of different ways of doing that?
I mean, we shot in a practical janitors closet at the lovely Sportsman’s Lodge in Burbank, California. Or maybe not Burbank, I think it was Studio City. Details, guys. I gotta fact check myself. I think, in the parameters of that, there were like six of us in there. So there wasn’t a lot of room for trying different positions. We knew that we were stuck in ye olde missionary.
I meant more in like, line delivery…
(Laughs) Sorry, my mind is stuck. Yeah we did, there was some playing around. Absolutely. But, you know, Andrew Dodge wrote such a crazy, tight, economic gem. There really wasn’t a ton we had to do. I think that would have defused what was there.
Jason mentioned last night that you guys had a personal friendship, and how that could make that scene pretty awkward…
Oh my god, yes! So awkward! I was really like, ‘Don’t look at me. I’m going to break and we’ll never get it back.” Which is a hilarious metaphor. We had a pillow between us. Two pillows. So we could just go for it and not be uncomfortable.
So I’m guessing that’s how you go onto the project in the first place? The fact that you guys have a personal relationship?
As it were. Yes, we’ve been friendly for a couple of years. I adore him. I adore his wife. Huge crush on his wife. I knew when the script was sent to me that whatever he decided was gonna be his first time out as a feature director was going to be something special. I’ve always just trusted his taste. Just as an audience member. I’m always checking in with Jason Bateman on screen because I just know that’s where the brains are. I just know that his POV I trust.
That’s got to be interesting because of that dynamic of working with an actor and director but then adding friend into that equation. You don’t ever want your friend to be your boss.
Yeah. I’m telling you, it sounds so cliche but it was a ball. It was a ball. You could tell that he was having the time of his life. He had done so much prep work. He armed himself. I think he knew that with the parameters of the shoot that it was going to be short, so he armed himself with so much prep that by the time we started shooting he was so calm and so comfortable. It would be very hard not to micromanage, I could imagine. Especially your first time out to bat. Especially with a world that is so specific. He created such a visual, tonal world. It would have been very difficult to just relax had you not done all the work up till then.
Obvious question here, would you talk about your own spelling bee experiences.
Awful. I never did an actual spelling bee but I took latin in high school so I thought that I had a leg up on the root words. So I can usually dig a root word out of something but I’m not very good at spelling.
Were you familiar with any of the words that were used in the movie?
Nougat. Very familiar with nougat.
There’s a lot of cursing in this film. Some people would say that the classier the woman the less they curse. Would you agree with that?
No. I like a broad.
What are some life situations that would get you to start letting them fly?
Oh, anything. Name your poison. I love a swear word. I really do. But I have the two peanuts at home, so you gotta edit yourself big time. They take it all in.
Do you have a favorite?
A favorite child? Yes. Absolutely. And I’ll tell you why. (Laughs) No, I love a simple fuck. It’s always so horrible to actually say it out loud but that’s true. Just a simple fuck. In a pinch, guys, it covers a lot. I grew up in Ohio, I don’t know if this is particular to Ohio, but with my parents there was a lot of ‘Oh, poop on a stick! Shut the front door!” You almost with they would have just let it fly. It would have been a little less embarrassing.
What do you like about playing characters that are shameless? You seem to have a couple of those under your belt. Stepbrothers comes to mind.
I’m a fan of bite in comedy. I’m a big fan of comedy that’s got an edge to it. And as a character, comedy or drama, I like a woman that’s on the edge of an abyss. Whatever that is. It could be big or small. It’s just a precipice I’m always interested in. Exploring that leap into the unknown.
How funny were you allowed to get at Yale?
There’s nothing funny about Yale.
I mean on stage. Did you ever do any comedy there?
We had an awesome ragamuffin class. I loved my class at Yale. We got a clown teacher up there. We did some comedia. Not a lot of improvising, that didn’t come for me until later. I never took improv classes or anything like that. It was being introduced to Adam McKay that really cracked that open for me. I think I’ve talked about this before, but at Yale… I will never forget that experience. It was a rigorous, blessed three years. I didn’t have to worry about anything but just the work. We were producing plays at one in the morning. It was heaven, heaven, heaven. We didn’t have a television. The best. I will hold that to my heart forever. I was accruing loans but it was just like pretend. I knew I’d have to eventually pay that off but you didn’t have to really think about that while you were there. It was pure and really blessed. Of course we did a lot of comedy. I think a lot of my classmates would say I was like the clown. There were a lot of clowns in my class, though. We laughed a lot. I think in the theater you find that. It’s not fun to see a real serious serious play.
When you think Yale theater the first thing to pop into mind isn’t a bunch of people up there horsing around.
But the play is to a point. It’s about cracking something open. Comedy is hard, I think. Really hard. We were grad student kids, we had a ball, but it was to a point.
On the same note of being a clown at Yale. Were you aware that on IMDB your one trademark is “known for making exaggerated facial expressions’?
Yeah, I saw that. We were laughing and I said ‘I think that should be the name of my autobiography’. Like ‘Making Faces: The Story of Kathryn Hahn’.
Maybe the quote on your tombstone? ‘She was really good at making exaggerated faces’.
(Laughs) Hmm, I don’t know about that.
Can you talk a little bit about Afternoon Delight? That is such a wonderful film. We always see you in these supporting roles but you totally owned that film. How hard is it to get something like that made?
I will just forever be grateful to Jill Soloway for seeing that in me and giving me that opportunity. They had not come my way with that kind of a role since Yale, really. That hadn’t been really asked of me. To go to those kinds of places, which is all you want to do as a performer. That was heaven. Heaven. We shot it in three weeks. We used my minivan. It was like a three week fever. We shot six days a week and rehearsed on the seventh day. Rented a little house that the DP and Jill and I would just take turns sleeping in so we could get a full night’s sleep because we all had kids. We knew no one could get any sleep. The bar really was raised with that particular experience with me.
Jason Bateman –
Your costar Rohan is a very mature young man. Was it challenging to throw out those expletives his way?
The film was not improvised. He and his parents knew everything that was coming and were certainly prepped for it. I had extensive conversations with him and his parents about the kind of tone and spirit and where all these prickly scenes were coming from. What the deeper and slightly more sophisticated agenda was that would play, hopefully, underneath the whole movie. Certainly Guy’s journey. I just asked them to trust me that I was going to build the film and aesthetic and that it wouldn’t feel gratuitous or arbitrary to the audience. That this wasn’t going to be something embarrassing for them. This was a drama for everyone inside the movie. This guy got his feelings hurt and he’s just not properly equipped to deal with that. And we, the same audience, laugh at his inability to manage his life, but it is a drama to them. That would be, hopefully, the spine of the movie and make those prickly things feel a little less sophomoric.
Can you talk a little bit about where Arrested Development falls into that position where you are now allowed to make your directorial debut?
Arrested Development is the father and mother of my career now in the second half. I was a working actor for the decade between The Hogan Family and Arrested Development but I certainly was not making a lot of choices, you know? I was basically taking what I got and Arrested Development provided a project that was embraced by those who hand out jobs in Los Angeles. That was really, really fortunate. I would have taken a job that was half as good and would have perhaps stayed on the air twice as long. Respect and quality I think is the fuel of longevity as opposed to fame and fortune. Arrested Development gave me a great deal of much needed credibility and was a basic reset button on some of the stuff that I had done in the past. I’m just gonna try my damndest not to screw it up and stay at the party for another 30 years.
A lot has been made about this being your directorial debut, but you’ve been directing television since you were 18…
Yeah, with the exception of Arrested Development all of the directing has been multicamera. Which, I do not mean to belittle, but it’s a different job as a director. You’re mandate there is to corral the rehearsal and make the comedic writing work and have its rhythm stay intact. It’s shot proscenium style where it’s three walls; it’s theater. There’s and audience and it’s a different process. When you direct single camera you are choosing lenses, there’s a lighting strategy, music, and a whole environment that a director is allowed to build. In television it’s a bit more of a writer/producer’s medium. In film you’ve got a bit of creative autonomy that is extremely exciting to me. But very challenging.
Talking about the aesthetic a little bit more, and I don’t know if I’m completely wrong here, but I saw the tiniest twinges of the aesthetic of Wes Anderson in the beginning of the film. Has anybody said that to you or are there any references you used?
That’s high praise. I mean Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell, The Coen Brothers, Alexander Payne, and Spike Jonze… these guys have a rawness to the aesthetic. A palette that they use. The way that they use the visual element of this medium to perform. That is a character in the film. It sets a mood for the audience that hopefully allows the audience to be a bit more accepting of a fringe society that these filmmakers usually like to tell their stories in. The characters are usually people that you drive by but you don’t often talk to. Situations that you usually skirt because we’re a bit more highly functional. Decisions that are made that are less responsible than those of responsible adults like us. I think there is a visual component to that and a musical component to that that is fascinating to me and I really look forward to learning a whole lot about. One of the main things that attracted me to this script was that that would be a necessary world and a palette to establish to the audience because we’re dealing with an odd group of people making odd decisions. If it looks like today and like where we all live it would feel broad and hokey, but if it feels real and feels raw then you accept the eccentricities of the story and the characters.
Kathryn was talking, specifically about the “don’t look at me” scene, about how a lot of what was there was in the script. I’m curious about one of my very favorite scenes in the movie which I kind of think of as the ‘Five Easy Pieces’ moment where you’re talking to the woman in the diner and kind of putting her in her place. Is all that in the script as well or did you get to kind of play around and try different retorts?
Well I’ve never been a fan of actors talking about what they wrote and what the writer wrote because that’s very unfair to the writer, but Andrew was incredibly collaborative for a long time. All the way through the process. I invited him to be on set the entire shoot and he was there every day. We worked long and hard on the script for about a year before we ended up shooting it. There were two phases of that. One was just me as a director trying to funnel all that was in the script into the version, style, and aesthetic that I wanted to use. Then once I decided to play the lead character we went through it again and I knew the way I was going to play that part very specifically. So certain words might be inconsistent with that approach and certain words might better enhance that approach.
But not a lot of improv in the film itself? It’s pretty much all what’s on the page?
There certainly was some, which I’m a fan of because once something becomes three dimensional and other actors start doing things that you can’t predict the night before when you’re practicing your faces in the mirror, things are different and you need to be able to pivot. So sometimes certain words or certain things could be a little bit better, but for the most part Andrew and I got that exactly the way we wanted it all the way down to the shooting. Everything was shot listed and storyboarded and I knew exactly the way that every single piece… the way that I’d like to shoot everything. I decided on lens sizes and everything. Scouted. We knew we’d have a pretty abbreviated schedule and that I was going to be splitting my duties, so everything was kind of done.
Can you talk about the color palette because it’s more of a drama color palette…
I was getting a lot of green and that was in sharp contrast with the HD scenes where we see the live television.
Sure. We wanted to make sure that the television had a different look than the film. What you’re privy to in the audience versus what the audience that’s watching the tv show would be privy to. So we shot that on different equipment and had a whole different process. The overall palette of the film is what we were talking about. It was very desaturated, and the greens, and the blues, and the things that just lend themselves to establishing a bit more of a melancholy, introspective position for the audience because hopefully that’s where I wanted the audience to start and to remember as they were experiencing all of the humor and the veneer of Guy. I wanted them to remember that this was a guy that was raw and wounded inside. Something that’s oversaturated, something that’s super lit, something that’s on wide angle lenses usually feels a little bit safer. It’s all parts of the process that I’ve never been able to participate in and the fact that this script demanded that was one of the big draws.
Speaking of script demands, all of the prep that goes into spelling the big words, would you still be able to spell floccinaucinihilipilification?
I could get close, but everything was written on big white boards. The fun part was that we had to write them on multiple boards around the auditorium so that I could get three letters there, three more there, three more there so it didn’t look like I was reading it. I was in one spelling bee in grade school and I lost in the first round because I forgot the w in answer. I’m not bookish.