Joe, the latest from eclectic and prolific filmmaker David Gordon Green, is being released in theaters and on VOD tomorrow, April 11. I had the opportunity to sit down with Green, along with stars Nicolas Cage and Tye Sheridan, during a panel discussion on the film.
The interview was lengthy so get cozy. My questions are in bold. I’m sure they’re the only ones you care about. Right?
I wanted to ask about a lot of the locations and the people within the movie. A lot of that stuff feels very real and that shows through in the film. Can you talk a little bit about finding the different locations that you used and the people that you interacted with. In particular, Gary Poulter because he’s so terrific in the film.
David Gordon Green: I remember when Nic came into town and we were talking about how to flesh out the cast. I really wanted it to have a raw southern authenticity and not necessarily a Hollywood polish. To make sure these characters were of a real world and we were dropping in on guys who really knew how to do this labor and had voices that were either poetry or horror depending on who we were looking at. Outside of Nic, it’s all Texans. People who were living here and had the voice of here. In the morning we’d go downtown, it was all shot in and around the Austin area, so we’d go down to the day labor center in the morning and there’d be a construction foreman looking for guys for a job. Some people with some landscaping needs looking for guys for a job. We’d be out there looking for guys for our job. We were casting based off their face and their voice and taking a leap of faith with the instinct of me and my casting directors who were really unique and really visionary in the lengths and detail of looking for fresh faces. We also did traditional casting. There’s lots of really talented local actors like Adriene Mishler, Heather Kafka, and Jonny Mars. The difficult part of this movie in putting the cast together, in a lot of ways, was finding the character who would play Tye’s father in the movie. I knew I needed a movie star with the magnitude of Cage and a fresh faced, young voice, super energy character for the Gary character, but for that I just didn’t want the cynical Hollywood villain. I wanted somebody that felt sad in a way and had a depth and darkness behind his eyes rather than the guy that was just going to roll up his sleeves and chew on a bad guy role. I auditioned a lot of incredible actors, well known actors, for the part. For those that are familiar with the novel, it’s a very memorable and notable character in contemporary southern literature so we really needed to finesse the casting process. John Williams and Karmen Leech, who were our casting directors, met Gary Poulter at a bus stop here in downtown. He was just waiting for a bus on the way back from his father’s funeral. He’d been living on the streets downtown for quite a while and had a lot of hardships; a lot of stories to tell and a wonderful charisma and positive ambition to bring to the table. He was really looking for a new step in life, so it was amazing to work with him. I introduced him to Cage, it was fun. We had breakfast one morning and they hit it off. Introduced him to Tye and they hit it off. We just really had a wonderful time working on this.
Nicolas Cage: It’s a little sad because I said to Gary, “Just keep it together for one year. Just one year and your life is going to change dramatically. You’re going to get all kinds of phone calls. You’re going to be making all kinds of movies.”
And has that happened?
NC: No, he passed on. So it’s a little bit bittersweet.
Can you also talk about what David was saying. About working with real people. People off the street as opposed to working with other actors and what that was able to add to the authenticity of the movie?
NC: Well the thing is, is that everyone that I worked with had tremendous work ethics. Gary Poulter had a work ethic. He had the Vincent Price monologue from the Black Widow Alice Cooper song down. He performed it all the time.
Will that be on the DVD?
NC: It was outstanding. He was a real trained street performer. So when I was ready to work, he was ready to work and vice versa. It didn’t feel that much different than working with someone out of Julliard. He was on point.
This movie is different. It’s a mix of friendship and violence and redemption. Were you trying to escalate your career to new heights?
NC: Who?
For you.
NC: No. I was just trying to make a good movie.
Joe had all these inner demons, it seems, but he was also like an everyday man. What do you bring to a character like that who is obviously very different than yourself. There must be a lot of similarities somewhere in there for you to reach in and get that for your performance.
NC: The great news was that when I read the script I knew right away that this was something where I wouldn’t have to act too much and I could bring whatever my life experience was from the last two years into the role. It’s interesting because when my wife saw the movie when it premiered, I think in Venice, she said, “Well that’s you.”
I have a question for the director. What drew you into making a picture about what I see as a community of violence where problems are generally solved through aggression rather than through reasoning. Is there something in your background or your special interests that draw you to that?
DGG: Well I’ll work backwards. When I read the script it struck me as a great contemporary western, a genre that I’ve always been really drawn to and that I love. This story, particularly, was based on a novel by Larry Brown and when I was in college a film professor of mine named Gary Hawkins introduced me to Larry’s work as a southern writer among other writers such as Harry Crews and Tom Franklin, a lot of great writers. Cormac McCarthy is generally escalated but then there’s guys like Charles Morris that are amazing and when you dust them off it’s beautiful literature.
So you’ve known about this?
DGG: Known about the novel for a long time. I worked on a documentary about Larry, the novelist’s, life. So I got to know Larry when he was alive. My professor did the adaptation of the novel after Larry passed away. My professor, in honor of Larry, said “I want to take a stab at Joe because that’s the one I find most personal.” The most personal to Larry and the most personal to himself. The story is very distant from me but it’s something that really resonated with a lot of relatives to me, people I know. I feel very familiar with this world though I can’t say I’ve grown up in the squalor of Tye’s character and can’t say I’m as badass and masculine as Nic’s character. It’s people I look up to and I wonder about even the horrific characters or the quirkier characters. They’re people that I feel in my strange life I’ve met along the way. I love to explore and take these steps in their shoes.
That’s what I liked about it, because all the characters felt lived in and these two actors were just perfect. It’s almost as if the roles were made for them but of course they weren’t.
DGG: I talked about the authenticity of the raw, untrained actors but it’s great when you have actors that can find within them depths of reality and really trigger something in audiences. It’s the reason we go to movies. To see guys like these guys that really invite us into their lives and experience characters through their eyes. That’s the most rewarding part of a movie like this. Getting in the ring with Nic and Tye and bringing a story that’s very passionate and I have a great history with to life.
NC: One of the great things about working with Dave is that he will interview his actors. He’ll invite little stories that you may recall in your own lives and just put them into the film so you get that feeling of spontaneity and feeling of life actually happening as opposed to just sort of acting.
And that makes it more your story too, right?
NC: Little memories. Little bits and pieces. Little bits of dialog. Little thoughts or experiences that actors kind of put into the performance so that you don’t have to act so much. It’s very much a part of the process working with David. He genuinely goes through an interview process.
I have a question for Tye. You have had a pretty remarkable start to your career. Something that a lot of actors couldn’t even dream of having off the bat. What did you learn from working with David and Nic? Was there something unique about working with them?
Tye Sheridan: Yeah, absolutely. I loved working with both of them. I liked working with David because, as Nic said, he likes incorporating a sense of realness and honesty into his films. He’s very spontaneous. I remember one time he told me to eat a booger. I told him no. And Nic is a true professional and has had a great career over a number of years. I look up to him, he’s one of my role models.
David, you said something about Tye being in a point in his career where he’s perfect for the film.
DGG: Perfect for me to mess around with him. Sometimes people get a little manicured. It’s fun to find someone that’s fresh and energetic. You can sculpt things. People are self conscious, especially young actors who are starting to look at themselves and see themselves in certain interviews and think “Man, I’m cool as shit.” So it was good to get Tye before he took on that teen idol role. I got to be a big brother to him. He brings a lot of ideas to the table. As much as me or Gary or Larry are looking at this period in a young man’s life, why not look to the young man to tell us what to say. He would come up to us and say “This line’s bogus.” Hey man, it’s gone. Say what you need.
NC: I was also witness to the moment Tye said “No, I will not eat a booger.” It shows that he has dignity.
That’s one funny story. Did you have other on set funny things that happened?
DGG: I work with a real loyal group of filmmakers as a part of the crew and I always cast, regardless of the darkness or dramatic nature of the film, I always cast people with a sense of humor because people that are super serious don’t understand when I ask them to eat a booger it’s not necessarily about that. It’s about something more. It’s about inviting a little bit of absurdity into the process and humanity into the process. Making sure that no matter who we are and what sort of pedestal or glamorous lighting we’re under, we’re all eating boogers man.
NC: I do remember in between some takes that were particularly tense scenes I would go into my David Lynch impression and David would start cracking up at that. I remember we had a few laughs about that.
Can we see a David Lynch impression?
NC (as David Lynch): Solid gold, Nicster buddy. That was solid gold! That’s the margarita talking, Nicster. That’s the margarita.
I’d like you to talk about the deer scene, because that was the most epic scene ever. You have these three characters and then Nic’s character walks in and it’s a whole scene of hilarity and I was wondering how much was adlibbed in that scene in particular and the movie?
DGG: That was funny. I happened to see the movie Bernie when we were casting and so this lady Kay Epperson was in that movie and kind of stole the show in a lot of ways for me. Everytime they’d interview her I’d just pee my pants. So I was like, “Man, where’s that lady?” So we brought in Kay. She was out in Longview so we brought her in and all bets were off when Kay showed up. I just finished a new movie with her too because I just fell in love with her. She’s the lady that’s sitting the a wheelchair just talking trash. So, we had a good game plan. Tye’s more of a deer hunter than anybody else that was working with us so we looked to him for a little technical advice and expertise. We kind of just let it loose. It’s one of those scenes where there’s the elephant in the room, so to speak. In this case it was a deer. So we just wanted to get in there and make it have a sense of strange absurdity within this southern world. I wanted a little ensemble. It’s different than the novel. In the novel it’s all very straight forward. It’s all a bunch of brothers including, I think her name was Stacey, but she was a guy in the book. It was like, well let’s make Stacey a woman and get Kay. I tried hard for Kay. I think it was pretty much all improvised. Then we let chickens loose in the house. Nic was chasing them out. That was my favorite stuff. I love animals, man. With animals you never know what you’re getting. Everybody says don’t mess with animals and little kids in movies but those are the funniest things because you can’t be in control. I like to lose control as a director.
Well the dogs are like characters in the movie in and of themselves. Can you talk about working with the dogs. Having the good dog that’s always out of control and the evil dog that just won’t shut up.
DGG: Nic’s like a dog whisperer.
NC: That’s true. I love dogs. So did Larry Brown. He had a passion about them. In fact when he started making a little money he spent it on dogs. He would study them. Faith was the name of the American Bulldog that was really the star of the movie and she was a dog that liked to run off. She’d smell a cat or something and off she would go. It took a little bit to get her to stay on her mark and be in the scene, but she was a real sweet dog. I don’t know where she is now. I think she was up for adoption.
What about the other dog, because the timing on that dog was perfect.
DGG: That dog had done some shows, man. We needed a ringer for that one. Obviously, dealing with things like animal violence you want to be very ethical about and Bobby Colorado, our little animal wrangler, was on point and brought in a dog she knew could be pro and give us some grisly intentions without actually having to have a connection between the two animals. It’s kind of funny, I learned a trick from that movie Amores Perros. You just kind of have dogs playful and they’re just “Yap, yap, yap” and kind of playing grab ass and then you just add some vicious sound effects. All of the sudden you’ve got a pretty off putting thing.
Nic, when I was watching Joe I had recollections of Leaving Las Vegas. When you were reading the script did you have that in mind as well?
NC: No, I didn’t. I saw them as two entirely separate kinds of characters. Ben is someone who is actively drinking himself to death by design, by will. He wants to die. Joe wasn’t really someone who was on a death trip, in my mind. He was a pretty together guy. He had good relationships with people in the community. He showed up for work every day. He paid everybody. He was fair. Two different kinds of characters, entirely.
David, can you talk about any of the connective tissue, if there is any, between this film and Prince Avalanche because you made them right on top of each other and they’re taking place in the same location. Can you talk spiritually about the connective tissue?
DGG: I was kind of in development on them at the same time. I was location scouting for that film while I was trying to woo Nic into being in this movie. He came out to Austin and drove around in the ashes and remains of the state park forest fire in Bastrop with me. It was kind of cool to be able to overlap them in a way and there is a spiritual connection between the two projects. There’s something about mother nature’s efforts and the catastrophic nature of a forest fire and also something very intimate and peculiar about a man that takes a hatchet with poison and takes out a tree. There’s a will. As much as a lot of my films have been kind of studies of strange conflicts of masculinity I think there’s also a great backdrop. I’m always fascinated by where we are and who are these people in this place at this time. We shot right across the highway from where we were shooting Prince Avalanche. In Avalanche we were looking for where the char ended, where the fire ended. With Joe we wanted to cross the street to where life began again. With a little more hindsight and reflection I’ll be able to connect them a little bit, but we really made them back to back. One of them is certainly a little funnier and one’s a little darker. It’s up to you to decide which one. Your own personal perspective would dictate which one that is. For me, I think Joe is hilarious.
That’s one of the things I really liked about the movie. I feel like it characterized the male psyche in many Texas communities. There’s that type of character. In contrast, the women are pretty ineffectual and in the background. Is there anything to that?
DGG: Actually, there were two female characters that we shot substantial amounts of from the novel. One being Joe’s ex-wife and one being a woman he meets at a bar. Something about those felt like they were detours for another film, because this was a portrait or a study of Joe and the masculine fabric of this character. We had great performances from two great actresses and you see little glimpses of them. One of them he just pulls up next to her and rolls down his window halfway and looks at her. We know there’s substance and I like knowing that there’s ambiguity there for the audience. We know there’s something. Who is this person? Have I seen her before? We as an audience get to wonder about it. I think when I spelled it all out it was a little too distracting to what this particular movie was trying to say.
There’s a line in the film that really stood out to me. It’s said by Joe. “I can’t get my hands dirty in every little thing.” Do you feel like this idea of getting your hands dirty applies to your life, whether it’s your career or otherwise?
NC: I certainly understand that line. I understand the need to have restraint. I have friends that, and I won’t mention any names, could be liabilities. If they want to go to jail, you don’t want to go with them. So you have to try and not get your hands dirty in every little thing.
David, you were talking about the connective tissue between Prince Avalanche and Joe, does that extend beyond Joe to Manglehorn and possibly The Line, which you reportedly could be directing?
DGG: I’m not sure about The Line. It definitely does to Manglehorn. I really think this is a strange Texas Trilogy. There’s this movie called Manglehorn that I’m editing right now with Al Pacino and Holly Hunter and Harmony Korine and Chris Messina. A strange cast of characters. I think a lot of it is just when I moved to town. I’ve known Austin well and grew up in Texas, but when I started to look at it through the lens of a camera and started finding these faces and voices and what appeals to me about the region and the landscape. In the case of Manglehorn it’s a little bit more of an urban movie, but all the story of three wandering souls looking for their place in this somewhat magical journey. Manglehorn kind of heightens that and actually is magical, but definitely the same kind of melancholy structure and looking for a little bit of life and love in wandering souls, I guess. I haven’t polished that movie off yet so I’m not really sure exactly what it is at the end of the day, but it came from a very similar place and a similar heartbeat.
Can you talk about the evolution or the genesis of the “Pain Face” sequence and where that came from?
NC: About 2000 years ago I had put a script together called Heartbreaker Inc. which never got made. In that script I put a line in there and I never found a place that made sense where it could work. I thought maybe with Joe, it could work. I don’t know how it came to me. I think I was looking at old commercials of the Marlboro Man and there was always this guy that was squinting and kind of smiling. It was like, “You look like you’re in pain, but you’re smiling. Is that the icon of cool? Is that what it means to be cool?” I broke it down. I did the math on it. Make the face of pain and then smile. Yeah, that’s cool. So I thought I ‘d put that concept in this movie. You wanna make the anatomy of a cool face? Ok, make a face of pain and now smile through it. Now, you’re cool. That’s how it happened.
What about the line where you say you’ve made mistakes but the people of the town won’t let you outlive those mistakes? Did that come from you or from the book or from David?
NC: It was Larry. You mean about the law? That’s a very, kind of, Larry Brown honest statement about once you get on the bad side of the law they’re not going to let you forget it. Which is very true.
The hatchet work that you do in the wooded area is a very backbreaking work. Do you have any personal experience with labor intensive work? What’s been the most back breaking work that you’ve done?
NC: I used to sell popcorn at the Fairfax Movie Theater in Los Angeles. That was my first job. I took the tickets as well and was also the usher in that movie theater. I was trying to figure out how I could get from selling the tickets to the screen, you know? I’d look and watch the movies and one guy, one day was smoking in the movie theater. My boss said, “You gotta tell him to put it out.” I went up to the guy and said, “I’m sorry sir but you’ve got to put your cigarette out.” He took one big puff and had some girl around him and he just blew all the smoke in my face. I quit. That was the most back breaking work I’ve ever done. My dad said, “Go back to the theater and get your job back!” So I had to beg the boss to give me my job back.
DGG: I’ve had a lot. Literally back breaking work. I had to insulate attics. I was a little guy so they’d always send me into the little cramped attics and rolling out the insulation or whatever we were putting in there. We’d be crawling around in small spaces and that was in North Carolina so it was pretty intense in the summertime. I also did a weird job where I worked at a door knob factory. I could only work 20 hours a week but they paid me real well to dump door knobs in acid when they would bronze these chrome door knobs. So it was just me in this HAZMAT suit dunking door knobs all day into big tubs. It really worked out the shoulder muscles.
For Nicolas, for every scene you show a lot of body language. Whenever you act in a scene do you act as if that was the last scene of your life?
NC: Well….um. Body language. Last scene of my life. I have this, believe it or not, this mantra before I start a movie where I want to really treat every film I’m making as though it were my last. Meaning that, no matter what the genre, I want to give it 100%. My all. Try to get close to whatever vision I had in my head for the part. I don’t know if that answers your question. Then body movement has always been important to me. My mother was a dancer. An experimental dancer. A modern dancer. So I take dance seriously. I’m not a dancer but the way I move in a character is important to me.
With movies that are based on books, filmmakers have to make certain cuts to the novel so that things can work as a film. If somebody were to make a movie about y’alls life, what kind of cuts do you think people would make?
NC: I don’t think I’d cut anything. I don’t think it’d all fit into one movie. Might have to be episodic.
DGG: That’s a good question. I like that one a lot.
I was interested in the films cutting, where you sometimes have another scene start visually while you’re still verbally left in the previous scene. It seems like you use that technique a lot.
DGG: I just get super excited to see what’s going on next. I work with this editor named Colin Patton. He was an assistant editor I had for a number of years on movies and I started to wonder, “What is he doing over there?” Looking through his eyes and seeing the strange way he would approach a narrative. When it came time to make Prince Avalanche, actually, we didn’t have any money to pay my big Hollywood editor so I said, “Hey Colin, do you want to come edit this movie for me?” He was like, “Sure, let’s do it.” What I love about Colin is that he just really brings a fresh innovative way of looking at a scene. Sometimes rhythmically he just finds a way to put voices from other scenes into previous scenes and intercut them in a way where it’s not like flashbacks or flash forwards. There’s nothing traditional about it. It just feels organic and feels correct. He comes from a visual arts background, not a technical filmmaking background and I really like his approach in that way.
It feels anticipatory.
DGG: Yeah, I like that. In a lot of ways I like to bring a little anxiety and plant a seed of discomfort while you’re trying to settle in. Just when you feel like you’ve got your groove it comes and tickles you in the butt.
This question is for Nic and Tye. I was wondering, in terms of your chemistry on screen which is a knockout, did you guys go through any bonding prior to the film in order to kind of get that on screen chemistry with one another?
NC: We just read through some scenes together with David and I knew right away that I could really care about that person.
TS: Yeah, you’re a pretty easy person to get along with.
I think the elephant in the room is of course the beard you’re sporting in this film. I’m serious. I think facial hair is an important thing in the way it changes the way your face looks. Can you talk to us about getting up in the morning and seeing that beard?
NC: The beard was really important to David. When you look at the book and you see Larry’s picture you’ll see why. Larry’s got a nice beard. I think there is a physical resemblance between the two of us. It’s interesting, I just finished working with Paul Schrader and the one thing he wanted to know was, “Is the facial hair real?” I said, “Yes it is. It absolutely is real.” I want that on record.
David, why was it important that he have a beard?
DGG: In looking to cast Joe, my first instinct when looking at the book way back was that this was Robert Mitchum. Whenever I read a book I’m thinking about the movie. I’ve been that way since I was a little kid. So I’m thinking about Robert Mitchum. Someone who really has this sense of wit and masculinity and dramatic ability and Nic is the only guy when I started thinking about the reality of putting this project together that carries those with gusto. That has the Oscars to prove it, that has the bad ass action movies to prove it, that has the hilarious comedies that I could quote to you all day to prove it. So I really wanted that complicated texture. Also, I wanted to being Larry out. I wanted to bring Larry out to the show and there was a resemblance. There is a resemblance if you look at images of Larry. When Nic grows the beard out there is a very vivid resemblance. When I started imagining that, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I talked to him about it, and he’s never sported it for a movie as far as I know.
NC: First time. I tried to, but you were the first director that said go ahead and wear a beard.
Going back to Nic and Tye, Nic I find one of the things that’s great about you as an actor is that you’ve always been really good with working with younger actors and with children. What do you find enjoyable about that experience and what was unique about working with Tye?
NC: Well Tye is just an exceptional talent. We know that and we’ve seen it time and again in his performances. I like to work with young people because young people haven’t had their dreams kicked out of them yet. They’re full of confidence and imagination and vision and when they score, that all get’s empowered. Tye was a great example of that. Yeah, I do prefer to work with younger people.
Related question in some ways, I was just at a festival with Matthew Modine and they screened Birdy and he had amazing things to say about you. I had not seen it since it was out and was just struck by how young and beautiful he looked in that movie. So I’m curious, connected to that question, how it feels having done so many roles as a young actor and now you’re one of the old guys on the set. Subjectively in your experience, what is that like?
NC: It’s a good question. It’s definitely different. Yeah, I was 19 when I did Birdy and Matthew was beautiful then. I never wanted to be the older actor that was giving advice. That, to me, is just so incredibly obnoxious. I just always wanted to be there and working together and finding it together. I never wanted to be the guy that said, “This is how you do it, son.”
Tye, you’ve worked with three Austin based directors with Terrence Malick, David, and Jeff Nichols. We’ve talked a little about what you’ve taken away from the actors you’ve worked with, but what about the directors? What did you take away from them that you’ve been able to apply to roles that you’ve done since.
TS: I think each one has a different style of working. Terrence Malick is super spontaneous, and David as well, but I think he’s a little bit more off book. You never know what you’re going to be shooting that day. Jeff Nichols is solemnly based off his script. You know the schedule three weeks before you shoot it. With David, you show up and you do the scene but then you might change it a couple ways, you never know. I love working with Texan filmmakers. I’ve worked with so many great, talented directors and I always try to take away one thing that I liked about what they do. I was just working a director, Rodrigo Garcia, and one thing I really loved that he did was he always got variations. I think that’s important because when you get into the editing room you never know what’s going to happen. I know a lot of directors do this and I think it’s a smart thing to do. One day, hopefully, I can take some of these and apply them to my movies when I start directing. So I’m very fortunate to have been able to work with the talented filmmakers that I have.
Tye, are you looking forward to any particular kind of role now. The roles you’ve had in these last three movies have been somewhat similar. Do you already have something else in mind?
TS: Sure, yeah. I would love to do a movie where I don’t have to wear dirt on my face and I’m allowed to shower. That’d be really great. Maybe an opportunity will arise soon.