Joel Edgerton has spent a lot of time around incredible
directors. Not only is he good friends with David Michod (“Animal Kingdom”) and
Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”), but he’s worked with Kathryn Bigelow (“Zero Dark
Thirty”), Ridley Scott (“Exodus: Gods and Kings”), Baz Luhrmann (“The Great
Gatsby”), and many more, absorbing the lessons he learned on set to inform his
directorial debut, “The Gift,” opening this weekend. (He’ll also appear in
upcoming, highly anticipated films “Black Mass” and “Midnight Special”).
Written and directed by Edgerton, “The Gift” stars Jason Bateman and Rebecca
Hall as Simon and Robyn, a nice couple moving back to his hometown for a fresh
start. Shortly after buying a beautiful new home, they run into Gordo
(Edgerton), an old classmate of Simon’s. At first, Gordo seems like a dangerous
third party, the kind of mentally deranged loner that we’ve become accustomed
to in cinema, but there’s more to “The Gift” than meets the eye.
Edgerton recently sat down with us in Chicago for a lively
conversation about audience expectations, socially resonant cinema, the edge of
Jason Bateman, and the best advice he’s received from his director friends.
Jason Blum, who
produced this movie, and I were talking a few years ago about the changing ways
people see movies. Are you on board with the “however you can see it, see it”
mentality of VOD, streaming, etc.?
Look, I used to be very much “Everything Has to Be Shot on
Film” and “Everyone Has to Go to the Cinema,” but I recall a friend talking
about how sad it was that they had to close the drive-in cinema and I remember
as a kid going, “Who cares?” It’s really about the majority. Yes, I still would
say to you that I would prefer to shoot a movie on film and I would prefer you
to see the movie in the cinema. Preference is one thing. The way things
actually operate is different. It’s more the case that I haven’t gone “I prefer
you to watch it on an iPhone,” but I’m more OK with that. I’m more OK with the
idea of a movie being day and date on Netflix.
I made a movie in Australia not too long ago called “Felony”
and it was set in a particular area, and the people who lived in the area in
which it was set were writing to us on Facebook going, “We have to drive more
than half an hour to see the movie in the cinema.” Give it them on Netflix.
Give it to them on Hulu. HBO. Amazon. Whatever it is, let them watch the movie
however they need to watch it. Just make sure they watch the movie.
There is an argument
that streaming services allow for a more diverse array of films to get to a
wider audience. Look at the documentaries on Netflix or the Criterion
Collection on Hulu.
Yeah. Look at what movies get made these days. Our movie’s
original. That’s rare. It’s not a prequel or sequel or book. The majority of movies
that get made by a studio nowadays are big tentpole movies. Or you got these
smaller independent things. But there’s not much middle ground. My buddy David
Michod is about to launch into this project with Brad Pitt called “War Machine,”
which is more of a middle budget thing, but it’s going day and date with the
cinema and Netflix. It’s the first time, I think. Anyway, look, you want to
make movies and you want to tell stories and get them out there however you
can.
Something like this
you note is not a tentpole but it’s surrounded by them in the first week of
August. How do you compete? What are your expectations?
They call it counter-programming. I call it “Everybody Fend
For Yourself.” (Laughs.) You go in there with a small movie and duke it out
with the big ones. It doesn’t mean at the end of the day that you expect to
come away with #1 at the box office. You need to cover your own niche. I don’t
know if there’s ever a good day to release a movie like this. We make what we
make. I always figure that I’ll make the movie and then be less involved with
marketing because there’s people whose job it is and are expert at doing that.
They feel like it’s a good time to release the movie. I think that there are
enough interesting things about the movie on a marketing level to entice people
to come see it.
I was struck by the
difficulty, without spoiling, of having two central characters with whom
audience loyalty is tricky. We’re not sure who to trust, who to believe, who to
like, other than Rebecca Hall. How delicately do you balance the “good guy, bad
guy” aspect of your male leads and was keeping that gray a concern for you?
I wanted to invite people into a familiar genre. By that I
mean, “Fatal Attraction,” “Cape Fear,” “Single White Female”—that kind of a
world. The typical well-meaning couple besieged by the third freak. Even when
you look at a movie like “Fatal Attraction,” Michael Douglas’ character is very
gray. The whole thing kicks off because of his grayness in having an affair.
What I wanted to do was say, “Welcome to this movie that’s familiar. It’s a
nice couple. Fresh start. Here comes this guy.” Once that was set-up and we
established the constant visitation by the awkward acquaintance from high
school, I wanted to bend the rules a bit and take it into new territory. What
would it be like if that bad guy sort of vanished; sort of left them alone, but
didn’t really? The tension exists in changing the familiarity of the genre. You
take the dog away from the couple—he’s stolen the dog. What’s going to happen?
Of course, the dog is going to end up in five pieces. But then you do the
opposite. You constantly jostle around. What I wanted to do was swap the roles
of the villain of the hero. As much as the film is about the bad things you’ve
done in your past and what if they came back to haunt you, it’s also about who
are the people we’re living with that we think we know.
That’s difficult in thriller
form. Was there ever pressure to “cut the dog up into five pieces”? You bring
up “Fatal Attraction,” which was notoriously altered to give it a bigger
ending. Did you feel pressure to give it more traditional thriller elements?
No, strangely enough. There would have been a very easy way
to turn this into a straight thriller. But I feel like the whole point of even
wanting to make a movie was that my promise to everyone was to make a movie
that had one foot in the genre world, but there’s another foot in something
else. I want to say something as well. I want to say something about the nature
of people and whether they change or don’t change. The nature of the roles we
played in high school, and at what age we’re culpable for what we do and say.
The power of words and ideas and how they affect other people’s lives. And all
sort of wrapped up in this parcel of a genre movie. I wanted it to be
suspenseful and scary, but I wanted the monster to be something that could be
in any one of our lives.
It reminded me of ‘70s
thrillers, which more often very clearly had social subtext. Were there
specific cinematic influences from that era?
Definitely. “The Shining” was big for me. “Rosemary’s Baby”
was a big influence. In fact, there are little mini-homages to both of those
movies in the film. Michael Haneke was a big touchstone for me, particularly “Cache.”
The villain in the shadows was very significant.
And how the idea of
something can tear people apart.
Yeah. And “Cache”—when the idea is out there in the mist,
the relationship falls into itself. A lot of stuff. The triangle thrillers like
“Pacific Heights”—some of those films are really dated but the ideas never date.
I didn’t want to just make a triangle thriller that was reduced into Psychopath
vs. Lovely Couple. I figured it could be more than that. I’m really happy that
you mentioned films that had a social context and resonance. There’s something a
little bit more to take away than a bag of scares. The reduction of that kind
of a movie is fine, but I’d rather not take my time making it because someone
could do it better than me.
There’s tension
produced by knowledgeable audience expectation. We expect the plot to go a
certain direction, so the tension exists because of the films that came before
it.
This is EXACTLY what my plan was. Take the dog away and go
isn’t it more confusing if the dog comes back?
Casting is essential
for a project like this. Jason has an everyman quality but also a very
believable dark side, and Rebecca is always great. How did you find both of
them and how do they make the project different?
Rebecca was kind of the obvious choice. She’s the center.
She’s the one with no hidden corners. She’s open, honest, straightforward. I
was looking for that, plus someone I could believe when she says she wasn’t
such an outgoing person in school. School wasn’t an easy ride for her. She wasn’t
gifted everything. There’s a certain beautiful awkwardness and honesty. It was
a real coup. Jason was a more out of the box choice because the obvious choice
is more of a typical jock 20 years later. Jason was someone who I believed got
by on his wits more, which can often be a more viper-tongued, vicious human
being. That version of the character was really interesting to me.
Jason came into my head as someone—I had seen him play parts
in “Disconnect” and his dramatic stuff in “The Kingdom” and “State of Play.” I
was like that guy is just good. A lot of comic actors inevitably prove it to
the world when they take a dramatic turn. Steve Carell. Jim Carrey. Comic
actors are better than drama more than dramatic actors are ever going to be
suddenly funny.
It’s the old axiom
that comedy is harder than drama.
It is. So I knew he was capable of it and I got excited that
if I could get him to do that for a whole movie, I would almost be doing
something new with him. And he was very excited about taking a walk in that
arena. There’s an element to his comedy that is very interesting because he can
pull off the straight man but still get laughs. He has this ability to be the
smartest guy in the room.
And that makes you
want to listen to him, which is essential to this part.
Jason and I had many conversations about levels of deceit.
When is the lie changing? Super-intelligent guy. And, on a side note, having
been in the director’s chair twice now, he was an excellent producing partner.
Do you go with anyone
else you worked with and are friends with for directorial advice?
Yeah. Definitely.
How do the directors
that you know help you make your directorial debut?
Just by being in their presence. I said to someone recently—most
directors won’t ever get to watch another director direct. They might visit the
set once or twice. I’ve been on the set for the duration and watched Jeff
Nichols make a movie, watched Scott Cooper make a movie, watched Ridley Scott
make a movie, watched Gavin O’Connor make two movies. That is an incredible
privilege if you care to open your eyes and ears to what’s going on. You learn
the good parts and the bad parts. You start filling your bag with good and bad
ideas. As friends, you can call them up and ask for advice. Someone told me you
should wear a comfortable pair of shoes. You should change your shoes at
lunchtime. That was great advice! Take your feet on a holiday. (Laughs). From
Ridley, I learned how to make real clear decisions, which you can only do if
you’re incredibly well-prepared. Know what your own strengths are. I loved
Scott Cooper because he really trusts actors and he lets them play. I’ve had
the privilege of having many discussions about directing. I’m in a privileged
seat as an actor to learn so much about directing. I know that in my future
that I’d like to be directing more movies and so my only concern was was I
going to enjoy it or not? I felt like I could do an OK job of it, but would I
be good at it? And could I really love it? And then I’ll do it again.
I did love it for sure.
