)
CHRIS NEUMER: Now you have another one you can put on that list and me. The February 19th crew is going on. Long live Russ Nixon.
JEFF DANIELS: We’re well represented.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yes. I was excited to talk to you because there’s a press photo of you in The Squid and the Whale–a movie which I haven’t actually seen yet. The press photo is of you. You’ve got your beard and you’re sitting on a chair looking like the world has had its way with you. I actually cut it out of the newspaper and I tacked it to my bulletin board in my office. I thought, "Here’s a guy who is depressed and there’s energy coming out of it." I wasn’t sure how you did it. It struck me because I spoke to Josh Lucas for the cover story that you see there. He had said that the hardest thing for an actor to do was to play a boring character and have it not be boring for the audience. I remember there was a scene in Imaginary Heroes where you went trudging past a door and I wondered how the hell you made that interesting.
JEFF DANIELS: That’s nice, that’s nice.
CHRIS NEUMER: So I have to ask; how do you make that interesting?
JEFF DANIELS: I have no idea why it’s interesting. It’s that thing of once you do it and it’s in a movie, and it’s gone and it’s no longer yours and it’s completely how you perceive it as an audience. There’s no way for… I mean I don’t know what Josh actually said. Before they say "action", I never say, "How do I be bored and uninteresting and make it not boring. " I never think that way. It’s just actor stuff. What’s he thinking about and think it. You really simplify it. Squid and the Whale, which you really should see. It’s not like, "See my movies", but that’s one that’s …
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s one that is on the list to see.
JEFF DANIELS: Noah [Baumbach] did such a great job with that and it’s just the little movie that could. Anyway, you put thoughts in your head and you think them. Thoughts that are specific to the character.
CHRIS NEUMER: It seems like a very simple acting technique.
JEFF DANIELS: We make it far too complicated. We really do. You have to go through that as an actor where you do tons and tons of research only to realize that once you get there, it’s like memorizing lines, you have to forget them. Do all the work and then forget all of it. It’s still there, but now just simplify it down to whatever it is you are thinking at that moment. Hopefully everything else that you have done, all the research that you’ve done on the guy, the squid, whatever, all those books, all that writer … there’s a lot of osmosis. I really studied Noah’s real father, just his mannerisms and how he held himself. Sometimes it’s not does he blink a lot or how does he use his hands, but sometimes it’s just the way he sits. There was a sag to the way he was. Then you personalize it. As soon as possible you want to get rid of all those other people. You don’t want to put on a funny mustache and funny glasses and pretend. You want to kind of assimilate it so that it becomes you until you can’t tell the difference of whether you are depressed or he is depressed. Then they say "action".
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s a good state to be in.
JEFF DANIELS: Well in this case it was. Then there’s Dumb and Dumber.
CHRIS NEUMER: There is that.
JEFF DANIELS: You can dial it down to one… an IQ of 8.
CHRIS NEUMER: I wasn’t going to bring that up until later, but … I’m going to go back to my original question. I didn’t talk to actors for a while. I remember when I first started to, I felt sort of out of my element because I’m not an actor. I never studied acting. I don’t know how you guys do what you do; how you cry on cue, how you get depressed and you can express feeling the weight of the world as someone who isn’t feeling that. But when we talk about this, I realize there are so many different approaches to acting that you can take and they all hopefully end up at the same point.
JEFF DANIELS: The same point being not what we feel. That’s irrelevant. The same point being hoping that we make you feel a certain way, but we have no control over that either.
CHRIS NEUMER: I know you say once you have delivered the performance, that is it. It’s out of your hands.
JEFF DANIELS: I wasn’t the first to say it, but it’s no longer ours. It’s yours.
CHRIS NEUMER: Are there certain places in the process after it is out of your hands … I know this is where the term ‘trust’ with the director comes in, but where it tends to get screwed up more here or there? Or is it the type of thing where somebody is just cutting into pieces… cut, cut, cut that can ruin it? So, rephrasing, is there any place along the way where it tends to get sidetracked more after it is out of your hands?
JEFF DANIELS: Well, certainly the higher up in the studio system–meaning the more money attached to the film–the more people there are who are going to help. And with more help come more people who have the authority to make suggestions, throw out opinions, and then eventually just tell you to change it. Depending on the power of the director–and there are very few who have final cut approval–you battle, battle, battle, over certain sequences and then usually you have to change it. The less money attached to the film–like The Squid and the Whale which was shot for just over a million I think. If you were on the set with me, you’d see me and Laura Linney and Jessie and Owen and Noah Baumbach and some producers.
CHRIS NEUMER: That was something like twenty-three shooting days?
JEFF DANIELS: Twenty-three but it was Noah’s movie. He wrote it and he directed it. If there is a problem, how do we fix it? There’s no phone call to the coast. You don’t have to get clearance from anybody. That lessens the number of people who get involved. Is that a good thing? I think it is. It brings back that singular vision, right or wrong. Good or bad. I was watching a movie the other day. Even back in the ‘70s they put two or three screenwriters on them. Now there seem to be 10 to 15 producers on a television show or on a feature. 10 to 15. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, 8 to 12. Those are all people who are helping. Back in the ‘70s, Sidney Lumet went and did his movie. I’m sure there was a producer who was hearing it from the studio, but you weren’t outnumbered.
CHRIS NEUMER: Are you telling me that cinematic triumphs like Basic Instinct 2 don’t need 12 producers?
JEFF DANIELS: [laughs] I just don’t know what all these people do. I’m stumped. I don’t know what they all do. I see them on their cell phones or on the set a lot. I don’t talk to them. It’s me and the director. That’s the only person who I’ll deal with.
CHRIS NEUMER: How long did it take you to come to that realization?
JEFF DANIELS: The other thing too is that I’ve been really lucky to work with people who were auteurs. Woody [Allen], Jonathan Demme was running his own ship on Something Wild, Clint Eastwood on Blood Work. Only Clint is deciding what’s going to happen and what’s not going to happen. It’s a wonderful thing. There was Noah on Squid, Gary Ross on Pleasantville.
CHRIS NEUMER: Dan Harris?
JEFF DANIELS: Yeah, Danny. Danny had about $5 million and he was getting hell, but Danny’s a pretty strong kid. When I say kid, he was maybe twenty-three at the time, but he seems like he’s 40. He seems like he’s done 40 movies.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s like you have to average what he does versus how he looks.
JEFF DANIELS: Yeah, you can’t believe it. When I first met him, I’ve said this before, I turned to Sigourney [Weaver] and asked, "Has he graduated from high school?" On the set he was more sure of himself, knew what he wanted, knew what he had faster and more efficiently than a lot of more experienced directors whom I have worked with over the years. He’s the kind of guy where you look at him and think, "10 years from now he’s going to be still doing this and they are going to give him more money and I hope they’ll start to get out of his way." You asked…
CHRIS NEUMER: About not dealing with producers.
JEFF DANIELS: Well, or the studio, whatever or with television the network. It seems to me that when a singular vision is trusted, things usually work out better. Movies get less formulaic, less cut and pasted together. Now as an actor whether it’s a singular vision or it’s a studio, it doesn’t matter. I think Sigourney said this and I read it years before I worked with her. She said, "You have to understand as an actor the movie that you have in your head is not going to be the movie that you see. The sooner that you understand that, the better it will be for you." That’s not what they teach you in star school. In star school what they teach you is the movie you have in your head is the movie you are going to see. You are going to be in the editing room and you and your people are going to give three pages of notes (which usually mean more close-ups of you). I’ve been in that situation too; on the outside looking in. "Oh really. Is that how it’s done?" And the movie was less by the end of it.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve been doing this about ten years and when I started out I probably looked even younger than Dan. Fortunately I started losing my hair and it gave me some age to belie my youthful facial features. I’ve realized that if you are in film, it’s giving stuff up. It’s not compromise. It’s dealing with crap that’s there. In a perfect world you wouldn’t have to, but the nature of your job is if you have to deal with this.
JEFF DANIELS: When you are shooting.
CHRIS NEUMER: When you are shooting or when you are writing something, sort of cutting things versus not cutting things to make it safer or more palatable for the mass market …
JEFF DANIELS: Yeah, depending on what your goal is. On Squid Noah didn’t do that. There is a redemption scene for the father at the end of the movie that doesn’t exist, that was never written. He got a little pressure to write that. Make it a happier ending. He was going, "No, no." I never came to him and said, "You know it would be nice if I cried at the end after being such a [jerk]." It’s compromise. You are giving them options. In giving them options, whether it’s for a director like Clint or Danny Harris or whomever, you are covering your ass in the editing room because it’s all guess work. There’s very little if any rehearsal. Zero, so you are guessing. You’re good. Your resume tells you that you have made a lot of good choices over the years. As you read the script [prior to shooting] and work on it by yourself, you come in with some choices that you think it might be good. On the day the director tries, if he is a talented director, he tries this, he tries that. If it is a low budget you have 2 or 3, 4 versions maybe. It’s simple things; whether it’s a quicker pace, whether there are more pauses, whether you are angry or more sad, whether you laugh through it or you don’t laugh. You want to give the director different stuff, options. When you get into the editing room, you are not locked into one thing because you never told the director what you learned in star school: "My character would never do it that way." You don’t know that. You just don’t know that. I don’t care how much research you have done. If you are smart as an actor, you will have your character try to do it [different] ways because when the film hits the editing room, and you desperately need for the character to do it that way, you are going to be glad you shot something like that. By then, if the director doesn’t have it, it’s too late. I learned a long time ago to give directors the options. Don’t fight the director. Give him what he needs. "Do you want me to try this? Do you want me to try that? Okay." That way they have options. Editors love me for that. You don’t fight them. You don’t waste time doing it only one way, because we’re all guessing.
CHRIS NEUMER: You’re a professional.
JEFF DANIELS: Well… The point is that we’re all guessing. You know the director’s not going to cut it. We’re not going to be on me just because I have a big long speech. We’re going to cut back and forth. It takes a couple of movies to realize that, "We have that big speech. What do you mean he’s cutting away?" There’s a story to be told that you are not focused on but that he or she is.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s sort of like being the good point guard; you’re at your best when you try to make your teammates better.
JEFF DANIELS: Right. [shrugs] Then you get to act with actors who are able to ping-pong back and forth. With the really good actors it really is back and forth; it’s not just me, me, me.
CHRIS NEUMER: Robert Altman said something to me and it’s a fairly long story. I’ll give you the short version. He was working with Warren Beatty on a project whose name I can’t remember offhand.
JEFF DANIELS: McCabe and Mrs. Miller?
CHRIS NEUMER: It could have been that. He said Warren came up to him and asked, "When are we doing my close-up?" Altman was like, "We’re done."
JEFF DANIELS: [laughs]
CHRIS NEUMER: There’s no way you can know this as an actor. If you’re Channing Tatum, you’re not going to learn that until you’ve been there and experienced it. Once you’ve experienced it, you probably think, "How the hell didn’t I know this?"
JEFF DANIELS: What helped me a lot was writing, directing and starring in the two independent films, Escanaba in Moonlight and Super Sucker. Normally, when we wrap the shooting of it, as an actor, you know that there is going to be more work to be done, but you fly home and you are done. They’re going to call you in six months for looping and then you go to a premiere. As the writer/director, you take a couple of days off and then you are into editing. The editing room is where you realize just what the actor is there to do. [laughs] Because I am the one carrying this thing all the way through!
CHRIS NEUMER: You as writer/director?
JEFF DANIELS: Yeah. Then there’s the sound and the music, there’s final mix. All of that stuff has to be done, but you realize that, during shooting, we are just collecting raw footage. Give me options. Please give me some options. And sometimes it’s like, "That’s exactly what I need. I know that’s it. We’re fine." Directing taught me a lot as an actor. I knew what the director was going through and I knew where he or she was headed and how can I help.
CHRIS NEUMER: I find that fascinating. Most of the time I go through … I write questions down. This is my question book. We haven’t even gotten to any of these. This has been fascinating. What I am saying is that so far the conversational abilities that you have put forth have been supremely above average. I tip my hat to you.
JEFF DANIELS: [laughs] I strive for supremely above average.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, getting good information from certain people is like pulling teeth.
JEFF DANIELS: I’m too old for that. What do you want to know?
