Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I have a few GET LOW interviews for you. Coming up will be Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek, but first let’s get my chat with producer Dean Zanuck (son of JAWS producer Richard Zanuck… something I don’t let slip by without notice, of course) and director Aaron Schneider. GET LOW is a seriously great little movie that had a lot of success at film festivals and opened to some surprisingly good limited release numbers this past weekend. If you’re the type to complain about the paint-by-numbers dreck the studio system turns out every summer then you owe it to yourself to support this little flick, the antithesis of the noisy summer blockbuster. Driven on tone and character, GET LOW is about a grumpy old hermit (Duvall) who decides to throw himself a funeral party so he can gather everyone together and hear their stories… and tell some of his own. Bill Murray is a sleazy funeral parlor owner, Lucas Black his young, innocent assistant and Spacek is an old flame of Duvall’s. I loved the flick and I think you would, too. This interview was fun… imagine, if you will, us sitting outside having this fine little palaver as Bill Murray wanders around chasing grackles. That seriously was what was going on during this interview. At one point, Murray did interrupt and ask us if we were okay. I told him that we were doing great, but wondered if he could protect us from the birds. He responded, “Could I?!?” and kept on his bird stalking. Sometimes it’s the little things that make life enjoyable, no? Enjoy the chat!
Quint: Jaws is my favorite movie of all time.
Dean Zanuck: Yeah, mine too. (laughs)Quint: Did you get to go out there?
Dean Zanuck: We were on Martha’s Vineyard, but I was what, a one or two year old, so I don’t remember much.
Quint: Don’t have any recurring nightmares about sharks?
Dean Zanuck: No, just memories of sitting around the dinner table with my dad and David Brown had just passed… it’s a blur.
Quint: Well, I’ve got to congratulate you guys on the movie. I got to see it last week finally after hearing such good things about it and I really dug it. It’s the kind of movie we don’t get to see anymore. That’s what I loved about it; it felt like something that could have been pulled out of the ‘70s.
Aaron Schneider: Did you see it on the big screen?
Quint: I did.
Aaron Schneider: Good.
Quint: It’s a good big screen movie.
Dean Zanuck: Thank you. For Aaron and I, it’s been a long time coming, but well worth the wait. For me, this is eight or nine years and Aaron five or six years perhaps and we are just thrilled that people are responding to it well and we have had the good fortune of showing it in Toronto and that’s where we sold it to Classics and San Sebastian… Torino where Bob [Duvall] and Bill [Murray] won the Best Actor awards and at this cinematographer’s festival in Poland and Bill showed up and it’s great to see the support that they have shown for this film as well. It’s really just been a wonderful experience for us.
Quint: The movie looks like a million bucks. It’s such a beautiful looking film, from production design, cinematography…
Aaron Schneider: Thank you.
Quint: Sometimes you can see a period movie that looks beautiful, but it just feels fake. Do you know what I mean where you are like “Oh my God, that’s an amazing recreation,” but you are sitting there in the audience thinking that and I found in this movie I was sitting there in the world. I didn’t go “It’s great that they got that old car.”
Aaron Schneider: It’s funny you mention that, because I remember when I was getting ready to shoot my short film, which was a period movie and I went to see THE ALAMO and I was all excited to see it because I was going to see a period movie getting ready to make one of my own. I remember going to see THE ALAMO and panicking, because as I watched it, I’m like “That’s people in wardrobe. That’s a set.” I started panicking, because I didn’t know why it felt wrong.
Quint: Yeah and if you didn’t know why, then maybe that’s going to be what happened to you.
Aaron Schneider: Exactly. So yeah, it’s nice to hear you say that because everybody worked very hard to give it an authentic look.
Dean Zanuck: We had to stretch our limited resources in every which way, but we had a real kick-ass crew, a bunch of Academy nominate players who gravitated to this project and made big sacrifices and took deep cuts and we just sort of bull rushed this 24 day schedule.
Quint: Which is incredible, because the movie doesn’t feel slow, but it has a very deliberate pace to it. It’s entertaining, but it’s also poetic and it doesn’t feel at all rushed. I can’t imagine how you guys shot it in 24 days.
Dean Zanuck: Yeah, I don’t either. At a time we were actually talking about 20 days. Remember those conversations?
Aaron Schneider: I do. Bill didn’t believe me, but we stayed to it.
Dean Zanuck: It was a 23-day schedule. A freak Atlanta snowstorm in March pushed it to 24 days, but you can get a lot done when you’ve got people that are invested.
Aaron Schneider: Yeah, everybody worked really hard.
Quint: I’ve got to imagine coming from the cinematography background that there was also a lot on your shoulders. You can’t come from that background then have a mediocre looking movie. It’s like the effects guys that go up to direct; they can’t suddenly have shitty effects on their movies. I have to imagine that there must have been some pressure there.
Aaron Schneider: Well, I did a lot of television as a cinematographer, which has a very established pace, five pages a day and a certain amount of resources and as a cinematographer wanting to do something unique in television, which is not easy to do, the job’s always “How do I make it look like a feature film on a television budget and schedule?” So that was the plan, to pull from all of those tricks.
Quint: And it worked. It’s a beautiful movie.
Aaron Schneider: Thank you.
Quint: We need to talk a little bit about how you cast it, because putting Bill in that role is inspired, actually. There’s a lot in that part, you have the snake oil salesman, you have a little conman, you’ve got the show man, you got almost the mentor relationship with Lucas Black’s character, but he also got this kind of a yellow streak. Bill is so talented at both drama and comedy, but I imagine for most people he wouldn’t have been the first go to thought for the character.
Aaron Schneider: I was saying earlier, he was always someone we fantasized…
Dean Zanuck: He was on the list, but then there’s such an elusivity about him… to even find him… “Is he even working any more?”
Aaron Schneider: We were having so much trouble finding money, we thought “Bill Murray, that’s a challenge that we don’t need right now.” He just seems like someone nobody ever gets. He’s just so hard to reach.
Dean Zanuck: After experiencing it though, you are right, it looks like a very inspired decision, but I think it was a stroke of a lot of luck and serendipity and a great script and the fact that Bobby was involved and Sissy [Spacek] was involved and the timing… We could work around his Pebble Beach golf tournament (laughs). But it was a strange process. I think that’s how he likes it. (laughs)
Quint: So, how did Robert Duvall get involved then?
Dean Zanuck: I got the script I think in 2001 or 2002 and he was… You don’t really have to think that hard to see Bobby in that role, so I got in touch with his people and he became a fan of the project, but we were at such a nascent stage of practically making this. We had a good script and a good idea and a lot of people saying, “You can’t make this movie. Nobody is making these kind of movies. There’s no foreign value. These are old people. This is a period. This is Americana.” They acknowledged it was a good script, but Bobby hung in there and I’d have to make up a new story as to why we weren’t getting this made. He would say “Jesus, can’t his dad just give him the money?” (laughs) “What’s this kid doing?”
Then Aaron came onboard and Bobby was just like… that was a no-brainer for him. I don’t think you had any qualms to hear that he was interested and then we both decided Sissy was… They had never worked together and we thought she would be ideal. We kind have had ideas for the Quinn role, but like he said we were just trying to scrape up a few bucks to make this movie. We couldn’t think too far out, but we really lucked out. You feel grateful if you work with one of these guys in your career, but to have that hat trick all in one, it’s nice.
Quint: And they play so well off of each other. There’s an interesting dynamic in the movie, because the movie is kind of about two different love triangles. You Sissy’s character, and Felix’s dead girlfriend still very much competing for his affection. Then on the other side I love the touches of Murray’s character obviously having feelings for Sissy.
Aaron Schneider: [To Zanuck] It’s so cool that he got that! You are the first person who… There was a little bit more of that that we shot that didn’t make it in and I had always hoped that there was enough residue for people to…
Quint: Bill totally. There’s a scene where I think he asks her to dinner. Is that a scene that’s in the movie?
Aaron Schneider: To walk her home.
Quint: To walk her home. She denies him and you can see it in his eyes, there’s this sadness in his performance.
Dean Zanuck: You got it.
Aaron Schneider: “I don’t mean to be nosey, but how do you know Mattie?” How does she know him? He’s sort of protective… a little jealous…
Quint: Then he’s also wanting the hermit money, so he’s not chasing him away either. It’s an interesting dynamic, but I just love that character. I think he brings such a lightness to the movie, but not in a cheap way. He’s a very complex guy and that’s what I like about it.
Aaron Schneider: Yeah, he did a great job riding the line between levity and drama. I’m really proud of his performance.
Dean Zanuck: I think he is, too. I think the fact that he’s… He doesn’t get out much to support these films and like I said he was in Poland with us. He was at Toronto and Sundance on crutches…
Aaron Schneider: He’s really been a trooper with helping us promote the film.
Dean Zanuck: And he wants to do more and I think it’s wonderful and we are going to do everything we can for him.
Quint: So what’s next for you guys? What are you moving onto after you finally birth this baby into theaters?
Dean Zanuck: Yeah, this has been a long labor. You know, I’ve got some studio projects and then I’ve got some indie projects. My next one will probably be this indie project called THE VOICE FROM THE STONE, which Hideo Nakata is going to direct.
Aaron Schneider: Who?
Dean Zanuck: Hideo Nakata. He’s a Japanese director. He directed THE RING, the Japanese version that moved over here. It’s kind of THE OTHERS, REBECCA, and WHAT LIES BENEATH. It’s not this kind of horror and that’s coming together pretty nicely.
Quint: He’s good with atmosphere.
Dean Zanuck: Yeah, so that’s that and you have to put in time. With indies I find you must be single minded in purpose. If you’ve got your hands in too many things, it’ll never happen. You really have to just drive these projects every day to get people to pay attention and you are walking a fine line.
It’s Bill Murray in a way because you are cowboying it, you are tying to hold it together… you don’t really have the money or you don’t really have the cast, but each side has to think you do and in this case it really sowed up very nicely at the end, but it’s pretty rough and tumble out there right now.
Aaron Schneider: Especially with private equity.
Quint: What about you, Aaron? Do you have anything coming up?
Aaron Schneider: Yeah, I’ve been kind of like a reading machine. My reps are kind of helping me search. I have a couple of projects that I’m attached to and out to some casts to see what we can put together, you know all the usual stuff that has to happen before a movie gets made.
Quint: And GET LOW 2, obviously.
Aaron Schneider: Yep, GOT LOWER!
Dean Zanuck: No, GET HIGH, that’s the sequel.
Aaron Schneider: He comes back as a ghost and haunts Bill Murray.
Quint: I think there might be a market for that, actually.
Dean Zanuck: So it’s coming out in July. July 30th and Sony’s got a nice plan for it.
Quint: If they are smart, they are going to push it for award at the end.
Dean Zanuck: They are nurturing it along. If the reaction we have had all over the world is any indication, it’s a crowd pleaser, you know? It’s not too dark. It’s not too light. It’s original.
Quint: You have to be able to entertain at the same time or else people aren’t going to be tuned in for the emotional punch.
Dean Zanuck: They know and the sort of obvious performance push for Bobby and I think Bill…
Quint: And Sissy. She destroys me in the movie. I think she is incredible at the end. His character asks so much of her and just the fact that she’s able to have that moment with him a the end of the movie.
Dean Zanuck: Yeah, that was… When Charlie [Mitchell] wrote that line “I wonder if her hair would be white,” we knew it was going to be a killer scene with Bobby and Sissy right there. The fact that it’s still going on and he’s gotten the story out and Sissy’s having to deal with all of this information she never knew. It was just really touching.
Quint: Alright well I think that’s about all I’ve got.
Aaron Schneider: Thanks for your time.
Check back later tonight and tomorrow for my chats with stars Robert Duvall and a two for one with Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek together! Very cool chats if I don’t say so myself… also personal geek high watermarks to have the opportunity to talk to those legends. See you folks then!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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