[IMG:L]With all the dog talk in the news these days, this indeed could be the Year of the Dog. Of course, in writer/director Mike White’s version, dogs are adored pets, revered by their owners and deeply mourned when they pass away.
White is best known for penning balls-out comedies such as School of Rock and Orange County but also shows a keen eye for human relationships with films such as The Good Girl and now Year of the Dog, which comes out on DVD Aug. 28. White takes the helm for the first time with Dog, in which Molly Shannon plays a woman who–after tragically losing her beloved dog—is forced on a journey to find herself.
[Read our Interview with Year of the Dog‘s Molly Shannon]
Hollywood.com: Why dogs? Was there something particular that inspired you to make this movie?
Mike White: It was definitely a personal story for me. I wasn’t really an animal person for most of my adult life, but I inherited this stray cat when I moved into this house. It lived in the back. When the cat died a few years later, after I’d become buddies with it, I was just completely wrecked by it in a way that I was NOT expecting. I was wondering the streets of L.A. with my face bloated, teary-eyed. And people were asking me what’s wrong. “Well, this stray cat behind my house died…” To see their looks. Some people get it and some people don’t. I just thought it’d be interesting to write about a relationship that might seem minor but in certain situations, is MAJOR.
HW: Although there’s definitely dog and cat lovers, I think dogs hold a closer bond with their owners.
MW: You sound like you must be a dog person.
HW: No, actually, I’m a cat lover.
MW: Really? Yeah, when this cat died, it had such a big personality that I didn’t think I could ever replace that cat. That cat was so cool. But what you’re saying is true. One of the reasons I switched to dogs in the movie is it’s much easier–at least from a film point of view—to show that winning-ness, the adorable-ness [of a dog] and the connection between a person and a dog than a person and a cat. [Cats] don’t make themselves available in that way.
HW: What kind of reaction have you gotten from those dog fanatics?
MW: I think some dog fanatics should be aware that there’s some really sad stuff in the movie. Some people who’ve gone in that are big dog fans are, like, it’s a story about a dog, love the dog but then the dog dies. And they’re like [sobbing noises]. There were some people who had to be helped out of the theater. And I think that’s people who really love animals. It definitely pulls at your heart strings.
HW: Molly Shannon was a brilliant piece of casting. Who knew she could play something like this?
MW: Yeah, I got to do a TV show with her and got to know her personally. How versatile she was as an actress as well as a comedienne. I thought it would be fun to give her the opportunity to show people what she can do.
[Read our Interview with Year of the Dog‘s Molly Shannon]
HW: Did she find it difficult to tone it down?
MW: Because she comes from live television and sketch comedy, she’s willing to go to 10 in every moment. With her, it was trying to get her to start at one and then go to 10. Play it low at first but then as the story becomes more out of hand, she could get more spun out and do the stuff I really knew she could do.
HW: You seem to be attracted to down-trodden heroines. Jennifer Aniston had to weigh herself down to play the lead in The Good Girl, too.
MW: The truth is, there’s so few movies who have female protagonists, let alone comedies. And you meet these people in the business and it’s like, god, someone like Molly is just so skilled and yet she has so few opportunities to show the kind of range she has. Then suddenly I knew I needed to walk the walk instead of just talk the talk. To write something and give some of these women the opportunity to show what they can do.
HW: Are you a stickler to keeping to the script or, especially in working with such good improvisers, do you let the actors fly by the seat of their pants sometimes in a scene?
MW: I wish I was more spontaneous that way. I’ve worked with Freaks and Geeks and Judd Apatow. He has a philosophy of using a lot of improvisation, and that’s just not me. I mean, [with Year of the Dog], it was such a small budget, we just didn’t have the ability to do it 15 different ways. Also, for me, you want to have sense of authorial intent or trying to get at something. I definitely want the actors to feel like they can make it their own, but at the same time, I’m not big on improvisation.
[IMG:R]HW: But you’re writing is so spot-on, the actors probably don’t want to change it.
MW: You hope, you hope. I did work with actors on this that I had either worked with before or kind of had a sense of who they were. So there wasn’t a lot of struggle as far as working with them.
HW: What made you finally decide to get behind the camera?
MW: It was a long time coming. At some point, like you’re driving yourself crazy, the worst backseat driver of all time. And this was a movie I could do on a small scale and try to take chances both with the style of the movie and the content. I just felt like I’d rather make my own mistakes rather than watch someone else make their own mistakes with my material.
HW: Was that one of the reasons then? As a writer, you’d seen your work done but maybe not the way you wanted it done?
MW: Actually, it’s just the opposite. I think the reason why it took me so long to direct because I had such a good run of working with directors who really wanted my input and were really respectful of the script. They were fun to collaborate with. I really liked that relationship with the director. But Year of the Dog was so tonally specific, it would have been more difficult to explain every little bit of it to somebody so they could go explain it to the actors. I thought I should take out the middle man on this one and do it yourself.
HW: You also finally had some clout, too.
MW: Yeah, I made some money for people as a writer and when you do that enough, they’ll take a chance on you.
HW: What was the experience like?
MW: It was fun! The truth is I’m not somebody who says, “I GOTTA direct!” I can’t control what happens when the movie comes out or successful it’s going to be or how well received. Especially a movie that’s kind of out of the box, has an odd point of view. So I just really wanted to have a good time, to look back on the experience and say, “That was fun, I’m happy I did that”….
HW: And I never want to do it again.
MW: No, I’d like to do it again but once you have such a really great experience like this one, in which you don’t have a lot of interference and it isn’t that stressful, working with people that you really like, you just kind of don’t want to do it any other way. For me to do it again, it would have to be the right sort of circumstances.
HW: What did you learn?
MW: The depth of the commitment. You’re just jumping into the deep end of the pool when you’re directing. And you’re submerged in this movie for as long as it takes. There’s a billion decisions, so you just have to be really passionate about it. You have to decide every little thing, from where to put the cameras to what earrings [the actress is] going to wear to post production elements. The color correcting, parts that are seemingly tedious. All of those things. You can’t delegate all of that. And now I’m on the tail end of the experience, it’s gonna take a special kind of thing to make me want to jump back and do it again.
[IMG:L]HW: How do you feel about the way comedies are going through the roof these days?
MW: Any time a character comedy does well, it’s good for me. There’s so many movies that are CGI, sequels, superheroes, movies I have no interest in writing. So when a movie comes along that’s just about people and relationships and it’s a big success, it’s makes it easier for me to get my stuff through.
HW: Any plans to work with Judd Apatow again?
MW: I’m a fan of what Judd does and we certainly pick each other’s brains occasionally. As much as we have comedy in common, we have different sensibilities, too. And as time goes on, you become more specific to what you want to do.
HW: What are some of the DVD’s bonus features that are cool? Did you have fun doing the commentary?
MW: It’s fun to include those scenes that almost made it into the movie but for whatever reason are cut. It’s nice to have them preserved somewhere. It was also fun to get together with Molly and talk about the movie. I just wished I could have done the commentary a few months later as opposed to right in the middle of when the movie’s coming out. You don’t really have as much of a perspective on it.
HW: What’s coming up next? I read something about a movie, Them, a collaboration with Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright?
MW: Yeah, we just turned it into the studio and it was super fun collaborating with him. Such a crazy idea, who knows what the studio will say. It’s a paranoid conspiracy comedy about secret rulers of the world.
