(funky music)
- Hi, this is Marya Gullo from the Hollywood Reporter
and I'm in In Studio today with Jay Duplass.
- Yes.
- Hi, Jay.
- Hi, Marya.
- How are you?
- I'm fantastic, how are you?
- I'm good, I have about 3 million projects
to talk to you about that you're
currently working on. - Sounds great.
- Oh, I thought that you were working on.
- Oh yes, I'm pitching to you actually.
- You were talking about me?
Okay cool, all right, number one.
- I wanted to talk about Outside In.
- That'd be great.
- Yeah okay, this is you're first
feature film that you're starring in?
- Yeah, kind of, sure, we could say that.
Yeah, the first one that's gonna be
released in movie theaters.
And that stars Edie Falco, and me.
That's kinda cool. - Yes, the amazing Edie Falco.
- The amazing, I was gonna say amazeballs, can I say it?
- Yeah, you can say it.
- Okay, amazeballs!
- What's it like working with her?
- Well, she's not that experienced,
so I had to kinda like drag her along with me
a little bit she's a little tough.
No, she's a genius, and actually I was very surprised
that she works really similarly
to the way that I like to most,
which is I don't like to rehearse,
I don't like to talk about things a lot beforehand,
I like to just do a first take, see how it goes
and Lynn works that way too,
who directed the film, Lynn Shelton
and it was like a really simpatico, positive,
fun, exploratory relationship.
We did tons of different kinds of takes,
but I kinda knew a little bit about her
'cause I had been in a movie called Landline with her
and I was like; oh, she's not only a genius,
brilliant actor she is very chill, very cool,
really nice to be around, and all she really
cares about is doing good work.
- And is that really important for you
to have a set that has a lot of people
who are in that zone?
- Yes, because there is barely any money,
so they have to want it and wanna be there.
And I think, I don't know, I mean,
I've just had the experience of
when you make movies for a small price
everyone that's there really wants to be there
because you're not making the money,
and so it's a different kind of currency
where people really believe in the story that you're telling
and the people who are making it,
and it makes it like a family
and makes it way more fun.
- Lynn Shelton wrote this role for you?
- Yes.
- Is this happening a lot?
I mean, you're kind of new to being an actor,
putting yourself in front of the camera.
- It's happening a lot.
All you people out there just,
there's a lot of writing of roles for me
and I think you should get on board.
It's gonna be a tight competition, but do it
because it's the only way it's gonna work.
- He's taking all offers.
- No, no, I think it's rare for anyone
that a really accomplished and amazing director
calls you up and says; I wanna make a movie around you
and I want it to be this.
I was very touched and honored and excited to do it.
- And you play a character who gets out of jail
after being in prison for 20 years.
- Yeah.
- So he has a certain amount of naivety to him.
- Yes, yeah, well he went in at 18 and Edie plays
his high school teacher who educates him,
advocates for him, and then they sort of fall in love.
And when he comes out of prison he pursues her
somewhat relentlessly, but she's married.
- And awkwardly.
- And awkwardly, yes, he had no skills.
He's essentially an 18 year old in terms of
how he deals with society.
There's some interesting stuff about it.
I did a ton of research on people who
in particular went into prison before the technology
explosion of smart phones and the internet
and come out after, it's really hard enough
to reintegrate into a society that doesn't really
wanna rehabilitate you or reintegrate you.
But to add that technology component
where literally everyone's on a phone.
The way guys describe it, everyone seems like
they're in the CIA 'cause it's headphones
and everyone's looking in here.
So it really doubles down on the difficulty
of transitioning back to society
and we explore that quite a bit.
And it's a little bit funny, a little funny, yeah.
- It seems like a lot of people would like
to go back to a time before the internet,
but this is really kind of exploring
the fact that that would be not so fun.
It's not fun to move into life
without any technological advances when other people have.
- Yeah, it reveals how he has a really tough time
reintegrating into society, but it was fun for us
because as filmmakers in terms of communication,
he has a crappy flip phone that he kind of doesn't
know how to use and has no idea about texting.
- And he's calling people and it's surprising them.
- He's calling people on the phone
and they're not cool with it, man.
- Or even showing up at their houses.
- How dare you call me, he shows up at their houses
and he rides a BMX bike around town
because that was his last mode
of transportation that he had, so it's kind of fun
in a filmmaking way where it was almost like
a lot of the time we were making a 90s movie.
There was no use of smart phones or anything like that
because they didn't really apply to him.
- Do you think being a new actor you can kind of
transition into a role of somebody who is naive
at a more, I don't know how to say this.
- What are you saying, what exactly are you saying?
I am a 1,0000% versatile actor, I can do anything.
No, I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm just making it up as I go.
To be honest, I was nervous
about portraying someone so far from me.
Most of the roles that I've played
have been very in line with who I am
or in the realm, or just people that I know.
But I had to dig really deep and befriend people
who had gone to prison for 10 or 20 years
just to be with them to understand
the fears and the vulnerability.
And what I found really interesting
and actually empowered me to do the role
and to take it one more whole heartedly
is because a lot of guys come our of prison
are really tough, I'm not tough at all.
But the guys at least that I was talking to,
there was a tremendous vulnerability.
I mean, just on a scale that I don't think anybody
who hasn't been to prison can experience
of just that feeling that I'm out but I feel like
somebody's gonna pick me up and put me back in
at any second because essentially
all your freedoms have been stripped of you.
And so there's this tremendous vulnerability,
vulnerability towards other human beings.
Will I ever be able to be accepted?
I'm an ex convict whether I did it or not,
or did it to the extent to which they think I did it.
Will people be able to accept me?
And when I spent enough time to figure that out,
I was like; oh my God, this is, and it's beautiful
and it's a great role, so that's the angle that I took.
- I'm really impressed of the ability of this movie
to talk about some real taboo subjects
without making it icky, without making it uncomfortable,
or without using a plot point
to kind of devastate people involved.
- To gaslight the situation.
- Yes, exactly.
- I think what's interesting, and what Lynn and I
were trying to do, it's kind of hard craftwise to
do a true two hander of a story,
but that's something that Lynn was really,
it was really important to her to try to do that.
I think it was ideologically important for her.
And what we were really fascinated by is
my character's coming out of prison,
he's pursuing Edie's character relentlessly
and that's really easy to get your head around
and to understand, but as the movie sort of transitions
to the backside of the movie, I think the question
becomes more about Carol's character,
I mean Edie's character named Carol.
Will she be able to escape the prison of being in a
somewhat emotionally loveless marriage
and exploring the questions of does a 55 year old
working mother get to take a chance at happiness
even if it is really risky
and may seem silly, is she allowed?
And the more Lynn and I thought about it we were like;
culturally in our society, no, it's not okay.
I think that's what we're being told.
And that was really exciting for us
to explore that with Edie's character.
- Is it interesting to write your own dialogue for yourself?
'Cause you wrote this with Lynn.
- Yes, I've never done it before.
This is the first time I've written something for me
to act in and perform in.
I was nervous about it.
In retrospect, I'm weirdly glad that I did produce it
and write it because I was so in it
and I had to do all my research way early for the script
even before I did it as an actor.
So it was all kind of baked in.
It was very different from how I
talk and handle myself in the world.
And honestly, all those jobs helped distract me
from the fact that I was having sex scenes with Edie Falco.
It's just like every once in a while you'll just be like,
come out of a scene and you're like;
oh my God, you're Edie Falco,
what are you doing here in my arms?
I think she's just an amazing actress,
and it was a little overwhelming at times.
- You've had to play opposite some really amazing women.
You've had Edie, Amy Landecker, Judith Light.
- Gaby Hoffman, Judith Light, Katherine Hahn,
Jenny Slate, Chloe Sevigny, I've been in a lot,
in my short acting career I've been in an incredible
relationships with incredible women, so.
- You must have an appreciation for actresses.
- Yeah, I love actors in general, even when I was just
a writer and director I was the one director
where everybody was like; you're crazy.
I'm like; I'm obsessed with them.
They're awesome and they can do anything.
And yes, they're weird and they need weird things
to make their emotions go,
but that's what this is all about.
That, and I have an appreciation for strong women.
My wife is a social worker and a feminist,
and it feels natural to me to have these
relationships with these powerhouse women that I have had.
- We like it too.
- Oh, that's good, I like that.
- I'd be really interested to hear about why you
executive produced Wild Wild Country.
- Well, people are very surprised that my brother and I
produced this insane documentary about a cult
and this old rural town in Oregon.
I think what it really comes down to
in terms of what we produce,
because people try to figure it out
and for us it has more to do with the situation
and the people and the content.
It's not just the content,
we're not looking for things to produce.
It's like, there were these two wildly talented
young brothers who reminded us a lot of ourselves.
They're insanely industrious.
Chap and Mac Way are their names,
and they had made this great documentary,
The Battered Bastards of Baseball
that we had loved before, and they came into our orbit
and it looked like they wanted to make this documentary.
And they weren't interested in
making it on the grandest scale.
They wanted to make something where
they would be able to complete it
and they would be able to do it their own way
and they were willing to be incredibly industrious
and hand make it themselves the way that
Mark and I had done always.
And I think that's probably the most common ground
of the things that we produce are those kinds of scenarios,
where really underdog people who are just desperate
to make something and we're like;
look, we might not make the most amount of money
but you will make it your way
and you will get to the end of that road.
And so that's why we produced it.
Those guys are such phenomenal filmmakers,
it's all the credit to them creatively.
They did such an amazing job.
- Can you talk a little bit about Duck Butter,
which is another movie you produced
that is making some waves.
- Duck butter is the next movie that
we are going to be releasing.
I guess Outside In is starting this weekend
in theatrically, but Duck Butter is at Tribeca imminently.
And Duck Butter is a wild love child created
by one of our favorite directors, Miguel Arteta,
and one of our favorite actors, Alia Shawkat,
and the concept is pretty wild.
It's that a lot of people spend a long time
trying to figure out whether or not
they are well matched with each other,
so these two people get together
and they decided we're not gonna waste all this time.
In the next 24 hours we're gonna have sex
on the hour, every hour for 24 hours
and we're gonna see how it goes.
(laughing)
It's insane, it made you laugh.
- Yes.
- It's a really fun and surprisingly deep movie, yeah.
- Excellent, it kind of reminds me of Crank.
- Oh yeah, it's got a little bit
of vibe with that, yeah, yeah.
- So one last question before I let you go,
and thank you so much for indulging us.
Well, you said before that the Cohen brothers
were a major inspiration for you, but going back
a little farther, is there anything that really
set your mind on fire when you were a kid,
a cultural moment or a movie really early on?
- Wow, when I was so young I would say
the biggest impression of a movie
was Rocky One, the original Rocky.
I was brought to Rocky One as a three and a half year old
at a movie drive in in 1976,
and I remember seeing the images.
I remember him, and I didn't remember the fighting,
I remembered him and Adrian, and her in the pet store
'cause that's the part, people don't remember but
the original Rocky is a gorgeous love story.
The boxing is just so minuscule compared to
the love story at hand, and just the story
of a person trying to reclaim some kind
of hope and dignity for himself.
And I felt that then, and then I remember
my dad rented it on VHS when we got our first VHS deck
in like 1981, and then I saw it on HBO in like 1984.
And that movie has come back over and over again.
And I think it might be my all time favorite movie.
- Wow, wow, the humanism of Rocky.
- The humanism, it's been trodden upon
by the many sequels since.
- Sylvester Stallone as a movie star.
- Sylvester Stallone as a mov...
When you tell people that Rocky won the Oscar
and that he won the Oscar for writing it, I think
in 1976, they don't believe you because they can
only remember the plastic, the Mr T, the Russian one.
It's been buried by all this stuff,
but it's a beautiful movie and I recommend
that you go back and watch it.
- Thank you, Jay Duplass, it's so nice to meet you.
- Thank you.
- Have a great time, the movie is Outside In
and it's out in theaters right now.
- Right now, go!