-Looking sharp.
I want to talk about the movie.
But even bigger congratulations. You have a little baby.
Eight weeks ago. Congratulations.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
-She's gorgeous, by the way.
What a beautiful, beautiful baby.
How does it feel to be a dad?
-I'm so tired.
[ Laughter ]
-That's what they don't tell you.
-And I'm so in love, you know.
[ Audience aws ]
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's like --
-It's amazing, right?
-It's so extreme.
You know, your heart has gone, like, supernova in one sense.
And then we landed from London last week,
and she cried for like 24 straight hours.
And you just kind of want to walk through a wall.
[ Laughter ]
It's crazy.
-It's the most bizarre thing in the whole wide world.
Congrats on that. That's fantastic.
A "Little Miss Sunshine" reunion here.
Greg Kinnear was just on the show.
And that was -- [ Cheers and applause ]
Yeah. We have a photo here.
There's Paul in the back there. There's Paul.
-Young man once. -A young man back then.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
-What do you remember from this?
-So I remember in rehearsal,
our directors, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris,
trying to establish a sort of family dynamic, right.
And they said,
"Why don't you guys get in the van in character,
and let's go drive and we'll get some food?
And we'll go bowling
and just stay in character the whole time."
And we're all like, "Okay, great."
And I was 20 or something.
20, looked 12, but this was --
And the second we pulled out of the lot to go on our excursion,
Alan Arkin, playing the grandpa, goes, "I have to pee."
And Greg Kinnear, playing the father, in character was like,
"We just left, Dad. You have to wait."
And Arkin was like, "No, I have to pee.
And Kinnear was like, "You don't have to pee.
We're not pulling the car over."
And Arkin was like,
"At the next red light, I'm getting out to pee."
And Greg Kinnear ran the next red light.
[ Laughter ]
Just because he did not want to give in to Grandpa.
[ Laughter ]
Who clearly needed to pee, just to piss him off.
-Wow. Absolutely.
-And the family dynamic was there.
And, of course, all this is happening.
And my character is mute -- -That's right.
-I mean not mute. He's chosen not to speak.
So I'm sitting in the backseat just going like,
"Okay, did we really just run that red light?"
And Greg I'm sure did it safely.
-Oh yeah, of course. Of course.
-As safe as you can run a red light.
-Of course.
How did it feel directing this movie and writing it?
I mean, this is a big deal.
-Yeah.
-Did you always want to write and direct?
-Yeah, I've wanted to make a film for a long time.
Basically, I read this book
which just sort of made my heart leap.
I decided, you know, let me take a stab at a first draft.
-Have you ever written anything before?
-I've never written.
And I didn't know if I could.
So I started kind of dipping my toe in that pond.
And as I was writing I started thinking,
"Okay, this is pretty good. Pretty good."
So I gave it to my partner Zoe, who's a proper writer.
She's written plays and screenplays.
-I love Zoe.
-And she tore it apart.
[ Laughter ]
She came out of the bedroom.
She's like, "It's -- It's good."
And I was like --
-Yeah, that means it's not good.
It's interesting.
-Yeah, yeah, notes on every page.
Every page was dog-eared.
-But you ended up writing it together.
-Well, yeah, we did.
We got through like five pages of notes.
She was like, "You're too stubborn."
I was like, "I'm just being thorough."
And she was like,
"Why don't you just let me do a pass on the script?"
And she did an incredible job.
And so then we just started trading it back and forth.
We never wrote together.
That was not sustainable.
-Oh, interesting.
[ Laughter ]
-But we would do notes together
and then one of us would take it and do a pass.
And it was great.
-Well, congratulations.
I mean, you're getting incredible reviews
for this movie.
It's 98% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
I don't know if that means anything, but it does to me.
[ Laughter ]
Anyways, but tell everyone
what the film's about, and it's based on the book.
-Yeah. It's based on a Richard Ford novel called "Wildlife."
He's a great American writer.
It's -- I guess it's about a kid
seeing his parents change and their marriage break.
And sort of, you know, through your parents,
sort of just being forced into adulthood.
It's sort of a coming-of-age film for a family.
It's about the mystery of who our parents are.
And I think it's really beautiful.
-Great performances
from our buddy Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan.
Fantastic. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here are Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal
in Paul's film "Wildlife."
Take a look.
-Dad, what's going on?
-Your father is leaving us to go fight those wildfires.
-What?
Dad, why? -Answer him, Jerry.
You won't take a job at a grocery store,
but you'll go out with a bunch of deadbeats
and risk getting killed.
-I have to go there and --
-What does it pay?
-What? -What does it pay?
-A dollar an hour.
-Oh, my God.
Jerry, listen, you don't have to do this.
I'm working now. -It won't be for long.
-Not if you get yourself killed.
-It's gonna snow. The fire's gonna go out.
-What if it doesn't?
-They're gonna send everybody home.
-What if never snows at all?
Joe, what do you think? Is this a bad idea?
-Oh, my God. Don't ask him. -He's almost grown!
He has a say in what happens in this family.
-Your father will burn up and you'll never see him again.
-Don't say that, Jean!
-You can't keep running every time
something doesn't go your way!
-Dad, please. -You don't know what I'm doing.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Paul Dano, everybody!