Interview: Snow Angels Director David Gordon Green

By Katey Rich: 2008-03-06 13:38:56

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Interview: Snow Angels Director David Gordon Green

David Gordon Green still has his Southern accent. The North Carolina-born filmmaker has been making his name in the independent film world since 2000’s George Washington, but doing most of his work in his native South, he’s clearly kept in touch with at least his vocal roots. With his latest film Snow Angels, Green is sticking with the small-town milieu but heading north, to snowy, desolate Nova Scotia. That’s where he tells the interconnected stories of a gawky teenager (Michael Angarano), his geek girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby), and an older couple going through a divorce (Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell) and falling apart in the process.

For having made such a dark, soul-searching film, Green is an affable guy. It’s easy to see him, with his shaggy hair and T-shirt, at a North Carolina barbecue. He talked to us about winding up as a director when he didn’t expect to be, his crush on Amy Sedaris (don’t we all have one?), and oh yeah, a little movie called Pineapple Express with this guy named Apatow. Read on and you can say you knew him when.

Can you talk about the process of making the film, and the events that led you to direct it? [Green was initially hired just to adapt the screenplay, but eventually wound up as the director]
I think it was ultimately a really valuable process, because I learned the discipline of trying to communicate something for other producers and other directors and other actors that had less to do with my own vague interpretation of what I was trying to do. It was more about really giving myself a grammatical sense of character and story arc and transitions, and thinking it through a lot more than I usually do. I knew all that stuff I was drawn to and all the elements of character I identified with. When the director I developed it with went off to do another movie, I actually went back a draft, to where it was a little more personally engaging. I wanted to go back and make it from that private place.

Can you explain what that private place entails?
Well, the book takes place in the ‘70s, and it’s told in flashback. There’s a lot of elements that I can only assume were very personal to the author’s childhood and his growing up. It’s all through the perspective of Arthur, but as an adult looking back on the situation. For me it was important to keep the youthful perspective, but make it contemporary. Give it a sense of universal texture, but make it immediate in terms of placement and content. Bring in a lot of little strange conversations and tics and quirks that my life has had. Her writing “Hey, you” on his hand—some girl wrote it on my butt, but it was a moment, with that genuine sentiment. It’s funny and it’s sweet and it’s silly, but it’s serious. That’s just an example of probably dozens and dozens of little things in my life that I tried to incorporate into my script.

What was your biggest challenge with the film?
Once we found a supportive financier to take a risk with it, it was about putting the cast together. I don’t look at that as a challenge. It was difficult trying to figure out who would be who, but it was such a fun experiment. It was challenging in the fact that it wasn’t straightforward. It was a great time. I think the biggest challenge was probably shooting at 30 degrees below zero in the middle of the night in Nova Scotia.

What scene was that?
All of them. It was a cold-ass movie to make! I’m from the South. I like to sit on my porch in 110-degree heat in the summer. I don’t like to get up there and have to put on moon boots and earmuffs. That shit was cold!

[Olivia Thirlby talks for a while about the playful, improvisational relationship between her and co-star Michael Angarano.]
There was that playfulness between actors that really translated to the relationships on the screen. There was no bad takes. We said, ‘Let’s just let you guys be you guys, and here’s what’s supposed to happen,’ in a broad stroke sense of the word. It was just a matter of finding it in the editing room. We have tremendous options, and the balance of humor and drama just had to be found there.

Why should audiences go see this film?
To me, it’s important for an audience to go see this movie in the movie theater. There’s a lot of people, myself included, it’s easy to say ‘Well, I’m going to see it on DVD.” But to me this movie is about exploring emotions. You go to this movie and you ask questions of yourself, and you look at who you’re with and you ask questions of them. To me it’s a way to explore an energy in a room. I can’t describe what it’s like watching this. It’s one thing to write a movie and adapt a book. It’s another thing to shoot a movie and sit in an editing room with some guys and really put the product together. But the ultimate reward for me as a filmmaker—seeing the crowd of people where you can’t hide from the energy of the room. You can take those emotional explorations with people. To actually feel through something, with other people, is the most extraordinary thing you can do.

Can you talk about working with [director of photography] Tim Orr? Your last few films have been set in the South, and now you’re in Nova Scotia with snow everywhere. What were the visual challenges?
I love a good Tim Orr question. Tim is a collaborator I’ve worked with since film school, on all my movies. We met doing a documentary on the artificial insemination of cattle, which we thought was tremendously funny—seeing farmers put their fists up cow’s butts and other holes. Since then we’ve developed such a common language where it’s an unspoken composition half the time. I don’t have to look over his shoulder, I don’t have to see playback. Rarely do I have to give any adjustments. I trust his sense of compositions and lighting. So I can work with freaks like Olivia—just kidding— and work on performance, and things that are really engaging to me. To sit not behind the camera but alongside the camera and watch the show, and watch what these guys have to show. Because I never know what’s going to come out their mouths. I love that uncertainty. I love just sitting back and not knowing when to say cut. With Tim, I get that kind of freedom. This was a different landscape. After doing our third film in the South, we looked at each other and said ‘Let’s mix it up. Let’s go somewhere different.’ So going to the stark, barren, bitterly cold Nova Scotia was a cinematic opportunity to try something new. This wasn’t going to be such a landscape-driven movie, but it was a character. The rural atmosphere and the blanket of snow on the ground—it brings you to a very specific mood. We wanted to use that as a character, not just as a backdrop.

How did you choose Kate Beckinsale for her role?
When the idea of Kate came up I got very excited, because she’s not the obvious choice. The last thing I like is the obvious choice. You can have someone who will sleepwalk through a role, or you can have someone who’s hungry for it, and is going to bring that appetite to the table and really make a meal of the movie. Every actor of a reputation is going to bring baggage to a role. She brings cool baggage! She’s Underworld, she’s physical—you’d better not fuck with her. She brings an energy and a physicality that I think is pretty tremendous. Then she’s got her Serendipity, and romantic comedies, that you see the beauty and the love I her eyes. You can’t deny a face like that. Having those movies be the baggage, and then have the opportunity to strip a lot of that preconceived notion away from her, and have her be as raw and honest in a performance as she knows how to be.

How about casting Amy Sedaris, who’s known for her comedy, in a serious role? She clearly bought humor to it as well.
Well, all the cast brought light to it. With Amy, A: I had a crush on her. She brings such a great wit to the role. It’s not Strangers with Candy, it’s not a caricature, it’s a real person. And Amy’s a lovely person. I met her socially a few years before, and talked to her, and found out what a down-to-earth, but real sly, lovely personality she had. And this was a tough role to cast. It was one of a few holes in the casting process, because I really didn’t know what I wanted. A lot of people were coming in giving me, you know, kiss-my-grits, Flo from Mel’s Diner. That’s not what it needed. It needed something that was true. When the idea of Amy came up, I just got very excited, because that wasn’t where we were thinking. That was the opposite planet, and that made it all of a sudden make sense. She improvs most of her lines, and you can see her having fun with the role. But you can see when there’s a serious turn there’s a real person behind that, not just someone hitting emotional buttons or trying to dodge clichés.

And how about Pineapple Express?
Yeah, August 8. A little change of pace. It should be a fun year. It was a great opportunity after Snow Angels to do something that’s all about going for the gag, and a lot of action and car chases, a lot of shootouts, bloodbaths. Just a ton of comedy. It’s fun to get an ensemble together and say ‘Let loose.’

How is joining the Judd Apatow crew?
It’s fun. It’s a great moment to be part of their posse right now. They’ve got a lot of freedom, people trust them. They want to take it to the next crazy place. As far as pushing the genre I think we got away with some pretty wild things. Hopefully the audience will wrap their heads around it come August.

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