Interview with Jeffrey Johnson, Star of Letters to God

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Letters to God star Jeffrey Johnson. Based on a true story, the film follows the life and death of a young boy battling with cancer who writes letters to God as his way of praying. Through his struggle, he unites the community and bonds with the local mailman, Brady, played by Johnson. As humble as can be, Johnson obliged me for as long as I needed and told me about his experience on the film. Letters to God opens today.

So Letters to God is based on a true story. How familiar were you with the real story before you received the script for the film?

Oh, I didn’t know anything about the real story. In fact, it’s funny, I knew so little about it that my manager called me up and said “Hey, listen I’m going to send you a script. I just wanted to make sure you’re cool doing a faith based movie.” What I heard was, “Hey I’m going to send you a script and I wanted to make sure you’re cool doing a space age movie.” I started reading it thinking it was going to be a science fiction thing and after a couple pages I thought, “Where are all the laser guns? Why aren’t we in space yet?” The story literally developed for me page after page so I knew nothing about it going into it.

So was it the fact that it was such an extraordinary true story that made you want to make it or were there other deciding factors?

Yes, it’s an extraordinary story, but I thought it was an extraordinary character too. I just really liked Brady. He’s a guy who’s done some pretty bad things in the past and you’d think by now he would have turned his act around and he hadn’t yet. That’s what was really interesting and it took meeting this inspirational, amazing child to really open his eyes to what life could really be about.

The writer of this movie, Patrick Doughtie, is actually the father of the real Tyler, right?

Yeah, this happened to his boy some years ago and it was this situation that he built the script around. My character didn’t actually exist. That’s something he just created as fiction, but there was very much his son Tyler who was writing letters to God as a way to pray and he more often than not wasn’t praying for himself. He was praying for his friends, his brothers, neighbors, just praying for everybody to give them strength.

I read that Patrick wrote himself out of the movie. As you mentioned, your character didn’t exist so he does fictionalize a little bit. How much does it deviate from the actual story? Do you know?

Well, like I said, my character’s relationship with Tyler is all fictional, but I think situation-wise there are a lot of things that were more or less the same. And I think certainly what the family was going through when they were dealing with the kid’s cancer, I think a lot of that hits pretty close to home.

So was it more or less the themes that were real rather than the dramatic moments?

No, I’m not sure about that. There were just some things he had created just to make it more of a movie like writing himself out and writing the postman in.

I know he also served as co-director. What was it like having him on set where he was basically watching you replay out the life and death of his kid?

It was incredible. It was unlike anything I had ever done before. There were so many times where he tried to put this experience out of his mind and all of a sudden for the sake of the film, he’s reliving these things over and over again. We had this one scene where Tyler’s at a soccer game and he has a seizure and we had to ask him, “What exactly happened? Did his head shake this way? Did he fall down that way?” He’s just reliving it and after a minute or so of doing it, the reality just sunk in and it just became such an emotional day for us all. I just have a lot of respect for him because he was willing to remind himself and explain all these things in this vivid detail. It was just a tremendous amount of bravery he brought to the set everyday and I really respect that.

I thought that was interesting too. I didn’t know he wrote it until after I watched it and I read through the Baptist Press that he actually struggled with his faith during the time that his kid was suffering. There's a scene where Tyler’s mother is questioning God and saying “I don’t agree with God’s plan.” Now, regardless of how strong a person’s convictions are, put in this situation, I imagine a lot of people would question their faith. Do you think that was him kind of speaking out and showing that he went through that moment in his life?

Obviously, I can’t speak for him, but I think you’re right on the money. I think there is a reason that those scenes ring so true to you and to the audience because they came from such a surreal place for him and I think people identify with that.

Well, I know you’ve also done a lot of work on television. I know this movie is kind of bittersweet. It’s not happy what happens to the kid, but at the same time it’s very uplifting. How different was the atmosphere on set for this as opposed to gritty crime dramas you’ve been on like CSI or Criminal Minds?

Well, films and TV share a similar style of acting, but on TV things are pretty rushed. It’s chop-chop, shoot and you don’t have as much time to really understand your character. So this movie was real to us during some of the emotional stuff and then when it was done, we all knew it was done and we could breathe a little bit easy. The first day of filming was this scene where my character had this breakdown in his apartment. That was a tough day to start a shoot. You know, welcome to day one.

Everyone I talk to seems to say the same thing, that they do the hardest scenes first, but I don’t know why.

I think people are just like “Let’s just go for it and get it out of the way so we don’t have to think about it too much.” Maybe they were saying, “Hey, maybe if he doesn’t get it on day one it will be a lot easier to fire him than it would be if we were a couple weeks into the shoot.” I hope that’s not the case, but you never know.

I have to ask you my stock question now. I ask everybody that has been on television and in movies this. Do you prefer the faster pace of television or the slower pace of film?

I think I prefer making movies because it’s really more like doing a play. You spend so much time with the character. They kind of keep you company, so every day you’re thinking, “What would he do? What would he listen to? What would he order for breakfast?” And I really like that whereas on TV you’re just in and out unless you’re a serious regular on a show and you don’t have much time to explore the character.

A few minutes ago you said your manager sent you the script and said “I hope you don’t mind doing a faith based movie.” Now, this movie comes from Possibility Pictures, a Christian production company. Did you have any reservations going into this film knowing that its audience could be limited?

No. That might be an interesting point, but it didn’t concern me at all and it certainly didn’t concern me when I met everyone and we started working together. The good thing about doing a film like is that everyone is just so onboard and everyone is so positive and eager to do the best they can. They started every day with a prayer meeting before safety call, which really sets the tone for a very loving, productive atmosphere. So no I didn’t. Maybe it might have been different if my character were a different kind of guy, but I just appreciated his struggle and his doubts and ultimately his outcome.

See, that’s the thing. The audience could be limited, but I think if people give the movie a shot, they’ll find it’s pretty accessible to everyone.

Oh absolutely. I was with the writer this afternoon and he was on the phone for over half an hour speaking with a reporter who’s Jewish and she was saying she can’t wait to spread the word as much as she can about this film because she wants people to understand that it speaks to everyone, not just one set or one branch of any kind of religion. I hope it’s universal. It speaks to so many people. It speaks to families dealing with it. It speaks to children dealing with it. It speaks to the friends. My character thought it was over. He thought he was never going to be able to live a life of peace. I think what I learned was that it’s never too late to turn things around.

Interview with Ben Stiller, Noah Baumbach and James Murphy

Recently, I was lucky enough to participate in an interview with Ben Stiller, Noah Baumbach and James Murphy, the creative team behind the new film Greenberg. We discussed how the film came to be, what the process behind the music was and how different this role is for Stiller when compared to his wider known comedies. Greenberg opens today. This is the unedited transcript.

How was the dynamic behind the scenes for all of you and were there any moments you would like to discuss?

Stiller: Well, I feel that working with Noah is a very, very special experience because he just approaches movies in a very different way than I’ve experienced before. He wrote a very specific script and I think everybody working on the movie was really dedicated to it and wanted to do the best they could because they respected the script so much. There was a lot of camaraderie. There was a feeling that we were all connected and we were doing the best we could. It was a small production so we got to rehearse for a number of weeks and hang out a little bit. All the way down to the camera people and the crew, everybody was there because they wanted to be there so it had a much warmer, more intimate feeling that all came out of the atmosphere that was set for the movie.

James, how different was it writing, instead of from an emotion to a final product, from a final product to emphasize emotion? How was that transfer for you?

Murphy: Well, the way this kind of worked wasn’t quite so much like that, but I met with Noah before shooting started. We talked a lot about music and we talked about the characters and, what Ben said, there’s a lot of human camaraderie that made it very easy to kind of talk about what the movie needed. It wasn’t any less about my emotions than anything else. There was just something you were looking at and reacting to. But we also didn’t try to make a soundtrack that necessarily always accented the emotions. For me, after seeing the first footage, it was clear the actors were doing their job amazingly well and the stuff was there. We made songs that worked like a backdrop for what’s happening and let the emotions come through from the directing and the shooting and the acting.

Obviously, this is a very different role for Ben. Noah, what made you consider Ben for a role like this and Ben, what made you take a role like this as opposed to another comedy that you’re better known for?

Baumbach: Well, I’ve always wanted somebody with a sense of humor to play this part. There is a lot of humor in it, although it’s not played for laughs. It’s more authentically portrayed. Obviously, Ben is known for bigger comedies, but he’s done a lot of different stuff, so I never really saw it so much as a different role. It just seemed like Ben was the best person to play this.

Stiller: For me, I really have to say off the bat that I think there are four or five filmmakers that if you get a call from them as an actor, you basically would say yes no matter what it is and Noah is definitely one of those guys for me. What he was calling me with was something I felt very excited about too because it was so specifically written. We talked a little bit about it at the beginning, you know, about the age of the character and the issues he’s going through. Then it was just the chance to work on something that was really about the character and the chance to work on something that goes that deep in terms of the specificity of the writing was very exciting for me so I just felt very fortunate to have that opportunity.

Would you consider doing something like this again? Is this the way you want to take your career or do you want to leave it more open?

Stiller: First of all, I’d love to work with Noah again if he has anything.

Baumbach: Likewise.

Stiller: But yeah, sure, in terms of doing different roles and films, there are just very few filmmakers like Noah that have that sense of humor set in reality and are doing what he’s doing.

The letters that Greenberg writes in the movie are brilliant. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Baumbach: Well, in coming up with the character, Jennifer [co-writer] and I were exploring a lot of different professions and the story took different turns. I think, though, that very early on we came up with the letter writing. It seemed very apt for the character. It would be something that he pours a lot of energy into. There’s a lot of frustration and anger and in some ways it is his vocation. A lot of creative energy goes into it too, but it’s an energy that would be better used in other, more productive ways. I found it very funny, but also very moving that somebody would become so invested in letting these faceless corporations or people or journals or newspapers know how he felt about something after the fact. There’s something so self important about it because there’s the notion that nobody cares what you think and at the same time, there’s something totally futile about it because you’re spitting these things out to the ether. It was something structurally I wasn’t sure how the letters would play while we were shooting because I hadn’t written them as voiceover, but as we were doing it, I had Ben read them and it became a sort of score element in the movie.

James, what were the concepts going in creating the soundtrack and what goals did you have in mind?

Murphy: I think the goal for me was to make music that worked, that we liked, that seemed true to the character and true to the movie and that made Noah happy. It seemed pretty easy to do because we were able to talk about music pretty simply. I know I was very lucky to have that open line of communication. We were editing, I was making the soundtrack and Noah was editing the movie 100 feet from me, so it was very easy to have access and a lot of feedback, so I don’t know whether I ever really got self conscious about what the goals were other than deadlines and dates on the small level. I always just seemed to go with my instincts.

Baumbach: From my perspective, I wanted James to do something that worked for the movie, but to interpret it himself, to come at it from a personal standpoint. I think our relationship and friendship outside of work, or around the work, was very important because I think it helped support an environment where we both could talk freely and see what happened. Some of it is trial and error, in terms of some things you love, but when you put it against the picture it doesn’t work or it doesn’t feel right, but I think our track record was pretty good.

Murphy: I would give Noah music and he would just try it in different places if it didn’t work there, so he was very generous.

Noah: I loved everything James did, so I kept trying to find places for it which is good because I used music more in this movie than I have in previous movies and I was partly inspired by just trying to find places for his music that I really liked.

How did the story of an actively passive man finding his calling hood from his nothingness develop over time from pre-production to post-production?

Baumbach: Well, part of the experience is both interpreting the script when you shoot it and putting it together and rewriting it when you edit. That’s kind of a general way of looking at it, but because I’m so involved every step of the way, I think part of my job is being open to how it transforms and what other people bring that transform it. I really think that the character of Greenberg is in many ways a 50/50 collaboration between Ben and me. Ben didn’t improvise the dialogue, he did the dialogue I wrote, but he so inhabited the part and so transformed the character that I feel only part ownership of him now. I feel like Ben is just as responsible for it as I am and that’s true with many things. It’s true with the music too. I think the music is very specific and personal to James even though it was created to go with these pictures. Even in the post-production, the editing, I’m not precious about what I write. I tend to rewrite by cutting lines and moving things around and being open to what I have rather than what I anticipated having because it always becomes something different than what I started with.

Interview with Clark Duke, Star of Hot Tub Time Machine

Starring alongside best friend Michael Cera in the Internet series Clark and Michael is only the beginning of Clark Duke’s story. With the underappreciated Sex Drive and hit television show Greek under his belt, not to mention the highly anticipated film Kick Ass on the horizon, Duke is proving himself as one of the most promising up and coming actors in Hollywood. I recently had a chance to chat with Duke about his new movie Hot Tub Time Machine and the difference between television and film.

What attracted you to the Hot Tub Time Machine script?

It was funny. I got involved with it because the guys who wrote Sex Drive had written the draft of Hot Tub and wanted me to play this part and I just said yeah because I really love those guys. They ended up not directing it, but I still stayed on because there was Corddry, Craig and then Cusack. I think Cusack being in it makes it really weird and meta because he’s such an 80’s icon himself. And in the movie, these guys go back to the 80’s and the whole thing seems like it’s coming out of him a little bit which is cool.

Since you mentioned your co-stars, after seeing the movie it seems like John Cusack is being billed to sell the movie.

John is sort of the straight man to some extent. He’s still the lead in the film, but Corddry has the wild character like the one I had in Sex Drive, the really fun one to play. So Johnny’s stuff is a little more understated, but he’s great. It was just really cool working with him because High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank are two of my favorite movies. And the guy who directed Hot Tub wrote those. Working with all of those guys was pretty amazing. Chevy Chase was my highlight because he’s my hero. All of our scenes were together pretty much and he was next to me at the hotel, so every night he would come knock on my door, call me and mumble things, so we’d go eat dinner and get drunk every night. It was the best week of my life. It was pretty surreal.

Would you like to continue doing comedy or break away and do more serious roles?

I don’t know. I like comedies. I guess if there was a really dramatic part that I thought I could do something interesting with or somebody asked me to do, but I don’t know, I like working on comedies for the most part because I mainly watch comedies.

Do you ever watch yourself? Is it weird seeing yourself onscreen?

The first time I saw Sex Drive in the theater, I had to leave. It was just unsettling. I couldn’t talk to anybody afterwards. I’m kind of used to it now, but at first it’s pretty jarring.

You’ve also done a lot of work on television, on the show Greek. I know this is a question you’ve heard a thousand times, but do you prefer the slower pace of film or the faster pace of television?

Film for sure. TV is brutal man. You’re going through eight pages a day and it’s rough. I mean it’s not rough, but compared to shooting a movie where you’re shooting one page a day, TV’s pace is just so much different.

So on average, how many takes does it take to get something done in movies and TV?

On TV you’re doing one or two takes because there’s just no time. On movies you can take all the time you want more or less because you’re shooting a page or two a day compared to six to eight pages, so it’s pretty bananas.

Besides Kick Ass, do you have any other films lined up right now?

I have this movie with Eddie Murphy called A Thousand Words that I think comes out at the end of this year.

Can you give us any details on that?

Eddie gets a curse put on him, so he only has a thousand words left to say before he dies and I play his assistant.

That’s a cool premise. It sounds better than Imagine That.

Let’s hope so. [Laughs] I didn’t see that one, but it didn’t do very well. He needs a hit.