Two years ago, Matt Aselton was an anonymous television-commercial director living in New York City. Three weeks ago, he returned to Manhattan to attend the world premiere of his debut feature, Gigantic, with his stars Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, and John Goodman.
Gigantic, which was written by Aselton and Adam Nagata, is the story of Brian Weathersby (Dano), an emotionally detached bed salesman looking for meaning in a relationship with an equally detached woman (played by Deschanel) and in his quest to adopt a baby from China. Equal parts bemused deadpan observer and desperate head case, Weathersby is an indie-movie hero for an anxious age.
The Chronicle recently spoke with Aselton about the importance of subtlety when tackling issues of emotional distress, the process of getting your movie made in economically uncertain times, and the joys of working with The Wire‘s “Downtown” Lester Freamon.
Austin Chronicle: Gigantic is the first movie you’ve written and directed. How did it all come together?
Matt Aselton: I wrote Gigantic with Adam Nagata, who is a college friend. After school, he went to Tokyo for a while to teach English, and when he came back, we got together in New York and began writing. I think we finished the script in 2006. I gave a copy of the script to Mindy Goldberg, who owns my production company, Epoch Films. Mindy liked the script and optioned it and then brought producer Christine Vachon in. That was a turning point because Christine has produced Far From Heaven and I’m Not There and Kids. Then we came up with a strategy, and we went after Paul Dano, and once Paul got involved, the ball rolled pretty quickly. I mean, it wasn’t that easy, but in the revisionist sense, it seems that easy now: Once Paul got involved, financing came. And then Zooey signed on. And I just basically called and begged John Goodman to be in the movie, and he finally agreed.
AC: As a first-time director, was it intimidating for you to work with all these big-name actors, like John Goodman, Ed Asner, and, particularly, Clarke Peters, one of my favorite actors from The Wire?
MA: I’m glad you brought up Clarke. For whatever reason, people always bring up Goodman and Asner and Zooey and Paul but never Clarke. Clarke is really interesting. He lived in London and was a stage actor until he got snatched up by The Wire.
He came in and read. We had a great time, and he was really funny and sharp. And then he went away. And he gets a lot of offers, a lot of stage offers, but I really wanted him. So he was the one I just stayed on and kept calling and saying: “You gotta do this. You gotta do this. You gotta do this.” And at some point, he just caved in and said, “Fine, I’ll come and do it.” But he and Goodman, in addition to being great actors, they’re lovely people, so they didn’t care that I was a new director. They just cared about process, about if things were working and if I was helping them in the way they wanted to be helped, to the extent that I was able to guide them through the trickier parts of their roles. But more than anything, they just brought their own approaches and experiences.
AC: What is the process working with different actors using different techniques? Do you feel it’s your job to find out what each person needs and give them that, or do you go for an overarching, controlling approach and say, “This is how it’s going to be”?
MA: There are a bunch of different ways of approaching it. Mine is more the former, which is to make the actors feel comfortable and make them feel like they’re in good hands. Sidney Lumet once said: “Make sure everyone’s making the same movie. That’s your job.” I felt like I had to do that tonally. Largely, the tone of this piece was established by Paul; he and I had had long conversations about what the movie was supposed to be and how it was supposed to feel. So thankfully the two of us established this thing together, and everybody else revolved around that and was able to make that movie. Paul became the center.
AC: Was the script locked? Or did you let the actors improvise?
MA: It was a tight script. It’s written in a stylized manner, so it has its tone that’s hard to mess with too much. And we didn’t have a ton of time, frankly, to go crazy. But certainly if John Goodman wants to try something with one of his lines, you let him. [Laughs.] All of these actors are gifted comic minds, and I wanted them to be able to express themselves, so there was some improvisation and exploration. But I wish we’d had more time for that.
AC: In the current economic circumstances, how did you manage to get this movie out there for people to see? How does a small independent movie these days get national distribution?
MA: It’s challenging as hell. We finished the film, and then we were accepted to the Toronto Film Festival. So we went to Toronto, which was at a time when the U.S. was beginning its current collapse. We were there with Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. And there were so many movies there that didn’t get bought, but we were fortunate and got picked up by First Independent, which is a small place that does medium distribution. They’re a niche distributor. They pick and choose a few movies a year and just concentrate on those. Originally they were talking about a four- or five-city release, then 13, and finally 25. Gigantic had a good opening weekend in New York, and I think that helped it quite a bit to expand and get more distribution. But to be honest with you, I have no idea how the business stuff gets done. But we got lucky; we caught Paul right as his career was taking off, right after he had made There Will Be Blood. Same thing with Zooey. And we also caught John Goodman in between studio pictures. I feel like so much of a film’s success has to do with timing.
AC: In the process of writing the script, were there themes you wanted to approach, or was the story built out of a character? The whole idea of a young man wanting to adopt a Chinese baby is strange. Was that the birth of the story?
MA: We kind of moved backwards from the idea of this lonely man living in a big city not knowing which way was up. I think having Brian have a very old father was the starting point, and then we asked ourselves, “What does that mean for a character?” Being so much younger than his brothers, he’s a bit forsaken and left behind. And maybe he wants to create something to fill that void. And that’s where the Chinese baby adoption comes in. So I was thinking more in terms of a character study than a narrative. We wanted to investigate families. Asner represents the World War II generation and Goodman the baby boomers, but what is this new modern father, the single man who wants to adopt a baby? It flips the whole notion of masculinity and fatherhood on its ear.
AC: Gigantic touches on the issue of psychological illness very, very briefly. Other directors might have made it the entire focus of the second half of the movie, but you barely brush over it. It’s very subtle.
MA: Well I’m glad you say that. Often I get the opposite reaction from people: “Why didn’t you explain …?!” [Laughs] We made a very conscious effort not to hammer points home but to let them arise subtly. There’s a way you can tell a story like this, which is your lead character saying, “Woe is me,” for 50 pages and popping Zoloft. But I think that movie’s been made, so I didn’t need to make it again. So we wanted to lightly suggest things and allow the movie to be a little more symbolic and a little more abstract. We want people to lose themselves in it as opposed to hitting them over the head. Because I think for anyone who’s ever had any emotional sickness, it’s a very vague state of mind; it’s not a very specific thing.
AC: I appreciated not being hammered over the head with it.
MA: You and I are in the minority. There’s a certain type of filmgoer who needs it all, and if they don’t get it, they’re like a dog with a bone. I had one woman come up to me after the Toronto screening and say: “I love this movie; I love the performances. But please tell me what the fuck is going on! What happens?! Is everybody okay?!” And she was mad. And I had to tell her, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to satisfy you.”
Gigantic opens in Austin on Friday. See Film Listings for review.
This article appears in April 24 • 2009.