The angst of creativity
Director of Intern ‘wrangles’ actors to take films where they need to go
Writer-director Nancy Meyers is the queen of conventional comedies, as confirmed by Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated.
The Intern is her latest mainstream effort, presented with a slight twist — the bond between the stars leads to friendship, not romance.
“I had never written anything like this before, so it grew as I wrote it, and the movie became more clear as I was writing it,” says Meyers, 65.
The Intern features Robert De Niro, who plays Ben, a widowed senior and retired sales executive. When he gets a job as an intern at a popular online fashion site, he realizes the founder and CEO Jules (Anne Hathaway) is over her head with the demands at the office and as mom and wife at home.
Initially, Ben is relegated to menial tasks, but Jules soon learns he has more to offer than platitudes.
“The engine that was driving me was this relationship, because I think I was wishing I had somebody like this,” Meyers says of Ben, who becomes Jules’ quiet adviser.
The filmmaker understood what she needed for The Intern, and that happened to be De Niro.
In fact, to accommodate him, she filmed around his New York base of operations. Meyers was convinced only De Niro could pull off the complexity of a man “who wants to stay a part of things and not be pushed aside.”
She admits to some anxious moments despite her experience as writer and director of the aforementioned hits plus What Women Want and The Parent Trap. As a writer, she made a name for herself with Baby Boom and the two Father of the Bride movies.
“Doing what I do, and putting myself out there wrangling all these brilliant people along, there is a lot of angst,” she says.
De Niro and Hathaway have a different take on Meyers, whom they describe as their fearless leader.
“So you look at Nancy and you see this tiny, adorable woman with awesome hair,” says Hathaway.
“But at first glance I had no idea of the tenacious, uncompromising, inexhaustible, powerhouse that she is.”
Even the hard-to-impress De Niro was won over by her focus.
“Nancy was great at telling how to do things, and she gave us lots of takes and time, but for a good reason,” De Niro says. “She was very specific with what she wanted and I understood this and it was terrific.”
Hiring actors like De Niro and Hathaway is another trademark.
“Being surrounded by great people makes you better and they (feel) safe,” Meyers says. “We all want to be safe, be ourselves and get what we need, so (De Niro and Hathaway) allowed me to do my work in a way where results are up on the screen.”