Bear necessities
Saturday Night Live pals graduate from the internet to the big screen
Brigsby Bear
Opens across Canada throughout August BOB THOMPSON
Brigsby Bear is a quirky comedy from the off-kilter minds of Saturday Night Live’s Kyle Mooney and David McCary.
McCary directs Mooney, who co-wrote the script. In the film, Mooney portrays boy-man James Pope who was kidnapped as a baby and has grown up with Brigsby Bear, a fabricated children’s show produced by his abductors.
When James is finally freed, he has to cope with adjusting to his real parents and a society that’s baffling to him.
For a reference to the film’s tone, look back at Mooney and McCary’s offerings with the internet sketch troupe Good Neighbor.
The comedy bits earned them jobs on SNL — Mooney as a performer and writer and McCary as a segment director.
Their first movie tends to be more ambitious, though, as it moves from farce to satire and back again, with assistance from some notable co-stars, including Matt Walsh, Greg Kinnear, Claire Danes and Mark Hamill.
Mooney offers his thoughts on the project:
On the original concept: “The initial seed of the idea was about a kid who’s obsessed with a TV show that’s made just for him. The whole component of the kidnapping came after the fact and the movie evolved into more about the world he has to explore afterward.”
On maintaining the fanciful flavour of the film: “A lot of the credit for that should go to Dave, the director. Most of the actors involved were into the story too and they wanted to do it justice so that helped.”
On trying to play it straight as James: “We thought there was inherent comedy there, so we tried to play everything as earnestly and as honestly as possible, and we figured the laughs would just happen.”
On casting Hamill (a.k.a. Luke Skywalker) in the role of the father figure and the voice of Brigsby Bear: “We liked the idea of somebody you wouldn’t think of in that role. We also needed somebody able to do the voice of the bear and we saw Mark on YouTube at a press junket break into the Joker voice from the Batman animation series and we said, ‘That’s the guy.’”
On pundits comparing Brigsby Bear to Elf, The Truman Show and Being There: “All of those movies (and TV shows) are things that we love, so if that’s what audiences think or associate with, that’s great.”
On being friends with McCary since they were kids in San Diego: “We formed almost identical sensibilities. The things that make him laugh make me laugh.”
On taking direction from his longtime buddy in a feature-length film: “Because we’ve been making internet videos for a decade and we are on SNL together, we’re used to each other. There were moments of aggravation during filming when he was feeling I wasn’t doing something right, but we always know that being annoyed with each other will pass.”
On the script collaboration with another childhood friend, Kevin Costello: “He’s a screenwriter, so I went to him with the idea.”
On the trio’s arrested development assisting in the Brigsby Bear conceit: “We still to this day reference kids we went to middle school with and high school with and their idiosyncrasies that tickled us. I could probably name my entire fifth grade class.”
On doing another movie: “This experience was wonderful and I think it will happen again.”
On his future at SNL: “I certainly want to act in movies. But for the time being, there is always stuff do at SNL and create new things there.”