Alexander Payne goes small with ‘Downsizing’
Interviews with writer and director Alexander Payne are different than most.
First, there’s the way he comes onto the phone.
“Hi. What are you writing about and how can I be of service?”
Well, in this case, we’re to talk about “Downsizing,” his latest film, in which Matt Damon plays a man in the near future who chooses to be shrunken down to about 5 inches and live in a smaller world, in an effort to combat overcrowding.
Payne, whose impressive resume includes “Election,” “Sideways,” “The Descendants” and “Nebraska” (he won Oscars for co-writing “The Descendants” and “Sideways”), doesn’t just answer questions. Sometimes he evaluates them, too. But he’s smart as a whip and always instructive in terms of how he works. For a time he went years between projects, but has speeded up lately. That’s how the conversation began.
Question: You seem like you’re working faster now.
Answer: Trying to. The thing that
slows me down most is screenplay. On the one hand I wish I was making a film every day. On the other hand I kind of only want to speak when I have something to say. I’m not fast like Woody Allen. It takes a while.
Q: How do you know when you’re done writing?
A: I think you could answer the question as well in your own writing. You’ve just gone through it enough times that you think, “This is pretty much it. I could change this around or add this or subtract that, but it wouldn’t make a (expletive) bit of difference to the reader, or to the viewer. Really, this is film, for better or worse.” It’s just something you pretty much feel. It’s kind of an odd question. When do you know it’s done? On the other hand, especially in editing, you can tinker forever. There’s an old phrase, especially among filmmakers, which is that films are never finished, they’re only abandoned. Just after a while you kind of know, at least in my case.
Q: You often direct your own scripts. Do you rewrite on the set?
A: No. By the time I’m shooting I’m pretty much locked into the script, and happily so. I don’t encourage improvisation. Any changes to the script are based on realities of we found a location that’s something better than the script sug-
gested and maybe that might require a little nipping and tucking, or every once in a while if the actor is having a hard time you tailor something a little more to the actor who’s been cast, but even that is pretty rare.
Q: Where did the idea for “Downsizing” come from?
A: The idea came from (his writing partner) Jim Taylor’s brother Doug. Jim Taylor’s brother Doug Taylor was telling Jim Taylor, “Hey, you guys should make a movie about people being small. You know, if you were yea big you could have a big house on a big lot with only 6 square feet. Your grocery bills would be low. Your whole life would be different. Maybe animosity would develop between big and small.” And that’s kind of as far as it got, in a way. Jim shared the idea with me because we’re always desperate for film ideas, and I said I don’t really see it. And then what I was able to add was thinking, well, hey, if that really, really, really were to come about, how would it come about? Probably as a solution to overpopulation. I mentioned that to Jim that that could be a nice metaphor, not just for environmental concerns or overpopulation concerns, but for a whole lot of things – a nice kind of science-fiction/political metaphor. Then we knew what our movie would be, and it was just a matter of finding a story and a protagonist to lead us through a world in which this was happening.
Q: The film has a lot of effects, of course. How do you describe the look of it?
A: It’s set in the near future, in the future 10 or 15 years from now, but I wanted it to look like a movie made about 1978. Why? I don’t know. I just thought it should. I wanted the visual effects to be so realistic as to be banal, and lived-in and familiar. And not just the visual effects, but the sets we built, too. It’s always a combo pack of production design and visual effects, as you can imagine. I wanted it to look like any of my other movies, pretty much, just set in the near future.
Q: Sometimes you forget they’re in the small world.
A: That’s purposeful. That’s good. Again, it’s like, oh they’re 5 inches tall now. That’s good for a while, but after a minute you’re going to say, “What’s the damn story? Who are the people? What’s going on with the people?” Matt Damon’s story is one that could happen whether he was big or small.
Q: There are some easy laughs about size differences.
A: Oh yeah. I’m not above low humor.
Q: The funniest, saddest one is when he signs divorce papers with a giant pen.
A: A lot of guys can relate to that. How small you feel in that moment.
Q: There are a lot of metaphors, as you say, and statements. How important was that for you to get across in the film?
A: Well, I don’t know. It’s in the movie, so I guess it must have been important. But I’m not a message maker. I don’t know. I’m always kind of flummoxed when I’m asked to talk about themes and messages, because I kind of think I shouldn’t. That it’s just contained in the movie.
We knew we wanted the movie to start with Norwegians, and we also like a circular structure, so we thought it should end with the Norwegians, as well. If a lot of the theme of the movie is about how the more things change the more they stay the same, man is man is man, then they might be disappointed in how their brilliant idea has failed in the real world. How can we bring our protagonist into that story, because the movie is kind of telling two stories — the story of the world, and the story of the man. We brought him, however improbably, that’s why we brought him to that Norwegian colony at the end, to bring both his and their stories full circle.
Q: When directing the actors playing small people, are they always cognizant of being small?
A: Not really. No. Not really. We were just making a movie. I mean, maybe they were. But I wouldn’t say to them, “Cut. That was great but just remember, you’re small.” It wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference.
Q: Does the film resemble what you saw in your head when you were creating it?
A: This film was no different from any of my films. I have a pretty good vision of the story structure and the dialogue and the characters. But I’m very open to making the look of the film based on what I find. And I also love changing my mental picture based on what I discover in the real world, and what might be suggested by some of my collaborators. Even in casting, man, I might have an idea for a character when I’m writing a script, but I want my mind to be blown in an audition by an actor who comes in an suggests a version of the person I never, with my tiny pea-brain, might have thought of.
So it is with the visuals of the film. I’m not like Hitchcock, as he was reputed to be, where you have a very specific idea and the work of the film is merely executing that preconceived idea. Every day is a bit of a discovery for me. That’s just more how I work. Q: Are you hard on yourself when you watch your movies? Do you enjoy
them, or are you re-editing as you watch?
A: Not re-editing, but I see the mistakes. First of all, the last thing I want to do after I finish a movie is watch it again. By the time I’ve finished it I’ve seen it tens of thousands of times. I’ve pored through everything and I’m exhausted. You hear directors say, “Oh, I never watch my movies again,” and you kind of don’t believe them. And you think, really, you really don’t watch your movies again? Well, not for a long time. You’ve seen it so much you’re just sick of it you want to get on with the next film.
But having said that, I’ve got some premieres and festival screenings so I see it there. I’m glad if I don’t feel embarrassed.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goody koontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm.