THE BEAVER 2011

A flailing CEO communicates only via a hand puppet in Foster’s third film as a director.

“Interestingly, my first film [Little Man Tate] was about a child prodigy. My second movie [Home For The Holidays] was about being in your thirties, between a relationship with your children and a relationship with your family. And this was about a middle-aged man. So in a way it’s almost a trilogy.

“I’ve known a lot of people who were depressed, and there was a lot of depression in my family. I think the film explores it without looking at it like a disease movie. I think it explores it in conjunction with family, and with growing up, and with fathers and sons. There’s a large spectrum of depression. There’s the clinical medical depression that Walter [Mel Gibson] is going through, something that is very serious and is a medical condition. Not like sadness… that’s a different thing. And there’s what we all experience. Grief, and sadness and the heaviness of life.

“Mel loved the script. He loved the absurdity but was almost afraid of the absurdity in the beginning. He was like, ‘Really, a movie with a puppet? I don’t know…’ But really I think [he] understood the complexity of the character and really understood a film about a man who’s suffering, and who is struggling with wanting to change and wanting to be different than he is – the self-hatred of it. I think he understood the drama and went in that direction. I am grateful that he was willing to be so open to playing something in such a raw way.”