Keeping the set loose for this ‘tragicomedy’
With a background as a director of live theatre and drama instructor, Welcome to Me is only filmmaker Shira Piven’s second feature-length film. The Star talked to Piven in advance of the movie’s Toronto premiere.
How did you get involved with the project?
I have worked with the writer, Eliot Laurence, for about 15 years on and off but really in an actor-director relationship. He started out in an acting class of mine in New York. A friend of ours’ brought my attention to the script . . . and I asked Eliot to read it and I really fell in love with it instantly. I just felt like the movie was already alive when I read it and I had kind of a mission to get this movie made.
How did you assemble such a great cast?
I think the combination of the really unusually good script attracted people and Kristen Wiig. People wanted to work with Kristen and they really felt strongly about the script.
How did you and Kristen prepare her for the lead role of Alice Klieg?
Kristen is a very improvisational, spontaneous actor. I come from a theatre background and I like to rehearse. But with an independent movie, it’s really hard to have the budget to allot the time for a lot of rehearsal. I just tried to get a lot of time with her on the phone and in meetings discussing the character, so we definitely had a dialogue about the character in advance. She also asked a lot of questions of the writer because she really felt so connected to the character. She really delved into the character that was on the page, which is the way I work as well. She then wants to keep it loose and open and that’s the reason she doesn’t like to rehearse. She really doesn’t want it to get sterile and old by the time the cameras are rolling. So she really just likes to learn her lines just enough to play the scene and keep everything loose and improvisational.
Do you regard the film as a comedy, and were you concerned about how to handle the issue of mental illness?
I’m really still not comfortable calling this a comedy, as funny as it is. If you had to press me, I would say it’s a dark comedy. When Kristen read it, she didn’t feel it was a comedy and yet I wouldn’t say it’s a drama. Someone said to the writer, ‘I think you’ve invented a new genre — tragicomedy.’ That’s probably the closest we’ve come to defining it. That said, it is very funny, especially the first half of the movie. When we have a large audience, there is more laughter than we ever expected.
As far as the mental illness part of it, definitely it demanded a great deal of sensitivity.
We had questionnaires for our first test screening . . . and that for me was the most important question, ‘How do you feel the mental illness part of it was handled?’ Because we all have people in our lives with mental illness and in some ways, we are all on the spectrum of mental illness.
I’ve always felt that Alice is a character who we know or who is like ourselves and that we have to be respectful of her and that the laughter has to come from recognition . . . and the absurdity of the situation. Ultimately we get angry at her and we have compassion for her, just like people we know.
How did the shoot go?
The shoot was really a joy because there were so many wonderful actors who were happy to be there. For me, it’s important to keep a set where it’s loose as opposed to tense, especially when you’re doing some improvisation, which we did.
We had dogs on the set, which was always a little absurd and funny, having to deal with dogs. One of our electricians had a moment of getting electrocuted and we had to shut down the set for a couple of hours but he was totally fine.