When comedians get serious
Will Ferrell and Julia Louisdreyfus tone down their comic backgrounds for an avalanche — both emotional and literal — in Downhill
2014’S FORCE MAJEURE, Ruben Östlund’s classy exploration of a fractured family dynamic, focused on a couple dealing with the aftermath of the man fleeing an avalanche, leaving his wife to protect their children. Chilling but bleakly comical, it was uniquely Scandinavian. Downhill, a US remake with Will Ferrell and Julia-louis Dreyfus as the troubled pair, hopes to replicate that spirit, the A-list comic actors dialling up the yuks without sacrificing any thematic heft.
“We like to mine pain for laughs,” says co-director Nat Faxon, who is making Downhill with Jim Rash — their previous film was 2013’s coming-of-age dramedy The Way, Way Back. Empire is on a studio lot in Vienna soaking up the shoot, and the scene we’re watching has the couple psychologically unpacking the avalanche’s aftermath while their friends look on helplessly. The scene is a microcosm of the movie, explains Ferrell. “You’re either going to be feeling, ‘Oh my God, I wanna get out of that room,’ or you might be laughing at how horribly uncomfortable it is. That’s what we’re going for.”
The tension is boiling in the scene Empire witnesses. This is take 17 of a ten-page, 12-minute unbroken scene — the pivotal argument in the film — and the work is taking its toll. “You tap into stuff that’s unpleasant,” Louis-dreyfus says. The scene they’re shooting was shot yesterday; the actors thought they were done with the unpleasantness. “We were happy to get that out of the way. And then they told us that today they needed close-ups from the other side, so we had to revisit it.” So here they are, letting rip again. It’s exhausting just watching it.
This is a different Ferrell, says Rash: “It felt like a nice play for Will to show his dramatic side.” It looks set to do the same for Louis-dreyfus. She has done takes this long on Veep, she says, “but that was straight-up comedy.” This is accessing something else. What is the aforementioned unpleasantness she’s been tapping into? “Life. You tap into sympathy and empathy and memory and bring yourself into the material so that you’re wearing it, as opposed to just reading it.”
Life has clearly exhausted the actors by the time the directors call time on the day’s filming. “I’m sweating,” says Ferrell. Louis-dreyfus gives him a huge hug. “Now that it’s the 50th time we’ve done it, things were striking me for the first time,” says Ferrell as we sit to discuss the day’s work. “The character’s shame came flush. And that was a whole ’nother level.” He looks utterly spent. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ve never done an interview that out of my mind.” It’s no laughing matter.
DOWNHILL IS IN CINEMAS FROM 28 FEBRUARY