Who is this guy Maren?
He's a filmmaker, and his latest takes a screwball look at identity
Michael Maren has been, in a sense, many people: He was in the Peace Corps and an aid worker in Africa, a journalist covering war zones, an author and TV talking head, a screenwriter who earned money but got nothing produced. Finally, in 2014, Maren wrote and directed the indie film “A Short History of Decay.”
It took nearly another decade but now Maren has cemented this new identity with “A Little White Lie,” about a handyman mistaken for a reclusive writer. The film is adapted from Chris Belden's 2013 novel, “Shriver,” and was filmed at the University of Redlands and in Los Angeles.
Michael Shannon plays a harddrinking, lonely apartment superintendent in New York named Shriver whose life is transformed when he gets an invitation to a writers conference at a middling university out West. The conference had seemed on its last legs, but the English department — most notably Simone Cleary (Kate Hudson) — thinks it scored a coup by landing the Salingeresque recluse who had one successful but controversial novel, “Goat Time,” before disappearing. Don Johnson plays a horse-riding lush of a poet named T. Wasserman, and the film also features M. Emmet Walsh, Zach Braff and Wendie Malick.
Once on campus, Shriver starts questioning whether he might, in fact, be the author himself. As he struggles to understand himself, chaos ensues all around him, with seductions, accusations and a potential murder investigation.
Maren, who is married to author Dani Shapiro (“Signal Fires”) and is adapting her memoir, “Inheritance”
Michael Maren is the director of “A Little White Lie,” whose cast includes Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson and Zach Braff.
for director Agnieszka Holland, spoke recently by video about the movie and about understanding oneself. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q
Do you know who you are? A
I published my first book in 1997 and the first time I walked into a bookstore to do a reading, I looked at all these people and had a total out-of-body experience. I was thinking, about myself, “Who is this guy standing up there?” You suddenly start seeing yourself the way other people see you and that can be kind of scary. If you're not mentally strong, it can be upsetting.
Q
Did you feel like an imposter?
A
When I first called action on this film and I'm looking at Michael Shannon and Kate Hudson, I was thinking, “Holy hell.”
Imposter syndrome is a funny term. I use it here for lack of a better one. It was not, “I don't deserve this,” but that I was playing the role of the author and needed to behave and speak in a certain way. My public self is different from who I am, and you split yourself in that way.
I felt that when I first got back from being a journalist in Africa and started doing this talking head thing on CNN and MSNBC. I realized I'd developed a TV persona. I'm the cool guy; I know stuff.
Q
What were the themes that appealed to you? And was it the humor or the characters?
A
There's a dark humor to it and I love the character of Shriver. But in the book, all the other characters are over-thetop caricatures. I did not want to make an absurd movie.
What interested me was the idea of imposter syndrome and the degree to which a human being can divorce themselves from what they put on the page. For someone like Shriver, once you separate it can be hard to bring it all back together. I knew I wanted to ground it in reality and even ran an early script by a psychiatrist friend because I wanted to make it somewhat feasible.
Q
How did you envision “Goat Time”?
A
To understand Shriver, I decided to write “Goat Time,” although I only got about 40 pages written. It was a cross between Kafka and Thomas Pynchon. The scene when Shriver reads from it to Simone is taken from what I wrote. That's a turning point in the film.
I told Michael about reading an article years ago and realizing I'd been plagiarized and how I felt like I was slipping on ice. I said to Mike, “Even if you don't remember writing something, for most writers, when you read it, something is going to stir in you.”
If we had a bigger budget and more time, my plan had been to shoot that entire scene in blackand-white in New York City to show while he was reading it. But making an independent film means making compromises.
Q
This movie had shifting casts and financing problems and then was delayed first when you had cancer and then because of COVID-19. Did you ever think it was not meant to be?
A
I spent a month prepping this film in Savannah, Georgia
heading toward Christmas in 2018, based on the budget my producer had given us. We had to start shooting in February 2019 because Michael Shannon had another project. Suddenly, the producer stopped paying the bills, including hotel bills and per diem checks. He didn't answer my calls until finally he said, “This is way too much money to spend on this movie,” even though it was what we'd agreed to. He wanted to move it to Alabama and cut the budget. His option was expiring on Dec. 31 so I just left and went to join Dani on her book tour for “Inheritance.”
I felt there was something off in my body, and when we got back to Connecticut and found out I had cancer and it was a fast-growing tumor. If the film had gone through and we'd started filming, I probably would have just pushed through and it might have been too late. Instead, I spent the rest of 2019 getting chemo and surgery. Michael Shannon stayed with the project and attracted the rest of this cast.
So if I hadn't been screwed over by a producer, I probably would have died.