Ben Stiller Had to Chase Chickens on the Chaotic Set of 'Nutcrackers' | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024

1 year ago

Ben Stiller & director David Gordon Green talk about filming a farming family in their home for the movie 'Nutcrackers' at the Variety Studio at TIFF 2024.

Transcript

00:00So when you sent me the email and you said the Jansen brothers, I thought you meant the Hansen brothers.

00:07I was like, oh, we're going to do that movie with the oom-bop guys.

00:10That's the sequel.

00:22So Ben, Nutcrackers is your first lead role in seven years.

00:26What was it like to return to acting?

00:28And what was it about this project that made you want to do it?

00:31Well, it was fun.

00:33I never really imagined that I would spend that much time not acting.

00:38It wasn't a planned thing.

00:40But I was kind of just waiting around for something that I really connected with

00:44and been doing work behind the camera a lot.

00:47And so when I got this email from David, it was kind of this wonderful gift out of the blue.

00:53And we'd been talking over the years about trying to do something together.

00:56And he just sent me this project.

00:59And he had it all thought out in his head in terms of just the idea of what he wanted the movie to be

01:05in terms of working with the kids, shooting on their farm.

01:09It sounded like such a unique experience.

01:11And it felt so organic to me.

01:13It felt like you just really were passionate about this idea.

01:17And I wanted to work with you anyway.

01:21But this was a specific thing that you really wanted, it felt like, to get out and to make

01:26because there was an urgency about it, I think, that you had because of these kids being kids,

01:31and they're not going to be kids forever, and wanting to capture them.

01:34And that inspiration for me was so exciting and was really one of the reasons why I wanted to just jump in.

01:40And, David, this is also you've been doing a lot of big studio films, horror films.

01:45What was it about Nutcrackers that, you know,

01:48why was this the kind of project that you wanted to make at this point?

01:52For so many reasons.

01:53Most of my career, I find a comfort zone, then I shatter that and jump into something new.

01:58I find a new comfort zone, I shatter that.

02:00And always looking for what's new, what's educational, and what's personal.

02:04And I try to make everything I do check a lot of boxes.

02:09As Ben was saying, when I just started brewing the idea, meeting the Jansen brothers,

02:13these cool kids, and they have this moment in their life that we can either think,

02:18that should be a movie, or we can think that should be a movie and then go make that movie.

02:23So I'm pretty impulsive in that way, where I wake up pretty stubborn and determined to get things done,

02:28however logical or illogical they are.

02:30They always come from some lightning bolt of inspiration.

02:33And so this was a moment for me, looking at an industry that's,

02:37if I look at the films playing in the theaters, I think there's a fear of comedy,

02:41or there's some sort of disconnect between audiences and the material.

02:45And I look back to my own childhood when I was a movie-obsessed kid growing up in the 80s

02:50and thinking, could there be the joy and the warmth of those flavors of movies

02:56that I enjoyed so much in a movie today, in a very cynical, very different world,

03:00full of headaches and dark headlines.

03:03And for me, professionally, a lot of dark films, I was just looking for a breath of fresh air

03:08and a little palate cleanser and any excuse to work with my buddy Ben here.

03:12And what about the brothers themselves? Who are they? How did you find them?

03:16So Homer, Ulysses, Arlo, and Atlas are the Jansen brothers.

03:20They're the sons of one of my closest friends from college, Carrie,

03:23and she actually worked on the first few films of mine

03:26and then left the movie industry to take over the family farm and raise these four boys.

03:31And so it's someone that's very connected to me in a creative, cosmic kind of way.

03:36And so when I go to the farm and meet them at this age and see their inspiring, very active life.

03:43They're not plugged into video games and iPads like a lot of kids.

03:46They're not zoned out on phones and zombies.

03:48They're riding four-wheelers and they're running a farm and they're dancing ballet

03:52and they're doing such a different type of activity than even my own children, certainly at my age.

03:58But I think that's something for us all to look at and be inspired by

04:02as people that take a deep breath and love the beauty around them

04:06and find ways to connect to their family and the world.

04:10I think also when you sent me the email and you said the Jansen brothers,

04:13I thought you meant the Hansen brothers.

04:17I was like, oh, we're going to do that movie with the Umbop guys.

04:20That's the sequel.

04:21Yeah.

04:23But, you know, when you go to the house and hang out with them to the farm,

04:27it is like a wonderland where they're just having so much fun

04:30and doing these slightly dangerous things like riding crazy dirt bikes

04:35and running up on the roof and jumping around.

04:37But it's their home and they're so comfortable there.

04:40But there's like an edginess to it because it's kind of like kids, you know,

04:44doing what kids used to do, like getting into trouble and, you know, kind of exploring.

04:48And it's just like it was kind of like going back in time or something,

04:52or my imagination of what it would have been like.

04:55And to capture youth in that way, in that spirit, in that way,

04:57there's just a lot of manicure, there's a lot of polish,

05:00there's a lot of do's and don'ts of youthful performances in movies today.

05:04And I just always have gravitated towards the raw and the real.

05:08So what is it like to kind of act in that atmosphere, Ben?

05:11When you come into something like that, how does that work?

05:15Well, I talked to a friend of David's who's acted in a bunch of movies with him.

05:20And she gave me some great advice, which was just, she said,

05:24you've got to give in to David's world and just go with it,

05:27because it's unlike anything else.

05:29And that was the best thing I could hear,

05:31because it really is just sort of like letting go of the ideas

05:34of what you think filmmaking should be or the rules.

05:37And even like just when you said, I'm going to do it with these four kids,

05:40my first thought was like a normal movie,

05:42they'd have like auditions and chemistry readings,

05:45you know, to see which kids work well, whatever.

05:47And he's like, no, we've got these four kids.

05:49And I was like, well, maybe should I meet the kids?

05:51And he's like, yeah, you're going to meet them when you come down there,

05:53and it's going to be great.

05:54But it was very chaotic in the best way, and I think intentionally so,

05:58where he just wanted to keep it alive and keep it loose,

06:03so that, first of all, I think that the boys could just feel comfortable

06:07and he could get the best out of them and who they were.

06:11And we're also shooting in their home, and there's animals all around.

06:15It wasn't sort of created.

06:17I mean, this is the way that their house is.

06:20There's, I don't know, like eight or ten cats, and there's guinea pigs,

06:23and there's goats and dogs and hogs.

06:27I mean, not all in the house, but sometimes coming in and out of the house.

06:31And he was trying to capture that, which is hard to do in a movie,

06:36when all of a sudden you bring a full film crew into this small space

06:40because that affects it.

06:42Because all of a sudden, by having those people there,

06:44all of a sudden it's not the same place

06:46because it's filled up with all these people and self-awareness.

06:49And he really did everything he could, I think, to get rid of that

06:52and to allow this life to happen on screen.

06:56And so, you know, every day was an adventure.

07:01What was it like to shoot this scene with the chicken?

07:03And has it changed your relationship to rotisserie?

07:06Unfortunately not.

07:10And I have an awful double standard when it comes to chickens

07:13because I love chickens, but I also will eat rotisserie chicken

07:18and other kinds of chickens.

07:20And that's something I struggle with probably since the movie a little bit more.

07:24But I think it affected more my hamstrings and my joints, my knees,

07:30what I thought I could do.

07:32By the end of a take, it would be like,

07:34all right, you know what, can I get a makeup touch-up

07:38just so that I could breathe?

07:41But there's a reason why Rocky trained that way with the chicken,

07:46to catch the greased chicken.

07:49No, but that was real.

07:51It was just sort of like, okay, you're going to go there

07:52and actually try to catch the chicken.

07:54There was no choreography there.

07:56But I think that's part of it.

07:57When people say don't work with animals, kids, or water,

07:59that's because those are uncertain

08:01and you have to surrender to the lack of control about that.

08:04And just filming Ben with the lack of control is a pretty beautiful thing.

08:08Yeah, and that was fun.

08:09And that was important to me to just kind of go with it.

08:12Even falling in the little pond, you know,

08:15it was like the day that we were shooting that.

08:17It was cold when we were shooting the movie.

08:19I mean, I remember the first day, even the trailer lost energy.

08:24The little mini trailer we had on the set lost power,

08:27so there was no heat.

08:29And it was like 5.30 in the morning.

08:30I was like, okay, I'm getting makeup and hair with a blanket around me.

08:34And I'm like, this is going to be a different experience.

08:36And then the day we were supposed to fall into the pond,

08:38I was supposed to fall in the pond.

08:40It was like frozen.

08:44In the morning, it was frozen.

08:45I'm like, all right.

08:46And I think I said to you, like, okay,

08:47so we're not actually going to do that today, right?

08:49We should push it back in the shoot.

08:51By the way, this was like December 1st,

08:53so let's push it back to January 12th when it will be a lot warmer.

08:57But I said, today is not the day, I don't think.

09:00And you're like, fine, we'll get the stuntman to do whatever.

09:02And then as the day wore on, I was like, well,

09:04actually it's gone up to like 39 degrees.

09:06And then by like 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it was like 42 degrees.

09:10And I was like, all right, I guess I got to do this

09:12because he's going to let the stuntman do it,

09:14but then I'm going to feel like my ego is going to really be like,

09:18I got to go for it.

09:19And so it was that type of thing where it was just like, all right,

09:21let's just do it, let's see what happens.

09:23We're not even, you know, like we're on a farm that's like 40 miles out of Cincinnati.

09:28It didn't even feel like we were making a movie.

09:30It was just like we were kind of like just filming stuff.

09:33So that looseness was great, and I think that was throughout the whole shoot.

09:40For David, when you're working with somebody like Ben,

09:42who is also a very accomplished director, does it change things at all?

09:46Or do you find that people who have experience doing what you do

09:51approach acting in a different way?

09:53Are you able to have conversations differently?

09:55With a project like this, you know, we can always speak to the chaos

09:58because that's kind of what makes the movie feel special and unique.

10:01But I don't think you can approach chaos in its most chaotic

10:07and capture it unless you have a sophisticated navigator of the sequences.

10:12So rather than having to rehearse the movie to death,

10:15by putting a pro like Ben that gets the comedy, gets the emotion,

10:19gets the drama of what we're trying to achieve,

10:21and most importantly can keep the scene on track

10:25because it would be very easy to derail if we let all hell break loose,

10:28as it often did.

10:30But that's what's so great is to be able to take that skill,

10:33and not only his skill as an actor, but he's a masterful director.

10:36So having those kind of conversations of technically what we need to achieve

10:40to be able to give this film a sense of architecture

10:44that for my hopes was to take what we love about

10:49the bubblegum blockbuster comedies of the 80s and 70s

10:52and then add our own eccentric signatures of artsy-fartsy films that inspire us.

10:57You were also talking a little bit about the fact that Hollywood

11:00doesn't make these kinds of movies that much anymore.

11:03Why do you think that's happened?

11:05Do you feel like there could be a change and these types of films,

11:08these types of comedies could come back in vogue?

11:11I don't know why.

11:14I think the movie business has evolved in a very unpredictable way

11:18that none of us would have imagined 20 years ago

11:21due to streaming and everything else.

11:24At the end of the day, I think what people like to watch,

11:27what they like to feel when they go to the movies hasn't changed.

11:30It's the same reason people have gone to plays for thousands of years.

11:35It's the same reason why we need to experience storytelling and art in our lives.

11:40It's essential.

11:42I think it's just about making a commitment to going back to that.

11:47I think all creative people feed on inspiration and experience

11:53and to a certain extent nostalgia of things that you watched

11:57when you were younger that inspired you.

12:00For me, I feel that.

12:02I think that it's really important that filmmakers of our generation

12:08are committed to really sticking with that

12:12because technology is changing.

12:14The way people process and watch entertainment has changed so much

12:19that if you really believe in something and you want to keep it alive,

12:23you have to commit to it.

12:25The marketplace will go up and down and change,

12:27but I think people are always hungry for this kind of movie

12:31and a theatrical experience of this kind of movie

12:33because you don't get this kind of movie in the theaters that often.

12:35That's where I'm hoping it'll go.

12:38Yeah, I agree with that.

12:40I feel like there's a cynicism over the last decade of comedies.

12:46It's been a few years since we really had that film drive audiences en masse

12:51to go and just laugh out loud that had the simplicity

12:54because I think a lot of what I learned from my friend Jason Blum

12:58in the horror genre is you don't need big explosions

13:01and huge special effects to scare the crap out of people.

13:04So taking some of the lessons that I learned with him in the horror genre

13:07and trying to apply it to comedy, which I think could follow the same rules

13:10of people that make you glow on the inside when you watch them,

13:13they make you laugh, that doesn't need to cost a tremendous amount of money.

13:17That needs to come from a place of intentions and humor and warmth

13:22that I feel like we can deliver economically.

13:25When the pressure's not on us so much to make something feel

13:28like it has to appeal to everyone, we can start curating things

13:32that we respond to from a personal level, from a self-indulgent level,

13:36and then slowly integrate that audience that we know could be significant

13:39for these films.

13:41You mentioned pressure, and Ben, you're returning with Severance,

13:44the second season, which ended on a cliffhanger.

13:47What is it like to come back with a show that was so well-received?

13:50What can audiences expect for the second season?

13:54It's an interesting experience.

13:56I've never been through it before, a second season of anything.

13:59Everything I've done has gotten canceled back in the day.

14:05I feel like there's an expectation that the audience has

14:09that they should have if they love something.

14:12For us, it's just been the process of trying to, for us,

14:16live up to our expectation of what we think the show should be

14:20and commit to that.

14:23It's been an interesting trying time over the last few years

14:26to make things on all levels for people,

14:29first with the pandemic, and then for us, the second season,

14:34getting interrupted by the strike and the crunch that's put on

14:39so many people.

14:41To keep that focus on trying to make the best possible season,

14:47being aware that it's taken a long time.

14:51I, like other people, get frustrated when things take a long time.

14:55I want to have the next season sooner.

14:58I understand that feeling of the expectation.

15:01It's taken a long time. I hope it's good.

15:05People are just wanting something to live up to what they've experienced

15:11and have it hopefully not let them down.

15:16All you can do is try to do what you think is good.

15:19I'm excited for it. I think we've put everything into it.

15:23It's been fun to explore the story and work with these actors and with Dan.

15:33I've never had that experience of being with something so long

15:37where the characters really start to have a life

15:41and the actors understand the characters so well.

15:44It grows into something more.

15:47It's been really enjoyable working on that.

15:50I'm really excited for the second season for people to finally see it.

15:55Thank you both so much and congratulations on the film.

15:58Thanks, man.

Ben Stiller Had to Chase Chickens on the Chaotic Set of 'Nutcrackers' | Variety Studio at TIFF 2024

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