John Krasinski - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men #1 - John's a Triple Threat Now!

palegreen · 08-31-2007, 03:36 PM

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is John's debut as a writer/director. It's based on the book by David Foster Wallace (find out more here). That's pretty much all we know!

The whole project has been done pretty quietly, but here are a couple of small blurbs about it.

From John's Mean article:

Quote:

Why did you choose to base your first foray into filmmaking on David Foster Wallace's book Brief Interviews With Hideous Men?
Brief Interviews changed everything for me. I read it in college, when a friend of mine asked me to do a stage reading with him and a couple of other people. This was at the time when I was just kinda acting only for fun and didn't think I'd ever do anything with it. But, without being overly sentimental, the night we did that stage reading was a life-changing moment. To see the effect the material had on the audience and how powerful it was....! [Wallace] painted such an amazing picture of the male psyche.

You must have had to contact Wallace and ask him for permission to adapt his book. How did that conversation go?
I only talked to him once -- just to get his blessing -- and it was a pretty amazing phone call. He wants nothing to do with the movie and not for any malicious reasons: He's just removed and he writes and he teaches. He's off by himself, being brilliant...

As eccentric as he is, I was surprised at how incredibly nice he was. He asked me, "Do you know the story of that book?" and I said, "No." Then he said, "I wouldn't say Brief Interviews is my favorite book that I ever wrote." And I said, "Why?!" And he said, "Because it's a failed experiment. I was trying to write a book from the perspective of a character that you never see. In reading [the interview transcripts with] all the men, you'd find out about this woman...She's probably studying something like feminism."

At this point I started to shake and freak out, because in my script the whole story is about this woman. My main character's this woman who's interviewing [the titular hideous men] because she's doing a dissertation on life after [the decline of] the feminist movement! When I read this book I thought I knew what he was talking about, but you never really know, especially because this one is so complex. So I just took a shot in the dark and stayed confident with it. And it turned out to be right. ...Or, we'll see!

A small blurb from an MTV Movie News article on Timothy Hutton:

Quote:

We all know that "The Office" star John Krasinski spends enough time looking at the camera, so it's refreshing that he's decided to step behind it for a change. "John did a really interesting thing with the adaptation," actor Timothy Hutton said this week of "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men", a movie written and directed by Krasinski and based on the bestselling book by David Foster Wallace. "It's his favorite book. Foster Wallace read the script and thought what John did was amazing, and said to John, 'You solved the puzzle.'" The trick, Hutton said, was finding a through-line. "The ongoing story is between a professor and Julianne Nicholson, his teacher's assistant, and interspersed throughout the movie are these interviews she's doing," Hutton said of the flick, in which he stars as the professor alongside Mila Kunis and Lou Taylor Pucci. "She goes through this process, and she starts to question her own life, her own relationships. And then she reports back t me. And at some point, without her really asking, I start to talk to her about my relationship with my wife. It starts off as kind of an examination of how women feel about men, and how men really feel about women. And then it starts to be more about men and their feelings about and fears about their relationships with women, whether it's their mother, their wife, their sister, or their co-worker." Hutton is at Sundance promoting his drama "The Last Mimzy"; "Interviews" and "Mimzy" are both due in theaters later this year.

John read one of the interviews from the book at Jest Fes '06t. You can see a video here, but be warned that there's some foul language and the whole thing is a bit on the raunchy side of things.

kbear78 · 08-31-2007, 04:25 PM

I can't wait for this movie...but i don't think i'll be able to see it in theaters...but it's definately one i'll buy on DVD!

***Enigma*** · 08-31-2007, 04:28 PM

Thanks for the thread.

I can't wait to see it.

Trip & Run · 08-31-2007, 04:58 PM

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing John do his thing!

palegreen · 08-31-2007, 07:56 PM

I'm hoping when it hits the festival circuit it will play at the one near me. I'd definitely go check it out.

Hopefully we'll get an update on the movie in the near future.

girl in a cardigan · 08-31-2007, 08:26 PM

I'm really interested to see how this turns out. Not having seen or heard anything that he's written (or adapted) previously, I can't comment on how I think it'll be, but I'll definitely give it a shot.

**blue sky blues** · 09-04-2007, 06:23 AM

I seriously cannot wait for this movie. The book is amazing, and I can't wait to see John's take on it film wise.

**ღ misty** · 09-13-2007, 07:57 AM

I'm really excited about this movie. I never read the book (I want to, though, 'cause I prefer reading the books before watching movie versions of them) but I can't wait to see John's debut as a director. I have high hopes for it

girl in a cardigan · 09-13-2007, 09:36 AM

Yeah, I think I should probably get the book to read before watching the movie. I like to have a base to start from when available

***Enigma*** · 09-14-2007, 10:41 PM

I definitely want to check out the book.

palegreen · 09-14-2007, 11:54 PM

The book is awesome. It seems nearly impossible to adapt, though, so I'm excited to see how John pulls it all together.

**blue sky blues** · 09-16-2007, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by palegreen (View Post)

The book is awesome. It seems nearly impossible to adapt, though, so I'm excited to see how John pulls it all together.

Oh yeah, me too. I fell in love with the book the first time I read it and I've read it at least 40 times since!

girl in a cardigan · 09-16-2007, 08:48 AM

Well, with those endorsements, I'm definitely going to have to pick up a copy to read before the movie comes out

Firestar007 · 09-16-2007, 09:52 AM

Looking forward to seeing this project. I need to get to book.

-res cogitans- · 09-16-2007, 04:18 PM

he was hilarious on the red carpet!