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Quote: Tackling Directing and George Clooney
By DAVE ITZKOFF
JUST as fans of the NBC sitcom “The Office” were celebrating the transformation of the fictional colleagues Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly from unrequited lovers to an honest-to-goodness couple, the writers’ strike cruelly stalled their romance and halted production on the show for several months. But for John Krasinski, the actor who plays Jim, the affable everydude of “The Office,” the news wasn’t all bad. He used the hiatus to resume postproduction work on his directorial debut, an adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men,” a collection of short stories and monologues that he has been trying to make into a film for more than five years.
“It was just something that I wanted to do, and it seemed like the only way to get it done was to do it myself,” said Mr. Krasinski, who studied at Brown University and the O’Neill National Theater Institute in Waterford, Conn. “We’ll see if that was a good or bad decision.”
In the shorter term Mr. Krasinski, 28, can next be seen in “Leatherheads,” opening Friday. And new episodes of “The Office” begin April 10. “Leatherheads,” directed by George Clooney, is a comedic tribute to the rough-and-tumble 1920s-era origins of professional football, in which Mr. Krasinski plays a college football star competing with a rugged professional athlete (played by Mr. Clooney) for the affections of a newspaper sportswriter (Renée Zellweger). Mr. Krasinski recently spoke with Dave Itzkoff about his fitness routine, the origins of his passion project and the simple pleasures of punching Mr. Clooney in the face. These are excerpts from their conversation.
Q. What do the die-hard “Office” fans have to harass you about, now that Jim and Pam have finally gotten together?
A. During the strike they were bothering me about when we were coming back. Literally these two guys were like: “C’mon, man! When’s that show coming back? Come on, this is ridiculous, man. You’re ridiculous.” Like, really angry at me for not having the show. I felt threatened. I went right back to Greg Daniels [an executive producer] and said, “Let’s settle this thing.”
Q. Did you undertake any special training to portray a football player in “Leatherheads”?
A. The best news George could have given me was, back in the old times, nobody was really super-muscular or big. And I was like: “Perfect! That basically means I can stick to my lazy regime of doing very little.” I trained a little bit, mostly to get my stamina up, to do any sort of take where I’d be running 100 yards over and over. I was thrilled to hear I didn’t have to pull a Matt Damon in “The Bourne Identity” and completely reinvent myself.
Q. Who would you say is dreamier, George Clooney the actor or George Clooney the director?
A. That’s such a tough call. As an actor he just looks good in those shots. As a director he’s such a fearless guy. The common thing to both jobs is focus. He’s pretty tough on himself, and he never separates himself from anyone else in the cast. He’s as much responsible for the scene as anyone else is. I also think he’s about five movies away from seeing every single film ever made.
Q. Still, wasn’t it satisfying on some level to beat him up?
A. That fight scene was my favorite night of shooting. I think that directing on any level is extremely stressful, and I know that this was one of the bigger productions he’s directed, but that night we had a really good time. I hope he wasn’t taking that tension out on me. He did come close to my nose a couple times.
Q. Were there any golden-age Hollywood movies he asked you to watch in preparation for making “Leatherheads”?
A. I saw everything from “All About Eve” to “The Philadelphia Story.” Any Frank Capra movie, any Preston Sturges movie, anything I could get my hands on that inspired me to understand the era. I think there was a little less paranoia, and a little less terror in everyday life. There was a real feeling of how lucky we are to be living in America.
Q. But isn’t there also an undertone of cynicism in some of those films?
A. Absolutely. If you look at “The Philadelphia Story,” for example, it’s pretty wild how there’s tons of drinking and unhappiness, behind this portrait of a beautiful house and a beautiful family. It’s hard to be part of the upkeep of perfection.
Q. What inspired you to direct a film version of “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men”?
A. At Brown, a friend of mine asked me to act in a staged reading of the book, and do one of the interviews. After that I watched six or seven of my buddies do the other interviews and saw the audience’s reaction to how unfiltered Wallace’s dialogue was and how right at the throat he was. It really allowed you to see the vulnerability of these guys and then the immediate retraction of that vulnerability, which then turned into insecurity. This was the moment where I said, “I really think I want to give this a shot,” and went to the theater school my last semester, because I wanted the official training.
Q. How did you acquire the film rights to the book?
A. Basically I was waiting tables, and trying to get the rights to do it as a theater piece. That didn’t go over great. It’s a much more difficult process than a 22-year-old waiter would realize. Then all of a sudden I got “The Office,” and right after we shot the pilot, I took pretty much all the money that I had made on that and bought the rights for a film. His agent said no at first, so I flew out to L.A. and sat with her, and said: “I know that I’m young, and I haven’t really done anything, but your client, he wrote an incredible book. I just wanted more people to know about David Foster Wallace.”
Q. When you spoke with Mr. Wallace to explain your vision of the film, were you afraid you might have one of those “Annie Hall” moments, where he tells you that you’ve completely misunderstood his life’s work?
A. Exactly. “Why don’t you go read Dr. Seuss again?” I know there are way bigger David Foster Wallace fans, but I found “Brief Interviews” at a time where I was expanding my brain in any way I could, and he was just one of the authors that really rocked things for me. I’m still reading all his stuff and still trying to understand him better and better, because it takes a long time.
Q. How do you go about adapting such a challenging and idiosyncratic collection of writing into a film?
A. The one thing I learned in this process is that the movie really does want to be what it wants to be. You start running into problems when you try to change the essence of what the movie is. I went through a lot of different evolutions of trying to make it a more cinematically palatable movie, and tie in things that definitely aren’t in the book, including a pseudo love story. Every time it just didn’t work. It’s basically a cinematic experience where you go behind the scenes of what it’s like to be a guy — in David’s world, not necessarily the real world. I won’t say that he’s the end-all, be-all on guys. But maybe he is.
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