Ben Stiller and Jay Roach on Directing, the Business of Movie-Making, and Not Working with Larry David
Ben Stiller and Jay Roach stopped by the Tribeca Film Festival to chat with eager cinefiles about their experiences directing some of comedy fans’ favorite films of the past 15 years. Stiller has delighted audiences with his zany brand of satire in cult hits Zoolander, Dodgeball (a sequel was just announced!), and Tropic Thunder. While Jay Roach began his career in a similar vein, helming the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents franchises, he has since shifted his focus to more serious fare, drawing on his interest in politics for the HBO films Recount and Game Change, for which he won Emmys for directing. The following are highlights from their sold-out Tribeca panel.
On Being a Director
“Creativity is a wild beast that feeds on harmony.”
While conflict drives many directors’ (and actors’) creative processes, both Stiller and Roach joked they prefer a more collaborative and “nurturing” approach. For them, directing isn’t necessarily about what’s written on the page, but rather the point of view they apply to the script when translating it to the big screen. For instance, when Roach shifted from directing comedies to political dramas, he made sure to “cast actors with comedic powers” to bring the “ideas [he] cared about” to life.
Roach also found directing comedies more “stressful” than dramas, in part because he’s always concerned about striking the right balance between what he finds funny and what he thinks may make the audience laugh, a process he described as “neurosis making.” This led them to a discussion on a “necessary” evil in the business…
On the Business Behind Film-making
“You give somebody a pen and then watch out.”
Stiller and Roach talked quite a bit about the film testing process, in which movies are screened for preview audiences, who in turn fill out questionnaires about what they thought about them. These surveys are then tallied and the films are graded; scoring below a certain threshold can mean losing millions of dollars in marketing money as studios decide to shift budget to another film. (For an in-depth look at the process, check out this New Yorker article.) According to Roach, “things that are familiar test better,” meaning that any comedy that doesn’t fit an expected formula may falter in this process. For instance, Stiller and Roach explained that both Austin Powers and Zoolander scored below this threshold. (But, for the record, both also under-performed at the box office and didn’t break out until they were released on home video.)
While this process is obviously nerve-wracking for a director, Stiller and Roach find tremendous value in listening for when the audience laughs (and when it doesn’t). “It’s the director’s job not to get lost in [testing,” clarified Stiller. Both talked about how they edit the film based on this feedback, tightening up scenes that fall flat and lengthening the parts that get laughs.
On Improvisation & Larry David
“The enemy of improv is needing to improv.”
Ben Stiller is no stranger to improv: “A lot of people rely on it. In a way it’s almost like a subgenre.” But reliance isn’t always a good thing. Both expressed that improvisation in film can sometimes feel like a crutch to excuse poor writing. Of course there are always exceptions to this rule, and Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of them. To get David’s trademark raw dialogue, Stiller only received a skeletal outline when he guest starred on the show and was expected to improvise his lines, hitting certain marks along the way. Stiller explained that only the first few takes are really improvised, and after a while the actors get a sense of what’s working in a scene and draw on those moments they’ve created.
Interestingly, Roach considered David for the never materialized role of Dom Focker (say it out loud and a little fast) in the Meet the Parents franchise. However, when David said he would only do the role if he could improvise his own lines and not memorize any dialogue, they parted ways.
On Fockers, little improvisation happened on set, with one exception: Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand would playfully steal each other’s laugh lines. And, not surprisingly, Barbra almost always got the last laugh.
–Andrea Marker
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