Like Brothers

by Mark Duplass

  I have been a very intense person my whole life. For example, from the moment I picked up the drums at age ten, I practiced for hours every day. Same for the guitar at thirteen. I played my cheapie acoustic monster with my prepubescent hands until they cramped and bled. I have always been of the opinion that if you want to make it as an artist, you better be willing to sacrifice almost everything to get there (more on this very dangerous way of thinking later). So I played hard, and for long hours, and by the time I was sixteen I was playing singer-songwriter gigs around New Orleans, and by the time I was twenty-one I found myself on a U.S. tour for four months with my first CD for sale out of the back of my purple conversion van.

  I moved to New York City to further my music career and eventually started a band that signed a good record deal and kept me on the road a bunch, while simultaneously working with Jay to build our film career. It was an intense time, I was overworking myself as usual, and just as my film and music careers were taking off I started getting pains in my hands, arms, and neck. It progressed quickly, and soon my upper body had pretty much crapped out and failed me. After years of abuse of my hands and arms, my torso had all but shut down—inflammation and repetitive stress injuries so bad it hurt to open a door, much less play guitar. I couldn’t even sit at my computer for longer than ten minutes without cramping up in physical pain.

  This was not only physically challenging, it was an emotional struggle as well, because at the time the most important thing I was supposed to be doing was…yep, sitting at my computer and writing The Puffy Chair. After having had two shorts at Sundance, this was the next step. The world was waiting, so was Jay, and I was basically crippled.

  And that’s when the depression set in. I was furious with myself for pushing my body so hard, and I was angry at the world for giving me an opportunity to make movies and then shutting the door in my face by taking away my ability to physically write.

  So I pouted a whole bunch. Jay offered to step up and take over the writing, but at that time we had much more of an early Coen Brothers division of labor, where I was leading the writing and producing and he was leading the directing.

  My now-wife, Katie, was amazing. Though we were still in the early years of dating at the time, she stuck with me like a dutiful long-term spouse. She would come to my house for “writer sessions” where I would talk out script ideas with her and she would type them into the computer for me. It was an incredibly sweet and selfless move on her part, but I was fussy and the process ultimately was too verbal and intellectual to truly tap into the kind of writing I wanted to do.

  So I pouted some more. And sank into a deeper depression. I felt trapped and could only think about how wronged I was and what my new physical limitations were keeping me from accomplishing. How there was only one way to write (me at my computer pounding it out) and how since I couldn’t perform in that way, I was done.

  Feeling utterly lost, I started taking long, rambling walks trying to think about other things I could do. Even other careers. I mused about all kinds of things that didn’t require intense usage of my hands and arms.

  And then something odd happened. I had a flash from my past. I remembered in the eighties when my dad, who was a trial attorney in New Orleans, would pace back and forth in our living room with his big Dictaphone held to his mouth, working out his opening arguments. Recording. Pausing. Talking. Thinking. I remembered how he looked while he was birthing the ideas. It was the same way I used to feel when I was writing a song or writing short films at my computer. The ideas were flowing and he could just spit them right out as they came.

  I turned around and headed for the RadioShack on Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn. I bought a $20 handheld cassette recorder that looked a lot like my dad’s Dictaphone. I bought three tapes and batteries. Then I went to the grocery store and bought a hundred index cards, a black Sharpie, and a pack of shitty blue Bic pens. I was running now.

  Back at my apartment I ripped open the index cards and started writing down the names of scenes with the black Sharpie:

  JOSH AND EMILY INTRO

  PICKING UP THE CHAIR

  THE BIG MOTEL FIGHT

  Then I would flip them over and write brief descriptions of what should happen in the scenes.

  Over the next few days, Jay and I cobbled together on those notecards what we thought would make up the basic scene structure for The Puffy Chair. It was a stack of about twenty scenes and their brief descriptions on the back. I cleared my calendar for a few days and locked myself in my room with the stack of cards. I lit a shitty candle and got some tea and lay down in my bed, a work scenario where my arms gave me no pain. And I took my Dictaphone, pressed record, and just started talking….

  “Josh, Emily, and Rhett meet a sketchy guy at a furniture warehouse and discover the chair is not as advertised….”

  When it came time for writing dialogue I would just say:

  “Josh, colon, YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT CHAIR IS THIS CHAIR?”

  “Emily, colon, JOSH, LET’S JUST GO.”

  I felt pretty stupid at first, but something kind of amazing happened. Because I couldn’t see what I was writing, I just kept going. I didn’t have the chance to look at what I had just written and criticize it like I used to do on my computer. It was a linear, unstoppable process, and it just put me on a river of story and dialogue and I floated down it.

  I would press pause here and there to catch my breath and find a new thought, and I would occasionally even cheat, rewind, and rerecord a bit of dialogue if I knew instantly I could improve it, but overall it was a straight shot getting that first scene done.

  Katie was nice enough to transcribe it, cleaning up my grammatical errors and tightening some of the verbose prose in the process. I brought it to Jay, and when he read it he had the exact reaction I had. It was clumsily written and not very eloquent in its scene descriptions, but the dialogue felt very natural, and the pacing was nearly impeccable. Somehow, speaking and performing the script live had made my writing better than it had ever been.

  Jay ran the scene through Final Draft’s screenwriting software and used his powers of precision (our faithful closer) to make it better and sharper, while I barfed out the next scene into my shitty Dictaphone. We continued this process the next day…me the barfer, Jay the cleaner and refiner. Within two weeks we had the first draft of The Puffy Chair, and it was hands down the best script we had ever written.

  I took a long walk to Katie’s apartment the night we finished. I was twenty-six and I remember thinking that anything was possible. That the worst thing that had ever happened to me in my life had led me to a writing process that made me a better writer than I ever hoped to be.

  I was being highly dramatic, but I felt so good I didn’t care. I just kept saying, over and over, “Lemons. Lemonade.”

  Pretty sure Beyoncé stole that from me. But it’s cool.

  FOR THOSE OF you who are thinking, “I wish my sibling and I got along like Mark and Jay,” please know that being as inextricably intertwined as we are has its sizable downsides. And we constantly struggle to find the right ways to deal with the issues that arise from our extreme closeness. One of the major problems is that we love each other very much and we’re both criers, so that when it comes time to talk about these things we often either can’t get through the conversation without breaking down or, once we see that we are putting the other one in pain, backing away from the conflict and leaving the issue unresolved. This is where hiking comes into play.

  We discovered by accident one day that hikes are a great way to hammer out our big issues. First off, they offer a wide-open space, so our fear of being publicly humiliated helps somewhat to keep the waterworks at bay. More important, when one is hiking one has to constantly look forward so that one does not fall and break a limb or a crucial part of one’s face. This is a good problem for us in this particular
situation. It means that we must look down at the terrain and thus we don’t have to look at each other while we are airing our grievances.

  A few years ago we went through a particularly hard time. There has always been a discrepancy in our work appetites. In particular, I like to fill my work plate with way too much food, while Jay tends to be choosier and only pick the things he knows he wants to eat. This conflict is one we are no strangers to and have a good deal of experience with, but it became a little more complex as my acting career outside of our own filmmaking began to take off. Being on FX’s The League and having to adhere to its shooting schedule was proving at times to be an obstacle to making our own films. Often that meant Jay would have to pick up my slack or (even worse) that we couldn’t actually shoot one of our projects because I had a contractual acting obligation elsewhere. Fearing that Jay was upset, I would politely check in and make sure he was okay with things. Jay was always generous and understanding, but he’s also a human being. A bit of resentment began to build up.

  Then a film-directing project fell into our laps that was exciting to both of us. It felt like this could be the follow-up film to our second studio movie, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, that we were looking for. The problem was that our HBO show, Togetherness, was on the horizon, and I also had another season of The League to act in before it started. Long story short, Jay had a small window in which to make this film before Togetherness started for both of us, but I was simply not available during that window. Our credo had always been that we would write and direct films together or we wouldn’t do them at all. And that credo kept us and our brand healthy for a long time. In fact, that solidarity is the main reason we are standing where we stand today as filmmakers. We both truly believe that we would never be where we are without having stuck together the way we did in our formative years. In this case, however, we were both passionate about the film, but only one of us was available to direct it.

  I was bummed but not worried. I assumed that Jay would be fine to let this movie go. After all, our credo was our credo. Jay, however, was not ready to let this one go and assumed I would understand opening the conversation to his directing this movie by himself.

  The subject came up naturally during a writing session in our office for our first season of Togetherness. Jay, being forever sensitive but also opportunistic enough to seize an opening when he saw one, lightly floated the idea of what it would feel like if “one day we directed a few episodes of Togetherness individually and not as a team. Like, down-the-line kinda thing.” I was open to the idea. After all, we had co-branded the show, we co-produced it, we co-wrote the episodes. Could be fun in, say, season three or four to try one on our own. So, a small brick having been paved on the way to his main agenda, Jay then ever so gently floated the idea of taking on directing this new movie by himself while I was shooting The League.

  This did not go well.

  In a rare moment where emotion took over our delicate sensitivity and care for each other, I became extremely offended and, somewhat irrationally, asked Jay if he had secretly been just wanting to go out on his own and direct by himself all along. Jay, of course, denied it and said it was just about the timing. I then took a nasty step forward and essentially accused Jay of wanting to get out of our partnership but not being willing to own up to it. Jay became defensive and upset that I was projecting my feelings onto him. It was all shaping up to be a rather juicy episode of Real Housewives. Before it went further, I decided to go home and sleep it off.

  This was the only time in our lives where we went more than a day without speaking because of an argument. Jay was upset and bewildered at the extreme level of hurt I was experiencing, and I was feeling deeply rejected and afraid that he secretly wanted to start making films without me. Finally, I calmed down enough to call Jay and ask him to go for a hike. In particular, a hike with some rather rigorous terrain that would provide sufficient excuse to avoid each other’s eyeballs as we tried to work through this one. Jay accepted.

  When we began the hike, it took a little while to get into it. It felt like a seminal moment in our relationship. And neither of us was quite sure where this conversation would take us. Our memory of it is something like this….

  JAY: Look, I just want to say that I’m sorry this has been so hurtful to you.

  MARK: Thanks for saying that. I appreciate it.

  JAY: And I don’t want to diminish in any way what you’re feeling, but I have to say that I just don’t fully understand the depth of your hurt on this one.

  MARK: I know, I know. I think I didn’t fully understand it either. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that I was just afraid that you wanting to do this movie on your own was less about the timing of it and more reflective of, like…you maybe wanting to do more stuff on your own. Without me.

  (Jay nods. Mark waits.)

  JAY: Well, I can assure you that this never would have come up if you were available. I would have totally proceeded with us doing this together like normal.

  MARK: Okay.

  JAY: Okay?

  MARK: Okay.

  (At this point I make the mistake of looking up at Jay and realizing that as much as we both want to believe what Jay is saying is true, it just isn’t one hundred percent true.)

  MARK: But the weird part is that we could have talked about directing this next year together. But the first place you jumped to was doing it when I wasn’t available…without me.

  JAY: Well, I guess I was just assuming we’d do another season of Togetherness next year. You’d do another season of The League. There would be no time for you to direct a movie then either. And it would go away.

  MARK: But we don’t know that for sure. You’re just assuming that.

  JAY: Because it’s the most likely scenario.

  MARK: But you didn’t even entertain pushing it to a time frame when we could do it together?

  JAY: Okay. I hear you. I mean, I thought about it. I guess I just didn’t verbalize it to you….

  (At this point we both realize we are getting defensive again, and we slow down the talking and walking.)

  MARK: Hey. Look. I know it’s not always the easiest process in the world working together. I know I kind of bully you into things sometimes. And my brain doesn’t work like yours and…like…it can be hard. I guess I’m saying…while it would totally suck, if you felt like you wanted a little freedom and space and that you might actually prefer to do this one on your own, then you need to tell me. It’s okay.

  (Jay takes a bit of time with this one. And before he opens his mouth, I already know the answer. And it almost kills me.)

  JAY: I mean. I’m sorry. But…yeah. There’s a part of me that’s bummed that you get to go off and act in other people’s projects and I have to wait for you to be available.

  MARK: Totally. I totally get it.

  JAY: And I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was…interesting to me to think about doing something on my own. At my own speed. The way I wanna do things.

  MARK: I get that too.

  JAY: You do?

  MARK: Yes! I guess it’s easier for me because I’ve had all this creative experience as an actor outside of our little brother union and you really haven’t had any.

  JAY: Exactly.

  MARK: And honestly? It’s really fun. I love being the only one in the room with our specific skill set and energy. I get all the praise!

  (We laugh about this and start walking again, the tension lifting a little bit.)

  MARK: And I also get to be whoever I want to be when you’re not around.

  JAY: It’s weird you said that. Because as much as I love what we have, it’s like we know each other so well that when I’m around you I don’t get to flex weird new sides of myself. Because you know me well. And it would feel false in front of you.

 
MARK: Totally get it. On the set of Humpday I got to smoke weed and talk about different stuff and be a little different. And there was no one there who knew me inside and out to call me on my bullshit.

  (This is really funny to us for some reason.)

  JAY: And to be super clear, this wouldn’t mean I don’t want to direct with you anymore, just so you know. I’m not even sure I definitely want to do this on my own.

  MARK: No. I understand. I think maybe those old rules of us being a tightly knit brand that only writes and directs together might be a little…

  JAY: Constrictive or something.

  MARK: Maybe.

  (We get quiet. The joy of laughing is over, and we are centered again on the gravity of this decision and what it will mean for us as business partners and brothers.)

  JAY: How are you feeling?

  MARK: Um…I am scared that you are gonna realize that you might enjoy making movies on your own better than when you make them with me…and that will be the beginning of the end of what we have.

  JAY: I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

  MARK: I’m still scared. But I love you and I want you to be happy. And if this is something you need to pursue I think you should do it.

  JAY: Really?

  MARK: No. Not really. But yes. Really.

  JAY: I love you. Thanks for being so open. And I’m sorry it hurt.

  MARK: I’m sorry I was so overly sensitive. I love you too.