Like Brothers

by Mark Duplass

  The director puts it out there. And everyone knows that this director, in this moment, is full of shit. Because everyone has been here before. Everyone knows that there is only one hour left to shoot before we go into overtime and that the only possible version of the scene is the one the director just pitched. That this new plan has nothing to do with “vision” or “choice” and is merely a desperate attempt to finish the day on schedule.

  So the cast members take their turn next. And put on their fake smiles…

  “I kinda love that idea.”

  “Yeah, man. It’s cool. Kinda like that Woody Allen thing.”

  “Totally. Let’s do this. It’s…it’s definitely better.”

  “One hundred percent.”

  And with that, everyone heads into the scene. A little more soul-sick than they were a few minutes ago. And it sucks. For everyone. Because it’s a lie. And everyone knows it. And everyone is afraid to call out the truth. But the funny thing is, the truth of the situation is actually not that bad if you just lay it on the table without any frills or fake smiles. Imagine for a second if the director had the courage to say something like this:

  “Okay, so…I’m pretty sure you all know what I’m about to say. It’s…six P.M. We have to wrap by seven or else we will go into overtime, and we don’t have the budget for that. So I know we had this really cool, intricate plan to shoot the scene, but…well, that’s not happening. That being said, I do think there’s an alternate version where we just shoot this in one big wide shot. It’s something we can do with the time we have, it’ll keep us all on schedule, and…who knows? Maybe there will be some accidental poignancy to it? Maybe some reviewer will say, ‘I love how the director chose to stay out of the way and let the words and actors do their thing.’ Ha! Or not. Maybe it’ll just be a compromised version of the scene. And if it is, maybe we can look at it later and see if there’s another solution. But for now, this wide-shot plan is what we can do, with our limited time and budget. I apologize for the gear shift, but I’d love it if you guys would join me and give it our all for the next…fifty-eight minutes, and see if we can make some lemonade out of these lemons. I have a feeling if we just gear up for it and make the best out of what we have, that we’ll find something inspired and interesting. What do you think?”

  If we were actors on a set, we would so much prefer to hear this. It’s the truth, we can feel sympathy for the director’s position, and we can get on board.

  So next time you find yourself having that conversation that we continually have with each other—the one where you are asking advice on how to handle a given situation and what “version of the truth” you should tell the person when you next contact him? The whole “I want to be his friend and have the occasional lunch with him, but I kinda know he has a little crush on me and I don’t see him that way, so I worry that if I do accept his invite I’ll be leading him on, so I’m not sure what I should tell him…” conversation? Try doing what we’ve been telling each other to do for the past few years:

  “You should tell that person exactly what you just told me.”

  Because if that person heard you fumbling through it with all your cards on the table, he would know that you were so thoughtful and considerate of him that you agonized over how to handle his feelings. And he would know that you actively sought out advice as to how to handle it properly. And that, in the end, the situation was so complex that you ultimately couldn’t find the clean, elegant solution and that it was tearing you up a bit. If you just said all those things? In short, if you just told the awkward, fumbly, nervous truth…we bet that person would feel really good about what you had to say. They would feel considered. They would feel you put time into their feelings. Perhaps most important, they would inherently know that you were telling the truth…which is becoming harder and harder to discern these days.

  WE ONCE HAD a movie idea called The Blowjob that we were obsessed with making. It was a small, intimate, sad, darkly funny story about three characters and how their lives changed forever with a seemingly small event…pun intended. It seemed like it was going to be the follow-up to The Puffy Chair. But for some reason we could never crack it in ninety-minute form and make it feel like a great feature film. We wrestled with it for months and eventually had to just let it go out on an ice floe into the sea of inspired but ultimately abandoned ideas.

  But we love that sea. And have learned that letting ideas go there doesn’t mean they are gone forever. They often come back with beards, shaved armpits, new tattoos. Sometimes we don’t even recognize them until they start speaking to us again. Most of the time they return as a new film or a fun side story line in one of our TV shows. But with this book we have a new way to resurrect one of our old friends from the dead. The Blowjob is going to live a new life. Right here. It will be the first short story we have ever written. And will likely be terrible. But that’s okay. Because it’s called The Blowjob, and it has at least that going for it already.

  Also, so you guys can get a truer sense of how we collaborate, here is the initial vomit draft of the story, as is, along with Jay’s first set of feedback notes. Hope you learn something interesting and that the story doesn’t suck too badly.

  From: mark duplass

  To: jay duplass

  Subject: BLOWJOB feedback

  dupes. just wanted to say that I got your feedback on my BLOWJOB story and it was just fuckin awesome all around. not only was it helpful, but I guess I just wanna say that it made me acutely aware of how special our relationship is. that u handle me so well. that u are so thoughtful and gentle with the criticism. and, in general, that your honesty doesn’t take the form of brutality.

  whatever. blah blah. just wanna say I appreciate it and I kinda had a little moment reading it and it felt really special.

  that’s it.

  love yous

  dupiss face johnson

  From: jay duplass

  To: mark duplass

  Subject: RE: BLOWJOB feedback

  hey dupes. thanks so much for this. kinda crazy that u sent it cuz I actually had a hard time sleeping last night after I sent that to you.

  I’ve been wanting to bring something up with you and now is probably a terrible time cuz I don’t wanna blow all the positive mojo we have going on this email chain but I also feel like I need to get something off my chest.

  the truth is, I feel like I kinda held back on my feedback on your story. my instinct was, basically, “mark is trying something new and I want to be supportive and I don’t want him to feel like I’m just crushing his soul so I’m gonna be gentler with the feedback.”

  but when I was going to sleep last night, jen and I were watching POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE and I was watching how raw and real this mother and daughter were in the way they dealt with each other. and as brutal and toxic as their relationship was…I got weirdly jealous. cuz they could say anything to each other. and, at the end of the day, they know they love each other so it didn’t matter. they didn’t use kid gloves or anything.

  so, what I really want to say is that I didn’t love the blowjob story. I didn’t really feel the importance of it and I just, kinda…I don’t know. it didn’t work for me. and I think rather than salvage it that you are too talented to waste time on something that just isn’t really that interesting.

  and I guess, on a bigger picture front, I’m saying that I feel like there is maybe a little bit of an…untruth or something in how we deal with each other sometimes? like we are so good at being positive and supportive and nurturing and loving that maybe we do it to a fault? and that it is a rhythm we have established since birth and almost a role people expect us to play so sometimes we just play it on autopilot? I don’t know. I probably should have thought this through before emailing you, but…I guess that’s the point. I don’t wanna think things through perfectly anymore before we talk about things. I wond
er if maybe we should let loose and fight and just…let it spill a bit more, u know?

  it’s late. I don’t know if I should send this.

  but I promised myself I would.

  if this doesn’t make sense and is offensive, I am deeply sorry. know that my love for you is unshakable and forever.

  but still. I’m gonna send it. fuck. I’m nervous.

  love yous too.

  wilson sampras johnson, jr., esquire

  From: mark duplass

  To: jay duplass

  Subject: RE: BLOWJOB feedback

  hey dupes. I hear this and am taking it in. in the spirit of trying to honor what you are looking for (rawness and a less considered, kid-glovey response), I definitely am feeling bummed and hurt and that u maybe could have said it in a nicer way.

  gonna take a minute to ponder. I think I genuinely prefer communicating in a more respectful, held-back tone. but maybe it’s just cuz I’m used to it. but I also know that I feel like shit right now, and it’s mostly bc u didn’t consider my feelings (as much as u normally do) in your last email.

  maybe I’m just sensitive.

  I don’t know.

  From: jay duplass

  To: mark duplass

  Subject: RE: BLOWJOB feedback

  fuck. that’s the last thing I wanted to happen but now realize it was probably inevitable. and it’s hard because I reread what I wrote and I want to stand by my point except for the fact that a) it hurt your feelings and b) you’re not into communicating like this.

  I feel like this is a case of us sharing the same fucking cable to our house but us wanting to watch different channels and I don’t really know how to handle it.

  maybe I’ll take a beat and get back too.

  for whatever it’s worth, while I can’t say with honesty that I’m sorry I said those things, I am TRULY sorry that they hurt you and I love you still and always.

  and I think what killed me the most was that in every email I’ve gotten from u in the past twenty years u have done some weird sign-off fake name and you didn’t even sign off at all on your last email.

  ugh. that sucked. but I get it.

  anyway, love u.

  yours truly

  h.i. mcdonough

  From: mark duplass

  To: jay duplass

  Subject: RE: BLOWJOB feedback

  ok. feeling better and looking things over I see what u mean. we can be more real and somehow even closer if we take off the kid gloves and just…be truthful without so much decoration and care and delicacy.

  I see that point.

  and I think in the end my ego has always been a bit bigger than yours so it’s gonna be a bit of a challenge for me.

  so, how bout this?

  I’ll try to let things rip a bit more and maybe u can try to add one little layer of gentleness and see if we can meet in the middle?

  From: jay duplass

  To: mark duplass

  Subject: RE: BLOWJOB feedback

  ha!

  I am loving this. and, yes, I think this is a great plan.

  thank u for considering it all and being so open to it.

  that said, you still didn’t sign off with one of your witty signatures and I know u did that on purpose to still make me feel like shit just a LITTLE bit longer for hurting your feelings (realizing how much power I am giving u in letting u know how important those sign-offs are to me and seriously regretting it).

  yours in dignity and farts,

  elmer dinglesplatt, c.p.a.

  From: mark duplass

  To: jay duplass

  Subject: RE: BLOWJOB feedback

  I have heard and accepted your response.

  may our paths cross again one day.

  best wishes for your continued success.

  sincerely,

  diarrhea party 2049

  PEOPLE TALK A lot about the film business being an industry of feast or famine. This turned out to be true for us in 2006. After a year of trying to sell The Puffy Chair, we had finally closed our deal with Roadside Attractions and Netflix. Also, after a year of running around Los Angeles, taking general meetings, and trying and failing to sell TV show and movie pitches, we suddenly found ourselves getting hired for two studio jobs in rapid succession.

  The first job was for a “blind deal” that we signed with Universal to write a script for them with the intention of directing it. They would pay us $100,000 to write a “yet to be determined” script. Which is how a blind deal works. Basically, we were to pitch them three ideas and they had to take one. If they didn’t, they would pitch us three ideas and we had to take one. If we didn’t, the deal would dissolve and we wouldn’t get paid.

  Luckily, they took our first pitch, a sports comedy about two brothers competing in their own personal twenty-five-event Olympics. This script would turn into The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, which with Universal’s blessing we eventually made independently a few years later. It was a great process all around.

  The second job turned out to be a real life-changer, an original idea that we concocted with our producer friend Michael Costigan. It was a film about a young man, overly attached to his single mother, who has trouble accepting his mom’s new boyfriend into their lives. It was purposefully dark, funny, strange, and wild. It was called Cyrus.

  We never thought a studio would go for this kind of film, but we sold our pitch in the room to our first choice and one of the best studios in town, Fox Searchlight. They were very popular at the time due to the success of films like Juno, Sideways, The Savages, Little Miss Sunshine, Once, and The Wrestler, among others. We felt that if we fit in anywhere inside the studio system, it would be with Searchlight. They were the leading force in what was becoming known as Indiewood…the perfect balance between independently minded storytelling and staying within the Hollywood system.

  At first, the process was just like old times. Searchlight liked the idea well enough, and our producer was a friend who supported and trusted us creatively, so we were left on our own to write a draft of the script. Which we did. In our apartments like we always did. In roughly the same amount of time it took us to write The Puffy Chair. Three weeks or so.

  When we handed in the script to the studio, we got our first glimpse into the new world we were entering. First off, they had never seen a script come in so fast. But truth be told, it took so long for our collective lawyers and agents to argue the contract points, we were actually done with the draft before our deal even closed. We waited for the legal ink to dry and ended up handing the script in the day the deal closed, about a month after we sold them the idea. This quick turnaround was utterly beyond them. But they were terrifically excited to read it.

  Still, it took a little while for them to get around to it. And then a little more time to set the meeting where they would give us their feedback. And a little more time when they had to reschedule that meeting. To be clear, this timeline was fine for us because we were working on our other movie for Universal as well, but it was definitely surprising how long it took us to get that meeting after we turned the script in.

  When we finally had that first official “script notes” meeting, it wasn’t what we expected. Nor was it similar to the stock Hollywood lore of the executives being idiots who only wanted car chases, blood, and boobs. Our executives were incredibly intelligent, thoughtful individuals whose goal was to make the smartest, most interesting movie they could imagine. But it immediately struck us in the room that they believed, to their cores, they knew better than us. On almost all fronts…character, story, pace, tone, etc. And while they heaped praise on us for the things they said were “working” in this draft (by the way, it was never framed as their opinion but almost always as empirical fact), they were abundantly clear on the things that must change in o
rder for the movie to “work.”

  Everything inside of us wanted to scream, “Yes, this is a different way to go with some of these choices, but is your way empirically better? Does your way work, and our way not work because it’s different?” But we were still good Catholic school boys. And we had been to therapy, and we knew how to validate people’s feelings and opinions, so we took in their notes and said we thought we could make a lot of these changes and would get back to them.

  When we got home, we were pretty depressed. The changes weren’t huge, but it was a bummer to be made to feel like they didn’t respect us. That they felt that they just knew better. Still, it was a studio film—we knew we would have to make compromises—so we looked at their seven major notes and decided we could employ about four of those changes and still keep the DNA of the movie we wanted to make. We called them to let them know our thoughts, and they were respectful if not overjoyed that we weren’t taking all of their changes to heart.

  Over the next few weeks, we dug in on our rewrite. We stayed in the room together. Pacing. Emotionally eating chips and salsa and super-sugary cereals. And much of it was a struggle. We just felt that in the end we were trying to execute someone else’s vision for our weird, dark, funny movie. And it was hard to swallow.

  It took us a while to realize it, but we were slightly ashamed of the bastardization of our movie that we were allowing, and we didn’t like doing it in front of each other. I remember Mark saying that it felt like masturbation…we know that we’re both doing it, but at least we do it at home, alone, and don’t have to witness each other doing it.

  So we decided to divide and conquer on this one. The plan was that since we still had two movies to write (Cyrus and The Do-Deca-Pentathlon), we would work separately. I would take Do-Deca first and Mark would take Cyrus first. When we were done with a particular draft or rewrite, we would flip it to the other one to check the work and make it better. Then on the next draft we would switch. And we would “ping-pong” those drafts back and forth until the movies were done. It felt like a bit of a dirty secret, as both studios assumed they were getting both brothers to write at the same time, but ultimately we felt like trading drafts back and forth still gave it that same vibe. So we went for it. And interestingly enough, it went really well from a collaboration standpoint. It was actually an improvement all around, because what we didn’t realize at the time was that we were beginning to work at very different paces. And this discrepancy was causing some conflict when we stayed in the same room together, hammering out the scripts line by line. Working alone allowed each of us to do it at our own pace in our own way.