‘Paddleton’: Director Alex Lehmann On Rooting For The Underdog, Grief & Working With Ray Romano [Interview]

Director Alex Lehmann made his narrative feature film debut with the critically-acclaimed “Blue Jay” in 2016, a film that was shot with just a sketch of a screenplay in just under seven days, with actors Mark Duplass (who also wrote the sketch) and Sarah Paulson improvising the dialogue. His sophomore feature, “Paddleton,” which also marks his screenwriting debut, is a much similar, bare-bones production. The first of the Duplass Brothers‘ four-picture deal with Netflix, “Paddleton,” co-written by Mark Duplass, tells the story of two misfit friends who grow closer as one receives a terminal health diagnosis.

On the verge of ‘Paddleton’s’ release, I spoke with Lehmann about his love for the underdog, balancing comedy and tragedy, directing a largely improvised film, Ray Romano, the making of “Blue Jay,” and more.

What was your inspiration for “Paddleton?”

Mark Duplass and I both love underdogs and people that are overlooked or labeled weird or quirky. I love fighting for people who are not necessarily understood. And I’m excited to have genuine relationships with some of the people who mean the most to me. Feeling understood by them is basically the only way I get by in life. So, to celebrate a relationship like that, and to also kind of put it to a real test, it just felt like the right thing to do.

As far as dealing with death, Mark had teased me that I needed to make my next movie facing death because of some comments I had made about another film that really disturbed me. He said, “Well, you got to deal with that. You got to face that. Make your movie about that.” So, I asked him if he’d be willing to die for me [laughter] in my cinematic therapy facing death.

Exploring grief through comedy as a coping mechanism for your characters is something you’ve covered in “Blue Jay” and “Paddleton.” How do you and Mark navigate that balance between comedy and melancholy with nuance?

I get real with people, sometimes quickly. And then, it feels very uncomfortable for all of us because I’ve journeyed into their emotions or my soul. And I got to pull back out of it real fast, so I just make some awkward joke. I love that kind of relationship with people where it’s like, “Let’s get real.” And then, “Let’s also laugh at how real we just got. And let’s get the hell out of there for a second. Then, let’s laugh at the fact that we were uncomfortable. And then, maybe get real again in a couple hours when we’re ready to hit the reset button.”

I don’t think there’s anything funny about death. Relationships can be really hard. Life is really hard. So, I’ve realized how great it is to escape by being able to make jokes about that stuff. And I try to surround myself with funny people who can help me laugh through the shitty stuff in life. Then, I realize life is not shitty at all because we’re laughing all the time.

Speaking of funny people, was Ray Romano your first choice?

Yeah. He made perfect sense. He had just done “The Big Sick,” and Mark happened to be at the premiere. He was like, “Dude, you got to watch this movie. He’s Andy.” I’ll be honest. I don’t think I’m the most visionary person when it comes to casting just yet. I had a big lesson to learn, because at very first when Mark said Ray Romano, I was like, “The guy with the sitcom?” This isn’t a sitcom. This is the opposite of a sitcom. I’m an idiot for thinking that, because I watched “The Big Sick” and I realized this guy’s got it all. He’s got a lot of soul and depth.

You look back and you realize guys like Jim Carrey and Robin Williams have been masking tragedy and sadness with comedy and timing for a really long time. And yet, obviously, I had to relearn that lesson. Ray was our guy from the beginning, as soon as I saw “The Big Sick.” It doesn’t make sense with anyone else.

He was fantastic in it. What does “Paddleton” represent in the grand scheme of things?

It naturally fits in as a metaphor for life. I don’t want to drive it home too hard. I’d rather people pull what they want from it. It’s a cooperative game where there’s no winner. It’s two guys trying to achieve something together, and you’re working against a clock. Those are some pretty obvious metaphors.

We weren’t going to do this on a drive-through movie theater wall. It was a happy accident on location scouting. It’s made of corrugated metal; it’s flat, but it’s got these ridges. And just to get into the sports science of it for a second, you hit this racquetball up, and four times out of five, it bounces back at an angle that makes sense. But then, one out of those five times it hits one of those ridges, and it just ricochets in a random direction. You got to go run after it.

Maybe that’s my favorite metaphor as far as life goes. You’re trying to control this thing, and you think you’re really good at it, and then every now and then, [the ball] goes flying in another direction and you’re caught running after it, trying to keep up.

The script was 20 pages long. As a director, how do you prepare each day to shoot the particular scene when it isn’t necessarily written yet?

As far as the content, you know that you’re going to have to get from point A to point B, and B and C are going to come up in rehearsal or in the first take or two. So, you shoot a little bit looser towards the beginning of any scene to give the actors freedom to find the scene. It’s a challenge. As much as possible, you want to try to mix it up and find great ways to have interesting visuals. But at the same time, you don’t want one of your actors to come up with something brilliant and turn to you and go, “You got that, right?” And you go, “No.”

It’s this mix of you figure out how to cover yourself and how to cover the actors in the early takes, while working in as much art and cinema into the story, visually, when it feels right. When it feels safe. Every now and then, you take a risk and hope that everything works out.

Was it always a plan just to shoot “Paddleton” in three weeks?

We knew what scenes we were shooting each day. We knew it was going to be a three-week shoot. Ironically, we shot too much. “Blue Jay” we did in six-and-a-half days. By doing a full three weeks on this movie, we were left with a lot to sift through in post. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to the whole creative producing team and our editor, Chris Donlon. You’re basically rewriting the movie in post. There are a lot of options and a lot of takes. And you have to trim it back down to really find the core story that works the best. Three weeks sounds like not a lot of time with a traditional script, but it was actually a lot for our improv movie.