Shari Springer Berman and her husband-directing partner Robert Pulcini certainly have an affinity for eccentrics. The couple who made their narrative debut with the critical smash, “American Splendor,” based on the life of late comic novelist Harvey Pekar, continue their love affair with their latest “The Extra Man.”
The charming indie comedy based on Brooklyn writer Jonathan Ames’ novel of the same name, follows the relationship and education between Henry Harrison and Louis Ives. Henry, played to delightful perfection by Kevin Kline, is a failed playwright, former rich kid and now social escort, who takes in Louis, Paul Dano, into his small, tattered one bedroom in the Upper East Side and opens Louis’ eye to a fairly ignored subculture of New Yorkers, who have a preoccupation with proximity to culture. What follows is a quirky, but not romantic tale of a kinship between Henry, who educates Louis on manners and the urban landscape of the Upper East Side. John C. Reilly and Katie Holmes co-star in this quirky love letter to New York past, which filmed over the course of 27 days late last year.
The Playlist: What was it about the Jonathan Ames book that made you want to turn it into a movie?
Shari Stringer Berman: I thought it was incredibly funny and moving and had amazing characters. That’s what I really loved. Henry Harrison just completely jumped off the page and I imagined him instantly—and I imagined him as Kevin Kline. And the dialogue is so funny and unpredictable and unique, so that was really just what intrigued me about it. And also I really loved the world it depicted, I felt like I hadn’t seen anyone who depicted these New Yorkers, these fringe character who live on the edge of culture. Maybe “Midnight Cowboy,” a little bit, but that still had a whole other thing going on. It just seemed like a very unique specific world that I would love to live in and delve into.
This is a New York we don’t really see anymore and it almost feels timeless or from the ’80s. You don’t realize it’s in the here and now until you see a cell phone.
That was totally our decision. We wanted people who lived out of time, and you’d need odd little reminders to let you know, oh this is 2010. These people are outsiders, they’re on the fringe and they are out of their element. Henry Harrison wasn’t made for these times and Paul’s character Lewis I felt the same way about. He should have been born in the 20s — that was his era. Katie’s character, Mary, she was supposed to be the reminder that you’re in 2010. She was the one main character who was living in this era.
You have an affection for eccentrics. Can you talk about how hard it is to write about them?
I think it’s okay to write people that are flawed, a little offbeat and not conventionally sympathetic. I mean Henry (Kevin Kline) is a little bit of an asshole, but he’s a lovable asshole, and Harvey Pekar was a major asshole, at times, and also the most lovable, amazing person in the world. That’s what humans are, they are complicated, flawed. I find it hard to write a character that isn’t like that. Its easier to write nice, with an edge. Hollywood made those movies, in the 1970s, and even the ’30s.
Can you speak a lit bit about the casting process here in New York and how you find actors?
We went to see “There Will Be Blood” and it’s a really different role. Ten minutes into watching him [Dano] act, I turned to Bob and said,”Thats our Louis.” It was because I was watching him act with Daniel Day-Lewis and this was the second. They had done two films together. Daniel and Kevin and Brian Cox, who he’s [Dano] worked with, are such big, magnificent actors who take up so much of the screen. For a young actor to hold his own…he could hold the screen, he wasn’t intimidated. And I think that worked very well, energy-wise, with Kevin.
These actors seemed to have an innate rapport
One weird little thing about Kevin is that he had worked with almost every one of the actors at some point either in theater or in film. Katie he did “Ice Storm” with, and John C. Reilly he did “Prairie Home Companion” with, and Paul Dano he did ‘Emperor’s Club’ with. Len Cohn he did Shakespeare with. Marion Seldies was his professor at Juilliard. It was six degrees from Kevin Kline this time. Kevin works so much.
About the film you’re working on now [the HBO film, “Cinema Verite”]—is this the standard length film for HBO?
Yeah it’s being made for HBO and it’s supposed to be 90 minutes. The movie is on the making of the landmark PBS documentary “American Family,” about the Loub family and it’s a narrative film starring Diane Lane, James Gandolfini and Tim Robbins, about this perfect American Family. It was before American Experience and Margaret Mead is a part of it. It’s the first reality TV show, it’s like the next step of anthropology.
How did you end up going with “The Nanny Diaries?” That seemed to be a head scratcher for some.
It was weird because we were very frustrated. After “American Splendor,” we got a lot of attention, people would come to us with projects, and a lot of our projects would almost get funded, but we had like three projects fall apart. It was very difficult and we were very frustrated. We had written “The Nanny Diaries” as a writing assignment but we weren’t going to direct it. And Harvey [Weinstein] came to us and was extremely aggressive. He said, ‘I’m going to make this movie, I’m going to greenlight it now.’ Scarlett [Johansson] was attached, and we knew Scarlett and wanted to work with her. Growing up in New York, I wanted to make a movie that was kind of a love letter to [the city]. It came along at the right time and it was an interesting world for me, having grown up in New York. It was the movie that got greenlit, so we said we’re doing it, and we jumped on the bandwagon.
What are some of your fondest memories of Harvey Pekar?
I have so many great memories of Harvey. This line keeps going in my head-we spent a lot of time together-that when we were doing that part of the filming [of “American Splendor”] and he was being difficult, argumentative, and I was interviewing him, and he has a glass of orange soda. He actually writes a lot about orange soda and I remember saying that he really liked orange soda. And he said, ‘Yeah, orange soda got me through some really tough times.’ I don’t know why that line keeps going through my head, but the way he talked, he spoke like a beatnik. Nobody spoke like that.
“The Extra Man” opens in limited release on July 30.
