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Dark Horse
Just before he flies to Sydney for the Australian premiere of his feature film debut, Hesher, FILMINK caught up with Spencer Susser for an enjoyable chat...
When FILMINK catches up with Spencer Susser in LA, we quickly learn he's one of those workaholics who actually get a kick out of staying up until crazy hours in the morning, perfecting something. Even though it's well into the evening, Susser is finishing mixing his debut feature film and after we finish speaking, he's going to call the film's composer to go over some final touches. When asked when he has time to sleep, Susser says he's been averaging three hours a night. Perhaps he can sleep on his plane trip to Sydney. He'll be in the city for the Australian premiere of his film, Hesher.
"It'd be nice to get a quick break and catch my breath," the good-natured director laughs. "But honestly I couldn't be more excited. It's impossible not to learn a lot, and it's not just about making films. You learn about what kind of person you are, and I don't know what other things in my life can do that! I don't know where you can be pushed to such an extreme."
Before making his feature debut, Susser honed his directorial skills on commercials, music videos and an acclaimed zombie short, I Love Sarah Jane (which starred Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska and was warmly received at Sundance in 2008). Also helping him improve his filmmaking is the fact that Susser is part of Blue-Tongue Films, the loose-jointed Australian movie-making collective which also includes David Michôd, Nash and Joel Edgerton and Luke Doolan (who made the Oscar-nominated Miracle Fish). The American director met the Edgerton brothers on the set of Star Wars. "We just became friends while working on the film," he explains. "Joel and Nash were in LA or I would be in Sydney, and so I ended up seeing these guys more often than I do anyone else. We just make films and it sort of happened organically. We started to support each other as friends, and it's really nice to have fresh eyes on something. We're all very different filmmakers, but we do have similar sensibilities."
Susser started writing the script for Hesher a few years ago with another Blue-Tongues cohort, David Michôd, who has recently garnered high praise for his own feature film debut, Animal Kingdom (both directors also had their films screen together at Sundance this year). Susser says that learning to write with someone is a journey in itself. "It was really fun, but it was initially frustrating," he recalls. "It took us a long while to figure out how we could work together, but the nice thing about working with David, or anyone else for that matter, is that when you're writing by yourself you just get on with it. But when you're writing with someone else, you kind of have to defend your ideas. You're constantly pushing each other. When David went back to work on Animal Kingdom, one day he called me and said, ‘I really miss working together. I think it's a lot more efficient!'"
The story penned by the duo follows the bleak life of a thirteen-year-old boy named TJ (Devin Brochu) who is left to fend for himself after his mother is killed in a car accident and his father is crippled by grief. Evading the local bully one day, TJ stumbles upon Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a reckless loner into heavy metal and vandalism. When TJ gets him kicked out of his squatter's digs, Hesher moves into TJ's place uninvited, unleashing a change of events that irrevocably change the family.
Susser says that the story behind Hesher evolved from personal experience. "I had lost someone when I was young, which was what I wrote about," he reflects. "Essentially this film is dealing with loss in all sorts of ways. I didn't want to make a film that was depressing, so by introducing this crazy, complicated, heavy metal anarchist, I was able to tell the story I wanted to tell in an entertaining way, hopefully keeping you on the edge of your seat." At its core, Hesher is a dark drama mixed with a wry, often unsettling, humour. Was it difficult to balance the drama and comedy? "Not really, because I never played it for jokes," Susser explains. "It's drama, and life is very much like that. It can be very sad or very funny. It's not one or the other, it's kind of all of those things all of the time, and I wanted to make a movie like that. That was really my approach."
In making his feature debut, Susser was able to recruit some highly impressive talent including Natalie Portman. The actress plays a mousy supermarket clerk who recuses TJ when he is being bullied and becomes the object of the young boy's affection. "When I was writing the script I certainly had Natalie in mind," Spencer recalls. "I never thought in a million years that she would do it, but she was the first person I sent the script to, and the next day she signed on and told me she wanted to produce it. I was really lucky, she's super talented and very smart and one of the nicest people you can have as a friend."
Casting Hesher - the unendearing sociopath - was perhaps one of Susser's most difficult decisions. "Hesher is such a complicated character and finding the right tone was critical in making this film work," Susser explains. "It had to be an amazing actor, and I met with a lot of talented actors until I came across someone with whom I clicked," Susser says talking about Gordon-Levitt. "I try not to audition actors. I wanted to get them in a room and work on it with them. I guess I wanted them to audition me. It was important for me to find someone who could pull it off and show dedication, and who could trust me and Joe was that person."
Was it intimidating working with actors of this stature? "You start to get into it and you're working with talented people and I always end up forgetting about the other side of celebrity culture," Susser says. "You don't think about it when you're working with people on the same vibe as you. But when I see Natalie or Joe on a cover of a magazine, that is when it dawns on me. It's interesting, and I haven't wrapped my head around it, but I know that celebrity culture is just an entirely different thing."
While Susser admits he initially didn't realise "how much of a marathon" making a feature film would be, his experience on Hesher has only heightened his enthusiasm for filmmaking. "It's not really work, it becomes a way of life, and it's exciting," Susser enthuses. "I want to apply what I've learnt to my next film, and do better, and I hope that every time I make a film I say the same thing. Hopefully you keep learning and keep growing. I think that the best directors are still doing that. Once you think you know everything, you're just proving you're still an idiot," he laughs.
Hesher will screen at the Sydney Film Festival Monday June 14. To purchase tickets, click here.
Picture caption: Spencer Susser, courtesy of Image.Net.