by James Mottram and Will Tentindo
FilmInk sat down with the two best friends – Dave McCary who directed and Kyle Mooney who co-wrote and stars – to discuss the making of Brigsby Bear, a story about a man, kidnapped from birth, ultimately freed by those he thought were his parents, realises that his favourite childhood television show was made up and sets out to recreate it for the world.
Where did the Brigsby Bear idea come from? The show within the film?
Kyle Mooney: I’ve got a pretty massive VHS collection at my house, mostly of ‘80s and ‘90s kids TV shows and films. We always liked that amateur production quality and to us, this story was super fascinating. We thought this would be really intriguing if this happened in real life, and, not only that, I would be personally so interested to see the episodes of this TV show made by these weirdos who put this kid in this situation.
In a strange way, the film should be really creepy, or at least what’s happened to the kid is obviously awful, but you somehow make it not creepy.
KM: Absolutely, that was the thing we were conscious of, Ted (Mark Hamill) and April (Jan Adams) love James and James loves that life. Had he maintained that life forever, I think he would’ve been somewhat content.
Dave McCary: I think people identify with the character, because if you put yourself in the shoes of James’ character, hopefully you would think, “Yeah, I would still love these people who I think are keeping me safe and letting me watch my favourite show.” They formed a bond underground that you just can’t completely walk away from and go, “Well, I don’t need that.” It’s a very real experience that we wanted to tell the story of what that would really genuinely and sincerely feel like for James’ character. We’re very conscious about not leaning too jokey and to take away from the sincerity of what that hypothetical situation could be.
Anything with Mark Hamill in it, it would automatically make you think of Star Wars, but here, he lives in this landscape that slightly reminds you of Tatooine and he reads the bit out at the end, with certain sci-fi mythology.
KM: Early on, I sent a treatment that said something to the effect of, “James watches a tape in his bedroom, surrounded by Brigsby Bear paraphernalia, as if he was a Star Wars fanatic.” Even on day one, there was the imprint of Star Wars. Though, we certainly didn’t plan getting Hamill. That was a really difficult role to cast and we wanted somebody you wouldn’t necessarily think of, or maybe somebody you haven’t seen in that role. He’s so closely associated with Luke Skywalker, and I think it made it fun for him, too. But that’s kind of also the fascinating thing. The movie has so much to do with nostalgia and the power of fandom and the things that we become obsessed with. He is such a symbol of that, so it works on theses weird levels.
Was it always clear that you were going to play James?
KM: Yeah. Dave and I, we’ve been making videos for well over a decade now, and this has always been our collaboration. We come up with a concept, work on a concept together. We’ll write something, I’ll write something and we’ll just go shoot it, and this wasn’t any different. And that was also, I think for Kevin [Costello], who co-wrote it, helpful to him because we were writing it together. I could just do my best to be James in the room as we were scripting it. With that being said, when we started presenting the scripts to actors to get them on board, they were like, “I want to play the James role.” And I was like, “No, you can’t.”
What are your comedic influences? Who did you grow up loving, the SNL guys of the previous generation?
KM: Sure, all the old SNL dudes, Will Ferrell, for instance, Bill Murray, Woody Allen. There are so many, Steve Martin.
DM: Phil Hartman.
KM: You could name any comedy person from that era and they were probably influential in some way or another. Dave and I literally watched SNL in his room as eighth graders, so there was a level of surrealism when we both got hired by the show, but after that, in college, the stuff that began to inspire us, and I think to this day still inspires us is internet videos. Kids who put themselves on YouTube, you don’t even know who their audience is that they’re making this for, they might only have 100 viewers or something like that.
DM: Or even five viewers.
KM: But it’s this weird window into a human being.
There’s a scene near the end where you’re with your guys out in the rural landscape and you’re making your movie, which must’ve felt like, “Well, that’s what we’re doing.”
DM: It was kind of trippy. It was a very meta experience throughout, while we were filming it, even just at the premiere at Sundance there was that moment where you’re watching this film about the making of a film by two best friends who are nervous about the premiere of their film, while we’re in that theater, nervous about the premiere of our film.
Brigsby Bear is in cinemas October 26, 2017
