Interview: Thomas McCarthy Goes to the Mat With ‘Win Win’

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CHICAGO – Writer/director Thomas McCarthy has helmed three motion pictures and already shot to the top of most lists of the best directors working today. He finds the truth in unusual situations like the trio of friends in “The Station Agent” or the unexpected romance of “The Visitor.” His new film features another spectacular script, carried by Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Burt Young, and newcomer Alex Shaffer. McCarthy, who you may also recognize from regular acting work including the last season of “The Wire,” sat down with us recently for a wonderful interview about writing an unlikable lead, casting non-actors, and some of the best advice we’ve ever heard for upcoming screenwriters.

NOTE: Early in the film, Paul Giamatti’s character does something questionable with Burt Young’s Leo. While it happens early and we kind of talk around EXACTLY what it is in this interview, there are what could be considered spoilers below. I don’t want to spoil it directly, so just know that Mike does something that causes him to need a cigarette and lie to his wife. And it’s something that might make older audiences particularly angry.

HollywoodChicago.com: How did the Q&A go last night?

Thomas McCarthy: It was good. I kind of enjoy that as much as anything because I haven’t done that many. I’ve done four or five cities. It’s always fun to hear people’s reaction. You get a real sense of it.

HollywoodChicago.com: Any reactions that surprised you?

McCarthy: That hasn’t happened yet. It always happens a couple times. We just did a screening in Westchester which I purposefully went to because I knew it would be an older audience and it’s great to see it with different audiences. It’s interesting to me as a filmmaker to see how different age groups respond. That one was interesting. The guy moderating the event runs the Museum of Modern Image in New York and was like, “They’re going to be honest. They don’t lie.” And they were. They were great. And they were really involved in Leo’s (Burt Young) storyline and talking about that. I brought my friend who’s an elder law attorney and it was HIS Q&A. He really spoke to these people. A few people had a lot of questions about not only what happened but how the other people perceived it. They were asking questions outside the lines.

Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight

HollywoodChicago.com: The older audience…I have to admit that when Mike did what he did I thought to myself if you wondered if that would make him TOO unlikable, especially to a certain audience.

McCarthy: Yeah. We worried about it. That’s a great question that a lot of people haven’t asked me. Joe [his co-writer] and I would get hysterical about this because, in early drafts, people would read it and be like, “He didn’t do anything wrong.” And we would be like, “Really?” Joe’s like, “What the Hell do we have to do?” We kept calling it The Bad Mike Script and we kept making him worse. We had to keep upping it. Joe was like, “Do we tie him in the basement and he collects the checks?” We were joking about that. It’s two-fold — People like Mike. They identify with him quickly and they see him as a family man. He’s good with his kids. Loves his wife. People like that don’t do bad things. That’s a big part of what I was interested in exploring — when decent people do bad things. As a society, when things happen — Enron, mortgages — we’re always like, “Those assholes in those towers.” Guess what? They’re your brothers. They’re your parents. They’re your friends. They’re your partners. They’re us. There are bad people out there with power but there’s a lot of good people making bad choices. That’s something we haven’t reconciled. It’s interesting to see audiences wrestle with that — “Hold it. I like that guy. He just did something bad. That’s bad, right?” That’s what we wanted. That’s why that transition happens so quickly.

Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight

HollywoodChicago.com: And you don’t underline it. It’s not like the nursing home is abusing him.

McCarthy: Right. And, quite honestly, that’s his logic — the state is going to do that same thing. But that’s not what he’s paid to do. And that’s what his wife calls him out on.

HollywoodChicago.com: Like you said though, faced with a decision of your company possibly going under…

McCarthy: Protect your family. And then it gets really gray and interesting to me. It’s funny. I think the humor operates so well and the sports theme — I’ve had women say I don’t like sports and they get caught up in the wrestling. But I almost worried about it overwhelming the transgression — the wrestling and the humor. To me, I come back to Enron — before Enron came down, ten to fifteen years, that company did a lot of great things philanthropically, publicly. The problem is that it was built on a shitty premise and people had to pay for that. That I find really interesting.

HollywoodChicago.com: Is that where this started?

McCarthy: Yeah.

HollywoodChicago.com: Was the wrestling a part of that?

McCarthy: It was two-fold, which a lot of my ideas are. We were laughing about making a big broad sports movie and selling it to Disney for millions of dollars. That didn’t happen. And then the wrestling became a metaphor and it just worked and made sense to me. Let me come back to that point one more time — that moment when Mike does what he does is fascinating because there’s an understanding now in modern society that when our parents reach a certain age, they go away, they go to a home. That’s only a generation and a half old. Before that, they came to YOUR home. You went to live with them. So, we were kind of battling the idea that he SHOULD be in a home. He’s at that age. He’s suffering from early-stage dementia. But that’s just not true even though we’re conditioned to believe that.

HollywoodChicago.com: Mike can’t take good care of him and he can’t take good care of himself.

McCarthy: It might be true…

Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight

HollywoodChicago.com: At least that’s how Mike sleeps at night.

McCarthy: Yep. Totally. It’s a question then of what does that man who worked and earned a right to determine his own fate have to say.

HollywoodChicago.com: What I love, and Paul plays this so well, is that you subtly make it clear that Mike knows it’s wrong because he doesn’t tell his wife and he lies about it to the kid.

McCarthy: Right. And even Terry. He tries to tell his friend. But that’s one of his buddies who doesn’t want to hear it.

HollywoodChicago.com: You talk about the sports movie angle. There’s so many cliche traps that this thing could have fallen into — not just sports movies, but “the businessman who learns a lesson” cliche. How do you consciously avoid those traps?

McCarthy: You have to acknowledge it. It’s there. You have to do that with genre. You have to become a student of that genre. I love sports. What grounded me is that I knew I wasn’t making a sports movie. When we were pitching to Searchlight, they were really afraid of selling a sports wrestling movie. Female viewers drive audiences. I told them it is much more of a movie about a man and his family. Part of it is understanding it and being true to it. We went to a lot of wrestling matches. Wrestling is not a marquee sport at most high schools. And it’s boring.

HollywoodChicago.com: Because most of them aren’t as good as Alex.

McCarthy: Yeah. They roll around. Or it’s over quickly. Some coaches are really not good. It was remaining true to that. Joe and I went to wrestling matches around the state and would slowly get into it. “Oh, that kid’s so good. He’s a warrior. Here he comes.” And he’s like 108 pounds. There was this kid who would walk around with Manson-like focus. He was awesome. Alex has that — he’s really quiet and still.

HollywoodChicago.com: Why was it important to cast a real wrestler?

McCarthy: Because I like sports movies and I can’t stand when I see an actor dribbling a basketball and I’m like, “I could cover that guy.” And I’m not that good. Or that slow-down pass. It’s probably supposed to look beautiful that it doesn’t. I felt like I created the character in a way that I could use a non-actor.

Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Thomas McCarthy on the set of Win Win
Photo credit: Fox Searchlight

HollywoodChicago.com: What do Paul and Amy bring to a movie that other actors don’t?

McCarthy: They’re just at the sweet spot of their careers. They really are. What I’m really happy about is hearing initial reactions concentrating on Paul and Amy but Bobby, Melanie, Burt, Margo — they’re all great. And even Alex. But Paul and Amy are at that point in their career where you just don’t see the wires. Amy just grounds it. I’ve known her for a long time. Watching her process as a director, it’s just so gradual and solid. She’s pretty workmanlike. She reminds me of actors I knew in Chicago. A lot of great actors come out of here with this grounded quality because they do so much theater for so long. She didn’t hit for the last five years. She’s been doing it well forever. There’s something about them that you just believe they’re in their kitchen. You smell what’s cooking. They just get it. It saves my writing. The biggest challenge of this movie was going to a conventional culture — how do you make that compelling to an audience? Forget the sports stereotype — what about the suburban family? How do we make this a movie for this time?

HollywoodChicago.com: Did you do some work on [HBO’s upcoming] Game of Thrones?

McCarthy: I directed the pilot but I don’t think they’re going to keep my name on it. They recast and had to go back and do so much with it. I wasn’t around to do it because I was on this. They’re good guys.

HollywoodChicago.com: But you don’t even really know what it looks like at this point?

McCarthy: No. I’m so removed. TV isn’t a director’s medium. It’s the writers.

HollywoodChicago.com: Any advice for upcoming screenwriters?

McCarthy: Look. Joe, who up until Win Win was an elder law attorney and had never written a screenplay in his life — granted he had a great opportunity. But, to his credit, he just made time. He gets in two hours early every morning and, upstairs, there’s a writing office, and he writes. Make the time to do it. Just write. There’s no magic. There’s no formula. Just make the time to do it. You never can control anything else. You have to commit to the project and see it through. Good, bad, ugly — finish the script. You get bored. I’ve done that with everything. Even this. Finish it. It’s not going to kill you to spend another month. Finish it. People stop themselves too much and get in their own way.

Commit to “Win Win” when it opens in Chicago this Friday, March 25th, 2011.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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