Interview: Director Jamie Travis, Screenwriter Katie Anne Naylon of ‘For a Good Time, Call...’

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CHICAGO – The snappy new comedy “For a Good Time, Call…” is the first film of screenwriter Katie Anne Naylon and the feature debut of director Jamie Travis. It’s combines phone sex operators with friendship, and stars Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor.

The focus in this energetic farce is on the absurdities of the phone sex trade, and how two different personalities make it work as a business. Katie Anne Naylon is the co-screenwriter (with Lauren Miller), and began her career as a freelance writer specializing in personal essays, including her work in the phone sex trade. Jamie Travis specialized in short films before directing this feature debut, having won acclaim at Sundance and the Toronto Film Festival for his experimental filmmaking.

Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor’
Lauren Miller, Ari Graynor and the Pink Phone in “For a Good Time, Call…”
Photo credit: Focus Features

Naylon and Travis sat down with HollywoodChicago.com during their recent promotional swing through Chicago, to break down the genesis of this very funny and different type of love story.

HollywoodChicago.com: Jamie, what was the most difficult part of the transition for you, in going from a primarily short film format to a feature length film?

Jamie Travis Honestly, the difficulties are few, I was so operating by gut. We had to make the film so quickly – we shot it in 16 days – and for under a million dollars. There were days when we shot 12 pages of script, which is really uncivilized…

Katie Anne Naylon: Let me make my joke…my parents have been on longer cruises. [laughs]

Travis To give you some perspective on that, I shot my first film in university, which was 16 minutes long, in 16 days. I always knew there would be limitations on this project, and we had to embrace what it was. I say that the speed in which we had to work was difficult, but we were a well-oiled machine.

HollywoodChicago.com: Katie, you famously did some phone sex service work in college. Since you indulged in this topic in both real life and in writing the screenplay, what is your perspective and attitude regarding the men who frequent such a service?

Naylon: I don’t have judgement. I’m a very open-minded person and I think that comes across in movie Katie as well. As far as guys who call phone sex lines, originally there are some terrifying things that they say, and I think it is the kind of talk that would petrify their normal girlfriends. It’s a way to get a fantasy out there, and a sense of confidence behind the phone line. I know I had that confidence, even though I was a virgin running a phone sex line from my dorm room, which is crazy.

We got some feedback that phone sex is a dated concept, but it still works today because of the anonymity, so I don’t judge anybody who call those lines. It’s true that some call just to talk, to get intimacy without having to pay for dinner.

HollywoodChicago.com: Jamie, in the press notes, it said you became involved in the production process early, even helping to develop lines and characters. Since your aesthetic in your previous films was more visual and art direction driven, what characteristic did you have in this film that clearly defined your visual sensibility?

Travis: When I got the job, and got to Los Angeles, Katie, Lauren Miller, Ari Graynor and I formed this great collaborative unit where we simplified the script for production purposes, but we also elevated and refined it – to make it more about the two girls and their beautiful developing friendship. When I first read the script, I realized the best version would be stripped down and about the friendship, and that friendship would drive the narrative.

I didn’t immediately see the visuals, and this was the first film I ever directed that I didn’t write. Everything I had written, I had a clear art direction stance. This was very different for me, and I didn’t have an immediate sense of how the film would look. But I did think about the movies of the 1980s, with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler, and there was always a bit of 1980s throwback quality in my mind. I knew that there would be a pink phone…

Naylon: The pink phone was in the script, but we didn’t know what that pink phone would look like.

Travis: I knew it should be iconic and emblematic. I guess when I read the script there was a sense of fantasy about it. It was phone sex, a very real and potentially dark thing, but it had to be a fantastical version of that job. It was such a sweet script, and that sweetness really informed the visuals. It’s a pretty, candy coated world.

Naylon: Yes, they say those dirty things but it’s so banal because it’s in a candy coated world. As far as hiring Jamie, we could look at his short films and think this isn’t his aesthetic, but for us I see Jamie everywhere in the final film. In all the colored panties and dildoes…[laughs]

Travis: And I see you in every cuss word. [laughs]

Naylon: Lauren and I loved our movie, everybody responded to the script, but we didn’t have any idea what it looked like, and we could never pitch it like ‘E.T. meets Gremlins.’ There was no ‘what movie is this,’ it was unlike anything. When Jamie came in, he made it this magical place.

HollywoodChicago.com: Katie, women in general – especially in this country – have complicated relationships with their own sexuality. What were you trying to express about that complexity in this film?

Naylon: I think women should be able to claim their own voice and not be shy or ashamed of who they really are. It’s about being sexual, confident and finding themselves. Our tagline for the film is ‘lose your hang-ups, find your calling.’ I think that’s great. People often have their defenses up and want folks to see them in a certain way, but who they are inside may be entirely different. What we wanted to do is take our two characters on an emotional journey, where one girl is completely letting her walls come down and showing herself, which is something she doesn’t do. And the other girl is finding her actual voice, speaking up and becoming her truthful self.

Travis: I was thinking about the horror movie cliché where the slutty girl always dies in the beginning and the virgin becomes the lone survivor. That’s why I like that our film is sex positive – these girls become the best versions of themselves by accepting their sexuality. Whether it’s on the phone or in real life, their embrace of their own sexual identity is what makes them whole.

Naylon: Coincidentally, the sex thing makes it racy, but there isn’t any violence or nudity associated with it. It’s only words that we shouldn’t use in everyday conversation, put in a funny order.

Justin Long’
Justin Long is On the Line in “For a Good Time, Call…”
Photo credit: Focus Features

HollywoodChicago.com: Which leads to my next question. This is a film with a sexual subject, but with no nudity. How were you sensitive to the sex scenes, to maintain a comfort level with the actors involved, and were there specific instructions from the lead actresses regarding their comfort level?

Travis: When I first read the script and met with Lauren and Katie, I was worried that with another director that the characters might be over-sexualized or objectified. I come from a perspective as a gay man and as a director in that I love women – I want to tell female stories, they attract me. I never wanted to see a version of this movie with nudity, there was something about this story when all the lewdness is through the phone line, and in actuality the sex has a sweetness. So in this film it makes sense that our characters are more modest.

Naylon: We weren’t trying to arouse in the film, we were trying to make it light and funny. The actual sex scenes were grounded in that. We didn’t need nudity.

HollywoodChicago.com: Jamie, since you just mentioned you are gay. What do you observe about heterosexual men and their particular expression of mating habits that drive you crazy, and how did that opinion express itself in the film?

Travis: I don’t think I observe heterosexual mating habits. [laughs] And I don’t think I was critiquing them in the film. The initial relationship between Lauren and Charlie that starts the film just shows them in a rut. They have a nice life, has a nice apartment in New York, he’s the type of relationship she had because she didn’t know what she wanted.

Naylon: He looks good on paper, but often in men and women relationships the woman is easily replaced, and Charlie goes overseas and does just that.

HollywoodChicago.com: In that sense, there are some beautiful moments regarding pure friendship between the women, even a scene where emotional love is expressed. Do you think that is easier for women friends to do men friendships, or were you depicting something that you think is rare in all friendship relationships?

Naylon: I think women’s relationships are very intimate, their are the sisters you can get from your parents and then there are the sisters you find on your own. There is a certain point in your life when your friends are your family, until you make your own family or maybe for your whole life. From what I observe, there isn’t that level of intimacy with male friendships.

HollywoodChicago.com: Jamie, now that you have your first feature film wrapped, what style or genre of film would you like to get the opportunity to try in your career?

Jamie Travis, Katie Anne Naylon
Jamie Travis, Katie Anne Naylon in Chicago, August 6, 2012
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald for HollywoodChicago.com

Travis: I was happy, because my short films are so dark, that this film was so joyous and fun. I feel I want to do something next that is a little darker, a little closer to me, even though I felt like this movie did become me. I’m reading scripts right now, and Katie is an idea machine. Why wouldn’t I like to stick my quarters in that and get the chocolate bars? [laughs]

HollywoodChicago.com: Katie, what is your experience in the study or practice of feminism in the United States? What does ‘For a Good Time, Call…’ express about the topic of women’s rights and feminism?

Naylon: This is not an issue film by any means, but in art and practice the way that women are generally depicted in films, it’s about getting the guy. It does offend me that many of those types of films gets pushed along and there is less about just being a woman now. There is a test regarding a certain amount of time in a movie when two females are not talking about men, and our movie passes the test. That’s great. I support for woman and by women art, and I think lately the industry has opened up to it.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally, for both of you. In observation or direct feedback, what individual or audience reaction has really surprised you?

Travis: There has been a lot of surprises. I’ve been surprised that older people love the film, and that men have responded to it. We knew it would appeal and seem familiar to women in their twenties and thirties, but at an 8:30 in the morning screening at Sundance there were self-proclaimed suburban Moms in the audience and they loved it. As I said at the beginning of the interview, there might be the impression that this is a raunchy, Judd Apatow-type comedy but it turns out to have more of a Doris-Day-1950s quality. It’s not about sex, it’s about friendship.

Naylon: It has a soul and a heart, and it’s a discovery film. That’s how we’ve gotten this far, that people are shocked that they get out of it a heart and sweetness.

“For a Good Time, Call…” opens everywhere on August 31st. Featuring Lauren Miller, Ari Graynor, Justin Long, Seth Rogen, Kevin Smith, Nia Vardalos and Mimi Rogers. Screenplay by Katie Anne Naylon and Lauren Miller. Directed by Jamie Travis. Rated “R”

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2012 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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