Jason Ritter Interview, Sept. 28, 2008, Part 3

Jason Ritter : It was very sort of a communal effort. We called all of our friends and family members and basically asked then to chip in any way they possible could, I mean not financially but just with laborwise. We started putting the word out and a lot of people were willing once they read the script they were willing to work for free because they made a gamble that if they did something that was good, even if it didn't get into any festivals, they could still for they're next job say 'look at what I worked on'. And they let me do exactly what I wanted to do, they let me express myself, like 'look at how I lit this movie' or 'look at the makeup in the movie' or 'look at the costumes in this movie'. All these people can be proud of the work they did and can get another job. None of us really ever imagined that it would reach such a wide variety of people and go to so many festivals. So it's been even better for everyone who worked on it.

Reelscene : How many days were you shooting?

Jason Ritter : We shot for seventeen days. The budget was about two hundred thousand dollars but people have said it looks it was made for a lot more. I don't have much of a gauge on it but I do feel like,,, I've seen movies that have five times our budget that have really just not worked and not looked as nice,... who knows what that is. But yes, people took time off their regular jobs; they figured it out in certain ways. One of my greatest friends, Nick Mansur who was the assistant director, he took time off of school but he was able to get school credit for working on the movie. And so people made arrangements so that they didn't lose their regular jobs since we weren't paying them it wasn't like we weren't supplementing their income, it was a gamble for everyone. But everyone was game and willing to work hard and it was a really inspiring experience actually.

Reelscene : You had Charles Durning in it?

Jason Ritter : Yeah. Charles Durning has a cameo in it and we're so lucky and we feel so blessed that he decided to take on this part. We sent it for him, Marianna had written the part with him in mind. The character's name was always Charlie. I had done a play with him at the Lincoln Center the year before and we became really good friends in the dressing room because we were really the only two males in the play. So I called him and sent him the script and he really liked it and wanted to lend his incredible talents to it so we were just so lucky because he had such an important scene in the movie, it's such a moment of light and hope even in this world that can beat you down sometimes..

Reelscene : You had Tom Arnold in the film also.

Jason Ritter : And Tom Arnold in the film, yeah I knew him from doing a movie called " Happy Endings" and that was the first time that I had ever really seen him as a dramatic actor. I had only seen him be hilarious in any number of movies and television shows. But in "Happy Endings" for the first time I saw that there's something about him when he is... because he's so amicable and animated and funny and great, there's something that's really powerful about when he's completely still and focused. It's really powerful in the context of this movie it's really chilling and dangerous, like he really understood exactly what we needed from that scene. Because that scene has to be played very delicately. Otherwise it turns the entire movie into a cartoon. The reality of what occurred between these two people has to be in the air and I think Tom Arnold just came in that one day and really nailed it for us. Again, it wasn't like he was doing it for the money, he just really responded to it and he's an incredible guy./FONT>

We were very lucky and blessed in this production. There were so many elements that just sort of came together and we still sort of marvel at... at... there's some... it feels like some sort of... I dunno... like, guardian angel of it or something that's...

Reelscene : Well I think that Marianna being the script writer and the lead actress and was she the director also?

Jason Ritter : Yeah.

Reelscene : That kind of made it a little easier for everybody else.

Jason Ritter :That's true... yeah (laughs) that's true. Yeah, we didn't have to, we didn't have to deal with four separate people, we could go to her for pretty much anything. But yeah I mean, she, she's just a, she's a…a… a powerhouse.

Reelscene : And I'll have to point out that she took some risks herself.

Jason Ritter : Oh yeah, she did. I mean, a lot of times, especially again, because there's all this societal pressure, women, and especially actresses in films, they want to be attractive at all costs. That's why you have this plastic surgery and there's a shortage of women who are willing to play grandmothers in this industry because they are terrified that people will see them as not as spring chickens anymore. And it's this weird thing were male actors can work well into their seventies and still be the leading man but the female romantic interest always stay in their twenties so there's this extra added pressure of be attractive as you can at any moment even if it's not right for the character. And so for her to show up in the first scene and just be this dirty, dead faced, sort of slob of a woman is really brave.

Reelscene : And picking out porno at the same time.

Jason Ritter : And picking out porno, right, exactly, it's not like this is your average studio romance, they spend so much time in the first five minutes making you love both characters, that's what make you root for the.. that's like the formula, 'you like this woman, oh she's lonely because she just broke up with her boyfriend' and 'this man is a ladies man but he'll never settle down, oh I wonder what's going to happen, oh he realizes that only one woman can make him happy and she..', and it's like this strange formula and for her to say 'no I'm going to force you to watch someone that maybe you are uncomfortable spending time with.