Beginners

stayforthecredits:

What was the rehearsal process like?

MIKE MILLS: I do one scene, at the end of the day, and we just do it once, especially with actors like Christopher and Ewan. I don’t want them to get used to it or develop a set idea of how the scene is going to be. So, we had lunch and then I said, “You’re going to go to Barney’s.” I do all of these improvisational experiential things that are wild and nutty, but it gets a good vibe going. So I said, “Ewan, you take Christopher to Barney’s, and Christopher, you’re gay now and you want to make yourself attractive to younger men.” I made a mistake and said, “Ewan, here’s 300 bucks, get a scarf or something small.” They were alone. That was the key thing. They were having their own time together.

On the way over there, Ewan had on skinny jeans, and Christopher was like, “What are those? They’re awfully skinny and they’re awfully tight.” And, Ewan was like, “Well, Christopher, they’re called skinny jeans.” So, they entered Barney’s, and Ewan headed over to the scarf department and Christopher was off in the jean department, and Ewan can’t wrangle him. I only gave them 45 minutes, but Christopher ended up staying at the jean department for over an hour, trying on every kind of pair, and Ewan was getting pairs and bringing them to the dressing room. He spent over $1,000 that Ewan had to pay for, but he wears all the jeans in the movie. Those kinds of messes end up being really great bonding experiences. I was trying to create a situation that would be very much like the experiences that the characters have in the movie. Hal is always going off shopping or living his life, and Oliver is often in tow, trying to help or keep up or make sure he’s okay. (via Mike Mills Interview BEGINNERS)

rgrjnr:

FINALLY seeing Beginners tonight. (image source)

Mills wrote in a director’s statement: 

The experience I’m most trying to communicate with Beginners is that of an adventure. The feeling of breaking something open. While this film has illness and death, it’s about beginnings, change, and how deeply funny life can be in its most serious moments…. I only get to tell this story once, so I wanted it to be bighearted, for a big audience, progressive and innovative, and like my father – deeply wanting to connect with people.

I wrote letters to Ewan McGregor (and Christopher Plummer) asking them to be in the movie. Here is a little from each of those letters.

[to Ewan;]

When each of my parents passed the grief wasn’t all downward and heavy. There was sort of an explosion in me, an overwhelming feeling that life is quickly rolling by. All that I wanted but haven’t tasted became crucial. For me, this was to find someone, and to finally stay with someone. So, I couldn’t sleep, I needed to do everything right away, I was funnier, and meaner, I took more risks, and I was willing and able to change. 

— Mike Mills, 2/2011

(via sdjklfhkjsdf)

stayforthecredits:

Did you approach Arthur as a character and not just a dog?

MILLS: He is a character. He’s a full being.

How challenging was it to cast the role of Arthur?

MILLS: That was fun! I’m a dog lover and a dog nut. It was like the real casting couch experience for me. I literally was on my couch at my house, and I had eight or nine dogs come, over a couple of days. Cosmo is really special. He’s really gregarious. He’d jump up in your lap and look you in the eye. He’s a lot like Ewan. They’re very charming, warm people that you gravitate towards and are real easy-going. You lean into his spirit. He comes with Mathilde [de Cagny], his trainer who he lives with, and she’s so unlike all the other trainers. She’s so much less regimented, really fun and really organic. She’s French. She was at the audition at my house and my assistant was there and I was like, “Has she done anything? She’s really interesting, but is she a real trainer?” And, my assistant was like, “She did Frasier for 11 years.”

Was it difficult to figure out how many times you would use subtitles for the dog’s thoughts?

MILLS: There were maybe a few more times in the script than what’s in the movie, but it’s almost pretty much what I wrote. To me, all animals have full personhood. They’re equals. They’re not less than, they’re just different. Dogs have 250 million smell sensitive cells in their nose, and we have five million. They can smell where a female dog is in her menstrual cycle, how tall the dog is, what emotion the dog was having when they peed. We can’t do that. So, I tried to just really be sensitive to the dog as other and not as less than. Me and Ewan had a really amazing rehearsal day where we just hung out with Cosmo and sat on his bed, and just talked to him, knowing that he doesn’t understand English, but not at all talking cute or talking down. It took a little while because he’s so cute and we’re just used to talking to animals like that, but it was key to me to have them be equals of utterly different paradigms. I remember saying, “Just think of him as a highly intelligent alien friend that doesn’t speak English and has a different mind than ours.” Cosmo is amazing.

history of sadness