We DonÂ’t Live Here Anymore director John Curran

Well IÂ’m married and I have a kid. ItÂ’s not reflective of my life except that IÂ’ve had really bad times in my marriage and really good times as well. I try to balance my own personal pursuits with being a dad and a partner. It was the first script that really rung true with the difficulties of balancing everything.

No, I think weÂ’re jumping into four people in a crisis. I wasnÂ’t interested in the backstory and overstating how happy they once were. Hopefully there are touches of that but I kind of like how muscular the script was. We jump into a crisis and weÂ’re waiting to see what the follow-up is going to be. The characters are one step beyond their comfort zone and thatÂ’s what weÂ’re watching, everyone trying to keep it together but little by little itÂ’s falling apart.

I feel like there is a lot of humor in the film. There is a lot of gallows humor. The reasons I cast these guys is because each one of them has an inherent sense of humor I can draw from at any time. I suppose it depends on your style of humor. In most of the better screenings people are laughing in uncomfortable spots because itÂ’s familiar. I never intended to make a heavy somber film. I want to inject as much absurdity and humor into it as I could.

Mark was first. I read the script then went to Sydney Australia and bumped into Jane Campion. She had just done a film with Mark [In the Cut with Meg Ryan]. To make a long story short she called and by the time I got back to America he had read it and seen my other film [Praise released in 1998]. He said he wanted to do it which started the momentum that made other actors want to get onboard. At the same time I was trying to convince Naomi to do it. IÂ’ve known her for years from Sydney. She was sort of on the fence because she was doing 21 Grams and exhausted. When I met Laura it was instantaneous. Peter was the last one cast and by the time we had settled on that it was only a few weeks before shooting so we didnÂ’t have a lot of rehearsal time. We just jumped into it.

Casting is so much of it. Beyond their talent I just got lucky with the fact that as a group of people we all got on really well. There wasnÂ’t an ego out of place. Everyone just jumped into it. I canÂ’t imagine what it would have been like if some people werenÂ’t getting along.

I didnÂ’t know Larry but I know his work. Larry was always sheepish that he wrote this script in the 70Â’s where it sat on his shelf. He considers it his best work but itÂ’s 25 years old.

ItÂ’s a summer where both relationships arenÂ’t in the best of shape. It sort of relieved us from having to do erotic sex which is really hard to get across on film. All the sex scenes are about disconnect. They are having sex but there is no love or passion there.

All of them want to know what youÂ’re thinking and all of them have a different process. Some do a lot of prep work and have many ideas. Mark is very intuitive. He just kind of reacts to the moment. Naomi because of her dialect is a little more prepped and Laura very much goes into a state which is amazing but we could still communicate. All of them enjoy getting to a place where they feel a little off balance and because we didnÂ’t have rehearsals I had to rely on their talent and craft to draw ideas from.

Hopefully the movie is not judgmental towards any of the characters. I donÂ’t think itÂ’s about black and white but gray. It can be good people dealing with dumb things; they know it and are trying to deal with it. I have great affection, pity and understanding for these characters.

We all think of ourselves as fairly good people then you make a few decisions and it can be over.

The two short stories are We DonÂ’t Live Here Anymore and Adultery. We DonÂ’t Live Here Anymore is essentially the text of the film and Adultery picks up EdithÂ’s story a year after her affair with Jack. She is still with Hank but now sheÂ’s having an affair with a dying priest. She reflects back on her affair. Then there is a third story that is about Hank 20 years in the future.

You do for characterization and ideas. It was a valuable resource to have.

I think itÂ’s more that heÂ’s blindsided since heÂ’s so self absorbed that he didnÂ’t see it coming. I think Jack, Edith and Terry sense something looming which Hank doesnÂ’t see. He thinks that heÂ’s got everything under control. Even though he is suffering anxiety about his work thatÂ’s all he cares about anyway.

Larry is a real cinefile. He looks at everything and IÂ’m the opposite. IÂ’m an expert in the school of John Curran. I donÂ’t like to be on set and think about the way other directors would do something. I try to react to the piece itself and draw from the characters and scene. I try to keep all my instincts in the moment. But you canÂ’t help because IÂ’m sure there is stuff I ripped off unconsciously from other people. Once I got into this project I stopped reading scripts and tried not to look at films too much. Every idea you need is there in the text you just have to go deep. There is too much self reflective filmmaking in America. It makes everything look like everything else.

That is basically what it was. Like I said there was no rehearsal, we got the camera, the actors and just shooting. I wanted it to have a visceral quality. It means we were blocking scenes really fast and just doing a lot of long master shots. I wanted to do that to make the actors feel free. ItÂ’s a difficult way to shoot and stay consistent. If they are getting up and running into the corner then it has to match when they do it again.

I donÂ’t really have an opinion on that. Any relationship whether itÂ’s infidelity, drinking or some other self destructive behavior, suffer something at some point. I donÂ’t believe you can condone adultery because any relationship is based on mutual trust. I donÂ’t know how two people can go off and have flings. IÂ’ve never seen it work. I donÂ’t think the film is about infidelity. I think itÂ’s about marriage and the compromises you make trying to keep it together. ItÂ’s also a study about the time after youÂ’ve had kids, the passion is worn out and youÂ’re getting a bit older then the choices you make. I think monogamy is as natural as infidelity. There is a duality to it. If you didnÂ’t have that pull towards something outside your marriage you wouldnÂ’t value what you had as much.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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