Twelve and Holding director Michael Cuesta

Twelve and Holding director Michael Cuesta

By Daniel Robert Epstein
May 15, 2006

Michael Cuesta stormed the independent film world with his raw unyielding drama L.I.E. Since that film was released Cuesta has directed many episodes of television including Six Feet Under. Now he is releasing his latest feature, Twelve and Holding which is about twin boys who are best friends, yet completely different. Rudy is athletic, brave and charismatic while his twin Jacob is quiet, timid and deeply affected by the unsightly birthmark on his face. After Rudy dies protecting his tree house that the local trailer park boys, all the characters deal with this tragic event in their own way.

Check out the official site for Twelve and Holding

Daniel Robert Epstein: I would imagine that after L.I.E. you had a lot of opportunities come your way.
Michael Cuesta: Yeah a lot of bad scripts were sent. I did adapt a book that I’m still trying to get made. Doing Twelve and Holding was almost in lieu of this other film but it looks like I’m going to make this other one anyway.
DRE:
Twelve and Holding movie shares a lot of themes with LIE. Is that a coincidence?
MC:
I think I just identify with that adolescence angst. The kind of angst you need to find your place in the world. L.I.E. clearly was about that need to have that connection. This seems to manifest itself in coming in age stories about 12 and 15 year olds.
DRE:
Does it feel like nostalgia to you?
MC:
Oh totally. That whole loss of innocence. It’s like Stand By Me of the post 9/11 new millennium. The whole tree house thing we all have that and it’s just the end of that and the stepping into that rocky half of adolescence.
DRE:
Even though you did not write the script by yourself, did the film become autobiographical or personal?
MC:
Well I worked on the script with [screenwriter] Anthony [Cipriano]. A director shapes a script and reworks it. But I think what I responded to the most was this unconditional love that these kids have with their parents in the tragic story in the movie. I really responded to that and I found it very moving.
DRE:
You have a brother. What does he think of you tackling these things which if they seem very real to you there’s a good chance he may feel similar?
MC:
Me and my brother have different sensibilities. I think he’s a bit of a pulpy kind of writer and I try to write more from character and reality. My brother didn’t connect with this at all. Not that he didn’t like the film but I don’t think he identified the same way I did. When I co-write with Gerald he balances me when I get too cerebral or too gritty or too subtle. He brings me out and tends to pulp it up a little bit.
DRE:
A lot of reviewers are saying you are like a more realistic based Todd Solondz.
MC:
Whatever.
DRE:
Yeah, I know. [laughs]
MC:
I find that Todd looks at underage sexuality and this difficult time in life in a much more satirical and odd way. He paints it as a very strange bizarre thing and I don’t see it like that. I think that’s our difference. In a way sexuality seems icky to him and it’s not icky to me. Happiness is brilliant but the sexuality stuff in there just made you clinch every time it was referenced. A European costume designer said to me, “I hope your not going to exploit this or kind of look at this in a very American way.”
DRE:
Ouch!
MC:
I said “Absolutely not, I don’t see it as that.” I don’t think I looked at it like that in L.I.E. either. To me it’s just a very real and personal and sometimes funny thing but not gross or dysfunctional. The way Malee [played by Zoe Weizenbaum] goes though this story is very real and it comes from longing and a big heart.
DRE:
A lot of the films are coming out now that are centered around children’s sexuality. A lot of it is because of L.I.E. and the barriers that film helped break. What was it like getting financing for Twelve and Holding?
MC:
They trusted that I could handle the subject matter. I guess if you’re giving it to a filmmaker that’s never handled taboo subjects or any underage sexuality or underage violence they would be reluctant to move ahead. They trusted that I had real delicate touch.
DRE:
How did Michael Hoffman get involved?
MC:
Michael is one of the financiers. Michael put a company together with Leslie Urdang, Michael Nozik and Amy Robinson. Their company has produced three films so far, mine, Game Six and The Great New Wonderful.

Let me ask you, do a lot of young people visit your website?
DRE:
Yeah plenty.
MC:
To me this movie is so much for them. It’s not really for me. I remember seeing Stand By Me for the first time when I was maybe 20 or 21. Stand by Me is a accessible commercial movie but it was also the first time where I think as a young adult I could be nostalgic. If 20 year old people or people even younger could do that, then it would be like looking back when you were 12 and remembering your tree house and that bridge you had to cross into that pimply scary world of puberty.
DRE:
Your film is quite daring and Stand By Me is a fantastic film that treats kids like they are real people but I would not go as far saying it is daring.
MC:
I’m talking from a nostalgic standpoint. The whole idea of being young and letting go of that and Stand By Me was very much that. Not as a taboo way of dealing with sexuality or violence
DRE:
I’ve spoken to a lot of actors and directors that say that young kid actors are amazing because you ask them to cry and they figure out how to cry. They don’t turn it into a whole issue, have you found the same thing?
MC:
Yes. Also you’re casting the kid for who he is, not for their learned jobs because they don’t have craft yet. If you’re lucky enough to find that one that has the raw talent before they get spoiled by acting classes and all that stuff, you just go with it. But the flipside to that is that you do that and then you get on the set and they’re not remembering their lines, there’s no consistency and it’s a ball buster.
DRE:
What do you do them?
MC:
You just got to keep doing it and doing it. You become almost like a parent. I found both films to be really exhausting in terms of corralling them. But some of the kids were always spot on and then some of them were not. There was almost very little direction to be done, it was more like guiding them.
DRE:
Is your next film The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint?
MC:
Possibly, I’m also developing a horror movie with the Weinsteins. I have a weakness for the horror genre.
DRE:
Can you talk about it yet?
MC:
Yes, Mikey Wigart wrote the screenplay and it’s called Shiver. It is about these four young people on New Year’s Eve who are partying and driving in a snow storm in northern Minnesota. They get into a car accident and are in need of medical attention. Then they and happen to stumble on a small town doctor who is a Josef Mengele type and is performing experiments. You get to know what this doctor’s all about and why he’s doing it. It’s quite interesting, extremely scary and crazy.
DRE:
The Weinstein Brothers seem to be doing a lot of horror movies lately. Did you go to them or did they come to you?
MC:
They came to me. I think they were fans of LIE. It was more Bob than Harvey too. I think he respected what I did with Brian Cox in LIE.

Also look out for the series I just did the pilot called Dexter. It’s for Showtime.
DRE:
What’s Dexter about?
MC:
I cast Michael C. Hall from Six Feet Under as the lead. He plays a Miami Dade forensics blood spatter specialist that moonlights as a serial killer. But the catch is he only kills other killers. So he’s a vigilante.
DRE:
Did you create the show?
MC:
No, I just directed it. I’m now involved with co-executive producer and overseeing the series.
DRE:
What made you think of Michael for the role?
MC:
I worked with him on Six Feet Under. We became friendly and I always talked with him and when this came up, I said “look, I know the perfect Dexter, Michael C. Hall.” Showtime was into it and we brought Michael in.
DRE:
Is it a procedural?
MC:
It has a procedural aspect to it, but the twist is turning it all on his head because it is more about this guy discovering his humanity. He’s a monster and he’s very much closed off emotionally so he feels nothing or he thinks he feels nothing. But the irony is that he actually takes care of people and he actually has his own code that makes sense in a weird fucking twisted way. The show’s about him uncovering that and finding the man in him.
DRE:
What’s The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint about?
MC:
Edgar Mint is a young protagonist, half Indian, half white kid that’s orphaned on an Indian reservation by a tragic accident and goes into a coma for two years. He comes out of the coma, his whole life has been erased, his mother’s died, everyone’s gone, and the movie’s very much like a Dickensian kind of Oliver Twist odyssey where its about him just trying to find his place in the world. He goes to an Indian school, he lives with a slightly eccentric, Mormon family. So it’s about him and his salvation. The twist is that he believes that the person that almost killed him is his salvation.
DRE:
D you have a cast yet?
MC:
Matt Dillon may play the doctor who saves him. He’s a picturesque charming rogue type figure; a doctor turned drug addict who’s trying to help the kid. Jeff Daniels is kind of unofficially attached to play the Mormon man. Steve Zahn is going to play the doctor’s sidekick who helps our protagonist.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

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