It' scary hearing a nice guy like Freaks & Geeks creator Paul Feig get all bitter but thats what happens when you work in Hollywood. After spending three years developing, writing and directing the feature film I Am David but its only in a limited release in the United States. But if you Midwestern Feig fans want the movie to go wider, go buy some damn tickets.
I Am David follows a twelve year-old boy [Ben Tibber] from when he escapes an East European prison camp and makes an incredible personal journey to freedom. Fleeing with only a compass, half a loaf of bread and a sealed, secret letter he must carry across the continent, David cannot foresee the dramatic odyssey that awaits him. From stowing away on a ship bound for Italy, to facing his fears of the dangerous outside world, to the unexpected revelation of his true identity, David discovers for the first time the real meaning of courage, trust, laughter and hope.
Buy tickets for I Am David here
Daniel Robert Epstein: You mentioned that the premiere of I Am David was in Atlanta. How come?
Paul Feig: Its a big charity event. It became our unofficial premiere because were not having one anywhere else. My movie has been treated so shabbily. Its such the bastard child of Lions Gate and of Hollywood.
DRE: Well its such a great movie you almost squeezed a tear out of my eye at the end.
PF: If I can get hard hearted cat like you to like it then great. It was meant to be a family film but also can be for adults.
DRE: Why has it been ignored?
PF: They dont know what to do with it. This is such a test of everything this country says it wants but doesnt actually want. The studios are convinced that movies like this dont make money. Lions Gate does movies like SAW so with my film I might as well be handing them a turd because they dont know what to do with it.
DRE: Yeah they make the most money with genre movies.
PF: I Am David got dropped into their laps because they bought Artisan which had bought our film. Though I think they have come up with a cool way to not just burn it off. Its a limited release that is throughout the Midwest which is an audience that would be into it. But they are convinced that its not the kind of movie that makes money. My idea is that we just got out of this divisive election which hinged on moral values and they say that Hollywood only makes bad movies. Here is my good movie/family film so if they dont go out to see it then they are full of shit. Obviously its self serving for me to think that but in a way it is a test. Ive been told for a year and a half by Hollywood that no one wants to see a movie like this because they cant market it to the audience they know. But then Im also on the road hearing all these audiences say That this is the kind of movies we want but Hollywood doesnt make them. If you want uplifting family fare here it is. Its getting all these good reviews from religious websites and Sean Hannity said he liked it. If that doesnt bring people out then I dont know what to do. They should just watch Desperate Housewives and not pretend they dont like it. Maybe it will spur conversations about an era of history people dont know a lot about, these communist labor camps.
DRE: I was surprised when it got pulled from being released in New York City.
PF: Thats because theyve got X amount of dollars for promotion and advertising for each movie, so opening a movie in New York or LA eats up about a fifth of your budget. They decided to go into these 14 markets with Chicago being the biggest so they can make that money go further. I think its really smart but I wish they were doing it with someone elses movie. Its an experiment that is going to make every filmmaker in the world hate me if it works because distributors will want to open everything in the Midwest.
I dont have any illusions that we are going to win an Academy Award but not opening in New York and LA makes us not eligible. Thats a bummer because Joan Plowright could get a nomination.
DRE: Im watching your movie and there were no credits at the beginning so I wasnt even sure if it was your movie until I saw your cameo in it.
PF: [laughs] Yeah I was up for some job and Sean Hayes [of Will & Grace] had to watch and someone had told him it was a comedy. He told me that ten minutes into it he thought it was the edgiest comedy he had ever seen.
On the surface I Am David is very different from Freaks & Geeks but in my brain its sort of not that different. Its another character that is a total outsider, oppressed by other people, doesnt know his place in the world and has to go on his own journey to find that the world isnt as bad as he thinks. People asked me if I was sure if I wanted to do it because its like nothing I had done before, but I felt it was sort of the same thing.
DRE: You always hear stories about people wanting to make certain films but the people around them say it will end their career.
PF: People thought I should do a high school movie. Im not adverse to doing a high school movie if a great one came along but the ones I got sent were so horrible. But also people thought that if I do this well I could be next Steven Zaillian. I dont think about it either way. I feel that if I have to spend two years on a project I have to really be into it and the moment I read the book I immediately fell in love with it. Its also different enough from stuff Ive previously done. Im really ADD so everything has to be different otherwise I get bored.
When I did my first feature the $30,000 Life Sold Separately, it was a lot of work and then I did a little premiere. A producer friend of mine said Congratulations, the easy part is over. I thought it was such a cynical thing to say but now I know that hes so right.
DRE: How did the book, I Am David, come to you?
PF: After Freaks Walden Media started calling me because they wanted me to do a high school movie that would update classic books but setting them in high school like Clueless did. I was like Whatever because I wanted to do Kafkas The Trial. They finally cornered me and I said I wanted to do something about someone seeing the world for the first time. They said they had this book; I read it and fell in love with it.
DRE: The book must be really good.
PF: It is, but yet its not so great that you dont think you cant do justice to it. Thats what I look for because if someone handed me Lord of the Rings, thats a lot of pressure. There was just enough stuff missing from I Am David that I felt I could make it into a good movie. I hate when someone adapts something and they throw the whole thing out expect the title. I added a lot of stuff like the soap thing and the mystery of how Johannes was killed. I wanted the audience to have to relearn the world through David. Im proud of the way I adapted it because the book works as a book and the movie works as a movie.
DRE: I knew as much about I Am David as I did from what you told me the last time we spoke. When you said you were shooting overseas I assumed you were shooting a movie set in America but just substituting Europe.
PF: Yeah Bulgaria for New York.
DRE: How was it shooting there?
PF: Its always been my dream to do that so it was great. It is a period movie so we shot outside the key cities because it doubles really well for old Italy. Half my crew was Italian and they thought it looked like Italy. That whole Italian villa is right on the Black Sea and is the king of Bulgarias summer home. It all fell together very fortuitously.
DRE: Sometimes I hear these deals about American movies shooting overseas that you cant use too many American actors. Is that why you played that small part?
PF: I originally had a couple of people I knew who were going to play it but we had trouble with our SAG paperwork. I said that Im here and Im in SAG so we did it.
DRE: Sometimes actors turned directors put themselves in a small but very key roles. Thats not what you did though.
PF: I hate when directors do that like M. Night Shyamalan. Get a real actor for that big part.
DRE: Ben Tibber reminded me a lot of the kid in Time Bandits but maybe all British kids look the same to me.
PF: Someone told me he looked like Thom Yorke from Radiohead.
DRE: Did you find Ben from one of those worldwide star kid searches?
PF: I tried to turn it into that. We hired this woman, Pippa Hall, who found the kid who played Billy Elliot [Jamie Bell]. I told her I want to go to every school all over the country. She said that was fine then she showed me a picture of Ben and I thought he was perfect. We brought him in but we still had her search all over England. At the end of the day Ben was so great but it was embarrassing because it could have all been over in one casting session.
DRE: What was good about that kid is that he didnt make you fall in love with him.
PF: That was a big thing. We couldnt get a cute kid because it had to be a kid who grew up in the worst situation known to man. You cant get a big eyed kid and throw some dirt on his face. You had to find one that looked like he went through all this pain. Ben is actually the sweetest kid but he has that look in his face. I was worried they wouldnt let me cast him at first because he wasnt a moppet type. The studio loved him but after the first week of dailies they said he wasnt reacting and wasnt smiling. I did a lot research on kids like this and theyre dead inside. The only thing that gets a rise out them is something that spurs a memory. Thats why David keeps having these flashbacks to his mother. The greatest validation for me is when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees saw it and became a sponsor. They said it was the most accurate portrayal of a refugee kid they had ever seen. On the other side, another reason that Hollywood is so down on my movie is that some people say that the kid isnt good because he doesnt react. Its like You assholes, this is how these kids are. So I made the mistake of making it too accurate.
DRE: Many Jewish filmmakers seem to have a holocaust story in them. Is I Am David as close as you will get?
PF: My whole thing is that there is already so much tragedy in the world. I just dont know these days if showing it to people in movie does anything to them anymore. I would much rather show someone [Alain Resnais] Night and Fog than Schindlers List because you walk out of that going Holy Shit whereas with a movie you can justify things away. What drew me to this story is that this is another bad thing from history that we dont know about. We may know about the communist gulags in Russia but who knows about the ones in Bulgaria. Id rather shine a spotlight on something to spur discussion for kids. Im never looking to do the story thats heavy for heavys sake.
I was literally supposed to write this movie on September 11th but of course the world changed that morning and like everyone else in the business I moped around for a week saying I have to get out of the business. To me this is the post 9/11 story because its, how do you deal with the world after seeing the worst humanity has to offer? The whole world doesnt want to kill us because most people just want to live their lives.
DRE: How well did the Freaks & Geeks DVDs sell?
PF: They did well. I know the company made their money back times a bit. It sold well and now its still selling well because Christmas is coming up. The great thing is that we got all these new fans.
DRE: You hear about how the Family Guy DVDs brought that show back, which wont happen to Freaks & Geeks, but has it made any waves for you?
PF: Eh, its never a bad thing. Enough time had past between the show going down and me going off to do my book [Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence] and then this movie. I had disappeared from the scene, unlike Judd Apatow, so I was getting swept under the rug a bit and not credited as the creator. So the best thing for me is that it made people remember that I created the show and we found some new fans.
DRE: Are you getting more emails?
PF: Yeah a lot more emails and the message board is back and vibrant. We also just put out the Freaks & Geeks soundtrack and the book of the scripts.
DRE: Book of the scripts?
PF: Yeah and thats the end of the merchandising. The script book is actually cool because its the actually shooting drafts so its stuff that never got filmed and stuff that got cut out. Its cool but obviously you have to be a hardcore fan of the show.
DRE: So your new movie is Star Girl.
PF: Yes I finished my couple of drafts and were waiting for Paramount to greenlight it. Nickelodeon really likes it and I think its the best screenplay Ive ever written. It still chokes you up at the end but not manipulatively.
DRE: How did the novel Star Girl come to you?
PF: A producer from I Am David, Lauren Levine, had found the book a while ago but we found out it was in development at Nickelodeon but she kept monitoring it. She found that a draft was written but they didnt like it.
DRE: How is directing Arrested Development?
PF: The show is so much fun to work on that its almost a vacation. I did two episodes in the first season including the season finale.
DRE: I just got into that show a few months ago.
PF: You have to get into that show by watching a bunch of episodes at a time.
DRE: Yeah I hated it the first time I saw it.
PF: Me too, when I saw the pilot I was like Uch. But those actors just really get to you and it becomes the greatest show in the world. Will Arnett is possibly the funniest guy there is.
DRE: You have any plans to work with any of your Freaks & Geeks cohorts in the future be it actors or writers?
PF: It depends on the projects. Im less of a person that likes to use the same people over and over again because for me its what the role or project needs. If someone fits, then I would.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
I Am David follows a twelve year-old boy [Ben Tibber] from when he escapes an East European prison camp and makes an incredible personal journey to freedom. Fleeing with only a compass, half a loaf of bread and a sealed, secret letter he must carry across the continent, David cannot foresee the dramatic odyssey that awaits him. From stowing away on a ship bound for Italy, to facing his fears of the dangerous outside world, to the unexpected revelation of his true identity, David discovers for the first time the real meaning of courage, trust, laughter and hope.
Buy tickets for I Am David here
Daniel Robert Epstein: You mentioned that the premiere of I Am David was in Atlanta. How come?
Paul Feig: Its a big charity event. It became our unofficial premiere because were not having one anywhere else. My movie has been treated so shabbily. Its such the bastard child of Lions Gate and of Hollywood.
DRE: Well its such a great movie you almost squeezed a tear out of my eye at the end.
PF: If I can get hard hearted cat like you to like it then great. It was meant to be a family film but also can be for adults.
DRE: Why has it been ignored?
PF: They dont know what to do with it. This is such a test of everything this country says it wants but doesnt actually want. The studios are convinced that movies like this dont make money. Lions Gate does movies like SAW so with my film I might as well be handing them a turd because they dont know what to do with it.
DRE: Yeah they make the most money with genre movies.
PF: I Am David got dropped into their laps because they bought Artisan which had bought our film. Though I think they have come up with a cool way to not just burn it off. Its a limited release that is throughout the Midwest which is an audience that would be into it. But they are convinced that its not the kind of movie that makes money. My idea is that we just got out of this divisive election which hinged on moral values and they say that Hollywood only makes bad movies. Here is my good movie/family film so if they dont go out to see it then they are full of shit. Obviously its self serving for me to think that but in a way it is a test. Ive been told for a year and a half by Hollywood that no one wants to see a movie like this because they cant market it to the audience they know. But then Im also on the road hearing all these audiences say That this is the kind of movies we want but Hollywood doesnt make them. If you want uplifting family fare here it is. Its getting all these good reviews from religious websites and Sean Hannity said he liked it. If that doesnt bring people out then I dont know what to do. They should just watch Desperate Housewives and not pretend they dont like it. Maybe it will spur conversations about an era of history people dont know a lot about, these communist labor camps.
DRE: I was surprised when it got pulled from being released in New York City.
PF: Thats because theyve got X amount of dollars for promotion and advertising for each movie, so opening a movie in New York or LA eats up about a fifth of your budget. They decided to go into these 14 markets with Chicago being the biggest so they can make that money go further. I think its really smart but I wish they were doing it with someone elses movie. Its an experiment that is going to make every filmmaker in the world hate me if it works because distributors will want to open everything in the Midwest.
I dont have any illusions that we are going to win an Academy Award but not opening in New York and LA makes us not eligible. Thats a bummer because Joan Plowright could get a nomination.
DRE: Im watching your movie and there were no credits at the beginning so I wasnt even sure if it was your movie until I saw your cameo in it.
PF: [laughs] Yeah I was up for some job and Sean Hayes [of Will & Grace] had to watch and someone had told him it was a comedy. He told me that ten minutes into it he thought it was the edgiest comedy he had ever seen.
On the surface I Am David is very different from Freaks & Geeks but in my brain its sort of not that different. Its another character that is a total outsider, oppressed by other people, doesnt know his place in the world and has to go on his own journey to find that the world isnt as bad as he thinks. People asked me if I was sure if I wanted to do it because its like nothing I had done before, but I felt it was sort of the same thing.
DRE: You always hear stories about people wanting to make certain films but the people around them say it will end their career.
PF: People thought I should do a high school movie. Im not adverse to doing a high school movie if a great one came along but the ones I got sent were so horrible. But also people thought that if I do this well I could be next Steven Zaillian. I dont think about it either way. I feel that if I have to spend two years on a project I have to really be into it and the moment I read the book I immediately fell in love with it. Its also different enough from stuff Ive previously done. Im really ADD so everything has to be different otherwise I get bored.
When I did my first feature the $30,000 Life Sold Separately, it was a lot of work and then I did a little premiere. A producer friend of mine said Congratulations, the easy part is over. I thought it was such a cynical thing to say but now I know that hes so right.
DRE: How did the book, I Am David, come to you?
PF: After Freaks Walden Media started calling me because they wanted me to do a high school movie that would update classic books but setting them in high school like Clueless did. I was like Whatever because I wanted to do Kafkas The Trial. They finally cornered me and I said I wanted to do something about someone seeing the world for the first time. They said they had this book; I read it and fell in love with it.
DRE: The book must be really good.
PF: It is, but yet its not so great that you dont think you cant do justice to it. Thats what I look for because if someone handed me Lord of the Rings, thats a lot of pressure. There was just enough stuff missing from I Am David that I felt I could make it into a good movie. I hate when someone adapts something and they throw the whole thing out expect the title. I added a lot of stuff like the soap thing and the mystery of how Johannes was killed. I wanted the audience to have to relearn the world through David. Im proud of the way I adapted it because the book works as a book and the movie works as a movie.
DRE: I knew as much about I Am David as I did from what you told me the last time we spoke. When you said you were shooting overseas I assumed you were shooting a movie set in America but just substituting Europe.
PF: Yeah Bulgaria for New York.
DRE: How was it shooting there?
PF: Its always been my dream to do that so it was great. It is a period movie so we shot outside the key cities because it doubles really well for old Italy. Half my crew was Italian and they thought it looked like Italy. That whole Italian villa is right on the Black Sea and is the king of Bulgarias summer home. It all fell together very fortuitously.
DRE: Sometimes I hear these deals about American movies shooting overseas that you cant use too many American actors. Is that why you played that small part?
PF: I originally had a couple of people I knew who were going to play it but we had trouble with our SAG paperwork. I said that Im here and Im in SAG so we did it.
DRE: Sometimes actors turned directors put themselves in a small but very key roles. Thats not what you did though.
PF: I hate when directors do that like M. Night Shyamalan. Get a real actor for that big part.
DRE: Ben Tibber reminded me a lot of the kid in Time Bandits but maybe all British kids look the same to me.
PF: Someone told me he looked like Thom Yorke from Radiohead.
DRE: Did you find Ben from one of those worldwide star kid searches?
PF: I tried to turn it into that. We hired this woman, Pippa Hall, who found the kid who played Billy Elliot [Jamie Bell]. I told her I want to go to every school all over the country. She said that was fine then she showed me a picture of Ben and I thought he was perfect. We brought him in but we still had her search all over England. At the end of the day Ben was so great but it was embarrassing because it could have all been over in one casting session.
DRE: What was good about that kid is that he didnt make you fall in love with him.
PF: That was a big thing. We couldnt get a cute kid because it had to be a kid who grew up in the worst situation known to man. You cant get a big eyed kid and throw some dirt on his face. You had to find one that looked like he went through all this pain. Ben is actually the sweetest kid but he has that look in his face. I was worried they wouldnt let me cast him at first because he wasnt a moppet type. The studio loved him but after the first week of dailies they said he wasnt reacting and wasnt smiling. I did a lot research on kids like this and theyre dead inside. The only thing that gets a rise out them is something that spurs a memory. Thats why David keeps having these flashbacks to his mother. The greatest validation for me is when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees saw it and became a sponsor. They said it was the most accurate portrayal of a refugee kid they had ever seen. On the other side, another reason that Hollywood is so down on my movie is that some people say that the kid isnt good because he doesnt react. Its like You assholes, this is how these kids are. So I made the mistake of making it too accurate.
DRE: Many Jewish filmmakers seem to have a holocaust story in them. Is I Am David as close as you will get?
PF: My whole thing is that there is already so much tragedy in the world. I just dont know these days if showing it to people in movie does anything to them anymore. I would much rather show someone [Alain Resnais] Night and Fog than Schindlers List because you walk out of that going Holy Shit whereas with a movie you can justify things away. What drew me to this story is that this is another bad thing from history that we dont know about. We may know about the communist gulags in Russia but who knows about the ones in Bulgaria. Id rather shine a spotlight on something to spur discussion for kids. Im never looking to do the story thats heavy for heavys sake.
I was literally supposed to write this movie on September 11th but of course the world changed that morning and like everyone else in the business I moped around for a week saying I have to get out of the business. To me this is the post 9/11 story because its, how do you deal with the world after seeing the worst humanity has to offer? The whole world doesnt want to kill us because most people just want to live their lives.
DRE: How well did the Freaks & Geeks DVDs sell?
PF: They did well. I know the company made their money back times a bit. It sold well and now its still selling well because Christmas is coming up. The great thing is that we got all these new fans.
DRE: You hear about how the Family Guy DVDs brought that show back, which wont happen to Freaks & Geeks, but has it made any waves for you?
PF: Eh, its never a bad thing. Enough time had past between the show going down and me going off to do my book [Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence] and then this movie. I had disappeared from the scene, unlike Judd Apatow, so I was getting swept under the rug a bit and not credited as the creator. So the best thing for me is that it made people remember that I created the show and we found some new fans.
DRE: Are you getting more emails?
PF: Yeah a lot more emails and the message board is back and vibrant. We also just put out the Freaks & Geeks soundtrack and the book of the scripts.
DRE: Book of the scripts?
PF: Yeah and thats the end of the merchandising. The script book is actually cool because its the actually shooting drafts so its stuff that never got filmed and stuff that got cut out. Its cool but obviously you have to be a hardcore fan of the show.
DRE: So your new movie is Star Girl.
PF: Yes I finished my couple of drafts and were waiting for Paramount to greenlight it. Nickelodeon really likes it and I think its the best screenplay Ive ever written. It still chokes you up at the end but not manipulatively.
DRE: How did the novel Star Girl come to you?
PF: A producer from I Am David, Lauren Levine, had found the book a while ago but we found out it was in development at Nickelodeon but she kept monitoring it. She found that a draft was written but they didnt like it.
DRE: How is directing Arrested Development?
PF: The show is so much fun to work on that its almost a vacation. I did two episodes in the first season including the season finale.
DRE: I just got into that show a few months ago.
PF: You have to get into that show by watching a bunch of episodes at a time.
DRE: Yeah I hated it the first time I saw it.
PF: Me too, when I saw the pilot I was like Uch. But those actors just really get to you and it becomes the greatest show in the world. Will Arnett is possibly the funniest guy there is.
DRE: You have any plans to work with any of your Freaks & Geeks cohorts in the future be it actors or writers?
PF: It depends on the projects. Im less of a person that likes to use the same people over and over again because for me its what the role or project needs. If someone fits, then I would.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
scumdog69:
man i loved freaks and geeks! the dvd is awesome. i signed that petition and bought it the first day it was available! great stuff!
capitalistfig:
Paul Feig is probably one of the coolest guys ever. You people should buy tickets to his show in the midwest even if you don't live there! Buy it online. Anyways, he's getting constantly screwed by Hollywood, so help the man out because he produces some of the best stuff ever.