LiC Interview: Jake Goldberger, writer/director of ‘Don McKay’

Jake Goldberger is a lucky man and the nice part is that he knows it. Los Angeles is full of  dreamers who want to break into the industry but never quite make it. Jake was not only able to enlist a terrific cast that would help him secure financing for his first movie, the actors including Thomas Haden Church, Elisabeth Shue and Melissa Leo, are all perfect for their parts and they help make the tiny budgeted comic thriller Don McKay a cut above the rest.

I recently sat down with the writer/director to chat about his new film which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and opens Friday, April 2 in New York, Los Angeles and Boston (it was filmed in Massachusetts).

I’ll have my conversation with Haden Church and Shue for you tomorrow.

Craig Kennedy: First of all, congratulations on the film. Nice work.

Jake Goldberger: Thank you.

CK: You’re a first time director and this is your first script. How did it all happen?

JG: I wrote the script and so much luck is involved here. You know, we made an offer to Thomas Haden Church, an unfinanced offer, so the odds of an actor of his caliber coming off an Oscar nomination for Sideways even reading the cover page let alone actually considering making the movie, it feels like it’s a one in a million shot. But [the script] just got him the first page. He read it, he loved it, he called me and we had a great conversation. We became friends and he decided to have my back and support me directing the movie. I’m not exaggerating. That’s really what happened. It’s amazing.

CK: It’s a filmmaker’s dream.

JG: It is. Looking back on it, I’m still completely amazed it went down like that.

CK: The basic elements of Don McKay and much of the film’s marketing indicate a more serious thriller, but there’s a strong, darkly comic undercurrent here.

JG: In reading the script for Thomas, he saw what I was trying to do and my dark sensibilities. It’s absolutely a dark comedy and it’s not just a straight thriller. I just hope people see it as that and they understand that we are having fun with the genre and we’re genre jumping.

Some of that, you know, you’re trying to create an awkward tension in the first third of the movie so I wanted it to be like a roller coaster going up the first hill – click click click click click – and then all of the sudden you’re hit from the side and you’re just on it, you know? In order to build that tension with the audience, it is an intentionally awkward first act and hopefully people start to see the humor seeping in a little more, a little more, a little more, until it picks up and people realize “oh wait a minute, I don’t know what I’m watching here but I’m laughing and I’m having a great time and it’s fun and it’s dark and I’m with it.” If I did my job, that’s what people will be feeling when they watch the movie.

CK: You’ve said you were inspired by Joel and Ethan Coen’s Blood Simple.

JG: Yes. Totally. I was absolutely inspired by Blood Simple but I wasn’t trying to be Blood Simple. I would never have the audacity… I mean, this is my first movie. I just found it completely blew me away and it inspired me to start writing and to want to make this movie. I wasn’t trying to imitate it. But I do love the Coen brothers. I love Fargo and No Country.

CK: Don McKay is definitely it’s own movie. Almost stubbornly so.

JG: I’m glad to hear you say that because that’s what we were trying to do.

CK: M. Emmett Walsh is a favorite of mine. Is Blood Simple what gave you the idea to cast him in Don McKay?

JG: Yes. I’m a huge Fletch fan and obviously The Jerk and he made a movie that I love called Straight Time. I love M. Emmett Walsh and I wrote the character for him. That’s another one, you know, he doesn’t work a lot by his own choice. To be able to get him was another awesome element to the puzzle.

CK: Has getting this film made and having it play at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009 opened up doors for you?

JG: Yeah, people take my phone calls as opposed to never calling me back or calling me back six months later, so it has. I think the performances in the movie are great so it’s definitely opening me up to meeting with actors. Listen. Having Thomas support me as he did throughout trying to get the movie made, that already opened a lot of doors for me. The difference between a first time filmmaker with nothing under his or her belt as opposed to a first time filmmaker who has a recent Oscar nominee vouching for them, that does perk people’s ears up.

CK: As a first timer, what was it like your very first day on the set with all the actors and the crew there waiting for you to tell them what to do?

JG: Scared shitless. Terrified. (laughs) It’s terrifying, but never let them see you sweat, you know?

CK: What was the scariest part?

JG: I’m a big movie nerd and I’m a big fan so it matters to me how these actors are perceived. They’re coming in and giving me their all so I want to make sure, no matter what, that I make a good movie. That was what was going through my mind. When you are directing actors who are more experienced than you are, it’s not a secret that they’re more experienced than you are – you’re a first timer – so I was very lucky to have actors who respected that – knew there was a learning curve – and each one of their processes I had to learn. The first day you’re realizing that directing Thomas is a completely different story than directing Elisabeth Shue. Directing Elisabeth Shue is a completely different story than directing Melissa Leo. I think a lot of it is getting to know them on a personal level and trying to cater to their needs.

CK: How did it go?

JG: There are days that are very difficult in shooting a movie, but in the end I know that if you make a shitty movie that embarrasses everybody, then you’ve really fucked up. Take your hits when have to on the day, but I wanted to make a good movie and I think I did. But, yeah man, it’s scary.

CK: I just finished speaking to Thomas and Elisabeth and it seems not only were you lucky to have been able to cast well known names, but you found relatively ego-less actors who were willing to put their trust in an unproven filmmaker.

JG: It’s amazing. Thomas didn’t need to make this movie.

CK: It’s not necessarily a career move for him.

JG: Exactly. He doesn’t have to. It’s not like he’s going to his agent and saying, “Get me something small!” (laughs) He just connected with the material. It sounds pretentious, but he did. That’s really what happened. Plus, I happen to like these people personally. Because it’s my first movie, I don’t know what the relationship is of directors and actors on other movies. I talked to Thomas I talked to Elisabeth I talked to Melissa on my own time and I liked them. You know, they all have dark senses of humor and they all get me and I really actually like them so that probably helped.

CK: What led you to casting Elisabeth? She conveyed that innocence we’re so familiar with, but there was also an underlying darkness to the character that she nailed.

JG: It’s really an amazing performance because, as an audience, we are not aware of the full picture until the end of the movie, so for her to put herself out there, not every actress is going to do that – certainly not every actress is going to do that for a first time director, to really, really trust that I know what I’m doing and I do have a vision for this and to just give it all she can. It was a great experience.

With Elisabeth, if you watch Leaving Las Vegas and then watch Adventures in Babysitting you see it. Even in Adventures in Babysitting, just the opening dance number, where she’s in her room dancing to Then He Kissed Me. you watch that and you just realize she has layers to what she’s doing. I really think she’s a great actress I really do. I mean, Mysterious Skin – she’s amazing in it and that’s a great movie. That’s one you don’t want to show your kids (laughs) but it’s so good.

On a personal level Elisabeth really does have a dark sense of humor. She’s fun. When you’re going to cast somebody it’s not just you interviewing them, they’re interviewing you. So she and I just hit it off and got along and she got what I was trying to do. I think that’s why she did the movie because she understood the essence of what we were trying to do.

CK: It looks like we’re out of time. Thank you and good luck with the film.

JG: Thanks.

After Don McKay, Goldberger has written a couple of other screenplays he hopes to get made. The first is called Back to Baltimore which he describes as being more Cameron Crowe than the Coen meets Hitchcock meets Lynch vibe he was shooting for in his first film. It’s about a group of 20-something friends and their diverging paths in life. He’s also got a screenplay based on the true story of Eugene Brown which he half-jokingly pitches as “Blindside meets Rudy meets chess.” Brown is an ex-convict who started a successful inner city chess club for problem students.

Filed under: Interviews
Tags: Don McKay, Jake Goldberger