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MICHAEL SHOWALTER
Contributed by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor
for Radio Free Entertainment
August 18, 2005
In his feature film debut as a director, comedian Michael Showalter stars as Elliot Sherman, a hapless fellow who is known as a "baxter"--a socially inefficient individual who just can't quite seem to win at the game of love. Perpetually the losing corner of a relationship triangle, Elliot is literally left at the altar by his beautiful bride-to-be Caroline (Elizabeth Banks) when her old high school sweetheart Bradley (Justin Theroux) rolls into town. Wallowing in personal misery, a jilted Elliot eventually picks himself up with the help of Cecil Mills (Michelle Williams), an adorable little office temp who aspires to be a singer.
Michael Showalter also serves as writer for The Baxter, which features a supporting cast that includes Paul Rudd, Michael Ian Black, and Peter Dinklage.
In this interview, Michael Showalter talks about the making of the movie.
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The Interview
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MEDIA: You've described this film as "Capra-esque" and "old-fashioned." Do you think this brand of comedy can make a comeback in a time when tasteless humor rules?
MICHAEL: Well, I have no idea. I'm fairly convinced at this point that what I think is funny and entertaining isn't necessarily what the world does. I don't know what pulse I have my finger on. But I know that in screening the movie, people really like it and really appreciate kind of being left off that hook for one movie, at least. You know, because it's true: the trend in comedy is so much towards "let me just shock you with how gross we can get." And I've certainly participated in that, too. But you talk about [directors like Capra], and there's just something so sweet about what they're doing, and the laughter is not coming from a place of needing to take a shower after you laugh, or anything like that. It's just sweet.
Is this movie meant to be a romantic comedy, or a parody of romantic comedies?
Little bit of both. I'm somewhat sending up the genre, but at the same time embracing it, because I do love romantic comedies, and I care about my characters and I want them to succeed and everything. So it's a little bit of both...It's sincere.
How much of Elliot Sherman is in Michael Showalter, and vice versa?
I think at the time I made the movie, they were closer together than they are now. It's been a little over a year since I made the film. Making a movie, for me, is a transformative experience just because you're like scared out of your pants every day for six months or something, dealing with people. And that's Elliot's biggest problem--dealing with people. And so that was maybe mine, too. Elliot tries too hard and means well. Things don't come as easily to Elliot as they do to [Justin Theroux's character] Bradley. And that's what makes me like him--that's what makes me identify with Elliot.
Do nice guys finish last?
Sort of seems like it. But this movie, I think, is a fairy tale, and there's no real lesson here. I feel like nice guys find nice girls. But it's a fairy tale. It's a movie that uses Hollywood's version of love as its theme, and that's certainly not the real world.
Do you think your presentational performance may make it difficult for some viewers to connect with your character?
I am worried about that. I think that will happen. I think there will be people who are alienated by my performance. He's very stylized. I tried to stay true to that character, so I really tried to pluck that guy out of a movie and put him in the central role. I didn't make him into a leading man. He is a doofus, and sort of a laughing stock at times. And so I guess that's just a risk I'm going to have to live with. But I hope people see that he's a human being--he's not an automaton.
How did you go about developing the script?
I tried to imagine, first, a Hollywood romantic comedy about Bradley and Caroline. So it's a movie about this woman who meets this guy who she dated 15 years ago in high school. And he comes back into her life as she's just about to get married to this shnook, and they keep running into each other, and through a series of misadventures, they realize that they're madly in love. That was the first layer. And then the second layer was actually [telling] this story through the guy, so we're only catching little snippets of that first story--we're only seeing the portions of the larger story that he was present for. And so there's got to be more that happened between Caroline and Bradley than we in the audience ever saw. We're only seeing as much as Elliot saw.
Who are some of your favorite movie baxters?
Well, Ralph Bellamy did it about 30 times over the course of his career, in like every movie he was ever in. And more recently, I think Ben Stiller in Reality Bites is a classic baxter. Albert Brooks in Broadcast News is a good baxter. And Teri Garr in Tootsie is a good baxter. There's a baxter in every romantic comedy. In Serendipity, John Corbett plays a baxter. His baxter is more sort of in the a**hole variety of baxter. There's like a subgenre of baxter, which is the a**hole baxter. Craig Kilborn in Old School. There's like abusive baxter with the boyfriend in Wedding Singer. But in each case, the minute you see them, you know they're wrong. The instant they walk onscreen, they give you some piece of information that immediately the audience turns to the person next to them and goes, [whispers] "He's wrong for her, he'll never work out." In Keeping the Faith, Ben Stiller goes out on a date and she punches him in the stomach. But before that, she laughs. And the minute she laughs, we know that she's no good. So in this movie, when we see Bradley's girlfriend, Sonya, in the bar in that first scene, and she snorts when she laughs, we're immediately suspicious as to whether or not she and Bradley are going to last. And so I'm playing with that whole idea that these characters have these quirks about their personality that we've been conditioned to believe equal wrongness.
Some of the characters' names seem specifically representative. What's the story behind a few of them?
All of the characters have funny value. I never really thought about it, but people have said, "Cecil Mills...Cecil B. DeMille," which makes sense to me because she is really that most old-fashioned character. You can imagine her being discovered in the malt shop or something. And then Elliot Sherman...people have said Jack Lemmon's character from The Apartment...his last name is Baxter. But these are all coincidences. Wendall Wimms...people say, "Wim Wenders"...which may be subliminal because Paris, Texas is like my favorite movie of all time. And the downstairs neighbor's name is Stella, which is actually a real clue. And the one hidden, funny name in the movie that no one knows is David Wain's character, who plays my brother-in-law Louis. His last name is Lewis, so his name is Louis Lewis. This isn't important, but my favorite director of all time is Alfred Hitchcock, and I totally digested everything he ever did. And he's the kind of guy that does that--he takes every opportunity to give clues to the audience, and I recognized him doing that. I love that. That's what makes going to a movie fun for me, is to kind of give the audiences many little pieces of a puzzle to work with and try to connect all the dots. It was no big intentional thing. Certainly Elliot was easy. I mean, the Baxter has to have a dopey name. I was thinking of that scene in When Harry Met Sally and she's telling him the first guy that she ever had sex with was named Sheldon. And he's like, "Sheldon? His name was Sheldon?" It's like that. And so the Baxter had to have a name like Elliot, or Walter, or Sheldon, or...you know, Engelbert. But Engelbert was too crazy.
What was the hardest task for you--writing, directing, or acting?
I can feel quite stuck when I'm acting. Directing and the writing is something that I feel like if I work at it hard enough, and if I stay up late enough, I'll get it. I'll figure it out. With acting, it's like, "this is all I got." So if that's not good for you, we're f*cked. Because I do it the way I can do it, and then if that doesn't work, we're done, because I can't do it any other way. And so I really admire actors who are really just adjustable and mutable and adaptable. It's exciting to watch.
How do you feel about improvisation in a movie like this?
As long as it's not playing against the story and as long it's in service of the story, I'm all for it. I'm not precious about dialogue at all. A good ad-lib line is usually the best line in any given movie. All these guys...they get into character, and you just kind of have to roll with it. And my job is to just make sure that they're staying within the boundaries of the story. And I actually think when the scene is really tight in terms of the structure, that helps the actors ad-lib, because they always have something to go back to. They know "we can veer off of this because we know we're going to go back to something that is solid."
What were you going for in your choices regarding the cast's wardrobe?
Well, I wanted it to have that kind of Jimmy Stewart/Frank Capra [feel]. You know, everyone's very buttoned up and proper. It's not supposed to be period, but it was supposed to suggest a period.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks, guys.
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