Duke Johnson's new film was exec. produced by CK, and here's what he says about learning from Charlie
Duke Johnson's new film, The Actor, is an adaptation of Donald Westlake's novel Memory. (The novel was written in 1963, and published posthumously in 2010.) I'm a big fan of Westlake--he's a legendary crime writer, though Memory is more of an introspective thing for him. Charlie Kaufman is on board with The Actor as an executive producer, though I suspect he's been largely hands-off.
Reviews so far are not terrible.
In an interview with The Playlist, Duke talks a little about what he has learnt from CK:
Alright, so how does this one come together, how does the book fall in your lap and what strikes a chord?
I read the book while making “Anomalisa” with Charlie Kaufman; he recommended the book to me, and I loved it. We optioned it and my writing partner and I did a draft of the screenplay very quickly, but it was just the book in screenplay format.[...]
Charlie Kaufman is another executive producer on the film, he urged you to read the book cause he knows you like Kafka and it has that feeling, I’m curious about what you learned from him and what it was like working with him?
Yeah, Charlie and I directed “Anomalisa” together, and he’s a hero of mine. And he’s really just a dear friend and mentor. He’s just somebody that I look up to greatly and call when I need advice, or I’m in trouble, and he’s very generous with his time. He’ll read my script, and he’ll just help me achieve my goals by offering and giving sage advice when needed.I’ve learned so much from Charlie, and he’s told me so many wonderful things. Like, “Don’t let anybody tell you that you have to direct a movie in a certain way. You should feel empowered to direct a movie in any way that you think a movie should be directed,” which is great conceptually, but very hard to actually do. Because when you’re making a movie, you’re like, “So I want to do this,” And people are very often, to me, especially because I came from animation or whatever, they’re like, “Well, we don’t do that. That’s not how we do things in live action,” or, “You can’t do that,” or you’re met with a ton of resistance when you have any outside of the box ideas.
Charlie, as an artist in general, is extremely brave, and he takes chances, and that’s scary because you make something and then you expose it to the world to be judged. Art is an intuitive, creative process, and especially as a sensitive person, not everybody’s going to love what you do. Some people are going to hate it, and it’s scary.
So, it’s easy to fall into fear and try to pander. It’s hard to stay the course and say, “For better or worse, I have to I have to stick to this. Whatever this feeling is that’s propelling me forward and what I’m trying to do, I have to stay true to it, and I’m going to live and die by the results.” (Source)
