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Written by Gregg Shapiro
Oct 6, 2010
A scene with actor Josh Duhamel from gay director Greg Berlati’s “Life as We Know It.” – Photo: Courtesy
Out director Greg Berlanti’s new movie “Life As We Know It” (WB) starts off as a traditional, goofy romantic comedy, but then takes a sharp turn. Mismatched couple Messer (Josh Duhamel) and Holly (Katherine Heigl) are set up on a disastrous blind date by best friends Alison (Christina Hendricks) and Peter (Hayes MacArthur). Nevertheless, Messer and Holly are thrown together over the years, at Alison and Peter’s wedding and the birthday party of their daughter Sophie. Messer and Holly are even Sophie’s godparents and guardians, which doesn’t mean anything until Alison and Peter are killed in a car accident. Messer and Holly must take on new roles as Sophie’s caretakers in spite of their dislike for each other.
Gregg Shapiro: What about the screenplay for “Life As We Know It” made you want to direct the movie?
Greg Berlanti: First of all, I got to page 20, 25 and the parents died. I thought, “Wow!” So many romantic comedies don’t go to these places. It wasn’t afraid to blend tones and that was really appealing to me.
GS: It’s been 10 years since “Broken Hearts Club,” your feature film directorial debut. Since then, you’ve been very busy with various television projects. No one would ever accuse you of slacking off, but did you miss working in the cinematic realm?
GB: Definitely. In addition to taking over the duties for “Dawson’s (Creek),” I created my first show, “Everwood,” and that really filled me up. The thing I enjoy the most about this business is creating an emotional experience for the audience. I was able to do that every week. It was about three years ago that I started to get rundown by the pace of television and said, ‘OK, I want to make my way back into features where I know it’s crazy in a whole different way, but you have more time to do something great. More time to cast it, more time to shoot it, more time to edit it.’ That’s what was appealing to me.
GS: There is a famous quote attributed to W.C. Fields about never working with children or animals.
GB: Yes! He was a smart man. There’s a lost part of that quote that goes, “especially triplets.”
GS: Right, because the Clagett triplets play baby Sophie.
GB: It was crazy, but it was a lot of fun. It was a logistical nightmare in terms of planning their eating and sleeping schedules … having to drop shots and figure out a way to pick them back up. Obviously, they alter the mood of everyone on the set. It was a lot like having a drunk lead actor wandering around, because you never know what mood they’re going to be in. They’re happy all of a sudden and everybody else is happy and then they’re screaming.
GS: GLBT audiences will like the inclusion of gay neighbors Ted (Rob Huebel) and Gary (Bill Brochtrup).
GB: They were not in the original script, none of the neighbors were in the original script. I wanted to add a group who acted as a Greek chorus. You know who they are in a second. I got a lot of improv artists to play them. I didn’t just want six straight white people. We’ve got to change this up somehow and make it more normal for someone like me. The way families and neighborhoods are changing. We included this couple and … they just happen to be gay.
GS: Also, gay viewers will appreciate…
GB: Josh’s physique. He’s very unassuming about his looks and very dedicated to acting. There were shots of him running with his shirt off and he said, “That’s gratuitous. I don’t want to do that. I only want to do stuff that feels like what Messer would be doing in the moment.” I said, “Fine.” So the day came when we were doing shots of the baby walking around the house in her diaper and one of my friends said, “Why don’t you see if Josh will imitate the baby and be in his sneakers and underwear, walking around with the bottle (of beer).” I went over to him and said, “You’re never going to want to do this, because you didn’t want to run without your shirt on, but will you walk like the baby?” He was so game. He goes, “That’s really funny. I’m going to do it.”
GS: There’s a wonderful scene where Messer is singing Sophie a lullaby and it turns out to be Radiohead’s “Creep.” Do you love Radiohead?
GB: I do like Radiohead very much. Everybody loves Radiohead. It’s not necessarily a song that you would sing to a baby, but they liked it and they approved the usage.
GS: Is there another feature film project in your near future?
GB: Absolutely! If the last 10 years were about running TV shows, I would very much like the next 10 years to be about making movies.
