That's pretty much the gist of the Coens' A Serious Man, a dramedy that rests almost entirely on Stuhlbarg's shoulders. Stuhlbarg, whose credits include small roles in Body of Lies and The Grey Zone as well as lots of time spent on the stage, said the process of getting the role was a long, involved one.
"[...]It lasted for almost 10 or 11 months from my first audition to the last. But my first audition was for the role of the husband in the Yiddish parable in the beginning of the movie. I got a call from my agent to come in and read for that. And it's entirely in Yiddish so I had to learn," said Stuhlbarg at the film's LA press day. "I went to a tutor and I learned the scene in Yiddish. I did it for them and they laughed a lot and that made me really happy. And they weren't sure at that time whether or not they wanted somebody who could speak it fluently or an actor who could pretend. And so as it ended up somebody who could speak it fluently got the part, and then like four or five months went by. Then I got a call from them asking me if I would come in for Larry or Uncle Arthur. So I learned three scenes of each of theirs, and I did all six scenes the same day. And they laughed a lot, and it made me very happy again. And then some time passed by and I asked if I was still in the running. I'd ask again, and I was still was. And eventually I heard that I was going to get one of them - they didn't know which one yet. So I started working on both of them and then about 6 weeks before they started shooting I got a call from Joel saying, 'We'll put you out of your misery. You're playing Larry.' So it was long and drawn out."
Although Stuhlbarg had met Joel Coen a few years prior at the wedding of a friend, it wasn't until he auditioned for A Serious Man that he met with both the filmmaking brothers. "My first experience with Joel and Ethan together at my audition was a real joy because I guess I was tickled by the fact that they found not just what I was doing but their own material to be so funny. They have a great sense of humor and they responded a lot to what I was doing, so it was a very happy first meeting."
'Larry' is a buttoned-up character, one who doesn't let people in on what he's feeling. For Stuhlbarg, getting that personality trait just right was of the utmost importance. "That was sort of the crux of the main conversation I had with Joel early on during the shooting of the film was, you know, there would be these occasions I'd be shooting a scene in which stuff would bubble up. And I would go with what was happening with me and Joel would say, 'That was great, but I think at this point in the story we don't want the audience to see that much of him yet. That's exactly what he's feeling, now put a lid on it.' So it was my job to still maintain that inner life and at the same time, cover it up. So it was a great challenge to try to do that," said Stuhlbarg.
"The general awareness of not going too far and too soon throughout the entire arc of the journey of the character was something that I constantly tried to remind myself of," explained Stuhlbarg. "And because it's shot out of sequence, you have to sort of show up and say, 'Okay, what do I know at this point? What have I done? What have I experienced?' And then let that, whatever it is, influence what you're doing on that day."
Stuhlbarg said another big challenge for him was just not to ruin takes by breaking character. "I found keeping a straight face to be a big challenge. Actually, during a couple of scenes I couldn't," admitted Stuhlbarg. "In fact the first scene I had with Adam Arkin we couldn't keep a straight face for about half an hour. We pushed production back about half an hour on that day. And also the scene with Richard Kind when we're in the living room and I've been sunburned from staying out on the roof all that time, and he says what he says to me. I had a hard time keeping a straight face during that time."
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A Serious Man hits theaters on October 2, 2009.
