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The Message of Man of the Year: Asked if there was any special message he was trying to get across with this film, Robin Williams responded, “No, just the system. I just wanted to talk about the whole system. How is it working? Is everyone happy with the way things are. If you’re a Democrat, you’re going, ‘Gosh, we’re doing well.’ If you’re a Republican you’re going, ‘F**k ‘em.’ But I think it’s the idea [of asking] what’s working well right now. Are we as a country doing very well? Are we actually functioning to the best of our abilities? If you look at most countries, how do we stand in the world? How do we stand nationally? How come we have not rebuilt New Orleans? How do you do that? How do you function through that and how do you deal with all the different things?
[It’s] both sides, and not the idea of divisive politics but the idea of united as in United States being us. The idea of working together and disagreeing and being able to work it out. That, for me [is] the system. As a comic, as you see with all these guys like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Colbert, all they’re doing is basically just saying, ‘Here’s the absurdity.’ People laugh and yet it still goes on. You can look at any given day and go, ‘That’s insane.’ I think Barry’s pointed out that it’s very easy to be cynical right now because it’s hard to top what’s been going down.”
“Someone said to me about Wag the Dog and I said, ‘Well, Wag the Dog was in a more innocent time in a way,’” offered director Barry Levinson. “It was in a less cynical time in that regard, compared to where we are now. We’re in a much darker period, a much more cynical period, so therefore you have to find a movie that’s going to work in another place. If we’re going to just simply rehash what’s out there, and it’s so crazy and absurdist…you can’t go that way. You can’t top that. Therefore we had to find another place. That’s where this movie falls, in a sense, is in a different time and place than, say, where Wag the Dog was in the ‘90s.”
Williams explains what sets his character apart from the average political candidate of today. “The fact that he does have a history, the fact that he did inhale, the fact that he’s done all these different things, that he’s a human being. I’d rather have an intelligent human being who has all these different things going on and can deal with you. If you get a certain sense of this is who he is, this is what you get and screw all the other consequences. He hasn’t been spun.”
Barry Levinson on Balancing Drama and Comedy in Man of the Year: “Well, in a sense, as I said to Robin, there is no need to have to be funny because it’s not a sitcom. It’s not like all these scenes need to be kind of funny. His character has a sense of humor and at certain times, it will open up and will happen that way. In other scenes, they’re dramatic because they are in fact dramatic. The movie’s not playing in some other kind of way where we need to keep it always rolling and therefore we have to find jokes and things to do it. It’s not designed that way. It basically has a dramatic structure with someone who has a great sense of humor in it. It will be humorous because of the character who is in it, and the circumstances that take place periodically but not throughout the movie. It’s not designed that way.”
Williams said, “As it did in Good Morning, Vietnam. It was the same kind of mix, which is why it’s great to work with Barry. He has the ability to mix them beautifully and also the ability to say, ‘You don’t have to do anything here. There’s enough absurdity just to have on a Thomas Jefferson wig and be speaking to Congress…’ There’s not a lot of spin you have to work on. The idea of talking about the subjects and that ability is funny because we can try and just go as far as you can and mix and match, which is wonderful too - which gives you the crossover. He was the first guy who could actually do both of them with Good Morning, Vietnam and the chance to do it again, especially now in these interesting times, to be able to have both, that to me was the gift. That’s why I wanted to do it. I’m glad we did because it’s just to address it all, the whole system. Everything that’s been happening, it’s almost to the point [that] it’s almost a documentary.”
