How close is the finished film to your original script?
“It changed a lot but I think at its core, it’s what I wrote. I think I learned on this film kind of like what it really means to make a movie. The end result not withstanding, you start with a script and when you write a script you’re alone with it and it’ll never be more perfect than when you wrote it and no one else but you had read it. And then slowly over time all the realities of actually turning that script into something real - or whatever you want to call on a film ‘real’ - compromises are made. Things don’t come off exactly as you saw them. Major scenes, characters, lines of dialogue get cut. Choices are made in the editing room – all of these things go into it.
You wanted it to be snowing but it wasn’t snowing that day. You wanted 100 extras but there were only 20. You wanted this shot but you couldn’t do it. You wanted this song but you couldn’t get it. And so that you have to constantly kind of adjust to what is real, and make the most of what exists. And that to me is what this project is, is like kind of rediscovering every step of the way what you’re actually doing.”
Did any of the characters come off differently in the film, based on who you cast in a particular role, than how you envisioned them when you were working on the script?”
“The one character that I think is – and in a way that I love – most different from what was written is the Justin Theroux character of Bradley. Basically the major thing that Justin brought to the role was the whole kind of cry baby thing. His whole kind of thin skinned cry baby act was Justin’s invention. It was something that I completely loved when he suggested it to me. We started developing it into the script because we had a month or so before we started shooting to kind of work on it. My perception of him was a little bit more of a big golden lab, just an effervescent, perfect guy. An impossible not to like puppy dog of a man. And Justin’s got lots of edges on him. I think Justin had a bunch of ideas on it that, in particular this cry baby thing, that weren’t there but is there now that I think I can’t believe it was ever not there. But that’s part of it, too. It’s so amazing how much an actor can bring to a role.”
How free are you with your words? How much did you let the actors play with the dialogue?
“I let the actors change their dialogue as much as they want as long as I approve it. So it was kind of up to the actors that if they wanted to think of something funnier on any given line, I would encourage them to do so within a certain perimeter - as long as the outline of what was needing to happen in that scene stayed the same. I’d say a lot of the dialogue in the movie is kind of a combination, a combined effort of me and the actors. They’d take the line that I wrote and adjust it to whatever they needed.”
It’s amazing to me that we haven’t seen any romantic comedies that really focus on that guy left at the altar. Why did you decide to make him the focus of a film?
“He seemed like a sympathetic character to me. He seemed like somebody that I could root for and who, in lots of romantic comedies that we’ve seen before, he’s there. He’s in all those movies in various guises and it just seemed like the perfect subject for a movie.”
Where did the name ‘The Baxter’ come from?
“I just wanted to think of something that had a kind of old fashioned sound to it. And I was making lists and that was on the list.”
Have many people been fooled into thinking that ‘The Baxter’ really is the term used for guys left at the altar?
“Well I’m not even specifically trying to fool them, although there are a lot of people who just kind of assume that it’s a real thing. I mean, I’d love for it to be. I would really love for it to be something that people use. I would love for it to somehow make it into the vernacular.”
Is “The Baxter” indicative of the type of project you’d like to continue to do? Would you like to continue directing your own scripts?
“I like being a team player but I do think that I’m at my best when I’m in that position. I’m best served when I’m in that position, which isn’t to say though that I don’t want input. I don’t want to be like some totally outside guy. I’d like to find a way somehow to maintain my individual voice while at the same time making it accessible for people.”
Do you view yourself more as a writer than a director?
“I’m starting to see the directing and the writing as being a part of the same thing. I really want to write another movie and direct it, and have it be better. That’s kind of my nearest ambition to do this again.”
Page 3: Michael Showalter on the Current State of Comedy Movies
