Mills never considered adapting the script without directing the film, or directing the film without having written the script himself. “I never separated the two. I mean, I just couldn’t imagine directing something I hadn’t written.”
Mike Mills on Allowing His Actors Freedom with His Script: Mills claims he’s not at all possessive of his writing. “No, not at all. Maybe it’s also because I came from doing documentaries that I don’t really consider myself some big writer or anything. It’s more important to me that the scene feel alive and accessible to the actors, than the actual words. As long as the energy is right, that’s all I’m really caring about. I encouraged lots of improvisation – mostly in our rehearsals, but also when we were shooting, and was very into changing. I’m not really into things being totally planned and totally known. I’m trying to get to a place where we all don’t quite know what we’re doing,” explained Mills.
That sort of freedom on the set and with the dialogue can lead to actors taking their characters in a different direction than was scripted. Mills said, “Sometimes [they did] a little bit but the things that stay in the film aren’t the things that go off to the sides too much, the things that kind of get you deeper into the character and the things that were there from the beginning. Films are sort of fairly monolithic. You can’t really stray off too far and have it still survive.”
Mike Mills on Casting Newcomer Lou Pucci in the Starring Role: Mills said the fact Pucci hadn’t done other films was one of the reasons that he felt the actor was the right guy to play Justin. “He was new. I think that showed up in everything that he did. He didn’t really have like a set pattern of how to behave. He didn’t have safe choices as an actor. He was really experiencing everything. He allowed himself to be pretty damn vulnerable and I think part of that came from it being very new to him. Actually casting Lou and the bit of fighting for him that I had to do was always pretty easy. That’s one of the things I felt most confident about.”
On Advising Lou Pucci on How to Play Justin: “Oh, endless things. That’s like a 4 hour conversation. I don’t know. We talked about everything under the moon.”
Mills said Pucci had a handle on the character from the start. “It was already established when Lou came in and did his first day of his audition. He already found a way to have enough of an overlap that I felt like, ‘Wow, that’s the kid.’ I don’t know. Maybe the best advice I gave him happened in our first audition. It was, ‘Don’t act. Don’t put anything on.’ I think maybe just encouraging him that he really knows the answer. He really knows how to do it. The answer is inside of him and I just tried to encourage him to believe in that. I think that sort of comes across.”
Mike Mills’ Take on Suburbia: “Well it’s where the story is set in the book and so it was already picked a little bit. But I’ve set lots of things in a suburban setting. One, because I think it’s the predominant way that not just Americans but I think everyone is living nowadays. And two, my childhood… I didn’t grow up in suburbia but they were all around me. I used to wish I lived in them. I used to walk through them and sort of pretend that I lived there.
I did a film called “The Architecture of Reassurance” which was all about that. And I am really interested in it. I have no interest in bashing suburbia or claiming that people who live there have somehow made lesser decisions or anything like that. I think that we all live in dreams. Some people live in a dream of bohemia in the East Village and some people live in a dream of a home that’s in a housing development. And to me it’s just part of the story, like many other elements are part of the story. I try not to like make it too arch. I just try to make it an organic part of the story.”
Page 2: Mike Mills on His Big Name Cast, Adapting Walter Kirn's Novel, and Hal Ashby
