“I think I’m probably in for the rude awakening of how challenging it really is.” - Clea Duvall, writer/director
Clea Duvall made her directorial debut with the film The Intervention. She has been acting since 1996 and you have probably seen her in films like Can’t Hardly Wait, The Faculty, She’s All That, Girl, Interrupted and Argo.
The Intervention stars Melanie Lynskey, Jason Ritter, Natasha Lyonne, Duvall and Ben Schwarz as friends who get together for a weekend to stage an intervention for a married couple (Cobie Smulders and Vincent Piazza). Everybody thinks they should divorce. Complications arise when the other couples begin experiencing problems, and one friend’s new guest (Alia Shawkat) seduces both men and women.
We spoke with Duvall about making the leap behind the camera as both writer and director, and touched on the ‘90s nostalgia I’ve been feeling as I think back to my youth. The Intervention is in theaters and VOD Friday.
SuicideGirls: Was directing always part of the plan for you?
Clea Duvall: Directing was always something that I wanted to do, but felt a little intimidated by. I think I finally got to the place where even though it is an intimidating prospect, it was still something that I really wanted and allowed myself to go for.
SG: What made it seem intimidating?
CD: It’s a big job. It’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of different elements in terms of preproduction ,actual production and post-production. I’ve been an actor for 20 years and you get very comfortable in that. Knowing what it looks like, even when it’s uncertain, it’s still a familiar uncertainty. Directing just seemed like a lot of unfamiliar uncertainty.
SG: We’re just now starting to talk about the barriers women face getting into directing. Did you feel any of that?
CD: You know, I didn’t. I had a very unique experience in that there was immediate interest in the script. I had Melanie Lynskey already attached, and Alia Shawkat and Natasha and Jason. Then Ben and Cobie all came on. It came together very quickly. Even though we struggled and it was challenging, getting the money and getting the cast was something that happened quickly compared to other people I know.
SG: Was there a particular moment or even that got you over that hump of feeling intimidated by the process?
CD: I think just making the decision that I’m going to do it go me out of the place of feeling afraid of the things that could go wrong because that’s not a productive use of energy to sit around and think about what ifs. Especially when you’re in charge and you’re the one steering the thing. You need to be in control and making decisions and not allowing the fear to stop you from moving forward.
SG: Did you ever ask the directors you worked with along the way for tips or just had questions for them?
CD: I definitely reached out to some writer/director friends of mine. It was less about advice about what to do in terms of just actually getting the movie made. It was more about how it felt and is this normal and I feel like this and am I normal? It can be a very isolating and lonely process to direct a movie, because nobody cares about it more than you do. You can’t shut it off and everybody else can take a step back. Nobody really pats the director on the back ever. There would be nights where I was like, “Is this okay? Am I doing a good job? Is this going to be a disaster? Is everybody going to feel like they wasted their time and their money?”
SG: Could you share who the writer/director friends were that spoke to you?
CD: Rodrigo Garcia is a friend of mine and I’ve worked with him several times as an actor. I think he is so brilliant and such a beautiful writer and one of my favorite directors I’ve ever worked with. He was a huge, huge, huge help to me when I was writing the script. He watched cuts and gave me notes. He was really instrumental in helping me make the movie what it is. He was probably my biggest influence.
SG: Did you think back to any of the films you worked on as an actor and think about what those directors were going through?
CD: Oh my God, definitely, definitely. There’s this look that I would see, this universal look that I would see on every single director’s face at different times. It’s just this extreme concentration mixed with worry mixed with all these feelings I now understand, but I think at the time would internalize and think it was something I was doing or I wasn’t good enough or they don’t like what I’m doing or I need to do better. It’s not about me. It’s about hem and it’s a big job. There’s a lot of balls to keep in the air, and a lot of things to keep in your head to keep track of.
SG: In writing the script were you motivated to write better, more complex roles for women?
CD: I wasn’t really thinking about it in terms of I need to write these specific kinds of characters for women. I think these were the characters that naturally came out and fit into the world that I was creating. I think because I am a woman and I think I just naturally gravitated towards having a predominantly female cast and giving them just lives that I felt were honest and authentic.
SG: Is another part of being honest and authentic to address sexuality in a way that we don’t often see? Not only you and Natasha’s character, but Alia’s character is neither straight nor gay.
CD: Yeah, and it’s something that I’ve noticed in the younger people that I know and talk to that there is sort of fluidity to sexuality and gender. It’s not as rigid as my generation is about sexuality and relationships and stuff and think it’s a lot more black and white. It seems like the younger generation is comfortable in the gray.
SG: Something you hear a lot in relationship movies is, “I want things to go back to the way they were.” Is The Intervention saying that’s not really a healthy perspective because we’re supposed to keep moving forward?
CD: Yes, absolutely. I think so much of what keeps people together is this desire to either cling to what was or try to go back to what was and that is I think a source of a lot of challenges. In my experience I’ve seen and experienced that when you hold onto what was, you’re not allowing the opportunity of what can be and you’re not allowing evolution. To be stuck in the past, it’s never going to be what it was. It can only be what it is or what you want it to be.
SG: Do movies, particularly romantic comedies, reinforce living in the past?
CD: Definitely, I think there is this idealization of “in the beginning, it’s so magical and it’s so beautiful, and then what happens later is not that great.” This idealization of what should be happening and reclaiming the past, reigniting the flame of what was, it creates an expectation that is no realistic.
SG: Is it also missing out on all the joy and adventure of what can evolve and go forward?
CD: Absolutely.
SG: I have to admit, I’m a little susceptible to nostalgia myself. Since you were in some of the classic movies of the ‘90s, have you felt a lot of ‘90s nostalgia come your way?
CD: Oh, I have so much ‘90s nostalgia. I really miss the movies that we all made in the ‘90s. I really feel like it’s such a different world. Film is so different now in terms of the movies that are being made and the stories that are being told. That’s what I wanted to do with this movie was tell a story and make a movie that made me feel the way that movies used to make me feel when I was a kid or a teenager. I wasn’t really a part of anything like this myself in the ‘90s but the stories were so simple before all the superheroes came in. There’s a place for them and some of those movies can be amazing. Like Mad Max last year was one of my favorite movies. I thought it was incredible. But Room was also my other favorite movie. They’re simple stories about human beings.
SG: There was Can’t Hardly Wait and Girl, Interrupted. Those were about people.
CD: That’s true, that’s true.
SG: When you say “how those movies made me feel,” what did they make you feel?
CD: They made me feel very realized. I think when you see stories about human beings and the struggle with everyday life and feeling like an outsider or feelings sad or it’s not enough, those are things that I can really connect with and relate to. I think there are times where I want to be entertained and then there are times where I want to connect and I want to see myself represented in the characters and movies that I’m watching.
SG: The crazy thing about ‘90s nostalgia is I definitely didn’t think it was cool when I was living through it, but now I long for those days.
CD: Me too!
SG: When did that happen? When did we start thinking the ‘90s were cool?
CD: Maybe we’re just old now and that’s what happens when you get past a certain age and then you start looking back and you’re like, “Oh, that was so great and I didn’t appreciate it then.” I do think that there was a shift and movies changed. Studios started chasing the big money with all the big superhero movies. That changed a lot of things. Also TV became the place where we started going for those smaller character stories. TV is amazing now. There are so many shows that I love and I think the stories transitioned from the big screen onto the smaller screen.
SG: Do you know what film you’d like to write or direct next?
CD: There’s something I’m writing right now for an actress. I just finished my first draft of that and I’m going to be developing that more and I’m developing a TV show. There are a couple of scripts that I didn’t write that I’m looking a to direct. I’m really just open to whatever feels like the right thing.
SG: Now that you’ve done it once, is it a little easier to decide to do it again?
CD: I feel like I got so lucky with this last one. It came together so quickly that I find it hard to believe that it will be as effortless his next time. I think I’m probably in for the rude awakening of how challenging it really is. We’ll see. Maybe it will.