A24
Adapted screenplay
Weber: “A particular scene that came to life for us when we didn’t know how it would turn out was actually shot the first day on set, when Tommy [James Franco] shows up and gives this pep talk to his cast and crew. I think that despite what we put on paper, our hope was that Tommy would seem like more than just a mysterious clown. We’d see he was a guy with real hopes and dreams. We didn’t really know how that would come across until we saw the scene happen and how James brought some real heart to it.
Neustadter: “We wanted [Tommy] to come across as a real person and not be a caricature but there’s only so much we can do on the page to protect that. We were fortunate to have James and Dave [Franco, who played Greg] inhabiting characters so brilliantly that you could feel the humanity and gravitas. These are real guys and you need to show them a lot of empathy and pathos if you want the audience to do that too. Watching James read any line of ours was so impressive, we couldn’t even have imagined how well it was going to go bringing our script to life.”
Weber: “That’s why the first scene of the movie was so crucial and why it was so exciting to see how it came out that day. With the construction of the movie, Greg has to hitch his wagon to Tommy for half the film so everyone else also goes along for the ride. Greg can’t be the only one who falls under Tommy’s spell. We put down the foundation and then it’s up to the directors and actors to make it their own and from that first day, we knew everyone saw the movie the same way we did.”