‘Nutcrackers’ Interview: David Gordon Green and Ben Stiller
(L to R) Director David Gordon Green and Ben Stiller on the set of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
Streaming exclusively on Hulu beginning November 29th is the new Christmas comedy ‘Nutcrackers’, which was directed by David Gordon Green (‘Pineapple Express’, ‘Halloween Ends’), and stars Ben Stiller (‘Night at the Museum’, ‘Tropic Thunder’), Linda Cardellini (‘Hawkeye’), and newcomers Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Atlas Janson, and Arlo Janson.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director David Gordon Green and Ben Stiller about their work on ‘Nutcrackers’, how the unusual production came together, discovering the Janson siblings, Stiller’s experience working with Green and the kids, tone, choreographing the dance sequence, shooting on location, reading children’s stories, and making a family Christmas movie.
Related Article: ‘Halloween’ Director David Gordon Green on Resurrecting an Iconic Franchise
Director David Gordon Green on the set of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
Moviefone: To begin with, David, I understand that this production was done in an unusual way, can you talk about how this movie came together?
David Gordon Green: It all started a little bit backwards, where I met the cast before we had a script. These four kids were the sons of a friend of mine from film school that live on this farm where we filmed it and they’re ballet dancers, and so hanging out with them, I just thought there’s a movie here if we’re crazy enough to turn a camera on them. I got my buddy Leland (Douglas) to come and write a movie and our influences were the 80s movies we grew up on. Movies like ‘Overboard’, ‘Bad News Bears’ and ‘Six Pack’, this Kenny Rogers movie about orphaned kids was a big one for me, and ‘Uncle Buck’, which I think is a classic but somehow underappreciated. We wanted to lean into those tropes, the nostalgic flavor of those movies, and make a family Christmas movie that I could show to my kids.
Ben Stiller in ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: Ben, what was it like for you as a filmmaker yourself to work in that specific way with David on this movie?
Ben Stiller: Well, I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, and over the years we’ve tried to figure out something to do together. He is such a good filmmaker. He comes from the independent world. He can work in different genres. But he’s great with comedy and he loves movies. This guy loves movies. He loves making movies. I don’t know when the last time I was on a set with a director where they just literally said out of nowhere, “I love making movies.” But he did a couple days in, I was like, this is my guy. I love it. He was just so excited to capture these kids and this place and this world. He was coming from a very independent, organic place with this movie where he just wanted to make something that I think hearkens back to the world that he comes from with his first movies. He created such a fun atmosphere. As an actor, you just want to work with a filmmaker who has a point of view and has a voice and feels inspired, and that’s what it felt like on this one.
Director David Gordon Green on the set of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: David, after making three ‘Halloween’ movies and an ‘Exorcist’ film, what was it like to make a family friendly Christmas movie?
DGG: It is fun because it’s a different set of challenges. How do you not lean into some of the vulgarity and the grotesqueness that gives me such a jolt in the filmmaking process, but this was leaning into different things and trying to find things that felt natural and authentic about childhood and things that made me laugh about this group, this ensemble, and then bringing Ben Stiller into the insanity. It was a different set of circumstances and honesty, it was cool. We shot it on 35 millimeter and really wanted it to be a bit of a flashback to that era of movies and put our modern day independent minded spin on it.
(L to R) Ben Stiller and director David Gordon Green on the set of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: The movie is a comedy with dramatic moments. David, can you talk about striking the right tone for this film?
DGG: It wasn’t difficult once we landed Ben Stiller for the movie. I felt very comfortable with the dramatic gravity of the movie and the comedic opportunity of the movie. He’s one of the few actors in that niche that can play in both ranges so well, so we could lean one way and then feel like we’ve done the funny version of the scene, what happens if we play it in the serious emotional version of the scene? In the editing room, we got to make a lot of those decisions and figure out what our balance was. I was really trying to engineer something that parents and kids would each get something different out of and enjoy watching together.
Ben Stiller in ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: In addition to being a great actor, Ben is also an accomplished writer, director and producer. David, is it an added asset to have someone like him on set?
DGG: Yeah, it was valuable. He’s an actor I’ve always admired and a director I really admire. The choices he’s making these days, and it had been too long since the last time he was in front of the camera so for me, it was “Hey man, let’s do this. This is an opportunity to let loose and take all the pressure off because it’s not a big franchise.” There’s only so much preparation you can do because these kids have never acted before, been in front of a camera, and the animals are running lose all over their house. You can’t be in control. All you can do is put a camera in a place and start to play. So for both of us, it was a chance to really break the rules that the last several years of our professional careers had constructed these cages around us of discipline and this was just anarchy. What greater collaborator to do that, to step back into that world of anarchy than Ben Stiller?
(Far Right) Director David Gordon Green and the cast of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: David, can you talk about working with the Janson siblings and what is it like directing actors who have never acted before?
DGG: A couple of them couldn’t read and they weren’t going to memorize their scripts in a traditional way, so we brought in an acting coach to give them the essence of a scene and help sculpt what that might be so that when Ben got to town, they would already have a formation of an idea. It wasn’t like “Hey, Arlo, you stand here and say this line.” It wasn’t memorized in that way, it was more like, here’s what the in and out of the scene must achieve, and then we do play to the nuances. Sometimes we’d play it funny, and the kids would be allowed to cuss and other times we’d say “Okay, keep it clean, and let’s do this one in a different style”. It was just playful. It was one 35-millimeter camera sitting on a tripod, and we just try to put it in a place where whoever was the hero of the scene, whether it was Ben or one of the kids or one of the pigs, let’s let them lead the way. Every day unfolded like that. You could have a plan for the day, but it was never going to work. You would always just have to evolve with the realities of this organism of the creative process on this movie. It was fun and liberating in a lot of ways because there weren’t the traditional rules that you have on a movie with either a studio behind you or the pressure of a franchise or these other things that we come face to face with as filmmakers. This was like, let’s just roll the dice and see if these kids are as cool as I think they are, and they exceeded all our expectations.
The cast of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: Ben, what was your experience like working with the Jansons and acting opposite non-actors?
BS: I mean, that was one of the reasons I wanted to do the movie, just to have an experience where these kids weren’t going to have a pre-determined idea of what they’re supposed to do or be professionally trained in any way. I felt like if David was thinking that they would be great to be in this movie, then there must be something there and a reason for that. He was right. They just brought so much of their heart and their innocence and their humor to the process. So, every day, as I thought it might be, it was different. We didn’t know what would happen, and it was a little bit chaotic in a great way, and I think that was what David wanted to capture, the real-life moments, and make this film not feel like a cookie cutter movie for the holidays, but really feel like something that was unique and independent and organic. Every day was just fun. It flew by. The whole movie is very real. They are doing the ‘Nutcracker’ at the theater in Wilmington in less than a month. When we shot the movie last year, they were doing the ‘Nutcracker’, and I went to see them all dance, and these guys are amazing dancers. I mean, it’s all kind of real.
‘Nutcrackers’ premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: David, what was it like shooting the ‘Nutcracker’ dance sequence at the end of the film?
DGG: The kids were preparing to do the ‘Nutcracker’. They’re doing it again right now. They do it every year and so I had their ballet teacher choreograph the scene. I said here’s our version of the story. Can you choreograph something for us? They take ballet three times a week, so they know what they’re doing, and they have the discipline as dancers. I think that was a great attribute to them as actors is there was a little bit of if they have choreographers that they’re working for and the directors of the dance department that they acknowledge and admire, Ben and I could step into those shoes a little bit. They were receptive to the guidance and the sculpture that we were trying to create, and then that just got us ready for the dance sequence in the middle of the night on the street when it was 10 degrees outside, which was a very surreal experience for the entire town. It was a fun community to be making a movie in because there’s not a lot that has filmed in Wilmington, Ohio. It was funny, because we went back to the Murphy Theater where we filmed the movie, where they were going to put on their big dance performance at the end of the film and we played the movie for a crowd. So, it was fun realizing that a lot of people had no idea what we were doing. They were like “Oh, this is a real movie.” I think they thought it was some sort of weird performance art we were just doing on the streets of their town last year. It was cool to have this. They were always very supportive and a welcoming artistic community, so it was cool to be able to find that balance between the agricultural community, the artistic community, and see everybody enjoying a movie with one mindset. It was a beautiful experience.
‘Nutcrackers’ premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: David, in the film, you mention that the Murphy Theater is where actor John Ritter was married. Is that true?
DGG: It is the theater that John Ritter was married in. I was very proud to be able to work that nuance into it because I’m a big John Ritter fan. So, I love the fact that we could lean into that reality with our tour of the Murphy Theater.
Ben Stiller in ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: There is a scene in the movie where Ben’s character is reading bedtime stories to the kids and ends up retelling the plot of ‘First Blood’. David, was that an improvisation or was that in the script?
DGG: It was in the script and one of the funny aspects of that scene was our script supervisor, her first job was ‘Rambo III’, so we had a creative consultant there guiding us through some of the attributes of later in the franchise for the kids to know and put their spin on it. That was a fun sequence to film, and it was hard not to laugh every time because Ben had to play it seriously and it was hard for me and the kids not to crack up every time.
Director David Gordon Green on the set of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: David, if you had to read a bedtime story to a child based on one of your movies, which one would it be?
DGG: That’s an interesting question because I’ve recently written a children’s book based on ‘Halloween’. That’s out now, and that was a very fun experiment because we were looking at that exact thing that you’re talking about and I thought that would be the one because it’s such a provocative, alluring thing for young readers and young minds. People talk about ‘Halloween’ and Michael Myers and my kids were always so curious about it, but I didn’t want to show them the movie, so I made the children’s book version of it for them. That would be a fun one. I would also do ‘Your Highness’. I think that would be a great one. Danny McBride and I have talked about that maybe it didn’t work financially or commercially as a big budget studio movie, but maybe as a strange, offbeat, animated show for kids would’ve been a better idea. I don’t know. Whenever we’re developing these projects, we’re thinking who is the audience? Sometimes, we say the audience is us and let’s see who joins the parade and other times, you want to engineer it specifically for old, young, male, female, or whatever. But that’s one of the cool things about a movie like ‘Nutcrackers’ is everyone’s invited. I wanted to make a movie that wasn’t necessarily engineered for kids, but I think kids are going to see a lot of themselves in it, crack themselves up and mom and dad are going to enjoy it just as much. ‘Your Highness’, in a weird way, I think one of our mistakes was making it R-rated because it was such silly obnoxiousness that I think if you would’ve been able to have nine-year-old’s go see that movie when it came out, and that might’ve triggered our own juvenile instincts a little differently.
The cast and crew of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
MF: Finally, David, what did you learn from making this movie and do you think it will change the way you make movies in the future?
DGG: What it did is it reinstated the confidence I have in my crew, the same crew that made ‘Nutcrackers’ made the ‘Halloween’ movies and the ‘Exorcist’ movie, and so we all needed a palate cleanser after having the experience of the pressure of a franchise on your shoulders. I have to say it’s nice to be making a movie in the shadows that I think people are going to love and I’m not worried about that. I also just love that we’re creating something new from the ground up that also has a nostalgic vibe to it, that feels familiar in a lot of ways to the movies I grew up on in the 80s. Everything I make triggers a lot of the child in me, and so whether that’s the allure of a Michael Myers or the silliness of a ‘Nutcrackers’, I just want to respond to my own inner 11-year-old. Whatever that kid in me is still saying with the possibilities of this industry is where I lean for the next film.
What is the plot of ‘Nutcrackers’?
A workaholic, Mike (Ben Stiller) must travel to rural Ohio to look after his recently orphaned nephews.
Who is in the cast of ‘Nutcrackers’?
- Ben Stiller as Michael “Mike” Maxwell
- Linda Cardellini as Gretchen
- Homer Janson as Justice
- Ulysses Janson as Junior
- Atlas Janson as Samuel
- Arlo Janson as Simon
- Toby Huss as Aloysius “Al” Wilmington
- Edi Patterson as Rose
(L to R) Director David Gordon Green and Ben Stiller on the set of ‘Nutcrackers’ which premieres on Hulu November 29th. Photo: Hulu.
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