PATTON OSWALT
&
ROBERT D. SIEGEL

This past summer, BIG FAN, the directorial debut from THE WRESTLER screenwriter Robert D. Siegel, opened in limited release to theaters with great acclaim. The story of obsessive New York Giants fan Paul Aufiero and his struggles to deal with the aftermath of an incident regarding his favorite player gave Siegel and star Patton Oswalt their strongest reviews to date.

With the film now released on DVD, the Crypt goes back to the film’s theatrical release in August where after an exclusive with director Robert D. Siegel, the Colonelscrypt sat down with a roundtable of reporters to speak with Siegel and star Patton Oswalt on the film’s message, shooting in Staten Island, the extremes of fan obsession, and a lot of funny topics in this exclusive interview.

Why did you decide to use the real NFL teams for this film and were there any problems with the NFL?

ROBERT D. SEIGEL: We decided to exercise our First Amendment Rights to make a movie about this subject. It’s protected under fair use. There are certain things you are not allowed to do and we were careful not to do those things, using actual game footage for example, you don’t see the games on television. We consulted very carefully with a lawyer. For me, as a sports fan, using the real teams matters to me. If it had been fake teams like the New York Wizards or the Philadelphia Panthers, as a moviegoer it would ruin the movie for me. As a filmmaker, it was a non starter. I wouldn’t have made this movie if I had them running around in purple and green jerseys representing New York. They did that in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY and it took me right out of the reality so I didn’t want to do that.

This was written before THE WRESTLER?

RDS: Yes, this was written before THE WRESTLER. I wrote this in 2001 or 2002. That’s how I met Darren Aronofsky and how he got to do THE WRESTLER. He read this script. The script made the rounds around Hollywood. It was a widely circulated script around studios with executives and production companies. It came across Darren’s desk and he liked it. He was interested in directing this movie and obviously he wound up not directing it however he later contacted me about writing a script about a pro wrestler. To me they’re very similar in tone and I could see why he thought I would be a good fit for that. They’re both small, indie dramas, character driven set in the world of sports but not traditionally how the world of sports are presented.

You had a successful career at The Onion and you passed it for a chance at screenwriting. Why did you decide to leave that to pursue screenwriting?

RDS: I was at The Onion for 9 years and I just kind of got tired of it. I was ready to try something else and screenwriting just came along. We attempted to make an Onion movie which wound up straight to video. Every cliché about what happens to a Hollywood movie happened to that movie unfortunately but the good thing that came out of it was that it was an introduction to screenwriting to me. I really just took to it. I just really liked it. Something about it just clicked and I started doing it in my spare time. I would work on The Onion by day and a script by night. I wrote about 4 or 5 scripts before this and BIG FAN was my breakthrough script in terms of quality. It was a succession of mediocre scripts before that.

And when you decided to direct BIG FAN, did you talk to Aronofsky about it and did you get any advice?

RDS: I didn’t really have an opportunity to bother him. I don’t even know what I would’ve asked. I did watch him on the set of THE WRESTLER. That was a learning experience. I watched the way he dealt with Mickey Rourke and it was something watching him fight and stick to his guns in sticking with Mickey when the studios felt that he was a huge liability and he had no box office value. Of course they were completely wrong and I definitely took a lot from that but I didn’t get much of a chance to speak to Darren when making BIG FAN.

Why did you choose this subject for BIG FAN, are you a big sports fan?

RDS: I’ve always been a big sports fan. Growing up I listened to sports radio and I’ve always been a football fan. I felt like it was a subject, like THE WRESTLER had never been explored in a movie in a serious way, there hasn’t been a movie about a sports fan done in a serious way. I felt like it was an opportunity to do a movie on this subject which is a big part of American culture but has never really been dealt with on screen.

Did you find the Plaxico Burress incident interesting being that it was a nightclub incident similar to what you wrote about in terms of Paul and his idol Quantrell Bishop?

RDS: I wrote it long before it and the odd thing is that the club that we shot that scene in, Plaxico would go to the same place we shot. We shot at Headquarters Strip Club which was where Plaxico started hanging out at Headquarters the night he shot himself in the leg. That happened at I think Latin Quarter but he was at Headquarters earlier that night so it was a little surreal.

The character of Paul is very passive in the way he is written. How did you do that approach with when you wrote him and how different did you take it when you directed Patton during filming?

RDS: That’s a good question.

(Patton Oswalt enters the room)

PATTON OSWALT: He didn’t direct me at all.

RDS: It’s a difficult thing because the middle third of the movie, from the time he gets beaten up to the time where he takes action, there’s this long stretch where all he’s doing is he’s resisting everything around him. He’s totally passive and there’s no active in anything. It’s something you’re really not supposed to do but I just wanted to make his internal psychological conflicts interesting but it was definitely something I was aware. The only two solutions were to make his psyche interesting and compelling and get to the end as quickly as possible or just have him do a bunch of active things that didn’t feel right. I didn’t want to deal with that but it was definitely an issue.

PO: I know what he’s talking about. That was more in the editing room because certainly when we were filming you never said “We need to trim this or cut the pace.”

RDS: Yeah and in the middle of the movie he’s just resisting and pulling into his turtle shell.

PO: That’s the part where the audience gets a little squirmy because it’s very dark and it’s passive which are a deadly combination for that point of the movie and without giving away anything, you just know that something bad is coming.

RDS: But I think as long as you end the movie on an active note, they forgive you for whatever the rough patch there is.

Paul has a rather unique relationship with his mom. Where did that originate from?

PO: That was me on KING OF QUEENS for 9 years.

RDS: Was it? I didn’t realize how similar it was.

PO: Well you didn’t know. It’s cool.

RDS: Good (laughs)

PO: We room that we shot in that was a 50 year old guy who still lived with his mom and was a big Giants fan. I would imagine that the suburbs in every eighth house there’s a twisted adult still living with their parents.

RDS: There’s plenty of that. Are you surprised?

I am surprised that his mother wanted him to be quiet on the phone.

PO: Well call in talk shows never put anybody on using a cell, they would get hung up immediately. He also wants the clearest receptions. If you notice, he starts off quiet but he gets that kind of Asperger’s Syndrome where he can’t help himself but yell and be passionate.

What was the process in casting Patton?

RDS: The process was I sent him the script and he said OK.

PO: I loved it, we had breakfast, and I said yes.

RDS: It was very uncomplicated. I knew who he was. I didn’t screen test him or ask him to read. It was something of a risk but I trusted that he could act well.

Patton, what was it about the character that made you say yes?

PO: It was a lot of things. It was the character but it was also the overall writing of all the voices. The mention on how this was going to look, seeing the locations on Staten Island and shooting on a super low budget, I love movies like this and I love that I was being asked to be in a type of movie like the early 1970s kind of cinema, those were always a big deal for me so to be in a movie like that, it was a big deal for me.

Do you feel that there is a difference between sports fans and say, fans of celebrities?

RDS: No I think it’s the same really.

PO: Especially in LA I’ve seen some really extreme examples of people that are just big fans of movies, they’re just joyless and have to see every single movie and have this weird obsession of “I have to check off every movie in Leonard Maltin’s Guide.” You see them, they’re at the theaters, and in New York especially, at the Museum of Modern Art, there’s a documentary they just played there called CINEMANIA, which is about five Paul Aufieros on movies, watch it and it’s so disturbing. They’re just moviegoers. When they go into the one woman’s apartment near the end with all the memorabilia stacked up, it would make the two women in GREY GARDENS go “Thank God we’re not that crazy!” That’s on all levels of society, you have that obsession.

RDS: There are people obsessed with Elvis. They are obsessed with TWILIGHT. They are obsessed with Michael Jackson.

PO (points at a photo of John Lennon on the wall): Not to get too harsh but there’s a picture of a wife and child abandoning heroin addict anorexic that everyone worships as this paragon of peace and brotherhood. They worship the image and they want that fulfilled despite the reality of it.

RDS: And he was murdered by an obsessed fan.

PO: He was murdered by the kind of fan that he generated, that he wanted. It’s just this weird, full circle thing that is creepy. Not to put down John Lennon even though I just did because I hate him.

You were recently at Comic Con.

PO: Yeah, how bad did you feel for the poor TRON 2 people that had to follow the surprise Johnny Depp walk on?

Five seconds of Johnny Depp, that’s all it took.

PO: He literally walked out, waved, walked off, and people were levitating. People’s ears were going to bleed and someone said to me “If you think that’s bad, wait until you see the TWILIGHT panel and watch when those guys go out because it was ridiculous. By the way, the questions Tim Burton received were from a bunch of Paul Aufieros. That one guy was like “My mom died and I put two roses on her grave like in BATMAN in the scene with Bruce Wayne in the alley where his parents died,” and he just rambled on and on and Burton just said “Thank you very much.” As they tried to get him off, he just wouldn’t let him off. I felt bad for the poor guy. You see a bunch of Paul Aufieros at the Comic Con and at the political conventions where the whole party is their life and it’s kind of scary.

Patton, are you a sports fan in real life and what kind of research did you do to prepare for the role?

PO: I don’t follow any sports so as far as research was concerned I just became very aware of how I have a little tug in this world and how easily I could slip into that as far as my love of film and comics and stuff like that. It’s hard for me to judge these people too harshly because I’ve been very close to that myself. I think we all are. It’s that question of what would happen if my interests consumed my life and shoved my life out of the frame? What would that be like?

How was it working with Kevin Corrigan?

PO: Kevin is so awesome. His line readings, everything is so odd you don’t know what word he’s going to emphasize so you’re always off balance with him.

RDS: You would vary on what you say but say it the same way. He would say the exact same thing every time but in a completely different way.

PO: It was like responding to a different line even though he said the said the same words.

RDS: It was an emphasis on the line reading without changing the words.

PO: He was on DAMAGES. He was unbelievable.

RDS: Weird seeing him in a suit.

PO: Seeing him all cleaned up and doing cocaine, it was wild but he was so brilliant.

What’s coming up for you?

PO: Well, I just found out yesterday that I was cast in CAPRICA by reading the Hollywood Reporter. Nice way to find out (laughter). I did a day last week and then I guess they decided to make it a regular character and assume I would read the trades.

RDS: They didn’t ask you if you wanted to do it?

PO: I was such a fan of the show and was talking to Ronald D. Moore that I guess they just assumed I’d do it.

RDS: This is the BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA prequel?

PO: Yep and I am in THE INFORMANT.

RDS: Are you in every episode?

PO: Every other episode. Are you interviewing me now? (Laughter)

Patton, this was your first lead acting role in the film. How much of a challenge was it for you?

PO: It was weird for me knowing that I was going to be on the screen for every screen. Do American audiences want to see that? I’ve read the petitions and they don’t. It was really weird for me because my first instincts as a comedian were to end things with a button or a look so the multiple takes we were talking about were interesting. We were ripping a lot because Marcia Jean Kurtzman who plays my mom is very amazing. I also had to take Robert’s direction early on to take the character straight. He doesn’t have the vocabulary or dialogue to be clever and get the better of anyone verbally. Early on when we shot the cemetery scene I went into a clever dialogue and Robert said “You would never say that, he’s not that clever.” It gets down to what he says at the end of the film which is “This thing is not a thing” and Paul is struggling just to say that. The retakes were trying to teach Mr. Funnypants trying not to hit himself with a pie at the end of every scene.

RDS: The entire movie almost consists of Take 6.

PO: It really does.

RDS: It became this mathematically predictable system where it was the first two takes were to get it out of your system, couple of takes to flub the line, one take to be perfect and…

PO: You just liked to wear the actors down.

RDS: No I didn’t.

PO: Yes. You WORE ME DOWN!!!!

RDS: Seven or eight takes is not crazy.

PO: All I’m saying is that Soderbergh only did two takes on THE INFORMANT.

RDS: For real?

PO: Yeah.

RDS: I think I’m still on the reasonable side of takes.

PO: You do. Kubrick would take like a hundred takes so you’re fine.

So shooting with Soderbergh was really just two takes and that’s it?

PO: He’s one of those guys that’s done so many movies he can just walk in and say “We’ll just go with this angle, the light over there is fine, and let’s go.” It reminded me of what it must have been like to work with someone like a Michael Curtiz on CASABLANCA, because Curtiz had made 70 movies and CASABLANCA was his 50th. That had to have been filmed in two to three weeks because he had done so many films by then.

RDS: That’s impressive.

PO: Curtiz did four movies a year. By the time he was done with one, he probably got a script saying “Here’s the next one, we start Monday” and off he went.

So by your 50th film Robert you’ll be shooting in one take.

RDS: (Laughs) I hope so.

The relationship that Paul has with his family in that they constantly tell him to get a job, was that something you both had to face when entering your careers?

PO: Well we all must’ve faced that. It’s like if you tell your parents you’re going to go write for a living, they’re going to go “No fucking way are you writing for a living” because they’re worried about you. They’re precarious about how this profession is. They are seeing something more dangerous than Paul who literally can’t function.

RDS: I’m sure I’ve discussed this with you but I always think of the end of WILD MAN BLUES, have I talked to you about this?

PO: No.

RDS: Remember the end of the movie where Woody does this triumphant tour through Europe and it ends with him and his parents in this little house in Queens. He shows his mom this medal he got from the King of France and she goes “Well, I always wanted you to be a dentist.”

PO: Then his father looks at the medal from the King of Sweden and he goes “They rushed this. You should’ve asked for them to re-engrave it.”

RDS: They’re not even convinced that he’s doing right but they’re still worried about him a little bit.

I had asked this to Robert earlier, but Patton, being that you said this film reminded you of early 1970s cinema, do you hope and do you think that we will see a rise in independent cinema a la the 1970s now?

PO: I don’t think it’s going to happen but I am going to hope that it happens. The way Hollywood is now, this was a grim summer. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.

I have.

PO: It hasn’t been good.

But what about 500 DAYS OF SUMMER and MOON?

PO: Well those have been succeeding because critics are propping them up. The films haven’t been good but then again FROZEN RIVER came out last year and that could’ve been a resurgence in filmmaking and it didn’t quite catch on. I don’t know. There really was a time where there were movies like this every weekend and you could be that excited. I hope beyond hope we get a whole era again like NIGHT MOVES, FAT CITY, KING OF MARVIN GARDENS, or AN UNMARRIED WOMAN, how great would that be?

RDS: But to paraphrase, if BIG FAN made a hundred million dollars, then you would get a bunch of shitty, misguided knockoffs where they get it wrong and they’ll focus on the wrong aspect. 

PO: Yeah, you’re right. I can see it now. (Imitating the late Don LaFontaine) “Tom Cruise is a loser…” No he’s not! The critics will say “It’s a brave performance!” No it’s not! He went there on a private jet! There’s nothing brave about that.

RDS: It’s the new LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE! (Laughter) There were a hundred terrible knockoffs of that.

PO: What was that quirky TV show that ran for one episode, EMILY’S REASONS WHY NOT? You know why it ran for one episode? The show’s premise was “Heather Graham is a girl who can’t get a date.” What fucking reality did this take place in? Men would leave their fucking families for this girl. She’s like “I can’t get a date, what’s going on?”

RDS: Did she have her hair in a bun?

PO: She’s Heather fucking Graham. Do you want us to accept that?

After hearing about Comic Con, I’m kinda glad I haven’t gone to one.

PO: That’s something you should experience once in your lifetime. You should see that extreme behavior once in your lifetime to go “Wow, that’s crazy.”

Worse than sci fi and horror conventions around here?

PO: There is nothing like Comic Con my friend. It is so immersed now. People will hand you coins and they will take you to a secret room where people are holding blacklight posters for their film. It was fucking crazy.

If there’s a room like the rooms in EYES WIDE SHUT, count me in.

PO: And I’ll be right in front of you. (Laughter)

If what happened to Paul Aufiero happened to you where you were beaten by an idol of yours, would you sue them or would you be hesitant like Paul was?

PO: Robert and I talk about this quite a bit. There’s something icky about suing somebody for anything. You’re so coming from a position of weakness and whining. There’s other ways to take care of it and there’s something about suing someone that really gives me a bad feeling.

RDS: I would feel embarrassed.

PO: Even if I was completely in the right, I just would feel so weird and I can’t put my finger on it.

RDS: It’s like there are situations where probably the proper response would be “Do you know who I am?” There’s no way to say those words in real life.

PO: There’s no way to get around it. It’s like when someone comes up to you and says “Do you know who you look like?” Unless you’re going to say Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, do not say that to anyone.

Why did you choose Staten Island for the setting?

RDS: I knew I wanted it to be one of the outer boroughs of New York so it was going to be either Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island and I originally wrote it as Queens. However one of our associate producers is from Staten Island and honestly the reason we did it is because he hooked us up there. He was like the ambassador to open the door to the whole Island. It was easier to shoot there than all of New York. Nobody asked us for a permit. It was kind of like Staten Island’s went away for the weekend. There are no authority figures. You could do what you want in Staten Island and nobody would bother you. When we were shooting in Brooklyn, the camera wouldn’t be out for more than ten minutes without some person being so huffy announcing they are the president of the Neighborhood Association. They would ask for permits and they were just irritated.

PO: The people of Staten Island were so ridiculously nice to us.

RDS: They were just happy to see the cameras.

PO: They were so nice and you got so many great shots of the landscape. Michael Simmons (the film’s Director of Photography) was rubbing his hands together happy with what we had to shoot with.

In following with the question about 1970s filmmaking, one aspect where this is like those films is that it’s a one character movie. Do you feel attached to the character by working on it Patton and were there any intense moments during filming?

RDS: He’s my Klaus Kinski (Laughs).

PO: Did you hire some Indians to kill me once this is over?

RDS: I think a lot of that shit is actors and directors being dramatic. They get off on it. You can get a movie done without that drama.

PO: Especially when you’re up at 6am, how the fuck do they have the energy to go back and forth? I think they do get off on it, definitely.

RDS: I know with me you don’t want to piss Patton off early in the day so you just wanna leave him alone. I don’t generally go into the mythology and romanticism of it.

PO: Scorsese and De Niro would clash on RAGING BULL but for those tumultuous relationships on set, there’s Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson who could bounce off each other easily.

RDS: Two people at each other’s throats doesn’t always produce movie magic and by the same token two people who hate each other off screen could have great chemistry on screen. Life’s too short.

PO: Scorsese and De Niro were very passionate and knocked their brains out making RAGING BULL which was a very entertaining and amazing movie. Then Hal Needham and Burt Reynolds drank beer together and made SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT which is just as much fun to watch so it works in both ways.

RDS: It would be nice to have that kind of relationship.

You can make the next movie like SMOKEY.

RDS: Patton, there’s your “Untitled Robert Siegel Project” on IMDB.

PO: There you go.

How was it working with Michael Rapaport?

RDS: He did a great job. I cast him because I thought he was good for that part and I was able to get him. I was trying to get Artie Lange but he was hard to track down.

PO: Surprisingly hard to track down. I think he was running a triathlon or something. He was on some wheat grass binge, he’s such a health nut.

RDS: Wheat grass or speed balls?

PO: Could be speed balls and hookers that weekend, something like that.

RDS: I was unable to acquire him but I think Michael Rapaport’s a great actor. He was game to do it and he was great.

Did you expect THE WRESTLER to take off like it did?

RDS: THE WRESTLER? No. It’s easy in retrospect but there are so many movies that are amazing and just don’t take off and it’s impossible to say why.

PO: It drives me crazy.

RDS: I see something and ask myself “It’s an amazing movie. Why didn’t it do better,” and it didn’t capture attention or wasn’t even given a chance to gain an audience. The imagination kind of just comes and goes in New York and around the country. Entertainment in general is a numbers game. Right now there are ten shows that are probably amazing if I would have the time to watch it. People come up to me and say “You need to see this.”

PO: I’m usually the guy telling people that. Right now, TV is in a way a lot better than film.

RDS: He tells me “You gotta see THE WIRE. You gotta see MAD MEN.”

PO: You haven’t seen THE WIRE yet?

RDS: Not yet.

PO: THE WIRE is actually an economical choice because after you watch it, you’ll never want to wach another cop show again, you’ll think they’re all stupid. You literally can’t stop laughing at LAW & ORDER after watching THE WIRE.

RDS: LAW & ORDER’s like a SCOOBY DOO mystery.

PO: No, it wants to be a SCOOBY DOO mystery, actually a SCOOBY DOO mystery is more realistic than LAW & ORDER. Anyway if you haven’t seen THE WIRE, buy it on DVD because it is the greatest show on television.

Patton, do you have a lot of child fans because of RATATOUILLE?

PO: Luckily, no. We didn’t want to put on the BIG FAN poster “Starring the rat in RATATOUILLE” because the kids are fans of Pixar and the character. They’re not fans of me. If I was a kid and liked a character, I wouldn’t want to meet the 40 year old man voicing him sitting behind a bar full of liquor and scaring the kid screaming “I was the rat!” I got invited to a table read of THE SIMPSONS and at the last minute I didn’t go. A friend of mine said that he was glad I didn’t go because he went and he said the table read kind of ruins some of the magic to it. You don’t want to see those guys sitting down with their coffee and going through their lines. It takes away from the character.

WFAN has been helpful in promoting the film. Are you surprised by that?

RDS: I’m not surprised that sports radio has taken to it. I thought that the first wave would be the indie people getting behind it and then it would be the sports fans but it feels like it’s a little ahead of pace of what I expected.

What do you hope audiences get out of BIG FAN when they see it?

PO: I thing that I hope audiences will take is the opportunity to take a look at a weird and exotic corner of the human experience. Just like in any good movie that really captures that, like GOODFELLAS or ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, a movie about a weird profession or obsession or a weird state of being that would put you in that extreme. THE HURT LOCKER is the perfect example of that, just an example of human beings struggling and it happens every day. There’s something fascinating about it.

Thanks gentlemen and best of luck with BIG FAN and everything else.

RDS: Thank you.

PO: My pleasure.

BIG FAN is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray

(Special thanks to Falco Ink)