“Have I ever told you the story about the time I tried to find a dead body?”
Sounds like an ear catching anecdote, but in reality that’s the line that started Jake Johnson (New Girl, Jurassic World) and Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Happy Christmas) down the road which eventually led to Digging for Fire, a film that garnered a 2015 Sundance Film Festival premiere. Jake Johnson and costar Steve Berg (Drunk History, Skinwalker Ranch) have been on tour promoting the film with several Q & A’s across the country. Last Friday they brought their wit and a pitcher of beer to the front of the screen at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX.
“The way Joe (Swanberg) and I work is we just keep pitching each other ideas until one jumps out… I texted him one night and said, ‘Have I ever told you about the time I tried to find a dead body?’ and he said, ‘Call me right now asshole.’”
Jake Johnson continues the story which begins shortly after his wife and he move into a new rental house. They decide to replant the garden, but as the shovels dig deeper into the aging flower beds, odd items resurface from previous tenants.
“I found a rusted gun, so we put it aside and kept digging. Then I found a bone, that one was hard to justify, and we kept digging. Then we found license plates, a plastic bag with a bone that had been chopped up, then I found a bag of marbles… that one was so weird it didn’t make it in the movie.”
Like responsible adults, Jake and his wife phone the LAPD, certain a borderline crime scene would pique some interest of the boys in blue. The operator shatters their dreams with a sarcastic tone and a warning to not call again unless the two of them somehow uncover a full body.
“My wife and I looked and each other and said ‘Well what do you do?’ And we decided ’Well you look for a body.’ So she grabbed a shovel, I grabbed a shovel, we grabbed a group of friends, Steve (Berg) was one of them, and we went digging for a body. And we spent 10 days digging for bodies tearing up my backyard.”
Joe sees the potential in using bits of Jake’s experience for the basis of the film. Together Swanberg and Johnson hash out three acts of storyline and assemble the team. The intriguing part of this duo’s writing style involves the improv flavor they require all the hired actors to bring to the set. Performers receive a skeleton outline of what should happen in every scene, no written dialogue, and run with it. Sounds risky, but it clearly results in some of the most organic characters put on the big screen today.
Take for instance Brie Larson’s (Trainwreck, 21 Jump Street, etc.) character. Originally the pitch envisions a young lady who finds this guy digging up the side of his hill. They form a sexual attraction which builds into a strong will-they-or-won’t-they tension until the end. To which. according to Jake, Brie responds,
“Why in god’s name would I be attracted to this man? You know what would bring me back is the sense of adventure, being a part of the fun. Not that I’d want to sleep with a married man who’s got a kid and going through some weird crisis and wearing tracksuits.”
Because Joe and Jake seek out improvised collaborations, they ultimately allow Larson’s character relationship to evolve into more of a friendship based on two people simply enjoying the interaction and almost Ayahuasca stimulations.
One person who rocks the improv stereotype boat is veteran guest star Sam Elliot (Road House, Grandma). Sam joins the cast last minute when the writers put a call out looking for anyone who could film in Malibu the following Monday as a wealthy stepfather. Somehow Elliot hears about the gig and wants the pitch. Johnson and Swanberg steady themselves for the chat of a lifetime.
“The entire time Sam was going ‘Awr shit.’ At the end Sam goes ‘I wish my wife was here, she usually tells me what to do.’ and Joe goes ‘Well yeah, so do you want to do our movie?’ and Sam goes ‘Let me call you back.’ And then he calls back and goes ‘Look I don’t know who the fuck you are and I don’t know about this improve shit. About ten minutes before you called I broke my toe, so I didn’t hear a word you said.”
Joe asks if he can repitch the film, but it’s unnecessary. Sam Elliot agrees to do the film. Elliot enjoyed lacing up his improv boots so much, he actually requests a day a reshoots because he realizes he wants to say more regarding marriage in the film.
Elliot wasn’t the only one involved who realizes something from breaking down comfort zones. When asked what the biggest lesson he took away from writing this script, Jake reveals, “I realized it needed to work a bit harder. In that we broke a story and I was relying so heavily on the other actors to bring things and create, and I thought as I writer, I want to give them more.”
Johnson explains the next film Swanberg and he work on has scenes more fully flushed out with dialogue, so he can leave actors involved with more of a character safety net.
“Even though Joe and I helped break the story, people would ask me questions like whats my backstory and Joe’s whole thing as the director is to say you’re the actor, figure it out. So I would have to say to an actor as a writer, figure it out? And I felt bad… because I should be able to tell them.”
For a film shot in a mere 15 days, the mature storyline transforms into a modern day Stanislofsky piece where the characters complete menial daily tasks, while their lives subtly fall apart around them, such as Steve Berg’s character discussing the topic of burying dead cats. As the interview wraps up and the screen fades to black, the audience can tell this immensely talented cast and crew certainly persevere through any backstory guesses to deliver a flick with that slow burn effect.
Digging for Fire is currently screening in select theatres across the country and available as video on demand.