Fred Claus - David Dobkin interview
Interview by Rob Carnevale
DAVID Dobkin talks about directing Fred Claus in the UK, reuniting with Vince Vaughn for the third time [after Clay Pigeons and Wedding Crashers] and picking the music for a great soundtrack…
You go back some way with Vince [Vaughn], so what made you cast him originally in Clay Pigeons?
David Dobkin: I saw Swingers and there was something that was really unique there. At the beginning of the movie you think this guy is the bad influence. He calls his friend up, even though his friend has important things that he needs to do for himself, and he says: “Vegas, we’re going to Vegas; you’re getting in the car and you’re coming!” So, he drives him to Vegas and it’s a disaster, and you’re like: “OK, this guy’s the bad influence, I’m concerned about him…” And then in a very interesting way he ends up being the stand up guy out of all the friends in the group he had the most honour and stood by his friend until the end. He believed in a really human, understanding way. I found that very unique and I could see that it came from a genuine place from him as an actor.
So, I met with him shortly thereafter. I asked him to go to dinner and we sat down and you know our very first conversation practically started with: “So what’s going on man, what are you doing now?” It was almost like we had picked up a conversation that had happened three hours earlier on a telephone. And it’s been like that ever since.
There’s an ongoing conversation, we felt like we knew each other like we had been best friends from high school and it’s never really stopped like that. We have a shorthand, we like the same things, we have an unbelievable work ethic that we both appreciate, and very ambitious goals. And by the way, it’s not always easy with us because we challenge each other, we fight a lot, from a loving place – kind of like the Gallagher brothers. But we never stop wanting to be great and that’s really the predominant colour between us. Vince and I have a mutual respect for each other because we work so hard and we believe in leaving everything on the field. So that at the end of the day, when you’re exhausted and you’re crawling off the field there’s nothing left. I like that and I trust him because of that.
Are you temperamentally alike?
David Dobkin: We have different temperaments. I think we go to the same places – it just depends who’s pushing whose buttons, you know? There are moments. Jessie [Nelson, screenwriter] always refers to us as Fred and Santa because we kind of have that same kind of relationship. Owen Wilson would define us as… did you ever saw My Best Fiend by Werner Herzog? Well, Owen looks at us like that. He thinks that we’re in love, but we want to kill each other. But we’ve also come from two all girl families, we don’t have brothers, so some strange thing is working out between us.
How did you look after a leading man [Paul Giamatti] who had to wear the fat suit and whiskers?
David Dobkin: You know you’re coaching somebody through staying focussed because there’s a lot to be distracted by – so, you have to always have your actor use that discomfort and distraction and still get through the performance. It was a challenge also because of scheduling. You get him in the suit and he has 25 minutes before he starts to overheat – literally. The hair starts coming off and the hands are slipping off, so timing that out with all the elements that you can imagine in this movie was very difficult. But Paul was a consummate professional and he just did an amazing job. I don’t think there’s a moment in the movie where his performance is betrayed.
How significant was the UK in the creation of this movie?
David Dobkin: Well, Hollywood is dysfunctional in the sense that – without any opinion about the rest of the world – it was made to be the cheapest place on the planet to make movies. And because of the weather it was the most consistent place where you wouldn’t be rained out and the safest place. But now it’s like everywhere else in the world is easier to make a movie than LA and for some reason Sacramento can’t seem to figure this out. Sacramento in relation to Los Angeles might as well be Burlington, Vermont to Boca Raton, Florida. They have no relation to each other, and in fact I’m sure Sacramento hates LA. I don’t know what it is about it but they just cannot seem to get it together. There’s no incentive to work in LA. So to us, it’s like we’re fighting very hard and we want the dollars on the screen. We don’t want the dollars in the pockets of the wrong people, so it’s great to be able to come here, you know? It’s a great experience. We lived here for seven months last year and it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.
The production design here is above and beyond anywhere, it really is. I’ve shot in Prague, I’ve shot in Italy, I’ve shot in South America, and Canada. Allan Cameron, who is our production designer on this, is a genius. You have people who are trained at painting. In America, it’s hard to get people to read, so the idea of getting them to paint is like a whole other thing. You get an education in the arts here when you come here, people understand that there’s a process of communication and results are there. Whether you like the movie or not, it’s gorgeous to look at. You have people who have a deep aesthetic in it.
Can you tell us about the soundtrack because there are some terrific selections in there?
David Dobkin: [Smiles] Well, as a young filmmaker Martin Scorsese made a huge impression on me – how he would use music. Sometimes, he’d use it the way you expect it and sometimes he would create a very emotional effect by how he used it against the colour of the scene – such as the Donovan song in GoodFellas, when they’re killing that guy? Those things made a very big impression on me, not like that’s in this movie. I also worked for Ridley Scott for many, many years as a commercials director and I never forgot one very important statement he said to me: “If your music’s not great, the scene’s not great and there’s not a compromise. The music must be great.” That goes to the score as well.
Christophe Beck did an unbelievable job on the score [for Fred Claus] and if you ever get a chance to see the movie again you’ll really notice how powerful the tone is. But that’s part of the fun, finding the music. Some things you hear the first time, like The Trashcan Men – The Bird, Bird, Bird song. I went to a baseball game and wasn’t even thinking of the movie, but the song came on and I thought: “Aah, that’s the Santa chase!” “So I wrote “doo, doo, doo, da, doo” in my Blackberry, sent it to myself and six months later I asked my wife what it meant! She said it was the song I liked, so that stuck.
b>Read our review of Fred Claus