JONATHAN Demme talks about directing indie wedding drama Rachel Getting Married and working with veteran director Roger Corman and actress Deborah Winger…

Q. It’s been said that you wanted to make the most beautiful home movie ever. Tell us about the decision to shoot in that way…
Jonathan Demme: The only reason I said the “most beautiful” home movie is that while we wanted it to have the feel of a home movie, we had to ensure it would be really nice to look at as well. It had to do with two things. One was Jenny Lumet’s screenplay, which was very stripped down. It had no indications about how the reader – ie, the viewer – was supposed to feel about any of it. It didn’t have any camera instructions. It was: here’s who’s in the room, here’s what they say. Bam! Bam! Bam!

She didn’t try to make the characters likeable. She was trying to make them real, unique and that poses the immediate question: how are you going to shoot it? The “style” that I’ve been trying to “develop” over decades of filmmaking was, for a film buff, extremely enjoyable, but extremely manipulative, meticulously designing shots to manipulate the viewers’ emotions. But this time, the sense was: “Let’s do it like a home movie. Let’s not manipulate. Let’s not even rehearse. Let’s gather great actors and put them in a room and pretend we’re making a documentary.” My cinematographer, Declan Quinn, who I’ve been making documentaries with, has an incredible gift for capturing reality in cinematic ways so he was fundamental to the process as well. He just finds the cinematic perspective, so he made it easy for me to do.

Q. It’s nice you could give your old friend Roger Corman a break by handing him a camera…
Jonathan Demme: I’m glad you spotted Roger in there. Roger will famously do anything to get a pay cheque, even though he’s a kajillionaire at this point. If he gets a chance to do a couple of days at SAG minimum in a movie, he feels like he’s sticking it to the man in some ways, so he’ll show up [laughs]. But in recent years, he’s demanded dialogue, so we made up a character for him, gave him dialogue and he even improved some stuff with Anne and he was fabulous… but we had to trim it. But I’m so happy that there’s a shot of him holding a camera and then we actually cut to his shots.

Q. How did you come to cast Deborah Winger?
Jonathan Demme: Every part in the movie demanded a fantastic actor. The part of Abby is interesting because even when she’s not in the room, and she’s usually not in the room, she has to be one of those people who, like most of our mothers, are in the room even when they’re not in the room and Deborah has that. I had the audacity to get the script to her and was thrilled she agreed to do it.

Q. And how about the casting of Rosemary De Witt… especially her likeness to Deborah Winger?
Jonathan Demme: Rosemary was cast first and as soon as she walked through the door I though she [and Anne] were absolutely sisters and it was a beautiful coincidence that she also looked strikingly similar to Deborah.

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