TheKnocturnal had the opportunity to participate in roundtable interviews with the wonderful cast and creatives behind “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” out this Friday. For more background, check out our review here.ย
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (Director) / Jesse Andrews (Screenwriter/ Novelist)
What drew you to this project?
Alfonso: It spoke to me. I donโt think you ever forget your high school years, especially if you hated them. If you were terrified. And I was. Theyโre as fresh today as they were twenty years ago, or whenever it was. Theyโre the most terrifying years of your life, because you feel every decision you make will determine the rest of your future. And youโre not wrong. You know, who your friends are, where you go to schoolโฆ there are some key things there. I mean, obviously you can change your plans. Reading this script, for the first half, he really got that teenage angst, but it felt so fresh to me, and it spoke to Thomas Mann in the same way, and so I knew Jesse had captured something very universal there. And then the second half, to me, was what I was experiencing today โ experiencing loss, trying to give that shape… itโs so abstract. The denial, and anger and regret that comes with it. So I saw myself in it. I saw it as, finally, an opportunity to really make a personal movie. And sometimes the most personal stories are the most universal. I mean, I had found this script, I didnโt even know why they sent it to meโฆ and all of a sudden I was so incredibly moved by something. I wasnโt trying to make a cancer movie, I wasnโt trying to make a high school movie. I could just take this journey, and, at the same time, pay homage to movies.
You had recently lost your father.
Alfonso: Thatโs exactly itโฆ I was trying to avoid it. Itโs so public now, which is great, because I get to talk about it. Thatโs exactly what happened. And so, I was a mess. I lost a sense of who I was. Watching the film recently, from beginning to endโฆ I had to do some commentary, and we had to stop twice. I realized who I was when I started making the movie, and who I was when we had finished. The physical experience of working on the movie has changed me so much that it was very emotional, watching it. My approach at the start, and then my approach in the hospital scene. The hospital scene was the last day, so it was very much about me starting to heal, and healing by making a movie, which is what Greg does.
Jesse, youโve expressed that part of your intention of writing the novel was to present this story in a non-stylistic, de-aestheticized sort of way. What was your first impression of the look Alfonso had in mind for the film?
Jesse: The first time I saw it, I was overjoyed. On fire. That high school is the one I went to, which was shuttered six years ago. Itโs going to be turned into condos, but they havenโt begun that process yet, so it feels a little zombie-fied from this period of quarantine. It was clear, just shooting it, that this was going to look like a real high school. A lot of kids that go to public schools, they look like that, and you donโt really get to see that on the screen. Itโs odd, because itโs a very visually rich environment.
Alfonso: At first I was thinking, like: โHow do I shoot this kid walking down a hallway in a way that doesnโt feel like every other high school movie?โ The key to that, though, was the extras. There was so much thought put in to what they were wearing, what they were doing. I didnโt want any jocks in letterman jackets. I donโt know that guy. That guy lives in the CW. Who is this guy? And then Greg, Earl, and Rachel had to come out of that world. Everyone had to be as invisible as the next person, as normal. Not necessarily in a bad way.
Living in a society so defined by social media, being a teenager means that youโre constantly aware and obsessed with the way youโre perceived by other people, which I felt in this film. Did you have any interaction with that theme in this story?
Jesse: I think itโs much older than social media. Teenagers have always worried about how theyโre perceived. Itโs such a funny time in oneโs life, because youโre not a kid anymore, but youโre not really an adult, you donโt look like either one, you sort of donโt really have a face yet. Or a body. You have no control, people are trying to get you to memorize what an aorta looks like and stuff. Itโs a nightmare. And your proximity is so intense to all these people who donโt look like you, think like you, dress like you. Heโs 17, but inside heโs 13. Up here, sheโs 21. Everyoneโs at radically different stages of development. Everyoneโs just trying to pass by.
Alfonso: But then if youโre a young artist, trying to show that part of yourself, you become even more of an outsider. To be an artist you have to show your work, but youโll probably be humiliated or rejected. That fear of rejection, compounded by the idea of being turned down if you just want to ask somebody out on a dateโฆ as a young outsider, I understand what thatโs like.
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Thomas Mann (Greg)
This was only your third film. What was working on this one like?
This was whole different thing. Iโd never done anything that required me to lay all of myself out, to be so emotionally available. It was a great opportunity, and so I just wanted to throw myself into it. It was an emotional experience, and I went to places I wasnโt sure I could go as an actor. It was really eye opening. I feel like I grew a lot as an actor, like I canโt go back to playing high school. This was my essential coming of age movie. I have to graduate.
I saw a lot of myself in Greg. I like that the script embraces sort of the stubbornness and selfishness of teenagers. I like the lesson that the world is not just about you. Itโs about learning to be selfless, and appreciating the people around you. It was a journey I wanted to take.
Talk a little bit about Gregโs relationship with Earl.
You kind of get a sense that Earl doesnโt have a home life. Theyโre not the kind of freinds that always have to be like, โOh, youโre my best friend, Iโd do anything for you.โ Itโs more of an unspoken bond, I think. I think Earl admires the home life that Greg doesnโt appreciate enough. I love that they share this love of obscure movies that not a lot of other teenagers would get. I was really drawn to that. I had friends like that. Sometimes your best friends are the ones where you donโt have to talk about it.
Youโre going into your mid-20โs now. Was it difficult to go back to that level of discomfort that you have in high school?
No. I think because youโre constantly coming of age in different ways and at different stages of your life. Even now, I live in LA, and Iโm put in all these situations where you feel like youโre the youngest person in the room, that youโre not equipped to deal with certain things. You still feel like a child. I still feel like Iโm 18. I wasnโt having to play a character, just lean into those parts of myself, and try to work through them with Greg.
You have some emotional scenes later in the film, particularly one thatโs an extremely long single- shot. What was filming that like?
Itโs probably the scene Iโm most proud of, in my career. Itโs rare you get a director that trusts his actors enough to just film for six minutes, and let that be the scene. Especially for Alfonso, who loves to use the camera as much as he does. Itโs a big turning point in the film. Itโs where Greg learns to listen for the first time. Thereโs Rachel in the foreground, whoโs very much the adult, whoโs made this very grown-up decision. And Greg is still the child in the background, who canโt come to terms with the fact that itโs not his decision, itโs not about him. We had been living with that scene for so long, since the first audition Olivia and I had done together. We didnโt want to waste anything, we just wanted to lay it all out there, so we didnโt rehearse it. It ended up being one of the fastest scenes we shotโฆ I think we did four takes.
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Olivia Cooke (Rachel)
What made you want to play Rachel?
Youโre playing a girl that likes herself, sheโs self-confident, sheโs very strong, despite the illness, and you donโt really get to read that. The breakdowns I get from casting agents are all like: โBeautiful, but doesnโt know it. She loves Jane Eyreโฆ the boys at school love her but she doesnโt notice.โ If boys liked me at school, I would be on it. I would know every single one. These characters just do not exist. She was a real girl. And I didnโt want her to be portrayed as a victim, as a tragic character, because she wasnโt on the page, and I thought I could bring her to life, do something different with her.
What research did you do for the role?
I went to the Matell ward at UCLA to meet a girl who had the same leukemia as Rachel. She was sixteen. She went through rounds of chemo, and they hadnโt worked, so she was waiting for a bone marrow transplant. I spoke with her and her dad, who had had the illness two years prior, which is unheard of; itโs not supposed to be hereditary at all. I spoke to her team of doctors who informed me of other patients that theyโve had. How, when a cancer patient turn eighteen, then you do have the right to make your own decision, youโre legally an adult. How that is for them, and their parents as well. And then we charted out stages of chemotherapy and stages of cancer so that I would know how to emotionally and physically prepare for scenes.
What went into the decision to shave your head?
I just thought it would be so disrespectful not to. Bald caps look so bulky, and weird. We tried some on, just to make sure that it was the right decision. The TV show [Bates Motel] had to be informed. Although, if they had said no, I probably would have gone rouge, and just done it.
This was RJโs first movie. Did you feel like you were mentoring him at all through the process?
Not at all. We rehearsed the scenes, because we all needed to rehearse, but he was always so prepared, so ready. We were all trying to catch usp, to be as grounded as he was. He was already in that space. He was wonderful.
-Nick Vincennes
