A Guide to Directing an Idiot with Jesse Peretz

But basically, we developed the script for Paul and.

Aren't you neighbors?

And I saw this dude walking around and he looked like such an idiot.

Yeah, word up, Young Hollywood. What's up, guys? Mickey Novac here, hanging out in the Young Hollywood studio with writer, director, extraordinaire, Jesse Peretz. How are you?

Thank you. I'm good.

You just flew in from Australia.

I did indeed.

That's a long flight.

Um, I know. I crashed out and slept with the help of legal sleeping aids. Sort of like the character Ned in your movie. You don't tell your parole officer that you just got high. Oh, man. Can you forget I said that? But basically, we developed the script for Paul. When I first read it, the the first thing, for some reason, that came to my mind was, oh, I think this guy wears red Crocs. Like the first thought in writing the script is, we want to write something that that appeals, that appeals to Paul.

Officer Washburn. How are you doing today? Listen, Ned, you wouldn't happen to know where I can get some, uh, even if I did, do you really think I'd tell you? It's been a hard week. Yeah? Yeah. Here you go, officer. Hey, thanks, man. Wow. Hey, I'm Ned. Aren't you neighbors?

Yo, he lives right around the corner from me.

Is he a good neighbor?

Yeah, he's pretty good. He I mean, the only thing that's not good about him is he's like barely ever there. He was always hanging out in this city for some reason. Um. Gosh, don't know why.

He doesn't work at all, does he?

Yeah. To me, Paul is like a complete genius. He should have been a huge movie star 12, 13, 14, 15 years ago when he did his first movies. I've heard you say that you love him because he can do comedy and drama, and it's interesting because everybody in this film has sort of done both, and that's a hard thing. A lot of actors sort of only do one or the other. For me, my favorite comedies are comedies that are really operating on the dramatic level simultaneously and that I assembled a cast that all brought their best game to the table. Elizabeth Banks, her instinct to um, to kind of go for like a the quipy, like maybe somewhat snarky, um, kind of joke line that that is a little bit who she is, like works great for the great for the character. Typically, if I'm in a comedy, I have blonde hair for for whatever reason, people find blondes funnier. And but in this movie, which is a comedy, our idiot brother. I'm wearing a dark wig.

Didn't you sort of write with those particular people in mind to anyway?

Yeah, exactly. Like Zoey and um, Zoey and Emily are like old friends of mine and we'd always been like, oh, we want to do something together and whatever. So

And bring your neighbor into it. He came over to borrow the sugar and you're like, here's a script.

And I yeah, I mean, I saw this dude walking around and he looked like such an idiot.

If I saw something behind the scenes, you were smiling almost the entire way through. Is your movie when you went to Sundance, it was just sold like that. And it was like,

Making this movie was a dream experience. It really was, oh my God, I just like assembled all these people that I love.

You know you love our studio. You said you love our studio when we walked in. Yeah. And every director, are you like a hat wearer? So it'd be the first time. I'll even get you your choice of colors.

I'll go with the gray one. Good choice. Thank you very much.

I'm gonna go with the other one. Let's put that on, all right? There we go. Let's go.

Yeah, word up, Young Hollywood.