Interview

VIDA: And writing their names into the script.

EGGERS: And writing mini-parts and cameos for people that we went to high school with. After a while, I think the casting folks—the professionals—started not being so appreciative. But the process with Sam, it was the three of us without any other voices—

VIDA: Except when we’d read through the scenes with the actors. Sam comes from a theater background. He believes in reading through all the parts with the actors. I was surprised by how many things changed after one of those sessions. You’d think a scene was completely done, and then you’d hear Catherine O’Hara say, “Oh, that’s when I think my character decides this.”

EGGERS: Then you realize the actors have done more thinking about the characters than you have.

VIDA: And the ending changed.

EGGERS: The ending changed significantly.

ENGLANDER: You cut the house fire?

EGGERS: Well, we were going to burn down an orphanage at the end. End it with this chorus of screams. Very poignant.

ENGLANDER: So now a baby crawls out . . .

EGGERS: I guess the burning orphanage wasn’t Hollywood enough. So we had to change that.

ENGLANDER: So now Nicolas Cage rushes in and carries a baby out?

EGGERS: Well, that’s the alternate ending. It’s being tested on some of the focus groups. But, yeah, the ending changed.

VIDA: I’m just thinking about my parents seeing it, actually.

EGGERS: Because it’s filthy. We just got the rating. It was rated R. That came as a shock.

VIDA: Then we remembered it had the word cuntsucker in it.

EGGERS: Yeah, the word cuntsucker appears. But just once.

ENGLANDER: The Cuntsucker Proxy?

EGGERS: I think we must’ve made that word up, right? Nathan, have you heard people say the word cuntsucker?

ENGLANDER: No! No.

EGGERS: So it’s very shocking when it appears.

ENGLANDER: Oh, they’ll be saying it soon.

VIDA: Who, my parents?

ENGLANDER: [laughs] Exactly. They’re going to love the movie. And this interview.

VIDA: I will say, there’s one thing we thought about consciously . . . I was reminded the other day of how we consciously chose to not have the couple get into a fight three-quarters of the way through the movie, which happens in a lot of comedies.

EGGERS: I’m still shocked we were allowed to not have them fight. If we had a scene where they break up and get back together and there’s a baby on the way in two months, then you’d just want to choke them both. So we thought, What if they’re just adults? And they’re actually in love?

ENGLANDER: And then you have Sam Mendes directing.

EGGERS: Yeah, he was just coming off of Revolutionary Road [2008]—

ENGLANDER: Another comedy.

EGGERS: Yeah. [laughs] We didn’t realize it at the time, but later we realized he was really needing a palette cleanser after that experience, and wouldn’t it be nice to make a movie about a couple who is happy, and loves each other, and where somebody isn’t going to die a horrible, bloody death at the end?

ENGLANDER: Am I allowed to say this? You’re both finishing books.

VIDA: I just turned mine in this morning. I’m celebrating by sitting in a car talking to you.

ENGLANDER: Mazel tov! That’s exciting. And speaking of things-exciting, how much do you two talk about opening night?

VIDA: I’m going to see it this week with a preview audience in White Plains, New York.

EGGERS: I’m staying here. San Francisco is as far away as I can be while in the continental U.S. And I’m happy to have that distance between me and the screenings.

ENGLANDER: Do you feel as sensitive about this as you would about a novel coming out?

VIDA: I think I’ll feel a little more distance from it than I would from a novel, because a novel is just you—your thoughts on a piece of paper. Whereas a movie is such a collaboration.

ENGLANDER: So if they don’t laugh at something, you’re just going to say, “Dave’s joke.”

VIDA: Yeah. [laughs] “I didn’t write that. Not mine.”

Nathan Englander lives in New York City. His most recent book, The Ministry of Special Cases, was published in 2007.

Photo credit: Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers and the McSweeney's office in San Francisco, March 2009.