'The Fabelmans' - Cast Interview
CinemaBlend sat down with the cast of Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” including Paul Dano, Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Judd Hirsch, and Gabriel LaBelle. They discuss what it was like working with Steven Spielberg, the pressure of portraying his family on film, the film’s strong message about family and much more!
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00:00Steven has a way of ending things that is so hopeful and so beautiful in every one of his movies.
00:19At what point does the excitement of getting cast in a Steven Spielberg movie
00:23meet up with the terrifying pressure of playing him in what is essentially an autobiography?
00:28When I show up, I'm folding every scene I'm in so to make sure what I have to prepare for,
00:33folding every page, and then I just stop folding it because it dawns on me
00:42that I'm going to be in every minute of the movie afterwards and that was very weird.
00:48Nobody told me that.
00:49Yeah, I think that's when it was, oh man, this is a big responsibility
00:55and I think that's when the big fear happened but then that's when the work happened too.
01:02I really also enjoyed the process on this film.
01:06It never kind of stopped learning, moving, changing, shifting.
01:11I think part of that was what Steven was searching for in the material
01:14and Steven and Tony talking and rewriting stuff and us all coming together.
01:19So that was always evolving including where maybe Paul meets Bert, meets Arnold too.
01:26I'm one of those guys that said, can't we, don't do it with him.
01:31He'll know a little bit better.
01:33So my trust was perfect.
01:36I mean absolutely, not only necessary but if you were there, you would trust this guy
01:42because not only does he know what he's talking about, it's his family and it's his person.
01:47So he owned the character and then said to me, would you share him with me?
01:52I mean that's not what he said but I can understand it and I thought, oh, move you.
01:59How's that? Okay.
02:01Make you feel something about something that you wrote and a man you knew.
02:07Tell me about him.
02:09No.
02:11That good?
02:12Yeah.
02:13Okay.
02:14So this is an actor's dream.
02:15Day to day, he's so entirely in the moment so he's really responding to,
02:19even though these are his parents, he hasn't laid out a plan for you to follow
02:25in order to be them and to please him.
02:29He is completely in the moment and responding to what's happening in front of him
02:33and so each take changes what he thinks he wants or what he wants you to try
02:37and then you find yourself in completely new territory
02:40because you're somewhere that you haven't planned.
02:43Everything that happens is Danny having a statement and it was him and Tony
02:48organized it in a way to write a script and to tell the story of a movie
02:53and using literary devices, whatever they do, but everything happened to him
02:59and so I just wanted to ask him everything about his life
03:03and what it was like for him growing up
03:05and I could really just understand what's going through his head,
03:10therefore the character, and half the times he would just want me to figure out
03:16but then we'd just talk about it and he'd tell me stories of what it was like
03:20for him growing up in Arizona with his sisters, his parents, his uncle,
03:24his whole perspective on life and the world.
03:28That's what I was really after and that helped me a lot.
03:30I just dove right into it.
03:32Yeah, it was a personal journey we were being invited to go on
03:39so it didn't seem inappropriate to ask pretty personal questions.
03:45I wanted to really dive into the specifics of the dynamics
03:53especially as we were playing different scenes,
03:55really at least having an internal understanding of where are we in this journey,
04:03in this scene, you know what I mean?
04:06And he really seemed to welcome it but also at the same time
04:12he made it very clear that he doesn't love talking to the actress about the scene
04:15so I would actually talk to Tony a lot.
04:17Because what's real doesn't matter, it's more like for the movie, you know?
04:21So he was more than happy.
04:23Yeah, I would talk to Tony for hours and hours and hours
04:27and he loved to talk about the scenes and Stephen was more...
04:31I asked him from the get-go and he was like,
04:33he doesn't love to talk to the actors about the scenes
04:35so I was like, okay, won't do that.
04:39Knowing you as someone who likes to work loose and with a lot of improv,
04:43I'm curious just to what degree you had to adjust the way that you worked on this movie
04:47especially knowing that Tony Kushner and Steven Spielberg wrote this essentially for you?
04:51I was in a movie Aaron Sorkin wrote,
04:54not a lot of improvisation on those sets I can confidently say.
04:59Probably less than on this one
05:02which did not have much, you know?
05:04But it's honestly, it's a pleasure.
05:08It's in a way the alleviation of a responsibility
05:14to not be asked to improvise
05:17and to just be told to say what is written
05:20and say it as though it's improvised
05:22but to not actually improvise it, you know?
05:25And when it's written by Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner,
05:27it's a lot easier to do that, you know?
05:29And often, you know, I think people are drawn to improv
05:33because it is at times making up for a lack of writing, you know?
05:38Which is not why we ever did it
05:40but I think that at times is why people feel as though they need to add stuff.
05:45But this was written very conversationally and very naturalistically
05:49and was a pleasure to say, you know?
05:51You're only in two scenes
05:53but the bombastic nature of the character
05:56plus just the lesson that he imparts to Samuel
05:58Sorry, but I'm in three.
05:59Sorry.
06:00There are a few scenes.
06:01There's the beginning, the middle, and the end.
06:03But I am curious just how, kind of, knowing the impression
06:06that Uncle Boris is going to have, is going to leave on Sammy,
06:09how does that ultimately impact your performance
06:12and your approach to the character?
06:13Well, it becomes a challenge to begin with, right?
06:15Why would you do it that way?
06:17Well, you know, it's almost like being asked to play a part
06:21that you don't really know how it's going to end in the other guy.
06:25And that's a question that went on forever, you know?
06:29So this man was necessarily brought in
06:35in the middle of a family situation
06:38to make this boy understand who he's going to be, right?
06:43Even if he doesn't know it.
06:45And if you looked at the face of poor Gabriel Labelle,
06:50if you looked at his face, you would never think it was going to work.
06:55It was almost like the firing squad was in his room.
06:58That's the part I really love so much.
07:00I just, it's almost hilarious, you know?
07:04I'm going to dance in front of your face until you get it,
07:07you know what I mean?
07:08And I was hoping that Stephen would go along with that much energy.
07:15And he's going like this.
07:18I loved it.
07:19To what level did you get the opportunity to talk,
07:22like director to director, with Steven Spielberg?
07:24And did this have an impact on you
07:27as far as just wanting to jump back into directing a feature film yourself?
07:31You know, yeah.
07:32I mean, what's funny is like early in my career,
07:35the first times I met was as a writer.
07:37Like I was a much more,
07:39like I was kind of more sought out as a writer than an actor.
07:42Like, you know, when I was first going on meetings with people like Stephen,
07:45you know?
07:46And so, and that's what's really nice is I think they,
07:50a lot of these people that I've known,
07:52I've known him a long time in some capacity,
07:54kind of know me as a, you know,
07:55someone who works more behind the scenes than in front of them often,
07:58you know?
07:59So it was incredibly instructional and he was outwardly,
08:06you know, yeah, like articulating his process,
08:09why he was doing it.
08:10And I would ask him a million questions.
08:12I would just kind of, you know,
08:15bombard him with questions about why we were doing what we were doing.
08:18Why'd you do that?
08:19Why'd you move the shot there?
08:20Why'd you decide to do that?
08:21And yeah, it was not something I was going to like squander,
08:26like the opportunity to really like absorb as much as I could from him and,
08:31and the crew and, you know, Rick Carter and, you know, Janusz.
08:35I got to work with him on another film, but,
08:37so I kind of remained friends with him over the years, but like, yeah,
08:40just really getting to ask everyone a million questions all day.
08:44It was really fun and it was great working.
08:46It's a very engaged set.
08:48Sometimes you work on a set and it feels like the movie is one of several
08:52things that is happening.
08:53That set is not like that.
08:55Everyone's really,
08:56every conversation's about the movie that's taking place basically,
08:59which I like.
09:00You know, he's been working with a lot of the same crew for a very long time
09:02and they were saying to me that this was different than any other one.
09:07So I think we were, you know, on a special one, yeah.
09:12What was your favorite part?
09:18Yeah.