Andrew Bujalski has returned to the director's chair for his new comedy Results, which has just been released on DVD.

Andrew Bujalski

Andrew Bujalski

Results sees Bujalski on writing duties as well as being in the director's chair and is the first movie for the filmmaker since Computer Chess back in 2013.

We caught up with the director to chat about the movie, bringing together a cast that includes Guy Pearce, Kevin Corrigan, and Cobie Smulders, and what lies ahead.

- Results is your latest movie, so can you tell me a bit about it for those who may not have seen it yet?

Oh boy, you are starting with the hard questions. I am terrible at these (laughs). It is an oddball romantic comedy and I think it diverges from the most entrenched bits of formula. It is about the world of personal trainers and self-improvement cultures - especially American self-improvement culture.

I think there is a very specific strain of it here in Austin, Texas where I live that is funny to me and seemed a good fit to some of these actors that I decided to work with. I did write the script with Guy Pearce in mind because he was a teenage bodybuilder and I thought it would be a lot of fun to see him in that role.

- Results sees you back in the director's chair and you've penned the screenplay, so where did this project start for you? What sparked the idea for the story?

It really did start with me trying to crack... I had done four movies with none-professional actors, which was a very happy way for me to work and was certainly a comfort zone. It seemed like it was a fine time for me to try and crack this problem of what to do with professionals.

I did think very specifically of Guy, who I had met for breakfast a couple of years earlier and really enjoyed. Kevin Corrigan is an actor that I have been a big fan of for twenty years and have been friendly with for a few years. Once I imagined them the two of them sharing any movie at all, I was already amusing myself because it seemed like such an unlikely combination.

- Can you talk a little about your writing process - do you start with character first or build the story?

I think it depends on the project. In this case it began with characters and then trying to figure out how they fit together. For me, writing has always been fairly intuitive in as much as there are certain images and ideas that seem important, I seem drawn to, and think should be in there for some reason. I don't necessarily know why they need to be in there but it is that whole process of teasing these things out and trying to understand what my own subconscious is putting together.

- Results is also a more mainstream and bigger budget film than we have seen you make in the past so how different was this process than making a small indie film?

By professional standards it would still be considered quite small and scrappy but it just meant that there were more people around (laughs). Military metaphors get thrown around a lot in filmmaking with people calling small crews 'guerrilla crews' and that always seemed very apt to me. The main thing that changed it that it didn't feel quite so guerrilla.

It didn't feel like I was running around the jungle improvising and felt more like I had to adapt to this general job of sitting behind a desk and giving people orders; which is a different sort of job. So there was that adaptation. On the other hand, once you actually get in there and get the camera rolling, the job is very much the same.

- You have brought together an impressive cast and have already mentioned Guy Pearce and Kevin Corrigan but Cobie Smulders and Giovanni Ribisi are also on board. Can you talk a bit about the casting process?

I think I got really lucky to get their attention and to lure them down here. Cobie was certainly a huge piece of good fortune for the movie. I had written the script with Guy and Kevin in mind and I had written this third lead character but had no idea who was going to play that. I knew I needed a very different sort of energy to balance out what I was imagining from Guy and Kevin.

I needed someone who was both very warm and very ... someone who had an approachability but could also be quite explosive and quite tough. We looked at a lot of people and thought about a lot of names. Because Cobie's work has primarily been in things that are hugely successful, such as How I Met Your Mother and the Marvel movies, I didn't know her and hadn't seen any of these things. We had a Skype conversation and I really liked her and was charmed by her. We got together in Los Angeles and did a little screen test and it was immediately apparent that we could speak the same language and that she could make this character work.

It is a very exciting feeling when you are in that situation where you try and run something with somebody and it comes alive before your eyes and you are like 'ok, we have a movie here.' I was very lucky to get her to come and do it. I think I also caught her at a good time in her life and she was excited to take a chance on an oddball little thing.

- There's a great chemistry between Guy, Kevin, and Cobie, so is that something that was there from the beginning? And how did you find working with the three of them?

They are all very sweet and easy to work with. I was certainly nervous because, in the past, while I have not exclusively directed friends, they were not professional. It is very easy to find the people who are fun and pleasant to work with and prioritise that but with professionals, you never quite know until they get there. There are certainly stories of people showing up and being very difficult.

With a film that was as low budget and as low profile as this was, there was not much reason for people like Guy, Kevin, Cobie and Giovanni to be there unless they were genuinely excited about the project. They were all just a delight to work with, I felt very lucky, and they were fun people. They had an incredible energy. There's something about showpeople and I would marvel sometimes as I would look at them and think 'they could be doing a lot of things with their lives at this moment and be out at fancy dinners with fancy people.' Sometimes you can tell that they are at their happiest when they are on this chaotic and crazy set because that is their home.

- The movie has had a theatrical run and is now out on home release so how have you been finding the response to the film?

I think everything that I have done with always have... it's funny to me how similar the responses have been to my more clearly indie stuff; some people really get it and go with it and some people haven't. I have learnt with this film that even when I try to do something that is, in some ways, a very approachable romantic comedy that I hope is good fun, it is always going to come out a little strange (laughs). The people who enjoy that will have a good time and then there are some folks that don't like strange things and there are plenty of other movies out there for them.

- You have also worked in front of the camera and appeared in some of your own movies. How do you feel that this helps you as a filmmaker?

When I teach, I certainly advise my students to try acting because it is an incredible education in insecurity and anxiety. It is quite a thing to be in front of a camera and you have to wrestle with a lot of internal struggle. I don't think that necessarily goes away. If you are a first time actor or have been doing it for twenty years and are very good at it, that element of insecurity - which is fairly necessary for an actor to be good and be really alert and alive in front of the camera - never goes away.

It has been very valuable to me to experience that. I am not a good actor, I don't necessarily have the fortitude to keep wrestling with that insecurity and I would rather stay behind the camera. It has been quite an educational experience.

- Finally, what's next for you as we head to the end of 2015?

Just trying to survive. I am working on a television pilot script, teaching, raising my kids and thinking about the movies that I want to make.

Results is out now on DVD.


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