Director Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way showcases his talents at helming screwball comedies.
In it, we meet Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson), a theater director who has a penchant for call girls. While readying for his next play, Arnold spends the night in an NYC hotel with Isabella (Imogen Poots), and falls for her charms. He ends up giving her $30,000 so she can stop being a call girl and pursue the acting career she desperately wants. But when Isabella ends up landing a big role in the play Arnold is directing, all hell breaks loose, especially because Arnold’s wife (Kathryn Hahn) is also starring in the play. The film also stars Jennifer Aniston, Rhys Ifans and Will Forte.
With his first feature film since the 2001 drama The Cat’s Meow, Bogdanovich said it was pretty easy to get back on the big-screen bandwagon. “I’ve made a few comedies,” he deadpanned. That’s an understatement. The director helmed some of the best, including What’s Up, Doc?, Paper Moon and They All Laughed, along with the stellar drama The Last Picture Show.
I sat down with the 76-year-old to talk about She’s Funny That Way and to get his thoughts about filmmaking today and hear some wonderful quotes and stories from his long career, not only making movies but as a film historian.
On the story about giving money to escorts in real life:
Peter Bogdanovich: “I did something like that in Singapore when we are making a picture down there. The movie was about an American pimp in Singapore called Saint Jack. I met a lot of escorts and madams and pimps, and we cast one madam and three girls. And I got to know them. Two of them really made me sad because they had been truly screwed over. So I gave them extra money if they would go home and stop being escorts. And they did. I lost touch with them but they did stop.”
On the inspiration behind the script, which he wrote 15 years ago with former wife, Louise Stratten:
Bogdanovich: “So after that for years I thought it would be funny to do a script about a screwball comedy about somebody who gives money to a call girl not to be a call girl. So we thought maybe it would be funny if it were a director but then she gets cast in his play. I don’t remember how it involved but that’s how it got started. We were going through a difficult time. We both said, ‘Let’s try to cheer ourselves up.’ And that’s what we did.”
On Owen Wilson:
Bogdanovich: “I had become friends with Owen after we binge watched TV shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. So I sent him the script and asked if he wanted to do it. It’s kind of rare but he’s a real old-fashioned movie star. He has a personality that comes across.”
On casting Imogen Poots:
Bogdanovich: “I had never met her before but she was on the list with five other girls about the same age, up-and-comers. I met with four of them in Los Angeles. But then I went to New York and Imogen flew up from Atlanta. We met at the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel. She was just unusual. She was quirky and oddball and likable. But she did she wasn’t trying to be quirky like some actresses. She wasn’t putting on airs or tried to be eccentric; she just was. The fact that her qualities were so unusual I just thought she’d be great for the part. Within 15 minutes I told her she got the part but not to tell anybody. She did brilliantly.”
On all the great cameos like Tatum O’Neal, who played a waitress:
Bogdanovich: “We had a few didn’t we? On Tatum, when we finished shooting Paper Moon, she was 9. When we were all done I asked her, ‘So how do you feel about acting, Tatum? Do you want to do it again?’ She said, ‘No, I don’t want to play big parts maybe just a waitress or something.’”
On movies today:
Bogdanovich: “Some of these big blockbusters make me ill. I’m not a big fan of special effects. They’ve proven they can do anything. They can have a guy flying around New York making cobwebs. Dinosaurs, and that movie with the fake tiger. Okay, that’s great, they can do it, but why would I want to see a fake tiger? Robert Graves once said that before he writes a poem, he asked himself, ‘Is this poem necessary?’ If it wasn’t, he didn’t write it. I just wish people would say, ‘Is this movie necessary?’ Because it cost a lot more money to make a movie than to write a poem.”
On stories he’s heard from other directors:
Bogdanovich: “I like something [French director] Jean Renoir once said to me. He said [in a French accent] ‘When you make a picture, you should not gather around your associates or collaborators. But conspirators.’ I love that because there should be something illegal about it.
I remember another thing [director] Leo McCary (An Affair to Remember) told me on his deathbed. He said he made a picture in 1917 or 18, and he was sitting on the steps at Universal, in front of the projection room, to show it to the executives. John Ford walked up and said, ‘How you doing, Leo?’ Leo said, ‘Jack, I don’t feel so good… I just made my first picture and it’s not very good. I’ve got to show it to the execs.’ And Ford said, ‘I’ll tell you what… I just made a pretty good one. Why don’t you show it to them and say it’s yours?’ And McCary said he always regretted not doing that. Because it’s the perfect way to enter the motion picture business. With a touch of larceny.”
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