In between interviews at the press junket for The Way, Way Back, writer/directors Jim Rash and Nat Faxon were in the hallway doing improv routines. I wish I had written down what they were doing, but I failed at my journalism duties in order to just enjoy a free comedy show. Then it was my turn to talk to the Academy Award-winning writers of The Descendents, and respective stars of “Community” and “Ben and Kate.” The Way Way Back stars Steve Carell as Trent, the potential new stepdad to Duncan (Liam James). On a summer trip with the family, Trent gives Duncan some bad advice, putting pressure on Duncan to measure up to Trent’s standards. However, Duncan finds a good surrogate family at a local water park where he takes a summer job. But first, I wanted to go back to the night we saw TV’s Jim Rash on stage at the Oscars sticking his leg out.
CraveOnline: Jim, I’ve been wanting to ask you for almost two years, what was that leg pose you were doing at the Oscars?
Jim Rash: I don’t know quite what it was. I think what happened was we knew going into it, with Alexander, we had sort of taken the reigns and spoken first. He’d speak first on our behalf at the Oscars. So I think just in that moment, when Angelina was up there sort of owning her dress and chuckling, I don’t know what went through my brain but then when we went up there, I realized who knows if we’re going to be up here again? We’re not going to speak and I thought, “Well, this is a way to sort of show off that I was owning this moment and proud.” So it felt like I just stole her look.
How long after the Oscars did the casts on your respective shows refer to you as Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash and Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon?
Nat Faxon: Not soon enough, not soon enough.
Jim Rash: It felt like they never said it.
Nat Faxon: Disrespectful.
I would like to call you Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon and Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash. May I?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: Thank you.
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: Thank you for asking permission.
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: It feels almost like the level of a Duke.
I was surprised The Way, Way Back was a script you had before The Descendants. Did you start writing again after The Descendants?
Nat Faxon: This was something we had written before The Descendants. This was something we wrote about eight years ago and it sort of got us the job for The Descendants. It kind of made its way around town, the script. While we were having trouble getting it made, it did sort of serve as a calling card in a way for us. It got us a meeting with Alexander Payne and Jim Burke and Jim Taylor and we were hired on to adapt the novel. Then after the success of The Descendants, we were able to come back to the script and use the momentum from that movie to make this movie.
How many scripts had you written before The Descendants?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: Movie-wise, just The Way, Way Back feature. We had written many, many pilots, only one of which went to pilot but at least three other development pilots.
When will you start writing again?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: Well, we already have. This is the task. We’re writing two things at the same time. We’re writing one thing for Kristin Wiig, an action comedy. Then in the Searchlight family we’re doing another sort of “pull from our lives’ dysfunction,” small movie, like a Way, Way Back style movie, for the producers who would be Alexander Payne, Jim Burke and Jim Taylor.
Directing The Way, Way Back did you ever feel you were missing the third voice that a separate director like Alexander Payne would bring?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: No, we had enough voices I think, between the two of us in our heads, to really satisfy that need. So no, I think it was collaborative though. Certainly we leaned on our department heads and we leaned on our supporting cast and crew for all types of things. We have each other so we hold hands and lean on each other.
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: I think most co-directors and co-writers just hold hands.
If this is pulled from your lives, one thing that impressed me was parents or stepparents communicating with their kids. The film is fair to both sides. Did you have good relationships with the adults in your lives that communication was more clear and open, whether they got along or not?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: I don’t know. I guess I see the disconnect in the movie. I understand obviously where they are, where the young adults seem like adults and the adults feel like young adults. I think looking back on where I was, I think we wanted to pull from that idea of blended families or struggling to go to that next chapter with the Pam character. That first scene was sort of ripped from my own life, having had that conversation with my stepdad. I’m curious whether I had those type of relationships with them. I felt a bit more independent.
Yeah, the first conversation is obviously misguided, but later when Trent is waiting up for Duncan, he’s at least trying to be present and not just an authority, which doesn’t work.
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: It’s weird, the message from the very beginning, like you said, is in Trent’s mind great advice. He’s saying, “Go out there,” like my own dad would say the same thing to me. “Take care of yourself. Meet people. Be something. Aspire to something greater.” Then that middle part is checking in and saying, “If this is going to work, stop testing me.” It is sort of a weird reminder of where we started, what I asked you to do and where we’re at and you’re making it worse because your mom’s worrying about you and I just want to have fun. With that, Duncan is sort of turned away from his mom and off into his new adventure, so in a weird way Trent’s words of wisdom, without tact, are exactly the journey he takes.
Was there really a legend of someone passing another kid on the water slide?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: No. That was a made up device for our film.
On the days you shot at the top of the slide, did you have to shut down that slide for the customers?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: We did. The park was open while we were shooting, just because of our limited budget. We did sort of take over areas, so a lot of the stuff that we shot on the Devil’s Peak slide, we did shut down that for days. But we also got the benefit of 600 free background people.
They might not have been cooperative if they wanted to use the slide that day, but were they?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: True. They were, for the most part, very respectful and we had signs up that sort of said what we were doing. The water park is family owned and they did a great job I think just trying to inform people. We also wanted people to be in the background of certain things and I think that was exciting maybe at certain moments. The whole breakdancing sequence, we were asking people, making announcements, like “Come over, be in our movie.”
