Aaron Schimberg programmed a movie sequence at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that he was hardly in a position to see. “The whole reason I programmed them in 35 [millimeter] is so that I could go see it,” he laughs. But as an alternative of watching Opening Night or The Elephant Man or The Driller Killer, he’s in the A24 workplace in Midtown selling A Different Man, his newest genre-defying movie which stars Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, and Adam Pearson.
Stan stars as Edward, a man residing with neurofibromatosis who undergoes an experimental process that leaves him wanting like, properly, Sebastian Stan. A Different Man strikes between science-fiction, comedy, and romance to plumb Edward’s psyche as he finds himself more and more shut out from the life that he as soon as dreamed of.
But whereas the movie has a satirical streak and generally feels allegorical, for its director, it’s private. In dialog with The A.V. Club, Schimberg discusses how his profession and his relationship together with his physique helped encourage A Different Man, and why he rejects the studying of the movie as a parable.
The A.V. Club: A Different Man has been doing a competition run for a few months. Have you observed any change in how audiences have obtained the movie over time? Have you come to view it any in a different way?
Aaron Schimberg: Well, it premiered 9 months in the past, or each time it was, at Sundance. And then it performed at Berlin, however since then, aside from a few staggered screenings, A24 has variety of laid low with it. So, I haven’t been continuously going to festivals, and in reality I haven’t seen the film since Berlin. Eight months, or no matter. There have been staggered screenings in Europe, however I haven’t observed the evolution but of the way it’s being perceived as a result of it actually has been quiet for the final half yr.
AVC: I’m shocked by how quiet it’s been.
AS: (winces, then laughs) It’s a little nerve-racking.
AVC: I watched your earlier movie Chained For Life final evening, which additionally stars Adam Pearson. Did you wish to make one other movie with him once you got here up with this concept?
AS: Absolutely. That was one of the beginning factors of the movie. Partially, I simply needed to work with him once more. Beyond that, I felt his efficiency was underrated in Chained For Life as a result of folks assumed he was taking part in himself. Generally, folks with facial disfigurements, they’re normally shy characters in movies, but additionally Adam had performed a shy character in Under The Skin, so I believe that it was kind of assumed that this was all he might do. And Adam is a very extroverted particular person—way over I'm—and that opened a kind of door for me to indicate a character that I had by no means actually seen on movie earlier than. In reality, I've a cleft palate, and generally blaming my very own social anxiousness and shyness on that, it opened up prospects for myself as properly. Like, might I've been completely different? Could I've been a completely different variety of particular person? This kind of identification disaster was one inspiration behind the movie. And I needed to indicate off Adam’s vary and present a completely different facet of him. So completely, there is no such thing as a Different Man with out my figuring out him and being impressed by him.
AVC: Watching Chained For Life, I caught the line “They ask to see my face just so they can turn away in horror,” which can also be in A Different Man.
AS: Yeah. I didn’t wanna reuse it. It was kind of a placeholder in the script. [laughs] I simply used this quote and I kind of forgot to take it out, so now it’s in there.
AVC: I wasn’t certain when you have been making an attempt to attach the motion pictures.
AS: No, I wasn’t. They are actually related inherently simply by my curiosity in the topic. And I do suppose that they’re related in deeper methods, too. For one factor, Chained For Life didn’t do very properly. I kind of questioned why that was and I had a sense—not accountable it on this… it was a well-reviewed film, nevertheless it didn’t get seen. It wasn’t seen by a lot of folks. And I had a sense that it was marginalized as a result of of the material, which, you realize, was ironic as a result of folks with disabilities and disfigurements are marginalized. I at all times needed to kind of break by that, however I felt that I couldn’t do this simply by making a film about the topic. You know, was I writing myself into a nook?
Part of A Different Man was me fascinated with, how can I write about the topic in a method that may, for lack of a higher phrase, be extra palatable or industrial with out compromising what I’m making an attempt to say? So one concept was: I would like a Hollywood star. But I don’t wish to solid some Hollywood star as somebody with a disfigurement. I’ve at all times needed to indicate folks with disfigurements—I needed correct illustration. At the identical time, some folks—not many, however some—once they noticed Chained For Life mentioned that the very presence of Adam in my movie was exploitative. That I’m not allowed to make use of anyone with a disfigurement, which is counter to what we expect of as illustration. So it was actually like there was no strategy to win.
But all of this led to this movie, as a result of I took all these opposing concepts and I mentioned, “Well, okay, I’ll do both. I’ll put somebody playing somebody with a disfigurement and somebody with a disfigurement in a film together and I’ll have them battle it out.” It additionally allowed me to solid Sebastian Stan. It got here collectively in these alternative ways. I used to be kind of analyzing methods to work round this. I imply, you must work round the viewers’s prejudices, not solely about disfigurement, however about movies about disfigurement, as a result of normally these movies take one or two varieties that we’re all conversant in. The melodrama, or the horror film, or no matter. I needed to work by all that, and the movie is actively working by it even all through the operating time.
AVC: How a lot of the Edward play in the movie is you commenting on the expertise of getting these different movies made?
AS: It is about that, in some sense, nevertheless it was actually impressed by… one preliminary concept for this movie, I don’t know when you’ve seen this film Wonder, however I watched this film which had some child who was in prosthetics taking part in a disfigured boy. I watched it, and I had combined emotions about the movie. But I went again and I examine the writer of the guide, and he or she tells the origin story of the guide. She’s in an ice cream store along with her son they usually noticed this child with a disfigurement and the son overreacted and he or she didn’t know what to do and he or she felt unhealthy and felt like she was failing as a guardian and didn’t know methods to deal with it. So she went residence and he or she wrote this guide.
I began to consider a story about a child with a disfigurement who’s watching the trailer for Wonder or a Wonder-like movie and he’s a boy who seems to be similar to him and thinks, “That’s me. I’m the kid in the ice cream shop.” But he by no means will get any credit score for it. And he kind of turns into obsessive about, “Oh, everyone’s talking about this global phenomenon.” (In my movie it turns into a international phenomenon.) “They’re treating this fictional character like he’s this great person, but I’m still being treated the way I’ve always been treated.”
And so then the writer goes on a discuss present, and he or she brings this different boy on who additionally has a disfigurement however seems to be a lot much less like the character than he does, and so it’s this different character who says, “It’s based on me!” And she says, “yeah, this is the boy from the ice cream shop.” This child senses it’s not true… I began happening this rabbit gap and pondering that is what my subsequent movie was going to be about, nevertheless it was a little summary or obscure, I didn’t know if folks might relate to this rabbit gap my mind was happening. But the play, Edward in the movie, was a model of this concept.
AVC: In A Different Man and your earlier work, there’s an aesthetic timelessness. It’s modern, nevertheless it’s shot on movie, the trend is a little ‘70s, there’s not actually seen expertise in the image nevertheless it’s not not half of the image both. What’s the thought course of behind that?
AS: There’s not an energetic thought course of. Some of it comes out of my aesthetic preferences. I are likely to desire extra earth tones and stuff like that, so the shade palette comes out of my aesthetic preferences. I predate cell telephones and I predate computer systems. When you begin to add telephones into a story, it usually turns into, “How do you deal with this?” You know, they will simply look it up on Wikipedia after which there’s no plot of the movie anymore. So I attempt to simply keep away from it as greatest I can. Mostly, so I can simply let the story unfold with out these technological issues getting in the method. If the story was coping with expertise or if it was helpful, I wouldn’t keep away from it. But I don’t make a acutely aware effort, I wouldn’t say, to make this seem like the ‘70s or ‘80s or whatever. I’m taking a look at varied costumes and saying, “This is what appeals to me.” It simply kind of comes out of who I'm and my preferences.
AVC: A Different Man is opening round the identical time as The Substance. I don’t know when you’ve had a likelihood to see it.
AS: I haven’t seen it but.
AVC: Very completely different movies, however each involved with somebody selecting to do one thing to their physique to make them extra conventionally engaging. It’s uncommon to see this want from a man’s level of view.
AS: I didn’t give it some thought in that sense. I suppose I considered it in my very own self-consciousness and the indisputable fact that I, having a cleft palate, had many surgical procedures as a little one. I’ve had over 60, 70 surgical procedures, and I’ve seen my look change over time, usually with out my blessing. Quite a bit of this occurred after I was a child, and it kind of left a mark on me… The face I see in the mirror, on one hand, it’s my face, however on the different, it’s a face that’s been created by medical doctors. I don’t know what I used to be alleged to seem like, or is that this what I used to be alleged to seem like? If I had been born 10 years later, 20 years later, with medical developments, would I look a little higher? These are questions which might be very private to me, so I’m coming at it not from a masculine level of view, essentially, however simply from questioning my very own identification and the way this has affected me. It’s private, in that regard.
AVC: But you additionally embody a quantity of literary references: Beauty And The Beast, The Bluest Eye, Jekyll And Hyde. I walked out pondering of it as a parable, and I don’t suppose I used to be the just one. What do you make of that interpretation?
AS: Many folks do, however to me, it’s not actually a moral query. I’m not fascinated with it in these phrases. I make a very acutely aware alternative that when the physician is telling him about this surgical procedure, he’s saying, “You have to do this for health reasons.” It’s not actually a query of doing it as a result of he’s useless—he has to do that as a result of the physician is telling him to do that. He’s not making a moral alternative. To me, it’s not a cautionary story. It’s actually attainable that somebody would get this fictional process executed and really feel in a different way about it and are available out the higher for it, or the worse for it. I used to be actually fascinated with Edward. The story is about this particular person. I don’t even know that I believe of the transformation as the predominant occasion of the movie. To me it illuminates sure issues about him and the method that he feels about himself as a result of of the method that he’s been handled and the method that he’s not in a position to change that. To me it’s not a fable or a moral story in that sense, however it may be seen that method and many individuals view it that method. But I’m not fascinated with a lesson or how I can illuminate the viewers. I don’t know. I’m solely exploring my very own emotions—usually ambiguous or contradictory emotions—about this stuff. It’s not for me to inform anyone how to consider this. I’m actually involved with Edward and what occurs to Edward.
AVC: Is this a matter you’d prefer to proceed to discover?
AS: I hope to make movies about different topics, for certain, however to me, it’s not a topic. It’s who I'm. There will at all times be some facet of these points in my movies. I've no plans proper now to make a movie straight about this topic, however I wouldn’t be shocked if that occurs, if I get to proceed making movies. But my subsequent movie, for example, the one which I’m writing, it’s not about this. At the identical time, if I give it some thought, there are particular facets of this theme which might be woven into it. Just inherently. I really feel prefer it’s half of me, so it’s half of the movies that I make.
AVC: Can you say what the subsequent one is about, or is it too early?
AS: All I can say is that it’s a father-daughter story.
