LOS ANGELES — Following the success of his offbeat comedy “Rubber” on the film festival circuit, French writer, director, and musician Quentin Dupieux has crafted an equally unique and odd movie titled “Wrong,” which he described to BLOUIN ARTINFO as a vehicle he used to look at “the absurdity of life.”
The story focuses on Dolph Springer (Jack Plotnick from “Reno 911”), who can’t find his dog. Devastated, he hunts for his missing four-legged friend and on his journey he comes into contact with a series of eccentric characters that cause him to spiral into insanity.
The outlandish humor prevalent throughout the unconventional indie film might not work for mainstream audiences, but Dupieux, known as electronic recording artist Mr. Oizo in music circles, is acutely aware that he’s not making movies for everyone – and he prefers it that way.
Dupieux spoke with BLOUIN ARTINFO about his latest project, which opens in theaters Friday, and why he likes making smaller films.
Why do you like to shoot in the U.S. versus France?
Yes, mainly for the actors I have to say. There is something about the actors here. First when they say “yes,” they come for real. They won’t come with their ego. When someone says yes, even someone famous, they come on the set and they are ready. They know the lines and the script and are focused. They just want to do it. This is priceless for the director and I only find this here in the U.S. It’s very different from France.
How so?
In France there is a lot more emotion involved. You have to make friends with the actor. You have to be nice to them. You have to talk to them a lot to make them feel comfortable. You have to take care of them on the shoot. It’s complicated. The American actor from my experience is always focused. I don’t have to explain everything everyday. That’s what I like here.
Given the fact that this is a small indie film and not a huge summer blockbuster with A-list names, how challenging is it to get a movie like this made?
I don’t need a lot of money to shoot this. I think my movie costs half the day of “G.I. Joe.” I’m not even joking. With half the day of “G.I. Joe”’s money you can make a film. We only shoot for 22 days and it’s super cheap. I’m making very small movies, but that’s what I like. I can do whatever I want and I don’t have to please the entire world. I’m not trying to reach 25 million viewers. I don’t really think about that.
The main character didn’t have any sort of normal interactions with anyone he encounters in the movie — not one. Talk about that aspect of the film.
I wanted to point out the absurdity of life. I know everything looks weird in my movie and every situation is not like real life, but that’s the point. I’m just trying to show life differently.
So would you say this is how you see life?
Of course, that’s part of everyday life. If you try to find meaning everywhere, you realize quickly there is no meaning.
Explain why Plotnick’s character went to work everyday after he was fired.
There are people who will die when you fire them so it’s the end of the world because you have your own reason for going to work everyday and then someone tells you you’re done. It’s very hard to find some new excitement I think.
Anytime you showed the office where he was formally employed it would be raining inside the building and the characters would be drenched. Why?
It was just to show the boring [part] of his life. It is terrible for a human being to go to a stupid job where you don’t care at all what you do. I was just trying to show how tedious office life can be. It’s just a funny way of showing boring. We never see what they’re doing. My guess would be a travel agency, but you don’t see the work. You don’t see what it’s about, but the rain was there to show you it was a boring job.
I understand you really like to explore the relationship between a man and his dog. Why is that subject so interesting for you?
It was a good way to talk about love without using a guy and a girl. I was trying to talk about what happens when love goes awry. The dog was good because I think when you own a dog and you love him, when [something happens and] he’s gone it’s terrible. You can’t do anything.
Can you talk about casting and how you decided on this group of actors?
Jack Plotnick had a small part in my movie “Rubber.” I really enjoyed working with him. He surprised me a lot. He was really funny. I only shot about three days with him on “Rubber,” and I was frustrated by that so I decided to write a movie for him. Then for Eric Judor, he’s a friend of mine and a very famous French actor.
I was reading you don’t like to have rehearsal time on your films. Why do you prefer that style of directing?
Because I like to keep it fresh. When you do rehearsals, you destroy the lines and you kill the magic and you have to work a lot to find the magic again. I experienced that the last time. When you work too much on dialogue or scenes you have to go through that process and remove the magic. My process you don’t touch it. It works. Usually we don’t do rehearsals and after three takes I get what I want.
And how did the actors feel about not having rehearsal time?
I’ve shot four movies in the U.S. and every time everyone enjoys it, but that doesn’t mean we’re not working. We’re trying different stuff and [we] talk about the character, but we shoot very fast. This way nobody gets bored and you don’t go crazy trying to find the perfect scene. I’ve been lucky that way. Everyone has been super happy to work on my sets.
“Wrong” is available on VOD and iTunes now and opens theatrically in select cities Friday, March 29. For a full list of screening locations and dates, click here.