Writing a story starts out as a puzzle in your mind, of "What is it I'm fantasizing about right now that makes me think this is going to be worth years of work?" And you just keep pushing and trying to figure it out, and once you've hit on these resonances... Then as a screenwriter, it can be dangerous if you get too hooked on just finding things that resonate with each other, because then you risk getting into stuff that's too neat, and becomes stifled as storytelling. But you do feel like you're on the right track when you start to have a sense of what goes with what.
Andrew BujalskiOn one hand, I kind of feel like I have unlimited options right now, and obviously that's not technically true, but when you're at this place where you're just kind of dreaming up stuff, your imagination is your limit. That's where I'm at, which is great, but ultimately I think you have to make these decisions to close off some options to yourself. I think things only get done when you say, "This is the one thing I'm doing," and you kind of kill the other ones in the meantime. So I haven't done that yet, I've got to figure that out.
Andrew BujalskiI don't want to take shots at professional actors, because obviously the great ones are great. But I do think that given the kind of stories I've been telling in my films, it's hard for me to imagine how professional actors would have done better. And it's easy for me to imagine how they would have done worse. Because I think a lot of what an actor is trained to do and a lot of what an actor's instincts point toward is clarification, is always making it clear what's happening in the story, how the character fits into the scene, what the character wants.
Andrew BujalskiIt's always a struggle with small films to get people in the theater. I think I have a perverse contrarian streak that's always kind of aspired to make movies that are impossible to market.
Andrew BujalskiWhat will always be possible is for someone to walk into a dark room and experience a film and connect to it. And that's why I make my films - for people to go and have that experience. That's really the whole dream for me, so that hasn't gone anywhere. What has gone somewhere is making the numbers add up on each side of it. And who knows? I've had all kinds of freak-outs. I got married recently, and my wife listened to me go off the other day on this fear that maybe our culture has just moved beyond art entirely. Maybe we don't need it anymore.
Andrew BujalskiI want the pleasures of the real exploitation movie, and exploitation has changed so much in 40 years. Plenty of people grow up with this fantasy of, "We're going to do it like Roger Corman did it," as that sounds so fun. If you make something small, goofy and exploitative, it's nowhere near the guaranteed moneymaker it might have been 40 years ago. If you look at the way the world works now and money is made, it doesn't seem that fun. Maybe that's just a mental block I have and I need to get over that and find that corner where you can make money and still have a good movie.
Andrew BujalskiI'd love to do a really cheap action movie. I'd love to do stunts. I mean, not myself. I'd hurt myself, but I'd love to direct others doing stunts. I think that would be a blast. The funny thing is, if I really think through this fantasy, I know that the way I conceive of doing an action movie would still lose money. No matter how far I think I'm getting away from myself, it always comes back to something that's not terribly commercial.
Andrew Bujalski