Last week I had the opportunity to interview actor Jason Ritter, you can see his work in the romantic comedy PETER AND VANDY, which premiered at Sundance ‘09 and it opens limited this weekend. Jason is the son of the late great John Ritter (TV’s Three’s Company), he also talks to me about his upcoming projects and the hard times that independent films are facing. Check out the complete interview after this jump…
RS: Does it worry you that some people might find PETER AND VANDY too realistic?
JR: It might but if it does, those people, there are plenty of movies for those types of people and I think for the people who do like this kind of movie, I think they’ll be excited that there’s an alternative to the movies for the other kind of people
RS: What was the most challenging part of the project?
JR: It was challenging, there was certainly a lot of dialogue and that was very specific. The most challenging thing about it is sort of the emotional, well not emotional, the anxiety I had before the film because it was not one that I could just sort of prepared on my own and come in and do it. I knew that I had to.. I hadn’t met Jess Weixler yet and I knew that the whole movie was going to either work or not based on our relationship or not necessarily that it would work but I knew that it would totally fail if I couldn’t get along, I was really nervous about that and I think the process of making the movie helped me to trust Jess and just listen to her and get into it, we really had a fantastic time making it
RS: How was Jay’s directing, being that this is his first feature, helpful to you as an actor?
JR: He was fantastic, I mean he knew the story inside and out because not only had he written and directed it as a play but he actually played my character Peter in the play, so he knew it really well and I was nervous because I thought at first that maybe he’d be directing me saying ‘when I did it, it was really brilliant and you should do it like I did it’ but he was really humble and he really let me do it my own way. He was a great director because he was an actor, he knew how to talk to me in a way that didn’t shut me down completely and make me feel like a failure, he was very encouraging.
RS: So what do you hope couples would get by watching PETER AND VANDY?
JR: I think, I hope that they can relate to them, we had a woman talk to us after a screening and she said that it made her fall in love with her husband again, which is as high a compliment as you can possibly get and I think the reason is because it’s ya know, these characters are not perfect, they have huge flaws and the one thing about them both is that at least they’re trying as hard as they can to be good people and stay in this relationship, I think that the nobility that comes with fighting it out and not just running away at the first sign of trouble, I think it’s really nice for people to see when so many movies are just about the initial falling in love, as a couple going to romantic movie, we can watch that and remember how great that period of our relationship was, but I think there’s something else that’s really nice about watching another couple fight it out and ‘well we didn’t ever get that bad’ or just because there’s a couple downtime doesn’t mean the relationship is disposable. Love is something is worth fighting for sometimes, it can be a battle but hopefully it’s worth the effort
RS: I think we can agree that the PB and J scene is probably the most memorable scene in the whole movie, how much of that did you guys improvise?
JR: That was all written, completely written, it was a funny scene. The irony is that Jess actually does use one knife to make a peanut butter jelly sandwich and I use two knives so you really have to dig deep in order to justify (laugh) but that was all written, there were only 2 improvised scenes in the whole movie but for the most part, Jay writes in a way that it sounds very naturalistic, people interrupting themselves, not completing sentences and al that kind of stuff
RS: In that same scene is also where your character Peter and Jess’ character Vandy hit their boiling point, they take out their anger on each other like never before, how did you prepare, acting wise, for such an explosive scene.
JR: It was a scene that we both had to…that’s when you really see us at our worst, when those explosive fights happen to a couple, they’ve been brewing for a while and it just all comes out in just one moment. So we couldn’t allow the scene to just be about the sandwich and the knife because it wouldn’t make sense that anyone would get that angry over that, so it was all about trying to bring as much history that we didn’t actually have but as much we could create in our minds into that theme so when we were yelling to each other, we were yelling for every single thing they ever did to disrespect us or hurt our feeling or somehow hold us down. So it was actually pretty kind of fun in a way
RS: Peter’s best friend, Paul, played by Jesse Martin is different from the typical best friends in other rom-com out there because best friends are usually the comic-relief. So what do Paul and his wife represent in relation to Peter and Vandy?
JR: I think that we all have something built into us, it might be some kind of ego survival tool that forces us to compare ourselves to everyone around us and judge our success and failure on them and so I think, ya know, for Peter and Vandy, they’re enjoying a good period of time in their relationship and they watch that couple and they both judge them and say like and ‘o they should definitely not be together, that is totally outrageous, you don’t talk to people like that’ and at the same time the audience might be doing that to them and saying ‘ o they should not talk to each other again’. Their purpose in the movie is sort of as a reflection of Peter and Vandy, who they could be, who they don’t want to be, who they might become. And yeah, a lot of times, the best friend is the comic relief and actually a lot of times I don’t necessarily find the friendship usually between the male lead and his best friend or the female lead and her best friend, I don’t really find it to be believable because their personalities are so different that I don’t understand how they got to be friends in the first place. Paul is a nice guy and he’s trying hard to be in a relationship and Peter also tries hard to be in a relationship and they have similar kind of value and maybe they stay in a relationship when it’s not doing so great but who are to judge if it all seems to be working on some level
RS: I asked Jess this question and I’m asking you the same to know what you think about it. When PETER AND VANDY premiered at Sundance ’09, there was another movie that came out during the same time and some start comparing your movie with 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, the whole non-linear timeline structure, and 2 people comically falling in love. What do you say to that response?
JR: It was interesting because I heard all that comparison, the non-linear time structure and everything and I didn’t get to see it at the Sundance and I actually missed it at a couple of other festivals that we were at with them. I finally saw it when it came out in the theater and I was surprised, I knew those 2 things are similar, 2 people falling in love and it’s a non-linear structure but other than that totally it’s really different, it’s sort of.. neither better nor worse, but it’s sort of a heightened reality in 500 Days of Summer, ya know with the dance sequences and the bird’s coming down. But also I think the main difference is that that’s a movie about falling in love and falling out of love. Our movie.. falling in love is included but it’s not the main thing, it’s the struggle that happens after you’ve fallen in love with someone, you’ve moved in together and you’re trying to start that second chapter. And also, 500 Days Of Summer tells you where you exactly where you are in the timeline, whereas our movie, it allows the audience to figure it out for themselves. They’re both fun movies, they’re just fun in different way.
RS: Is it fair to say that, knowing how the story ends, Peter is sort of like the villain?
JR: I don’t know, it’s been interesting. I think people bring their own things to it. I think that, we know, we had people root for our characters and feel like we should be together, we had people really dislike my character and think Vandy should be with someone who’s a little bit more mature. We had people who think Vandy was a bit overbearing and Peter should find someone who allows him to be who he is. So it’s really interesting because I feel like we put our own selves, when we watch any movie, we put ourselves in a position of who ever we’re watching and ‘o gosh I’m not like that’ or ‘o that is like me’. I totally am aware there’ll be some people who come away from the movie thinking that I’m the villain but it’s interesting that someone sitting 2 seats down from that same person will come away feeling like Peter was a pretty good guy
RS: What you can tell us about your upcoming projects?
JR: There’s a couple of movies that I’m trying to work out, one is a beautiful script called FOREVER that was supposed to film in Iowa but now the tax incentive has just been sort of taken away there, there’s a bunch of production in limbo, unfortunately that’s one of them. And then there’s another really fun script that I’m hoping will come together, it’s called ROBBING BINGO but it’s really difficult to find financing in this economy, it’s just a different time and people are being more hesitant especially about financing independent films which is an unfortunate development. You would think it would go the other way, you’d think Independent films are less risk and more possibility of getting something but people seem to be investing more and more in $20 Million movies feeling maybe well ya know, safety in numbers I guess, I don’t know but I hope that works out.
RS: When are we going to see THE DRY LAND? Great cast in that one, Melissa Leo, America Ferrera among others.
JR: That was a beautiful script, we shot that in Albuquerque, it’s basically about a guy who comes home from his tour in Iraq and is having a lot of trouble re-introducing himself into society. I play his best friend who just tries to pick up where they left off and can’t really do that. And also in his paranoia, he begins to think maybe while he was gone, my character has been having some kind of fling with his wife. My character is not really the villain in the film, he’s a protagonist and he sort of turns me into the villain. It’s a beautiful, beautiful script, I haven’t seen it but I can’t wait.
RS: Are you going to try to do any of comic book superhero movies?
JR: (laugh) I would love to do that. That is one of my dreams. I know all of the big ones have been taken. There’s still a whole universe out there of comic book characters and they’re all really cool and I would love to do that. But I think it would probably have to be more like a Spider-man type character than like a Batman or Superman. The alter ego needs to be not to be so cool in order for me to feel like I could do that (laugh)
