Mark Duplass is an actor best known for his role in television's "The League" and a director/producer made famous by "The Puffy Chair" – a film he made with his brother Jay.
He produced and stars in a new film in theatres now – "The One I Love."
KUT's Laura Rice had a chance to talk with Duplass about the film, about his ties to Austin and about one of his heroes: Austin-based filmmaker Richard Linklater.
Mark on Austin:
"I went to the University of Texas in the mid nineties and kind of cut my teeth as a filmmaker in this town. I ate a lot of tacos in this town and I continue to eat tacos in this town. And when we talked about where we wanted to release this film, I wanted to release it in places that have great cinephiles and people who love interesting and odd and challenging cinema. And this is not only the place that birthed me as a filmmaker but has great great viewers."
Mark on Richard Linklater:
"My brother went to UT and he's a couple of years older than me and Jay (my brother) was my first hero. I used to fly here once a month while I was in high school and it was when "Slacker" was playing at the Dobie Theatre at midnight and we would go and watch it and we would see the filmmakers in the audience and then, every now and then, Rick Linklater would show up and do Q&As. And he would wear a ratty t-shirt and jeans. And I was like, 'wait a minute, he's not like smoking a cigarette and wearing a beret. This dude's a filmmaker? He looks and feels like me.' And he gave me the hope and the courage to feel like I could make a movie too. So I immediately wanted to come here and he remains one of my heroes today."
Mark on The Secret of 'The One I Love':
"I think the best way to go into this movie we've discovered is not knowing what the crazy things that happen are. We premiered this movie at Sundance earlier this year and we just assumed that, as the reviews came out, people would spoil the plot and spoil the surprises and we kind of accepted that. And something interesting happened, which is the first few reviews came out and they were like, 'we love this movie, we went in cold, so we're not going to tell you what it's about because we want you to go in the same way we did.'.... So how do you get people to come see the movie if you don't tell them what it's about. And that is a great question and we're still figuring that out."
Director Charlie McDowell on the Improvisation in 'The One I Love':
"I am able to say this is the movie I wanted to make and I wasn't sure necessarily how to verbalize it because it's not a movie that fits in a specific box but it was an instinct and an intuition that I think we all had. And it was the movie that we wanted to make. And I think it's about taking a storyline and a relationship idea that people can connect to and draw parallels to their own lives but then we go in a different way and we give you a different side to it and something that hopefully feels original and something that we haven't seen before."
Charlie on Not Providing All the Answers to the Film's Questions:
"There's a really nerdy Bible on our computers that have explanations for everything. And that was really just for us to be able to not break the rules. Because we had to set some sort of rules so that we weren't just in crazy-land."
Hear our full interview with director Charlie McDowell:
