Joshua Leonard on The Lie, Directing Himself and His Decade-Plus at Sundance

And they do so through a very intriguing confrontation. How did you approach that moment as an actor and a director alongside Jess Weixler?

I guess very simply, to me, in terms of structuring the story when we were originally writing it out. And then as we were careening toward it in the arc of the film, the intention was always: Here's a movie about a group of people who, for better or for worse, live with a certain level of dishonesty in their lives -- most of the time. To varying degrees, I hope that people can relate to that. I can certainly relate to that. Whether you're a liar and you go around telling these overt lies, or you've made a decision that omitting certain truths makes your life easier... That one I think more often than not we're guilty of. So you've got a story acknowledging these various levels of dishonesty that these people live with on a day-to-day basis. And the movie is set up to present a situation whereby the stakes are so high that there is no choice but to tell the truth. If you wanted to look at it structurally like that, it's a movie where people lie for two acts and tell truth for one.

You have another film at Sundance as well, appearing in Higher Ground. What's your contribution to that?

Higher Ground is Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, and it's funny, because I went almost directly from directing myself in The Lie to acting in Vera's movie, where she was directing herself.

Exactly. Did she solicit your advice and counsel?

I tried! She didn't need my help. She knows what she's doing, that woman.

The world knows virtually nothing else about it. What's your role?

The protagonist is Vera's character, who's this woman who spend her entire life grappling with her faith. After a near-death experience, her child kind of goes headlong into a fairly fundamentalist Christian sect. It tells the story of the pros and the cons of living that life. The movie takes place from the 1950s, I think, to the mid-'90s. There are two actors you play the young versions of Vera and I as kids and then as teenagers, and then starting in the '70s, Vera and I take over. I play her husband.

It's kind of hard to believe now, but your relationship with Sundance goes back over a decade now, right? To The Blair Witch Project?

Actually, my very first time at Sundance I was there as an editorial photographer for Black Book in '98 -- the year before Blair With Project.

What are some of your highlights from attending over the years, and what does it mean to debut The Lie there?

Sundance for me started out, when I was there in the late '90s, as a club that I really wanted to join. [Laughs] I was surrounded by all these people who really inspired me to make films. You know -- the Hal Hartleys, the Nick Gomezes, the Allison Anderses. I didn't grow up on a diet of '70s cinema; I grew up on multiplex cinema. And so really, my first exposure to independent film was through the American independent directors of the early '90s. I guess it's like a kid who want to be a musician and has a lot of attitude and a lot of angst -- but no skills -- hears punk rock and feels like, "OK, there's a place for me in that, because it's more about what I think and I feel." It's not as gilded. And that's what I thought of independent cinema at that time.

But I was also a kid in my early '20s, and very much just showed up as a fan as much as anything. And then Blair Witch happened, and that really allowed me to get a small toe in the door and continue to work and mentor with people and continue to learn. And it's really been this really wonderful touch-base over the years. I've been back with three or four acting projects. I had my directorial debut -- which was a short film [The Youth in Us] -- go there in 2005. We were back with Humpday in 2009, and back there with my narrative feature debut in 2011. I guess where that's really changed is that much like you can go back to your elementary school and really have that sense memory feeling of what it was like to be a kid there, there are hills and venues and theater staircases at Sundance that I very palpably remember. I remember what it was like to be 12 years younger and show up not knowing anyone or really anything, just that I wanted to find a place in this community. I go back this year, and to some extent I still have mentors there. I still feel like I have a long way to go. But at the same time I still have a ton of peers there. I have a lot of solidarity and relationships with other filmmakers who have films at Sundance this year. I feel like I am very much finally part of that community, and that's a pretty great feeling.

And there will be new filmmakers there this weekend going through the same experiences you had over a decade ago. If you could offer one piece of advice to them to make the most of Sundance, what would it be?

I don't know how clichéd this answer is, but in my relatively short time doing this, I've found that there are highs and there are lows, and success comes and goes, and the one thing that sustains you is the work. And part of what helps to sustain the work is having the camaraderie of people around you who are having similar struggles. I would say that the vast majority of my collaborators and my friends at this point are people I've met at film festivals.

There's a lot of pressure to go in and stand out, and I think there's this awful kind of "success poverty" mentality that one can fall into -- a situation whereby [filmmakers] have to succeed. There's only so much success that can happen, and if somebody else is succeeding, then that means that they're not. I find that to be absolutely not the case. I think that going and supporting your fellow filmmakers and making those friendships are really the things that I have personally taken away from the festival and kept over the course of the years.

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