One of the few (if not the only) widely held highlights of Oscar night arrived at the beginning: The short film featuring hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco bouncing from dream to dream, Inception-style, eventually burrowing into Alec Baldwin's subconscious and inhabiting sequences from Best Picture nominees like True Grit, The Fighter, The King's Speech and Inception itself. The film set a near-perfect tone for light irony and even lighter hosts that the show would not sustain, but at least we have filmmaker Troy Miller to thank in part for getting the broadcast off on the right foot.
The writer-producer-director (pictured above right with Franco, Hathaway and writer Jordan Rubin) phoned this afternoon to chat about his latest work, the art of reverse-engineering comedy, and how his short's success might have slightly worked against his stars as hosts -- oh, and by the way, maybe lighten up on the Franco kid.
Thanks much for the call. I imagine you're in recuperation mode today?
Yeah, a little bit. It's kind of like after the storm comes through, we're kind of righting ourselves, cleaning everything up.
Where did the idea for the opening come from?
I think it probably cam from [producers] Don Mischer and Bruce Cohen. I've done about six of these, and maybe 10 MTV Movie Awards as well. I've kind of been the guy for the Oscars who comes in and does these things -- specifically with Billy, who's the guy who started it for the Academy Awards.
With Billy?
Yeah, Billy Crystal.
Oh, Billy. Sorry. Duh.
And that was based on what we'd done at the MTV Movie Awards in the few years previous. But this was just Bruce and Don wanting to get out there in a controlled situation and get some big jokes right away so the hosts can walk out to a welcoming crowd.
Going all the way back, how does one get this job in the first place?
I kind of made it. Years ago, back in the mid-'90s or early '90s, Joel Hodgson, Joel Gallen and I were doing the MTV Movie Awards, and we had this idea: How could we take the Brady Bunch and put them into films? And so it became A Few Good Men done with the Brady Bunch. And that evolved. I think we did Twister with Janeane Garofalo and Ben Stiller, and Billy saw that. We said, "Wow, we can blow it out even more with Billy Crystal" -- who really brought it to the forefront with the Academy Awards. And since then, you've seen it on so many other awards, it's become a mainstay.
Ultimately I think it just started in my living room with Joel Hodgson and I riffing on these actors and what we could do. I was such a fan of Steve Martin in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, and I think between that and Woody Allen's Zelig, all of us have a debt going back to those guys. They had really been able to repurpose film footage for comedy's sake.
Back to this year: There was a lot of talk before the show about this being a "younger" or "hipper" Oscars. Was that also part of your mandate in making the short?
Yeah. As your editing jokes and trying to get to a faster pace, certainly you are trying to go for... They keep saying "younger, hipper" demo, but ultimately you kind of, in a weird way, rule it out. It's the Oscars! It's the Academy Awards. There's a certain level of stature that you're going to have. We're not doing too many lowbrow jokes, we're not doing too many lowbrow jokes. We're maybe keeping it more centered. And I think that's for the show as a whole; that's how they wrote it. It's still younger than in the past from a joke standpoint, but you're kind of chained to the Oscar audience -- the people in the crowd, what their expectations are. It's still kind of conservative, I think.
What was the discussion like regarding which films were included and which were left out?
I think you go for the movies that the audience has an automatic recognition with. That's a lot of it from a writing standpoint: the jokes are done for us because those movies represent the set up and what we're doing is the payoff. You're kind of reverse engineering it. In True Grit, when Jeff Bridges says, "Much obliged," we had him responding to Franco saying, "I loved you in Tron." So you reverse engineer that joke, and that's what you have. Winter's Bone would have been great, and Toy Story 3... But you get to a certain point where you run out of screentime and jokes. This particular shot we have is well-known, identifiable, and it fits with our little B-story that carries it along.
What happened with the Grease clip that was cut? Was that originally part of this short?
Yeah, we were going to do it with more of those kinds of scenes, and then it just got shorter and shorter. The thing about Grease -- and at the end of the day it was probably my choice as much as anybody's to take it out -- was that tonally it didn't quite fit, and the runtime was getting past five minutes -- which, for an opening, even at that point, is too long. But I think it stands alone as a nice piece, and I'm happy the Academy has released it and people can still enjoy it. It just didn't seem to fit, wherein Back to the Future -- because we're still intercutting footage and we're still in James' and Anne's dreams as it were -- I think it's more appropriate.
How and when did Morgan Freeman and Alec Baldwin enter the picture?
Well, that was scheduling. Bruce was great about getting us cast and supporting that, and he was able to get both those guys. Morgan shot all greenscreen; he was never there when the other actors were there. I guess he was in the elevator he was there, but for the other greenscreen [shots], he and Alec weren't there at the same time.
They weren't?
No. I comped those guys together. Alec was getting his Walk of Fame Star, so he had to fly into L.A. We went right from Hollywood Boulevard over to this little stage we rented, just so it was closeby. We did him for an hour, and he does his thing... He's just brilliant. We had three great jokes, and he added three more great jokes. And he was in and out in, you know, minutes. You wanted a funny past host, and he was the logical choice. We wanted to go into his brain!
The show has had something of a hard landing culturally, but your film is widely regarded as the brightest spot of the night. What was your reaction to how they paired up?
I can only really speak for the film. I think that everybody who likes the short film that I made should thank Joel and Ethan Coen or Chris Nolan, you know. I sincerely mean this: We're on their coattails. You get credit, but I remember we did Fargo for the first Billy open, and we intercut Billy and Frances McDormand in the snow. And I got credit for Frances McDormand. Using what Jeff Bridges did in True Grit, I get credit for that in a weird way. But I'm just supplying the joke. They're already laughing at the image -- the wide shot I have. I just think the films are so good this year and so visually interesting that it's easy for us. It's easy for Jordan Rubin, who's the principal writer, to just riff out 25 jokes and say, "Insert one of those jokes." It's kind of a no-lose situation. And Anne and James were really hilarious on-set when we were shooting. Whatever people have to say about the awards show, they really brought it in the film pieces.
How do you think they did as hosts?
I thought they were great. It think it's a weird thing -- that now, with the blogosphere, it's all full of haters. I was there at the show, and I thought they did great. Maybe because I know them both, but I laughed and the house was laughing like crazy. Suddenly it gets out that they didn't do quite as well. It's also partly about the people writing, who are used to the older, more conservative Oscars. That might have had something to do with it as well.
Well, in fairness, the Oscars can't seem to win. If its skews older, it's accused of not taking chances.
If it skews younger, people go after that.
Look, ultimately, it's about a presentation of other great work. It's a lot of pressure; these dreams come true, and it's so much pressure on people. And I guess there's no sympathy for that. But I think they did great. Anne belting out that song was fun, and the James stuff... I think if you watch the show again and keep your eyes just on James, so much going on that just cracks me up.
Like what? Honestly, I wasn't a fan of Franco's -- except in your movie -- but what did I miss?
There's this inner monologue. The thing about James is that he does do so many things, and I'm a believer that there is a there there. People say there's no there there, but with him, there is. He would fly in from Amsterdam, on one occasion, come straight from the airport and walk on the set. He and I would have three words, and he would just nail it in the line reading. Maybe it's because I see more of the actor in him, but I watch the show, and I just see a lot going on in his eyes. Everybody else says he's staring, but he has for me this great appeal -- like a great film actor. And you compare that to Anne -- I mean, if she were on television she probably would have the Anne Hathaway show because she's so multitalented. Again, maybe it's because I just spent three weeks working with him. But I'm still a fan, and I think he did great.
How would you change the Oscars going forward? What should stay, and what should go?
I would probably hire Don Mischer and Bruce Cohen again. I think as producers, it's a hard road because there are so many elements at work. I can't put a "coulda woulda shoulda" to it, but I thought that the film segments were great. I'd probably go for more integration -- being able to do more satellite work around the theater. I thought Oscars.com did really well in terms of having multiple cameras interacting during the show. There's a whole hilarious world that's happening around the Oscars that's not necessarily happening onstage. It's definitely something to exploit. I think Chris Rock tried it when he did his, but there's a whole other level of where you can go.
Ultimately it comes down to the films that win, and great surprises. There was a great sketch that got cut for various reasons, which included Will Arnett reenacting the streaker, which you've probably heard about. It's hard when the show's running 10, 15 minutes over to put in just a sketch or a joke. But if you have three of those in the body of a show, then suddenly it changes the whole tide. I know when I did Jon Stewart's show, Jon had a lot of his writers with him, and not only did I do the opening with him and Clooney and the whole group, but we also had four or five other segments that dakota, my company, produced. So we had all these comedy packages throughout. In a weird way -- and I guess that show may not have performed quite as well -- but it gave it the comedic feel. Whereas with this, with the nominated films being more dramatic, I think it's harder for them to throw too many in the middle. Anyway, I really can't get the answer to that question right.
Well, when you're one of the few credited with a successful bit on the show, I would hope your input counts.
I don't know. It's kind of like the Best Visual Effects with the film itself: There's a certain level that you have to attain with a short film. I mean, the competition... You have Joe Letteri, who won for Lord of the Rings, and you've got Spielberg in the audience. There is no room for error. Even from the straight craft of directing, I take it very seriously. and as a comedy writer-director myself, you can't miss. So I think it's easier to succeed with the film because I'm able to go in just keep molding the laughs and craft it. But the core is the hosts: Without Franco and Hathaway it wouldn't be as funny -- it's what they do. And they should get credit for that, probably. We hit it out of the park, but that's because they were heavily involved in the writing and the production of it. It's thanks to them that everybody liked that opening.
[Photos: Dakota Films]