Interview with Humpday's Joshua Leonard
Humpday is the Story of Two Straight Men Wrestling with Sex on Film
Jul 21, 2009
Shoot a porn film with each other, that is. And that means navigating the emotional minefield their decisions creates for them and their loved ones. And it means making palatable some pretty intense subject matter for as broad an audience as possible in order to make some cash.
Humpday was well received at Sundance and Cannes and begins a limited international theatrical run this week. The film was completely unscripted, micro-budgeted and was made in just 12 days.
Making It Up As You Go
Andrew, a latter day hippie, who ‘never finished anything’ in his life, is played by experienced actor Joshua Leonard who we first saw improvising in The Blair Witch Project. Leonard’s an old hand at making things up as he goes despite plenty of experience in conventional filmmaking. He tells Suite 101 he had good reason to feel at ease even if it was totally uncharted waters for him.
“Now the films coming out in the world, and I’m sitting in a room in a different country, with you, talking about it, the instinct is to have revisionist history, like it was all intentional. But the truth is, there were no stakes when we were making this movie because it was made so far outside the system, that we were all absolutely free to fall on our faces and did it on our own terms, autonomously. If we had failed, and we should have, it’s a pretty dumb idea to make a movie about, especially without a script. There were lots of ways this movie could have been horrendous and no on would have seen it.”
It's Harder Than It Looks
It’s hard to imagine how Leonard managed to fill the onscreen spaces while meeting the barest narrative and emotional markers for director Lynn Shelton, sans script.
“The fun is the puzzle, can you keep the story moving, can you keep half a writer’s brain working while you’re staying in character? That’s fun for me,’ he laughs. “There are a lot of things I’m not good at. There are lots of types of acting I should never do, that I wish I could do but will never be my strong suit. Improvisation is something I feel I’m good at. And you do it with a group of people you love and you get the rare opportunity of feeling fully utilised. You are firing on all cylinders and constantly being challenged in a really fun way.”
Running on Empty
Leonard took care not to create and develop Andrew as a ‘character’. All he knew is that he was portraying an emotionally stunted man. A man child who can’t get past himself and grow up.
“I am not a good enough actor that I could have created a character out of whole cloth and spontaneously have kept up the improvisational pace. So a lot of the emotional truth of the character is very close to home. That said, I like to think a lot of it is from my early twenties, things I’ve moved enough along that I can put them under the microscope and laugh at them and not get my feelings hurt when other people laugh at him. And were all scared of being alone and wondering who we are. And one level, occasionally lying in bed wondering ‘am I a total fraud’?”
Leonard says his life is pretty much the opposite of Andrew’s. He is in a monogamous relationship, and has a mortgage. Andrew is nearly middle aged and still couch surfing, wondering what he’ll do for kicks next.
“There is an invisible line that you can cross from exploration into fleeing your emotions", Leonard continues. "On the outside they look exactly the same and on the inside the motivation is totally different. Doing the same things at 35 that you were doing at 18, chances are the reasons you’re doing those things are pretty different.”
In a Nutshell
“Andrew’s caught in that trap where he’s kind of ‘Kerouac- ian’ swagger was truly authentic at one point, and working for him. And he kept doing exactly what he was doing and that’s where this movie catches him. It’s sad but at the end it’s broken down for him. He doesn’t know where he’s going but he also knows he can’t go back to where he came from.”
Amazing what you can accomplish in twelve days without a script.
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