Thats what the movie tries to capture.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:Life Itselfhinges on an unreliable narrator.
The unreliable narrator fed into that, because I myself was finding as I was going.
Credit: Jon Pack/Amazon
The movie presented itself to me as I was going.
The movie deals with questions such as: Who is worthy of being a protagonist?
And are you the star or are you just a day player in someone elses story?
The world exists as it exists to each individual through their own minds eye.
I exist to you as a character in your own story.
It was something I was always interested in trying to capture in a film.
Will became the handsomer, more charming cipher of myself.
Thats the way into that movie.
The movie takes a lot of twists and turns from there.
What was the greatest challenge in bringing this to life?Its a very complicated film.
We made the film independently, and its got a gigantic scope to it.
We were shooting very fast; half of the film is in Spanish.
That was a gigantic challenge.
The whole movie is really complicated and the structure of it is very complicated.
Youre walking a very fine line and trying to thread a very fine needle.
I think and hope we did it.
Everything about the movie was pretty challenging, except the actors who are all exceptional at what they do.
Once the actors got on set and did their thing, I didnt have to do very much.
I had no relationship with him, nor any realistic idea that he would ever do it.
And I said, Thank you for doing it.
He said, You put my name in the script!
How was I not going to do it???
How much do you think the circles overlap on the Venn diagram?I think the movies very different.
I think thematically Im exploring some things that are important to me.
I lost a lot of people who were very close to me.
It was this cycle-of-life kind of thing that I really wanted to try and capture.
Frankly, I didnt even realize I was trying to capture until I went in and made the movie.
I was like, Oh, thats what I was doing and going for.
Its something thats particularly important to me.
I literally just this past week lost one of my best friends very young.
There were a ton of tears but there was even more laughter.
Its something Ive been interested in exploring for the last half a decade.
Life feels very complicated and often very difficult.
Im at an age in my life where Ive lost people and Im losing people.
Im watching people have marriages break up and a lot of very, very impossible things.
It all sounds a little highfalutin and well see if it works.
My hope is to put something thats both challenging but ultimately uplifting out there into movie theaters.
Life Itselfopens in theaters on Friday.
