Why Hollywood's comedy king thinks Aussies appreciate him most

The Age

7 days ago

Paul Feig, the American filmmaker behind Bridesmaids, The Heat, Freaks and Geeks, A Simple Favour and a whole lot more, makes no bones about what it means to be the inaugural recipient of a lifetime achievement award from South by Southwest Sydney.
'Gateway to death.'
He laughs. 'No, I'm honoured, because I have spent my whole life working on this and hopefully I've got a few more years left.
'It'd be one thing if I wasn't working any more and couldn't get a job,' he continues. 'Then you'd be like, 'Oh boy, there's the booby prize'. But to me it's a great honour because I'm continuing to work and I'm doing stuff that I'm really proud of.'
Feig (it rhymes with Smeeg) has just finished shooting a new feature, The Housemaid, which should be out by Christmas. Another Simple Favour – the sequel to his beloved crime-thriller comedy A Simple Favour (2018) – dropped on Prime Video in May, having debuted at the original SXSW in Austin, Texas, in March. And according to pro.imdb.com he now has about 20 projects – including a sequel to the 2015 Melissa McCarthy movie Spy – in various stages of development.
At 62, the perennially dapper writer-director-producer has no intention of slowing down.
'I'm all about speed,' he says. 'My whole thing is I'm looking for runaway freight trains, because the things you develop for years are just caught in the muck and the mire, people overthink, it starts to sag, and people get tired of the stuff that was good, you know.'
Getting a project up and running quickly is vital to maintain the momentum, especially in comedy. 'I think energy is the biggest thing that makes a movie or a project great,' he says. 'Everybody goes into it with a head of steam. I'm not saying good things don't come out of being cautious and taking time. It's just for me, that's not a pace I like. I like, 'blam, here it is'.'
For the most part, that approach has served Feig well. Having started his career as a performer, he switched to the other side of the camera after his breakthrough role in Sabrina the Teenage Witch was cut after one season because, he was told, they didn't really know how to write for his character.
'It was this thing of, 'Wow, if you're an actor in this business, you're completely out of control'. They can fire you at any time. You are stuck in a contract for seven years unless they let you out of it. So it just cemented in my head that I want to do this.'
His first attempt, a self-funded feature he wrote, directed and starred in (alongside illusionist Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame), wiped out his and his wife Lauren's savings and was never picked up for distribution.
'I was like, 'it could potentially be over right now',' he says of the film, Life Sold Separately, which has not been released to this day.
But rather than give up, he took inspiration from his friend Matt Reeves, who had just co-created the college drama Felicity with J.J. Abrams (Lost). 'I decided to write a pilot based on my high school.'
The show was Freaks and Geeks, and after Judd Apatow, a friend from stand-up days, agreed to come on board as producer, he was off at the races.
'Suddenly we got sold to NBC, we're making a pilot, we got picked up. It was just redemption at the highest possible level.'
The show only lasted a single season – and NBC initially screened only 12 of its 18 episodes before dumping the final six one Saturday night a year later – but it launched the careers of actors Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel. And, obviously, of one Paul Feig.
Those 18 episodes will screen at SXSW in October in a marathon 14-hour session. 'Sadly, I'm not going to be there when they're doing it, that would have been kind of fun,' he says. 'But I don't know if I could even survive that. I can't sit that long.' Also screening are Bridesmaids and The Heat.
The first time I chatted with Feig was in 2011, when I met him, Kristen Wiig and Rose Byrne on a Melbourne rooftop to talk about Bridesmaids. At the time, the film was at the centre of a debate after some old hands (comedian Jerry Lewis, and journalist Christopher Hitchens among them) insisted women weren't funny.
Looking back, can you even believe that was a thing?
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'Well, I'd like to say we've moved on, but our current political situation here [in the US] is just such a disaster. Always when things feel like they're accelerating forward, there's some nefarious force to put the brakes on and pull it back.
'I always thought the conversation about 'are women funny?' to be ridiculous,' he adds, 'because all I do is work with funny and talented women. The evidence doesn't bear out any of that, so it all just feels like misogyny to me when people say it.'
Feig also found himself in the sights when his remake of Ghostbusters (2016), featuring an all-female team, was review-bombed on Rotten Tomatoes before anyone had even seen it. The attacks on African-American comedian Leslie Jones were especially vile.
'If you look at the timing, it was right during the rise of Trump,' he says. 'The manosphere, which I didn't realise existed, had an axe to grind, and we were the perfect moment for them.'
His response, he admits, was one of shock. 'I was such a novice to criticism on the internet at that point because, from Freaks and Geeks to Bridesmaids, The Office [he directed 15 episodes of the US version], all these things I'd been involved with were really popular, it was just nothing but goodwill out there for what I was doing. And so, when suddenly it turns, you're like, 'Wait, who are these evil-feeling forces that are coming at me with such anger and venom?' It kind of knocks you sideways.
'Now I'm immune to it,' he adds. 'But at the time, it brings up all the old bullying and things you went through as a kid. And you just realise, 'OK, I can be in my 50s and still be completely pulled back into the schoolyard'.'
Thankfully, that's all a long way behind him now. A lifetime, you might say.
Feig admits he is looking forward to receiving the award in person and to visiting a country that has always embraced his work again.
'I think Australians have a great sense of humour, and they kind of get what I go for,' he says. 'All my movies are comedies, even when they're thrillers or whatever. I mean, some are very hidden dark comedies, but they're still meant to entertain you.
'It's OK to laugh when things get extreme,' he says. 'And I just feel like Aussie audiences have always kind of gotten that.'