Precocious doesn’t even begin to describe Henry James Herman, the central figure of “Jesus Henry Christ,” and a 10-year-old boy genius who rabble-rousing manifestos on the nature of truth and upsets the carefully ordered world of his doting single mother (Toni Collette) when he sets out to find his biological father (Michael Sheen). ShockYa had the chance recently to speak one-on-one to writer-director Dennis Lee, about his reaction to the rocky commercial reception of his debut film, “Fireflies in the Garden,” and the challenge in crafting his nine-years-in-the-making follow-up, based on an award-winning short he made in film school. The conversation is excerpted below:
ShockYa: I was struck by the broader parallels between this film and your first feature — both movies are about family, and that intense desire for parental connection that children have. And both of the movies have autobiographical elements, I understand. Writing about that stuff and transposing it upon other characters — is that something that comes easily to you?
Dennis Lee: Ummm… it didn’t come as easily on “Fireflies” as it did on “Jesus Henry Christ.” There’s definitely more of a separation between the autobiographical elements here (than there) were in “Fireflies.” When you write about aspects of your life, it’s more difficult to be able to go there. But “Henry” was just a much easier write for me, in terms of getting the words down on page. Of course I thought about the similarities as you described them — of a boy just wanting to reconnect with his father, to answer, I think, larger questions about who that boy is in this world.
ShockYa: Did you feel that “Fireflies” didn’t get a fair shake domestically, given the profile of its cast (which included Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe and Emily Watson)?
DL: Well… the short answer would be yes. (laughs) For a variety of reasons it didn’t get a fair shake.
ShockYa: How do you put that frustration behind you, and get past that, given the intensely personal connection to that material?
DL: I don’t know if you do get past it. You definitely try to learn from it, and take the experience as a whole, but break it up, too, and ask what did I learn from a directing standpoint and as a screenwriter, but also the way that business works here? I think that’s one thing that you really don’t get a handle on (in film school). People tell you that it’s nearly impossible to make a film, but it’s almost impossible to get distribution (too). You don’t really understand the business aspect of it until you get fully immersed in something like trying to get “Fireflies” or “Jesus Henry Christ” out into the world — two independent features that feature prominent names in terms of the cast. I think the expectations for “Fireflies” were perhaps a little skewed, if that’s the right word to use. I think people had an expectation of “Fireflies” being… what’s the word? Less episodic than it was, less slice-of-life. I think people were wishing for more resolution at the end, but my thing with “Fireflies” was I just wanted to show a sequence of events that were meaningful to me, and hopefully still meaningful for people in the audience that could still relate to the characters, in a way that I thought was still honest and true.
ShockYa: I think I’d learned and forgotten that “Jesus Henry Christ” is actually based on your student Academy Award-winning short. Using some of those lessons you talked about with respect to “Fireflies,” what challenges did you face… in extrapolating it forward into a full-length feature?
DL: Well, “Jesus Henry Christ” was written right when I got out of film school, in 2004. So the screenplay didn’t exist prior to the short getting the attention that it did. Because the short did well everyone wanted to see the feature-length version of the script and at the time I didn’t have it, and my manager kind of convinced me to lock myself away. This is before I had kids and a family, and I could. So I spent about a month locked away writing the screenplay. It went through a lot of different permutations and plot twists, but it was also a script that won the Tribeca All-Access Award for (Best) Screenplay, and was then optioned by Tribeca Films, when Jane Rosenthal was there. When that option ran out, I was fortunate enough to get it back, and that’s when Red Om Productions came on board to produce this film. The storyboards were pretty much always there, and it was something that I knew I always wanted to do. It took like nine years, but it finally happened.
ShockYa: The participation of Michael Sheen and Toni Collette notwithstanding, the film really hinges on finding the right young actors, so what was the casting process like for Jason Spevack (who plays Henry) in particular?
DL: We were incredibly fortunate. When we first started off casting for the roles of Henry and Audrey, we were looking all over the country — predominantly in New York and Los Angeles. We went through hundreds of auditions, and on a very limited budget. But we knew it was going to very hard to find our Henry, someone who you could believe was a genius on screen, but also have be vulnerable. So it was a really difficult process, until actually the budget of the film came drastically down, and in order to maximize the money that we did get we had to cast locally in Toronto, to get the tax rebate. And so the only actors who are not from Toronto are Michael and Toni — everyone else is a Toronto resident, and thank God Toronto has such an amazing talent pool of actors. My Canadian casting director brought in both Jason and Samantha (Weinstein) for an audition and they blew us away; we knew right that they were our Henry and Audrey.
ShockYa: Were you afforded much rehearsal time at all?
DL: It was totally jump-in-and-let’s-go, it was a 23-day shoot. Because we were in pre-production in Toronto at the time, we did have some rehearsal time with the role of Henry and the Canadian actors, because they were there. Michael was coming in from something, I can’t remember what, and Toni was coming in from “Fright Night,” I believe, so we didn’t have rehearsal time with them but instead just hit the ground running. Luckily the chemistry was there, especially between Henry and Audrey.
ShockYa: What else is on deck for you, what’s next?
DL: I’m always writing, every day — well, except for today! (laughs) We have a project that’s going up in October or November that I’m really excited about. It’s a coming-of-age thriller and drama with a lot of different elements to it. It’s set in San Antonio, Texas, and hopefully — cross all fingers — we’ll be up with pre-production in August.
ShockYa: Does that have a title?
DL: It does, but I don’t know if I can say it, though, that’s the problem. (laughs)
Written by: Brent Simon
