\u2018The Rewrite\u2019 follows Hollywood screenwriter Keith Michaels (Grant), who finally realizes that after winning an Academy Award for his first script, \u2018Paradise Lost,\u2019 15 years ago, he has reached the point in his career that he can no longer hold onto the fame for his only hit film. Nearly broke and unable to find work with a studio, he\u2019s willing to take any work he can find. So his agent convinces him to accept a writer-in-residency position at SUNY Binghamton\u2019s creative writing program in Upstate New York. While the scribe is initially hesitant to move across the country to what he perceives to be an isolated town, he decides that the position will provide him the time and opportunity to finally pen his Oscar-winning movie\u2019s long-anticipated sequel.<\/p>\n
Once he arrives in Binghamton, Keith meets several of his fellow professors, including the sentimental department chair, Dr. Lerner (J.K. Simmons), who’s also a former Navy Seal; his next door neighbor, Jim (Chris Elliott), who\u2019s a Shakespeare-reciting professor; and a sensitive women\u2019s studies professor, Mary Weldon (Allison Janney), who\u2019s easily insulted by the screenwriter\u2019s approach to both his professional and personal lives. Dr. Lerner soon informs Keith that he must read the 30-page scripts submitted by the students who are interested in taking his class and pick the 10 most promising stories. However, he barely reads through the screenplays and picks the students he\u2019s most interested in meeting after looking at their social networking profiles. After the class begins, Keith begins a personal relationship with one of the students, Karen (Bella Heathcote), who he met on the first day he arrived in New York.<\/p>\n
But Keith\u2019s approach to his class, and life in general, is unexpectedly changed when he meets single mother Holly Carpenter (Marisa Tomei), who\u2019s working two jobs so that she can go back to school and try a creative career. After seeing that she\u2019s undaunted by any obstacle she faces in life, he realizes that he, too, can finally distance himself from his self-destructive tendencies. He sets out to not only move past having trouble getting his projects greenlit, but also the fact that he hasn\u2019t spoken to his college-age son in over a year after his divorce, to find the courage to pursue what he really wants in life.<\/p>\n
Grant, Elliott and Lawrence generously took the time recently to participate in a press conference at The London NYC Hotel in New York City, to talk about filming \u2018The Rewrite.\u2019 Among other things, the actors and writer-director discussed how Grant’s character learns that there are other metrics besides money that people should judge themselves by, including how much they’re valued as a person by the people around them; and how people often times rely too much on inspiration to achieve their goals, but they can also obtain their dreams through hard work and application.<\/p>\n
Question (Q): Chris, you\u2019ve been thought of as a more of a comic personality. Hugh, you\u2019re known for your comic and serious roles. How do you both decide when a role works for you, and what kind of balance do you like to see between the two genres?<\/p>\n Chris Elliott (CE)<\/strong>: I honestly feel like I\u2019ve spent the last 10 years of my career trying to get smaller and smaller with what I do comedically. I think that\u2019s been noticed a little bit, so I\u2019ve been able to move from doing the crazy and goofy stuff that I was known for doing in the 1980s and early \u201890s, into doing something where I\u2019m a little more believable. I never thought I was a believable actor; I always thought I was a bit of this goofy guy. <\/p>\n There are comedians that I believe (when they\u2019re) on camera-I believe Robin Williams, Steve Martin and Bill Murray. I never believed myself when I was actually trying to act, so it\u2019s taken me a while to find that balance. I think I did that in this movie, and it\u2019s because of working with Hugh and Marc, who kept the reins pulled in pretty tight.<\/p>\n Hugh Grant (HG)<\/strong>: Well, I can only vaguely perform in a live comedy tone. When I try other tones, it\u2019s a disaster. So I\u2019m more stuck here; having said that, I have attempted to render some emotions in this film, and at least I tried.<\/p>\n Q: What was it like working with this younger generation of technology obsessed individuals?<\/p>\n Marc Lawrence (ML)<\/strong>: I actually learned by watching my kids. My son Clyde is a 21-year-old senior in college, and he also wrote the score to the film. My daughter Gracie is a senior in high school, and I also have an 11-year-old. Watching them was the best education for me. <\/p>\n Even some of the things that Bella (Heathcote), who plays the student that Hugh\u2019s character has a relationship with, was saying was some of the same stuff I found Clyde and his friend saying. They\u2019d use terms of slang like \u201cword,\u201d or was it \u201cword up?\u201d I think that was the old way. It was honestly through observing them and how they talk that kept me writing.<\/p>\n Q: Hugh, you have spoken about not confusing celebrity and self-work in the past. Is that something that appealed to you about \u2018The Rewrite?\u2019<\/p>\n HG<\/strong>: Well, I suppose it did. I like the way my character learns that there are other metrics by which to judge yourself from other than money, including how much you\u2019re wanted in one particular trait. My character realizes that he\u2019s wanted by his students; he\u2019s valued by them and by the university, and I think that\u2019s rather touching. <\/p>\n As for my children, it\u2019s been a huge surprise that they value me and still like me, despite the fact I don\u2019t make many films anymore. That\u2019s what happened to Keith in the movie.<\/p>\n Q: You and Marisa had really nice chemistry in the film. How was it working with her?<\/p>\n HG<\/strong>: Well, actually, I was frightened of her. I still am, because she\u2019s so good at what she does. She\u2019s much the opposite of me, in terms of how she comes at me in a role\u2013she\u2019s a proper New York method actress, so she knew exactly why she said every line she said.<\/p>\n I had never thought of it, but she\u2019s really into all that stuff. One does sometime rolls their eyes when it\u2019s four in the morning and you\u2019re very cold, and she\u2019s wondering, \u201cWhy do say this line?\u201d I say, \u201cOh, because then we can all go home.\u201d But it does pay off for her; she\u2019s brilliant.<\/p>\n Q: One of the funniest parts of the movie was Marisa\u2019s character showing up in different places with various odd jobs and commitments. Was there any time in your careers where you had to do crazy jobs just to survive?<\/p>\n CE<\/strong>: I was a tour guide at Rockefeller center, and a PA (production assistant) and a runner on couple TV shows. The times have changed in this business, as the numbers have gone down, especially for people like me. So I still certainly try to be choosy and the idea of working with these two guys was too much to turn down-I really did it for below what I usually get paid. (laughs)<\/p>\n HG<\/strong>: Well, I\u2019ve cleaned a lot of lavatories, and I was rather good at it, but I did hate it. I remember I was cleaning lavatories at IBM in London and was on my way to work one day. I thought: I really can\u2019t stand this another day; I wish the place would just burn down. As I turned the corner, it was burning down. I didn\u2019t know I had that power, and I have tried not to use it too much since. (laughs)<\/p>\n I then delivered new cars, and i those days, we had to run them in slowly. S we were told to drive them at 20 mph, but we really drove them at 120 mph. I crashed one and was fired from that job. I was a waiter in a gay restaurant at Kings Road. I got a lot of tips there because I was very flirty.<\/p>\n Q: Marc, you collaborate with a lot of the same people. What is it about that narrative that makes you want to work with them again?<\/p>\n ML<\/strong>: I don\u2019t like meeting new people. I almost never leave the apartment. I live a kind of hermit-like existence. I actually do get very comfortable around certain people. Chris and I had done something a while back, and we always wanted to work together again. I\u2019m a creature of habit in every aspect of my life. It just so happens in this situation that the people you\u2019re doing stuff with are the absolute best at what they do, so it all works out.<\/p>\n HG<\/strong>: Marc has had the same lunch every day for, what is it, 30 years.<\/p>\n ML<\/strong>: Sandy (Bullock) always used to say, \u201cEverything you eat is white.\u201d But I do like working with the same people again. Also, for the kind of stuff I write, which is way too many words, there aren\u2019t many people who really do it all that well.<\/p>\n Q: What do you think of the idea of being able to rewrite your life if you just commit to it and believe in yourself?<\/p>\n ML<\/strong>: I think we\u2019ve had more questions on that than whether or not we believe what the movie says about it. I honestly don\u2019t know the answer to that question. What I like about the aspects of the movie is that it raises that question, and I don\u2019t think it can ever definitively answer them. If you don\u2019t have an ear for music, I don\u2019t think any amount of time, focus or practice is ever going to compensate for that; if you do have an ear for music then I absolutely think you can get better, and that focus and hard work will do something. <\/p>\n Back when I started, which was writing for \u2018Family Ties,\u2019 people would send scripts in for us to read, because they wanted to write for the show. Obviously if they were from writers you knew, you would read the script to reevaluate the story. But when you got scripts from people you didn\u2019t know, we all felt like we might have been wrong that within two pages, you knew whether or not they were writing on the level that we at least perceived or hoped that we were at. I think that\u2019s still true, and I get caught up in debate, too.<\/p>\n CE<\/strong>: Well, I\u2019d like to think that you can. I think to a degree as a performer, I\u2019m trying to recreate, restart and change in that parameter. I\u2019ve always wanted to paint and draw, but I couldn\u2019t start right now and be a painter. I could do it for the fun of it, but I don\u2019t think I could go in and commit to a lifetime of focus towards it, at least not at my age. I think age does have a little something to do with it.<\/p>\n HG<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know the answer to that, but we did have a crazy art teacher at my school who thought that art died in 1900. But he swore that he could teach anyone in the world to draw perfectly. He used all of the academic techniques. I think there\u2019s actually something in that. The flip-side of his argument is that maybe we all rely too much on inspiration. But it actually takes an unbelievable hard work and application to learn a trade.<\/p>\n![\"Interview](\"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/Interview-Hugh-Grant-and-Chris-Elliott-Talk-The-Rewrite.jpg\")
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