"Whatever Works"
BEHIND THE SCENES
by Tim Nasson
May 26, 2009
Watch "Whatever Works" Trailer
While it’s hard to imagine that anyone but Larry David could have portrayed Manhattan misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff, the lead role in WHATEVER WORKS was actually written for Zero Mostel. Woody Allen set the script aside after Mostel’s death, but recently, remembering it as a funny idea, decided to revive it. But he was well aware that Mostel’s shoes were extra-large ones to step into. “I was thinking of who could play this who has enough humor and size as a character, and I thought Larry would be fun,” says Allen. “I’m a fan of his and he’s been in two movies of mine before [RADIO DAYS and NEW YORK STORIES], albeit in tiny parts.”
David’s debut with Allen was not particularly auspicious. “After I did my little scene in RADIO DAYS, I didn’t see any cameras, so I turned to someone on the crew, and asked, ‘Where is the camera?’ And he pointed up, way up on the roof. And then, when I saw the movie, all I could see was my bald head.”
When the production inquired about his availability to play Boris, David assumed he was being offered another small role. “I opened up the script and I saw there was the character of Boris plastered all over the first page,” says David. “And then, just out of curiosity I flipped open the script to page 50—and there was Boris again. And then I went to the final page and Boris was on the final page too. And then I realized, ‘Oh man, this is quite a part I have here.’”
While most actors would be thrilled to be offered the lead role in a Woody Allen film, David had a very different reaction. “I thought Woody had become unhinged,” he says. “I wondered who put this crackpot idea in his head. And of course as with anything I’ve ever been offered, I didn’t feel up to the task. Feeling up to the task is not my thing.” Reading the three-page monologue that opens the film was particularly daunting. “On ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ I never memorize anything,” he says. “In fact, most of the time I don’t even know what I’m shooting until a minute before. So this is quite a departure for me.”
“Larry kept complaining to me what a mistake I was making by hiring him,” says Allen, “telling me what a tiny range he has, how terrible he is, and all that. And then right out of the box, first take all the time, he was just wonderful, a natural actor. And what surprised me was how fine he was in the scenes that didn’t require him to be funny, but required genuine acting. But being funny is sort of built into Larry, he just has it. He doesn’t have to push it, he just has to show up and perform the scenes credibly, without trying to be funny, just trying to be real. When Larry’s real, he’s funny—because he’s funny in life.”
The character of Boris is a world-class misanthrope, with a high opinion of himself and a low opinion of the human race. As outrageous as his words can be, they don’t wander far from statements Woody Allen has made in the past. “I wrote the script, so of course it is the way I see things,” says Allen. “But Boris is a character I created. He doesn’t express me exactly—he’s an extreme exaggeration of my feelings.”
David believes that much of Boris’s pessimism stems from his atheism. “How can anyone be optimistic with death looming and no belief in the hereafter? He’s also a physicist who thinks the planet’s going to explode—so his glass isn’t exactly half full. Also, it must be frustrating being smarter than everyone else, because no one understands you.” Still, it can’t be said that Boris is guilty of prejudice. “Boris treats everybody the same, which is to say, terribly,” says David. “To him, most people are imbeciles. To me too, except of course, anybody who likes me.”
Allen’s original title for ANNIE HALL was “Anhedonia,” a term for someone who is unable to feel pleasure, and Boris could be seen as someone who suffers from that malady. David doesn’t agree. “There are some things he enjoys,” he says. “He enjoys insulting people. He loves classical music, old movies, and knishes. But most of the pleasure in life he gets from expressing himself: he loves pontificating and showing off how brilliant he is.”
While there are certainly similarities between Boris and the Larry David character that David plays on his hit HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” but they are “Both of them enjoy confrontations and aren’t shy about expressing their opinions,” says David, “but ‘Curb Larry’ usually needs a reason to insult someone, whereas Boris is much more indiscriminate about it.” He continues, “The guy on ‘Curb’ isn’t as smart as Boris, but he has a better disposition, and seems to get a little bit more out of life. And he has the same needs as normal people, like love and sex, which Boris doesn’t seem to have.”
Abandoning his life as an eminent physicist with a beautiful wife and a fancy uptown apartment, Boris moves downtown into a dingy oasis that better suits his needs for solitude and despair. But his darkness is upended by the arrival of a ball of sunshine, in the form of Melody, a teenage runaway from Mississippi, played by rising star Evan Rachel Wood (THE WRESTLER). “Melody doesn’t have a bad bone in her body,” says Wood. “She’s incredibly sweet and generous, and tries so hard to please people and seem smart to Boris. She’s dumb as a rock, but that’s what is so endearing about her.” Since her years as a child actor, Wood has often played roles that are often described as “wise beyond her years,” such as THIRTEEN, and Melody is a definite departure. “I’m not a genius or anything,” says Wood, “but it was actually harder to play dumb. But it was much more fun—I got to make an ass out of myself, which everybody’s entitled to do once.”
It’s no surprise that Boris, with his antipathy to everyone, would not be thrilled by Melody’s arrival. “He certainly doesn’t seem to want her there at first,” says David. “He’s kind of set in his ways. But I don’t care who you are, no one’s throwing her out so fast—not even Boris. That insane he’s not.” Still, Boris misses no opportunity to call her a brainless twit and otherwise put Melody down. Despite all this, she gradually becomes infatuated with him.
“She’s a lonely character in a lonely town,” says Allen. “And here’s a guy who takes her in and gives her a home and a bed and food, and doesn’t take advantage of her in any way. Also, she recognizes that he is indeed a genius and that’s very flattering to her, because she has such low self-esteem.”
Wood sees lots of reasons why Boris, with all his rudeness and eccentric phobias, might appeal to Melody. “I’m sure that she doesn’t even understand half the insults he’s giving her, and that makes it a little easier to bear,” she says. “And as dumb as she is, she’s good at reading people. I think she knows he has a good heart, and that it’s more of a defense mechanism for him. Boris is like Oscar the Grouch: he’s prickly but he’s cuddly.” And over time, Boris comes to appreciate Melody’s instinct for calming his panic attacks, through music and old movies. “When he watches Fred Astaire on TV it does have a reassuring quality to it,” says Allen. “It’s not provocative, it’s not challenging, it’s not depressing—it’s escapist. And it’s something done very beautifully with pretty music and lovely dancing, and that is the kind of thing that would mollify him.”
Patricia Clarkson, who had a supporting role Woody Allen in last year’s VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, joins the cast as Melody’s mother, Marietta, who transforms from a conservative southern housewife into a sexually freewheeling New York art star. “I was born and raised in New Orleans,” says Clarkson, “and I’m deeply Southern to the core. So I know these women. But the beauty of Woody is—he’s such a Yankee, but he got her humor and her sexuality just right, because he’s such a great writer.” Despite Marietta’s startling transformation, Clarkson doesn’t think her character changes as much as it might appear: “I would say she’s realigned. She is a very strong, willful woman. She’s unleashed physically and sexually, but not mentally so much because her convictions are very true and very real, and she’s not a fickle person.”
Allen liked to stage very long scenes like theatre, in long extended takes. “You need to know your lines,” says Clarkson, “because Woody likes to keep going.” Says Wood: “You’d think on a comedy that you’d be laughing constantly, but you actually spend most of your time trying to stay serious, otherwise you ruin everything. We would do these ten page master shots, and then nine pages into it, Larry would say something and I would just lose it and break out laughing. That didn’t go over too well.” Preparing for the long scenes together, the actors quickly formed tight bonds. “Larry is very understated, very sweet and simple,” says Clarkson. “I know maybe you wouldn’t attribute those qualities to him, but he’s actually quite dreamy—and of course, hysterically funny.” Wood agrees. “We had a great time. Larry and I bonded on the fact that I had never done a comedy before, so I asked for his advice; and he had never done a film where he had to memorize lines before, so would ask me for advice on that.” David has high praise for his co-star. “You never feel like you’re talking to a 21-year-old when you’re talking to Evan. She seems so much older than that. And I’ve seen her in a few things, and in each one she’s a completely different person. She seemed to be channeling something for this part.” Clarkson and Wood slipped easily into their mother-daughter relationship. “I felt an immediate kinship with Evan,” says Clarkson. “I started calling her Sweet Pea, because it’s southern and it felt right. And it turned out to be exactly what her mother used to call her.” David admits to being a bit bowled over by Clarkson’s acting chops. “I was always struck by how she just went into this other gear when action was called. She just revved it up a couple of notches. Sometimes I would get caught up in watching her and forget I was in the scene.”
Allen was a quiet presence on the set. “He is very focused, kind of reserved,” says David, “but you can strike up a conversation and he can be very funny. But it’s not like he’s trying to make someone laugh, it’s just his natural way of talking.” “He can be funny on the set, but you know he’s usually quite quiet,” says Clarkson. “And it’s simple and it either works for him or it doesn’t. He’s very kind too.”
Allen encouraged the cast to feel free to depart from the script. “I always do that,” he says. “And the actors all say, ‘it’s wonderful to work for someone who wants me to improvise,’ but when the time comes they run right back into the lines. “He likes you to mix it up,” says Clarkson. “He’s the least precious writer I’ve ever worked with, but you want to say the words because they’re so funny.” David didn’t make use of his celebrated talent for improv in WHATEVER WORKS. “I tried to do it,” says David, “but the character is so much smarter than me that it didn’t sound right. It sounded too much like me and not enough like Boris. The other actors looked at me like I was crazy, so I dropped the whole idea.”
The title of the film speaks for itself, but in the movie it suggests a non-judgmental attitude towards the diverse choices people make to seek happiness. “As you go through life it’s a tough struggle and whatever works that doesn't hurt anybody is fine,” says Allen. “So however bizarre a romantic relationship may be: if it works, it works. And it doesn't have to be just about romantic relationships. It can be about one’s occupations, or one’s hobbies, or where one wants to live. If it works for you to be living by yourself on a desert island—then fine, it works. Nothing more need be said about it, and the same thing about any other aspect in life. If some utterly unconventional set-up works for you, then there’s nothing wrong with pursuing it. As long as you're not encroaching on someone or hurting anybody, whatever works for you to get through life.”
“‘Whatever Works’ means you have to live your life, not by what society is telling us are the rules that are laid out for most people, but for whatever your drummer is telling you,” says David. “You can’t be with someone just because they’re in the right demographic, or they’re right on paper. That even if you have nothing in common with someone, something can happen when you’re with them that feels right and comfortable. This of course has never happened to me, and even if it did I would find reasons to reject it. With me it’s whatever doesn’t work.”
“What so many of the characters go through in the film is being unhappy by living a life that they think they should be living, or believe to be right,” says Wood. “They’re miserable. It’s not until they hit rock bottom, and have to build themselves back up again, they realize it’s just whatever makes you happy. You’ll always find your way. You’ll always find people like you. I think that’s what it means: whatever works, whatever makes you happy, that is how life should be.”
All the characters from the south in the film come to New York City and find whatever works for them. “Melody grows up a little bit,” says Allen. “At first she’s infatuated with Boris, but then she starts to realize his misanthropy. While often people deserve his mockery, not everybody always deserves it and he’s too extreme and ultimately it’s a hard way to live. She would be better off living with someone that's not so afflicted by such intense feelings of pessimism and misanthropy, like Randy Lee James (Henry Cavill). So Melody is no longer the little pageant idiot that she was when she came, she’s progressed within her limitations, but she has definitely changed. Marietta had always been living a fake life with a guy who wasn’t really in love with her very much sexually and that probably colored the whole thing. And she was a victim of all those rural and ignorant prejudices that come from the lifestyle and the area that she was living in. When she gets a chance, when somebody encourages her artistic side rather than discourages it, all of a sudden she’s ready to burst into bloom. She’s an artist, and all it took was for someone to give her a chance for it all to come out. And the same with her husband John (Ed Begley, Jr.). He was a closet homosexual, and if given the chance it comes out, and he’s much happier for it.
So, actually, the picture itself is really a much more sentimental picture than the story would have you think. Because in the end the mother's happy she's found a new life, the fathers happy he's found a new life, though not with each other.”
Many of the key events of WHATEVER WORKS are driven by pure chance. People come together through pure happenstance, like being at the same restaurant or bar at the same time. This reflects Allen’s belief that luck is responsible for 90% of what occurs in our lives. “I do think that if you do your treadmill and you eat well you can make a contribution to your longevity or your health,” he says. “But it’s a small contribution. In the end you're very much dependent on luck. One can always make a contribution of hard work and discipline, but as I said in MATCH POINT: it’s better to be lucky than good.” He continues, “You can search for the loved one in every conceivable way but it doesn’t mean anything. And then suddenly you’re crossing a street and somebody drops her package and you pick it up and start a conversation and that's the person that you enjoy being with. And after that, there are a million things that have to fall in place correctly: you have to not get hit by a car, or not develop terminal cancer; you have to assume that your partner is lucky that way; you have to enjoy what they enjoy, and they have to enjoy what you enjoy. You get up in the morning, and all through your relationships, and for every little thing that happens all you can do is work very hard and try and influence it. But you can only do a very limited amount. The world is a very indifferent, meaningless, violent place. You can try your best to survive and be happy in it, but you need luck to do it—and a lot more luck than you think. You often hear people say, ‘I make my luck.’ But the same person who brags that he makes his luck steps out of his house, and they’re hoisting a piano above him, and it happens to break and drop on his head. Then he didn't make his luck.”
No matter what happens to Boris, he will always be to a certain extent lonely, isolated as he is by his higher intellect. “Everyone in the movie, no matter happy, or bright, or accomplished, or perceptive they are, they all function within a certain limited realm and they’re fine,” says Allen. “But their view is earthbound and limited, and Boris’s view is not earthbound. Boris is the one who sees what the others can’t see. He is indeed a genius, because he is the only one who is able to see that there really is an audience out there. Whenever the picture is shown, even if it’s only for one person, they are being watched.”
