Film: Excerpt: Are You The Favorite Person Of Anybody?
Directed by Miguel Arteta
Liner Notes:
Miranda July: What happened was this: I had just finished shooting Me and You, and was waiting for my editor to finish the first rough assembly so I could begin editing. In the meantime I felt like I was in so deep with this movie stuff that I was never going to write another short story ever again. But then I wrote these three dialogues, and even though they weren’t too substantial, I felt relieved that I had produced something somewhat literary. I read them to Miguel, and he said, “I want to shoot it this weekend.” I read them through and saw that I had indeed written something more like a script than a short story. Miguel called up Mike White and John C. Reilly, and Chuy Chavez was still in town, shooting a documentary. He lived in Mexico City and was the DP on my movie and two of Miguel’s previous movies. All these casting choices were Miguel’s, and I thought they were really smart. I was especially excited to see Chuy act after working so intensely with him as a DP. Miguel also cast me and I was thrilled at the prospect of just being an actress, after writing, directing, and acting in Me and You. I remember walking away from John C. Reilly at the end of my scene and wondering if I was off camera yet. But no one yelled cut and I said to myself, “I’m just an actress, I’m gonna keep on walking until someone tells me to stop.” I walked practically to the next neighborhood before anyone noticed I was gone. And when my scene was done, I left, which was a great feeling. A few months later I saw the finished thing and realized that it was perhaps slightly crazy to have made a short movie during my one week off. But it turned out okay.
Q: Why do you make films?
Miguel Arteta: Because I’m a blunt person with blunt thoughts and staging actors within a frame is the only way I know to capture a little subtlety.
Q: Why did you want to make this film?
MA: I love Miranda’s writing. She told me that as a girl, when strangers passed her by in the street, she would picture herself as that person and then ask herself, in that stranger’s voice, “Am I someone’s favorite person?” This script is gorgeous because it makes you wonder, what is your story? What is the quality of the relationships that define you? After years of having my head up my ass, due to living and working in LA these questions were a welcome gift.
Q: In Chuck and Buck You presented a beautiful, yet fairly disturbing portrait of someone (Chuck) being someone else’s (Buck) favorite person. Is it a good thing to be someone’s favorite person?
MA: Sure. And then usually that person wants to be with you in order to create another person that might become their next favorite. It can be just another person in themselves they are looking for, someone they hope to like better. If an actual baby comes, what are your chances of remaining number one? Sometimes even your pet can steal your title.
Q: True. Is it good to have a favorite person?
MA: Yep, but it would be better if we never said it out loud.
Q: Yeah. Who is your favorite person?
MA: My favorite person is married and lives in Brooklyn.
Q: How long did it take to set up the shoot? Did you do any rehearsals? Did you send John C. Reilly and Mike White the script or did they just wing it?
MA: Miranda wrote it on a Saturday morning and we shot it the next Tuesday. I faxed the dialogue to the actors on Sunday. They said their lines word for word, except for Mike White who kept forgetting to say “My girlfriend might like one.”
Q: Miranda says that after her scene, when she walked out of frame, no one yelled cut so she just kept walking into the next neighborhood. Why didn’t you yell cut?
MA: I knew this could be the last time I directed her, so I didn’t want to yell cut
Q: That makes sense.
Biography:
Miguel Arteta (born 1965 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is an American director of film and television, best known for his independent film Chuck & Buck (2000). Born to a Peruvian father and Spanish mother, Arteta grew up all over Latin America due to his father’s itinerant existence as a Chrysler auto parts salesman. He went to high school in Costa Rica, but was expelled, and went to live with his sister in Boston, Massachusetts, where he learned filmmaking. He then attended Harvard University’s documentary program, but wanted to do more than just documentaries, so he left for Wesleyan University, where he met future collaborators Matthew Greenfield and Mike White. After graduating in 1989, his student film Every Day is a Beautiful Day won a Student Academy Award, which got him a job as a second assistant camera to Jonathan Demme on Cousin Bobby. Demme then recommended him to the American Film Institute, and Arteta received his M.F.A. there in 1993. His first feature film, Star Maps, which he wrote and directed, came in 1997, making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. It was a critical hit, receiving five Independent Spirit Award nominations, including Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. He then turned to directing television shows, helming episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, Freaks and Geeks, and Six Feet Under. Arteta then on to win an 2001 Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature Under $500,000 for Chuck & Buck, which teamed him up with his fellow Wesleyan alumni Greenfield (producer) and White (screenwriter and star). The trio worked together once more on 2002’s The Good Girl, starring Jennifer Aniston. Miguel’s current project is called Date School, a romantic comedy starring Owen Wilson, due out in 2006.