Olivia Wilde: The amazing thing about this process is that if we hadn’t had the same kind of chemistry, if we had awkwardness with each other, the movie would’ve still worked. It would’ve been a slightly different story, but the way Joe directs is that he would’ve just used that energy and it would’ve been a story about a more of an awkward kind of ambiguously romantic relationship, so that’s really fascinating.
Jake Johnson: I think that’s the brilliance of our director Joe Swanberg, who I really think is a brilliant talent. What Olivia said is 100% true in that whatever we would have brought… Let’s say Olivia and I on day two got into a political debate and hated each other where we were on such opposite sides of everything and we were enemies. Well, we would still as professional actors do our job and move the story, but that contentious relationship then would’ve been Luke and Kate hating each other but they still need each other.
Olivia Wilde: It’s so empowering as an actor because instead of us conforming to a set character, the characters were molded by us. I think that’s why the performances are so good. I think everyone is so good in it and I think that’s because everyone is really honest and not forcing themselves into a mold that they don’t necessarily fit in.
Jake Johnson: Well the director would literally say “so this is what needs to happen in the scene, now do that. Find the way that you view your character of Luke or your character of Kate. How would that happen?” He wouldn’t say “you have to do this. I’ve had this vision for nine years, it doesn’t seem realistic with you doing it but I’m a genius director and this is my perfect vision.” Some directors I feel like they’re in their basement playing with toys and they go “no you’ve got to say this like this.” Some actors are great at that, and some actors like myself don’t fit into that fantasy world. So with a director like Joe Swanberg, he doesn’t have that. He just wants the movie to work and he wants to be present.
Olivia Wilde: It’s sort of anti-Hitchcock in that he wishes he could just put the script into a computer and that the movie would come out. Joe is the opposite of that.
Olivia, Kate is the only woman in the brewery and you said you were doing a lot of improv. Is that a comfortable position for you? Do you have more men friends than you do women friends?
Olivia Wilde: No I’m a real woman’s woman. I have a great pack of female friends, but I also have a lot of guy friends and I believe that that platonic relationship is possible. My character is based on a real Kate who has that job at that brewery, and she is one of two or three women who work there. She was really helpful in telling me how she navigates around the world, but of course as any woman who works in a male-dominated business, Hollywood definitely being one of them, I instinctually knew what that was like; you have to be strong and take care of yourself, and I think women just know that anyway. But it was interesting to hear her stories about what it was really like being in that Chicago beer world as a woman.
Did you learn a lot about beer and making it doing this movie?
Olivia Wilde: Jake literally learned how to make a beer.
Jake Johnson: Yeah. They made us both learn about the process of making beer. I was in the back room with the guys so I do all those things, but I’m also a guy who has done a lot of manual labor jobs in my life, so the truth is my brain shut off and I just lifted things that they told me to lift. They said “pour that in there…”
Olivia Wilde: The brewery was working while we were shooting, so we’d be shooting a scene and a guy with a forklift who’s trying to move some kegs and the guy would honk and tell us “guys I need to get this by you.” They were incredibly kind to let us invade their space. The first scene that I shot on the first day, Joe said “it’s the first scene of the movie. Go over to the couple at the end of the bar and sell them a type of beer for their wedding.” That’s it, that’s all he said. I was trying to remember what I learned about the different beers and I pulled two different pints and was wondering which one was hoppier. So I brought it over to them and just kind of bullshat my way through it, but it wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have time to learn about the specifics of beer.
What really makes me want to stay in this business are movies like these when it’s a true labor of love. We didn’t make the movie for the result; it was only for the process. If no one saw this movie but us, it would’ve been just as successful to us so that’s a great thing.
Jake Johnson: It’s true. We didn’t come on this one thinking that all the rest was going to happen. A lot of movies you do for the result and you do it for the strategic play in your business of like “well that would help me lead to these other type of movies that would lead to this kind of work that would benefit my life in this way.” The beauty of Drinking Buddies was that it really didn’t have any of that. When this first came up, when Joe I first talked about it before Olivia was on board, my big push honestly to do the movie was my brother just had his first son named Luke, who I named my character after (Joe let us name or characters). Joe said “well if nothing else you’re not going to make any money, but I’ll pay for you to be in Chicago for a month and you get to hang out with your nephew.”
So, not even thinking that the movie’s going to do anything, I felt like “well to be in Chicago, he promised me I was going to get to drink a lot of beer, I can name my character after this kid who has just been born and I get to hang out with him.” But the original idea of this stays intact, and that this movie might be terrible. It might not work and that’s fine, but we were going to enjoy each day of work and we were going to enjoy the process. It was a unique labor of love type movie.
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Jake and Olivia for taking the time to talk with us. Be sure to check out Drinking Buddies, which hits theatres today!
