Neil Burger Interview, The Lucky Ones

MoviesOnline sat down with writer/director Neil Burger (“The Illusionist”) at the Los Angeles press day to talk about his new film, “The Lucky Ones,” which tells the tale of three very different U.S. soldiers who find themselves on an unplanned road trip across America that turns into an epic emotional journey.

T.K. Poole (Michael Pena), Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) and Fred Cheever (Tim Robbins) arrive in New York from Germany only to find their connecting flights canceled due to a power outage. Anxious to get to their respective destinations, they agree to share a rented minivan to suburban St. Louis where Cheever is to reunite with his wife and teenage son. From there, the other two plan to fly to Las Vegas where the macho T.K. wants to make an important stop before seeing his fiancée and the tough yet naive Colee plans to pay a visit to a fallen fellow-soldier’s family.

But when Cheever’s homecoming turns out to be a far cry from what he anticipated, the trio’s one-day drive expands into an impromptu cross-country marathon. The trio discovers that home is not quite what they remembered and the unlikely companionship they’ve found in one another might be what matters most of all.

Here’s what Neil Burger had to tell us:

MoviesOnline: Some of the people they encounter give them a negative response, which was more common after Vietnam than now...

NEIL BURGER: Yeah. I don't think...Who gave them the...? The only one was in the bar.

MoviesOnline: And at the party.

NEIL BURGER: There was one kind of rude guy at the party. Well look, I think you're right. The conventional wisdom in Vietnam was that the soldiers came home and were spit on, whereas here, in this war, they've been sort of greeted more with open arms and warmly and with gratitude. And that's really what we reflect most on, from the car rental guy to you know...even at the party, that woman thanks him, and throughout. I think the movie's about the disconnect between those people that are serving, those soldiers that are serving the country, and then the rest of us who are here kind of going about our business only vaguely aware of what's going on over there, or vaguely interested.

I think that those college students at that bar are...I don't even think they necessarily...You know, she said that she's in the army, but in general, she's just this weird creature that kind of won't shut up. I mean, I certainly don't see it from their point of view, but I don't think they're dissing soldiers so much as they're just...You know, you find the way to like hurt the other person, you know what I mean? [laughs] So when she comes up and says that she got shot in the leg, they're like, "Well, that was stupid of you," or whatever came out of that not-so-smart young woman's mouth that sets Rachel off. You know, then Rachel gets to throw that punch. And Rachel can really throw a punch, actually.

MoviesOnline: Have you heard real stories like that?

NEIL BURGER: Yes, that's based on a real anecdote that we extrapolated of just somebody going to a bar and wanting to talk, and not even really wanting to talk about the war, but having mentioned who they were and what they had been over there, and just the blank, the sheer indifference of the people that they had just met, or just struck up a conversation with. So it's like, "What does that make you feel?" Sort of furious. And so then we took that fury and turned it into something tangible.

MoviesOnline: Did you think the thank yous they were receiving were all genuine, or were some of them less sincere?

NEIL BURGER: I think it's a combination. I think that people mean well and want to honestly thank the troops. And even when they mean well, there can still be an emptiness to it that sort of lets them off the hook for being responsible for any service of their own. Then I think there's some people that don't know what to say, and so they just say that, and that's empty in its own way. And then you know, there's some people who are really obviously genuine. So I think like the whole movie, it kind of walks a fine line. It's subtle, and can be read in a bunch of different ways. And I wanted it, all of the stuff, between the humor and the seriousness, I wanted it to walk that fine line. So I wasn't telling people in the audience what to think, I was just kind of showing what we had heard and what we had seen, and letting you think about it.

MoviesOnline: Can you talk about the casting process? It's a great group of actors.

NEIL BURGER: Thanks. Tim was the first person that read the script, of these three. And we share an agent, and his agent had just given it to him, and he read it and wanted to...You know, I think it's just the stuff that's out there. And he read it and wanted to meet, and we met and we kind of hit it off. And he understood that there's a sense of humor, and the tone of the movie. And I think he liked that character of Cheever. So then he agreed to be in it, and then once that happened, we were up and running.

And then Rachel I had known about, and she was at the top of my list for the character of Colee. You know, Colee's kind of a complicated part in that she's really naive, but very wise in a way as well. And sort of very open and optimistic, but also this fighter, you know? And feisty and kind of foul-mouthed, and as I said, can throw a punch. And very funny, too. So it's a very complex role. And I talked to her at length about it, and I just thought that she would be the one to do it. She has sort of similar qualities to Colee in the sense that she has an openness and an optimism that I really responded to.

And then Michael, I was looking for a guy that was a Hispanic, or maybe even an African American, actor for it. And I just liked...He has this kind of instinctive quality to him. You know, almost kind of like these animal movements. And he was also very much into kind of self-improvement, not unlike T.K. [laughs] So again, you try to cast the actor who has the sort of central characteristics of the role they're going to play.

MoviesOnline: Thanks for having a well-rounded, strong female character.

NEIL BURGER: My wife was saying that too. She said, "I haven't really seen this kind of female character." Yes, she's highly flawed, but she's also strong in her own way. And sort of screwed up in an interesting way, you know? And in a way that...I don't know, she's a fighter, and scrappy, and there's something strong about that.

MoviesOnline: Colee feels so different from her past roles...

NEIL BURGER: You haven't seen her do that, yeah.

MoviesOnline: What do you think is so special about her that made her take such
ownership of the character?

NEIL BURGER: One, I think she actually really is a truly great actress. I mean, really one of the great ones of her age group. And I think that there was something...I mean, Rachel is a small town girl, if you will. She grew up like working at McDonald's as her after-school job and things like that. And I think that she knows something about that character and where Colee is from. And she's also very...You know, she's kind of a tough cookie in her own way. I mean, she's incredibly gentle and sweet and open, but she's very directed and driven in her work, for example. And again, I think what she has in her own character is reflected onto Colee.

I also think Rachel is...and again, it's hard to define this, but she's like the most emotionally intelligent person, or one of the most emotionally intelligent people I've ever met -- which means that she is just so in touch with where she is emotionally, and where her character is emotionally. She's able to really define...You know, most of us are like, "I don't know, I just feel one way or the other." And she's able to articulate it in an incredible way, and to act on it.

MoviesOnline: How difficult was it to film in the cramped space of the car for so long?

NEIL BURGER: Yeah, it was insane, actually. You know, shooting in cars is always a nightmare, actually. And what we were trying to do was really take the trip that these characters were taking. So we were shooting on highways and on interstates, and shooting at speeds...You know, we were driving 65 miles an hour, because that's what they would be doing, which is really dangerous with cameras and things like that. So it's like, how do you do it in such a way that is safe, and that's interesting visually and you get your performances? Because there's so many distractions when you're shooting. So yeah, we were just all jammed in there. Tim's a big guy. [laughs] Getting him into that car and getting all the rest of us into it was...You know, there's a cameraman and assistant cameraman, and then I always want to be there because I want to be with the actors. I mean, you could be in a follow van or something like that, but then you're just too distanced from them. And so I'm like jammed back in like what was the spare tire well behind the third seat, just operating the sound because there's no room for the sound person. And I can't really see them because I have to stay down because or else I'll be on camera. And so I got a little monitor, and I'm just baking, broiling back there. We were all broiling. Anyway, it was crazy. I mean, we really took this road trip. We were this traveling circus going across country.

MoviesOnline: What was your favorite stop on the road trip?

NEIL BURGER: That's a good question. Well, what was really fun was to be in Colorado in this National Park. We were in Colorado National Monument, and it was incredibly beautiful. It was hot. It was hot as hell. It was so hot last summer when we were shooting it. I had never really done 110 or 108 degrees before, and to be working in it was like...But it was incredibly beautiful. And it was really fun just to be...It was like we were on some sort of summer camp with our cast and crew. [laughs] It was just us, really, out in the wild and working. And it was so astonishingly beautiful, and kind of a real privilege to be working in that. So it was great.

MoviesOnline: Is there any kind of symbolism about America in the fact that Michael’s character has been injured in his manhood?

NEIL BURGER: I think so. Yeah. I think if you think of Michael as being, or T.K.’s character, as being the know-it-all American or the arrogant one or the cocky one and then where he gets wounded is in his sense of self, and the way he defines himself it’s like being this ladies man and being virile and being potent and being strong and being powerful and so suddenly his power has just been taken away from him.

MoviesOnline: Was there any bigger symbolism to do with America?

NEIL BURGER: I think absolutely. I mean you just substitute America for T.K. and I think that we’ve been more than kicked in the balls. We’re sort of responsible for it ourselves. Yeah. We’ve been wounded in our own sort of power base, [laughs] our root of … -- you could say all sorts of ridiculous things -- our root of power. But yeah, I think they’re all like that actually. She’s kind of like the optimistic American or the dreamer, the one that’s sort of ignorant about the rest of the world and really the way things work, kind of just like hopes it’s all going to be for the best and sees the best in everybody actually which is also very much another American [quality], you know, that openness and that optimism. But, in a way, she needs to face a certain kind of reality too.

MoviesOnline: You mentioned twice that Rachel is pretty good at throwing a punch, Michael talked about it, and it’s mentioned in the press notes, so how would you handicap her chances in a bar fight?

NEIL BURGER: She’d be pretty good actually. She went to boot camp and all that and they learned a very specific kind of self defense which I think is called either Krav Maga or it’s a variance of it which is like I’m going to kill you with this recorder or this piece of paper, I will kill you. Anyway, she learned this stuff and was really kind of amazing. She also became a crack marksman and the funny story is that she’d never shot before and she got right up there and she was shooting top of her class like immediately. I was like “Rachel, how’d you do that?” and she said, “Well, I do a lot of yoga and my breathing helped me shoot.” I loved the idea that breathing helped her kill, you know, breathing helped her shoot better.

MoviesOnline: She’s pretty lethal all the way around apparently.

NEIL BURGER: That’s right. Yeah. She is. She’s a dangerous customer.

MoviesOnline: In the sequence at the mansion where Cheever finds his way with the guy’s wife, is that based on a real story or is that just something you came up with?

NEIL BURGER: That is not really based on a real story although we did talk to people who were like, “Oh yes, since I got home, there’s like a particular subset of the opposite sex that wants to sleep with you because you’re a soldier, you’ve had these weird experiences or these extreme or tense or dangerous experiences. So that was kind of the jumping off point and then we just kind of twisted it.

MoviesOnline: A lot has been written about the humor in the movie, like sometimes you don’t know if you should actually laugh or not. Do you have a scene that you’re particularly proud of how it translated from the page to the screen?

NEIL BURGER: Well I liked the scene in the church where she sort of spills the beans on all of their ailments and she’s just trying to help them. She’s trying to restore them, you know, but that’s not the way they see it. They’re just completely embarrassed and humiliated by it. The humor is an important thing and some people haven’t gotten the humor. There’s been some writers who’ve watched the movie alone. I’ve been showing it to these audiences of 300 and 400 and 500 and even 2000 people and they get it, and they get that there’s the humor and then there’s the heartbreak and they go with it, but we’ve actually gotten some things where people have been like…and mostly from critics, I think exclusively from critics, just a couple of them, who have been insulted by it or didn’t get it. They’re like “How is this a tribute to our troops?” And I’m like, “Well the movie is not a tribute to our troops.”

I mean I respect the troops and all that but I always think of the humor as kind of the… It’s like if you put up a wall as an audience like “I don’t want to talk about these issues.” It’s like the humor was always for me like the Trojan horse that gets you through that wall and also it sort of breaks down your defenses. You know, they’re in an absurd situation, these three soldiers, I mean like philosophically absurd. They’re trying to find meaning in a world in a society that is completely indifferent to them. It’s an existential situation. What do you do with that?

In the same way, I wanted to have kind of outlandish or even absurd moments like with the hookers in the National Park or something like that because I wanted to get people kind of roiled up and laughing because I felt like however we could get their emotions closer to the surface which happens when you’re laughing. I talk about it as like you’re knocking the scab off the wound and then when your emotions are close to the surface, then when there is real heartbreak or sadness. You’re just feeling it all the more because you’re more sensitized or something. So that’s kind of what the humor is there for.

MoviesOnline: What would you like an audience to take from this film?

NEIL BURGER: When we started writing it, we were like “Well let’s go. We’ll take this journey and we’ll go and see these different things that they see and kind of remember what’s great about America or show, you know, warts and all.” And I think what we ended up finding was it became kind of more like a love letter to the three characters and that they kind of realized as we went along that they sort of embody what’s best about the country – like their goodness, their basic human decency and, in a way, their ability to change. America actually has that ability to look at its mistakes and change and that’s what these characters do. And also they’re sacrificing for the greater good and I think that what maybe we’ve lost is kind of a collective sense of national purpose -- I think I’ve said this before – sort of a shared psychology or something like that. I think those three characters embody that and maybe the rest of us need to get back in that direction as well.

MoviesOnline: You have that scene where the three characters actually argue with each another about who’s the most delusional. Who do you feel is the most disconnected from reality?

NEIL BURGER: I don’t know. They all kind of are. In their own way, they’re all operating under some mistaken sense of the world in a way. Colee, she’s fallen for all these lies from Randy, and T.K. is sure that he’s right about everything. He’s got it all in a box and knows exactly how… Who’s the most deluded? I don’t know. I suppose in a way T.K. is the most deluded. He’s certain about how everything works and the way he has the greatest… His journey was initially kind of the key journey but at the end he’s like, “I don’t know shit.” And that’s his great realization. He finds humility really and thereby some kind of respect for others. They all change but that’s kind of the key.

MoviesOnline: What do you have coming up next?

NEIL BURGER: I have a movie called The Dark Fields which is at Universal and Shia LaBoeuf is attached to it although Shia hurt his hand recently. We’re supposed to start shooting in January but I don’t think that’s going to happen because he was in that car accident this summer and he needs surgery and things like that so it’s thrown it off but I have something else that I wrote for Universal that we might slot in before that. It’s called The Criminals which Dirk Wittenborn and I also wrote and it’s about these strange criminal groups that we found in New York and it’s about them sort of banding together to solve their own crimes.

MoviesOnline: What’s strange about them? Is it the fact that they band together?

NEIL BURGER: Oh no, it’s like now that the Mafia’s dead there’s been all sorts of bizarre types that have moved in. There’s nothing particularly bizarre or strange about them. It’s just like the power base of crime in New York has shifted.

MoviesOnline: It’s not like The Warriors or anything?

NEIL BURGER: [laughs] No, it’s not like that. No, it’s great. It’s very real and kind of fun too.

“The Lucky Ones” opens in theaters on September 26th.