by MK Scott
This Past October at the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, I had a chance to see the film, 'Scenes from a Gay Marriage' and a chance to chat with the Writer, Director and Star, Matt Riddlehoover. Matt's inspiration is Woody Allen and it show in his latest. The Film is now out on DVD.
MK: Matt, tell us a little bit about how you guys came up with the idea for the script?
Matt: I came up with the script when, I just, I wanted to write a movie, and it had been a while. I had written three movies that I wasn’t able to do anything with. And I wanted to write something that I knew that I could shoot really quickly, do really inexpensively and have a lot of fun doing it. And it’s a personal film. A lot of friends of mine, or have been, in quarter life crisis’s and so I came up with the protagonist and the side characters based on people who are looking for some kind of foundation in their life, whether it be romantic, or professional, and how they’re able to turn it around on them. So that’s where the idea came from.
MK: Describe your character. Do you feel it to be him being bored? A stalker? Or what?
Matt: I think Darren, I mean, to the outside eye he looks very much like a stalker. And very much bored, but I think Darren is looking for distraction to keep himself from dealing with what
he needs to deal with, which is just move on and take care of himself, and grow up, and …
um, and he just don’t want to face reality. So he just finds himself in this fantasy world of his
records, and his movies, and his upstairs neighbors, and this girl that he meets at the gym, he gets wrapped up with some of her life. And, you know, he, there’s this wonderful new guy in his life who he is just kind of pushing to the side because he’s looking, you know, he doesn’t want to accept what’s really happening. And he’s got a lot of baggage from a previous relationship, and trust issues maybe, so. He’s pretty complicated.
Matt: You know, I actually had to alter the script a few different times based on the actors that I cast. And I just sat around with the rest of the team and we came up with who we thought
who looked like it the most. And I think it was right after we shot The Dirty Match Game where we already rattled off so many celebrities, and we’re trying to figure out what Carson Nicely looked like, we came up with C. Thomas Howell, and Taylor Lautner. C. Thomas Howell definitely could, most audiences being a little more obscure and Taylor Lautner to newer audiences, I mean some names that they recognize. But we had to rewrite the character a little bit because Darren’s Neighbor was originally written for an Hispanic gentleman, and that actor unfortunately had to drop out a week or so prior, and I was scrambling, and I found Carson, and that’s where C. Thomas Howell came from.
MK: And your last film was Book Ends?
Matt: Yes. Bookends was out in 2008 and … I wrote it for a group of actors I began working
with on the first film I made. And it was about relationships, and fidelity, infidelity, all those
wonderful things. It’s, and it’s about a mixed crowd of gay friends and straight friends, and
how all of their problems mirror one another. And it was shot very similarly. I have the
same Director of Photography. We have a great working relationship. He’s onboard for my
next movie. And especially I’ve been acting in the movie. It’s really important I have that
relationship with him because I can always trust him to give me what I want visually while I’m
focusing on my performance or everybody else’s performance.
MK: And how was it to actually direct yourself?
Matt: I don’t really feel like I direct myself so much when I’m on set. I know that when I write
the movie I sit there and I act out all the parts and I know how I want it to sound. And so I think more or less when I’m actually on the set I’m going for timing, the comedic timing, and how it sounds in my head and how it’s playing back and forth. But I love, especially when I’m working with certain actors, I love ad libbing. Shana McChristian, who played Luce, and I just went wild with ad libbing.
Matt: Absolutely. It was wild because we only shot it with one camera, and so we were doing the scene and Shana’s like, well, that wasn’t scripted, I hope you get another take. Once Shana and I would, something would just happen, this diatribe. We could do it again. It was really crazy, but it was a lot of fun. Just it feels more natural.
MK: what’s the next project? I heard something about a silent film?
Matt: Yes. There’s a silent film that I’ve been working on for a couple of years that I wrote and
edited, and executive produced, it will be out next year. We’re just now talking with distributors. It’s from a new director, Alex Marque Anitwa, about 1920s Hollywood, real life story of 1920 Hollywood, and how they rocked the movie area, particularly Paramount Pictures. So we’ve got Clara Bowe in there, we’ve got Rudy Valentino, Gloria Swanson, Lupe Velez who kind of took some liberties to put perspective from the ‘30s and ‘40s. But it’s a screwball comedy. It’s executed the way that old silent movies were. It’s pretty serious subject matter, but just executed beautifully. We’ve got a very colorful cast. There’s Maria Concetta Alonzo. And I’ve also just written a script that I hope to start shooting next year. And I’ve actually written two parts for Maria Concetta Alonzo. I kind of fell in love with her. And I’m actually raising funds for that now.
MK: Well, congratulations, and thank you for coming to Seattle and we look forward
to seeing more from you.
Matt: Thank you so much.
Get Riddlehoover's 'Scenes of a Gay Marriage' from TLA Video.
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