Eric F. Martin and Kyle Laursen, Directors/Writers: ACTING LIKE ADULTS

Lft-Rt: Kyle Laursen and Eric F. Martin direct Leslie Murphy and Mark Famiglietti

1Q: Tell us a little about the origins of ACTING LIKE ADULTS, from concept to financing.

We both went to film school at UCLA, where we spent the first two years working extensively on each other’s projects. As we reached the halfway point in the program, we started talking a lot about what we wanted to do for our thesis films. A lot of our peers were making these epic short film projects with huge budgets, and that didn’t really appeal to us.

Filmmakers like Barry Jenkins and the Duplass Brothers were a big inspiration to us, we loved the way they built character driven stories with really dynamic relationships on a minimal budget. And we figured, we came to film school because we wanted to make feature films, so why not give it a shot? We started thinking about what we had at our disposal (props, locations, actors, crew, equipment, etc) and wrote outlines that explored characters in situations that were within our means. The idea was to make the directing a challenge, not the producing. We knew it was going to be a big step from the short projects we’d done, but we had no idea just how big that step really was.

2Q: Cinequest is proud to host the World Premiere of ACTING LIKE ADULTS.  Explain to us how it feels to bring this film before audiences for the first time, and what do you think their reaction will be to your film?

We love that Acting Like Adults will be screening at Cinequest. We feel the film has finally found the right home. We’re definitely thrilled to be sharing the movie with audiences, but of course, we’re a bit nervous too.

One of our goals with ALA was to portray a modern relationship that connected with audiences in a way that was both very personal, but also very everyday. We wanted our characters to seem like people you know and might be friends with, instead of phony big-budget movie versions of characters. So our hope is that people will leave the theater talking about our characters the way they talk about their friends’ relationship: gossiping, reflecting, judging and comparing it to their own.

3Q: What was your best and/or worst experience while making ACTING LIKE ADULTS?

Our best experience in making ALA was probably during casting. We had been writing on the script for almost a year, nearly everyday. Writing, re-writing, editing, getting notes, talking over scenes. We had also started producing the film before the first draft was even done: talking to crew members, scouting locations, prepping test shoots, driving around LA, taking part in an actual scavenger hunt, talking to permitting offices, etc. But the film didn’t actually seem real until we were in a room with actors, listening to our dialogue and seeing what our film could actually BE.

When we cast Mark Famiglietti and Leslie Murphy as the leads, it just made the whole film come together. They made some of our bad lines sound good and turned our witty banter into grounded, emotional material. At the most basic level, we watch movies to watch people. And when we discovered the human beings who we were going to explore in our own film, we found the emotional core that brought us even more inspiration.

4Q: Festival audiences often have to make hard decisions about what to see, and the catalog descriptions sometimes run together. In your own words, why should people see your film?

Our film certainly isn’t for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for an honest look at a 30-something relationship, we think it’ll be up your alley. We’ve tried to cram as much humor, awkwardness, and genuine emotion as possible into 75 minutes, and we think you’ll come away from the film feeling like you saw something special.

5Q: Time to pre-plan: You just won the Best Director Oscar for ACTING LIKE ADULTS.  Give us your acceptance speech. 

We’d like to thank our girlfriends, current and old, who gave us great writing material, who helped us look at ourselves, and who taught us how to be in a relationship. And we’d like to thank our parents for teaching us that growing up can be really hard.

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