Interview (Part 2): Amy Koppelman and Paige Dylan

The movie I Smile Back is rolling out in select theaters this week. Starring Sarah Silverman in a breakout dramatic starring role, I had the opportunity to talk with Amy Koppelman, who wrote the novel upon which the movie is based, and co-writer of the screenplay adaptation along with Paige Dylan.

Today in Part 2, Paige and Amy reveal their writing process in adapting I Smile Back, then delve into two of the movie’s most important characters:

Scott: Paige, when Amy was writing the novel, were you talking to her at all, or was that a solo thing, and then she circled back regarding the possibility of writing a screenplay?

Paige: No, when she wrote the novel that was very much her baby, we probably didn’t talk much at the time, but no, it was, I think well after she had written the novel that she had the idea to adapt it, and then she asked for my help.

She can probably tell you better, but I think it would’ve been a very daunting job for her to look at it in a form that isn’t its purest. The idea that you might have to lose some parts of it, or rework some parts of it. She had written a beautiful novel. I think it was going to be hard for her, by herself, to turn it into a different form.

Amy: It took me a long time to write. I think Paige had like two kids during the time it took me to write “I Smile Back” (laughs) Paige gave me great notes. In fact, I remember having a reading, and thanking her for the amazing notes that she gave me.

Sometimes when I talk my thoughts get garbled. Because Paige knows me so well she understands what I’m trying to say even when it’s unclear. And she’s much cooler than me. For instance I’ll have a character say, “Golly” , and she’ll go, “No Amy! Regular people do not say golly. You say golly, but people don’t say golly.” That’s basically our working relationship.

Paige: I speak your language. I hear you.

Amy: She understands, and then she knows how to translate it.

Scott: I would think that for an adaptation especially that would be important to have that objective eye, because obviously you can’t keep everything from a novel in a screenplay. Paige, is that one of the roles that you assumed in this project, where you were more of the outsider looking at the story, and you could say, “This should stay, this shouldn’t stay”?

Paige: It’s interesting because while of course I’m an outsider looking at the story, I also know Amy so well, and I know where it comes from within her, certain aspects of this story, so it was very personal to me, on a level that I love and adore her, and she means so much to me, so there’s a lot of pain in that novel.

I don’t think I was wholly objective in terms of…It was personal because, she’s personal, but I think maybe I was able to offer that perspective as far as helping her determine what needs to stay and be amplified, and what needs to be clarified, or go, what we could do without, which there wasn’t much that we could do without, but maybe I was helpful in that way.

Amy: She was vital in that way. Paige was able to help conflate scenes, or we could talk about a scene and then figure out how to incorporate the thoughts and feelings-the message of the scene into an entirely different scene. The novel has a lot of internal thought. We tried our best to put that into scenes but a lot of that you can’t actually translate onto paper. We were lucky because Sarah shows it all in her eyes, all the nuances of character, all the internal thought is up there on the screen.

Scott: Let’s talk about the story. The protagonist is Laney. Would you describe her as being basically a bipolar type of a character?

Amy: We never say that because if you give her a diagnosis then you’re bound to have every psychiatrist that sees it go, “No, I think she’s Borderline. No, I think she’s…”

Scott: She’s married to Bruce who is a life insurance guy who’s recently published a book called “Life Insurance, Hedging You Bet Against God”. Interesting choice of vocations in his character. How do you see him fitting into the story, in terms of his relationship with Laney, and their relationship?

Paige: In some ways they couldn’t be more different from one another. He’s this really, really great guy who has his priorities and whatever. At the end of the day, for some people, and maybe for Laney, this can amount to being utterly boring, but beyond that I think the gist of her is that she feels not entirely deserving of such goodness because she feels so shitty about herself. I think that he sort of represents the extreme other side of her humanity.

Sarah Silverman, Josh Charles

Scott: Very solid guy. That’s an interesting insight, that she in some ways may be undermining that relationship. I guess, that would carry over into this affair that she’s having with a husband of one of her friends. Even at one point, I think, in the script, when they’re having a sexual liaison, she’s checked out there. What do you thinks’ going on with her, in terms of that affair with this guy named Donny?

Amy: This was one of the reasons the novel was so difficult to sell. Eighty editors rejected the novel before it found a home at Two Dollar Radio, a great indie outfit in Ohio. That was 2008. Since then many issues that were once taboo are now the norm. But a woman who fucks to escape remains taboo. In most literature, and even in the movies, if a woman has a horrible husband who doesn’t treat her well and she meets a guy and they fall in love, the audience is able to have compassion for her because this woman needs human connection.

But for a woman, and particularly a mother, that fucks in order to escape, as a way to relieve her anxiety, that’s a very hard thing for people, even in a movie, to understand. It makes Laney very unlikable. Yet we accept this about men. A man goes to Vegas and fucks a hooker and-

Paige: Boys will be boys.

Amy: I was really affected the first time I saw Belle de Jour, the Catherine Deneuve character… Do you remember that movie?

Scott: Oh yes. Absolutely. Directed by Louis Bunuel.

Amy: So Catherine Denueve has the nicest husband, a doctor. (laughs) He loves her and they have a very comfortable life, and yet the Catherine Deneuve character becomes a hooker, gets entangled with the wrong guy- And it’s only in the end, after everything that goes down in the film goes down-it’s only at the end, when her husband is blind and in a wheelchair. It’s only as she’s pushing him along that she feels content.

I always interpreted that moment as Bunuel saying this is what this woman thinks she deserves. Laney is like the Catherine Denueve character. She doesn’t think that she needs or deserves the life that she has. So she meets that guy in the bar and he bangs her face up-and in a weird, twisted way she’s relieved almost. At that moment, broken jaw and bloody face, at that moment Laney feels honest. She finally looks on the outside like how she feels on the inside.

Scott: This story, you could look at it as simply a story of addiction, but I think it’s much more than that. It’s got multiple layers of things going on. At one point, Laney says to Donnie, her illicit lover, “I could love you, and you could love me, and nothing. It still means nothing. Nine years of marriage, two kids, 3,000 marinated chicken breasts and nothing, and you die.”

I think any of us who’ve been parents or been part of a family and the whole meal preparation thing, that reference to 3,000 marinated chicken breasts, we can all relate to that. We’ve all been there. That’s sort of the mundane, day to day level going on in the story… going to school, picking up kids…

Paige: Right. There is that. That’s what I was really saying earlier, about that life, that suburban life, and is Bruce boring, is she trying to shake it up a little bit? There is a mundane feeling to the picture that’s painted there for her.

Here is a clip from the movie I Smile Back, screenplay by Amy Koppelman & Paige Dylan, starring Sarah Silverman and Josh Charles, directed by Adam Salky:

Tomorrow in Part 3, Amy and Paige dive deep into the some of the key themes and dynamics in I Smile Back.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

The movie’s website is here.

An excellent thought-piece in Elle on the movie.

Amy and Paige are repped by the Arlook Group.

Amy’s third novel “Hesitation Wounds” debuts November 3rd and you may learn more about that here.