Interview (Part 1): Tess Morris (“Man Up”)
Tess Morris wrote the screenplay for the movie Man Up, a romantic comedy starring Lake Bell and Simon Pegg, directed by Ben Palmer. The movie opens November 13 in North America. I got to see a sneak of Man Up and it is terrific! The directing, acting, but particularly the script — fun characters, sparkling dialogue, memorable set pieces, numerous reversals, and a master class in setups and payoffs. Man Up is a really well-done and enjoyable movie. I strongly recommend it!
Last summer, I had a wonderful conversation with Tess in which we covered a lot of territory. I will be reprising that interview in several installments this week.
Today in Part 1, Tess and I discuss how she grew up in a movie-loving family and some of her early success in the business:
Scott Myers: So let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up and how did you find your way into writing?
Tess Morris: I grew up in good old London town. Hence the London setting of Man Up. I’m a born and bred Londoner… I’ve moved away for various reasons at times, work, love, whatever, but I always come back. When I was younger I was always into writing. Mainly prose then and short stories. At that point not scripts or anything, although I did used to put on little plays, which usually involved cameos by the cats.
Both my Mum and Dad were very, very encouraging of my writing. My Dad in particular would always say, “You should write. You should write.” He put on the right kind of parental pressure, in that respect.
Scott: Were your parents creative types?
Tess: Definitely but not necessarily in obvious ways. My Dad started writing later in life, plays and blogs and things, and he is very creative in his garden. And my Mum is very creative in terms of working with her hands, woodwork, stuff like that. They are both real cinephiles, and I grew up watching a lot of movies, a lot of VHS videos. We’re a big quoter of films –‘ This house smells of mendacity’ from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, ‘You are tearing me apart’ from Rebel Without A Cause, ‘Feeling good, Louis!’ from Trading Places, that kind of thing. It’s a big thing in our household to watch a movie. We often say, “Let’s go to the movies,” which means going into the front room to watch a film, without actually leaving the house.
Also, and this is not my Martin Scorsese story, but I was quite sick when I was a child. I used to get lots of tonsillitis, so I had a lot of time off school. And I used to just watch films, films and more films. I think one year I had something like six weeks off school where I just, in total, probably watched about three of four films a day.
It was in the days of the 80s and 90s, so you’d go down to the video store, and you’d get out three John Hughes’ movies, some Woody Allen, some Nora Ephron. I grew up on quite a diet of those kind of films, but also the type of films that my Mum and Dad loved, like Moonstruck and Trading Places. So yeah, it’s fair to say that we’re a movie based family.
Scott: This idea of you and your folks quoting films, that shows up in Man Up.
Tess: [laughs] It’s quite a thing. Yeah, it’s quite a thing. I base most of my friendships on whether people can quote films with me. I went out to dinner recently, in fact, in L. A. with Jon Boyer. I don’t know if you know Jon Boyer. He’s a screenwriter out there.
Scott: Yes, via — what else — Twitter.
Tess: There was a big group of us out for a meal and the bill came. I started to pull it towards me, and Jon started to pull it back towards him, and I started to say, “No, no, no, no, no.” and he was going, “No, no, no, no.” It’s from So I Married An Axe Murderer. It’s a very obscure reference. [laughter] I started it, and then he started in. It was like one of those moments where we both looked at each other like, “We’re so meant to be friends.” No one else knew what the fuck we were doing, but we knew.
Scott: That’s funny.
Tess: Yeah, although I’ve also lost friendships to people who haven’t liked the same films as me, because obviously, of course, that is very important.
Scott: I read somewhere, is it true that the first words you said were “Elvis is the King?”
Tess: Yes. Technically, yes, because… Elvis died the year I was born, ’77. My dad is a huge Elvis fan, and would say to me, “Who’s the King?” And I would say, “Elvis!” It’s a nice story, even if it’s not technically true. But he swears by it. One of my first memories, I think, was probably being about three or four and watching on telly one of Elvis’s comeback concerts. I remember very clearly watching that.
So yeah, I probably maybe said Mumma or Dadda first… but I like to think that Elvis came first.
Scott: Well, to keep with a theme, let me quote a movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Tess: And I prefer the legend. [laughs]
Scott: In 1997, you won the Lloyd’s Bank Channel Four Film Channel for your short film Beer Googles. What was that about?
Tess: Well, it’s funny actually, because I was thinking about this the other day. Essentially, Beer Goggles is sort of like Man Up but how ever many years ago it was. That was the first thing I properly wrote, script wise. I was doing a film and TV degree at University, up north, in England. It was in Film, TV, Literature and Theatre.
It was about a girl who went to… we used to have these awful nightclubs where you’d have a number at the beginning of the evening, and then if you fancied someone that had a number stuck to their back, you could leave them a note.
It was just one of those, you know those stupid gimmick‑y sort of things, what became speed dating, in some ways.
I knew of it because some friend of mine had gone to one of them and had this terrible time and there’d been a mix‑up with the numbers. She thought that she was leaving notes for one guy but actually he’d swapped his number for another.
So I wrote a short thing based on that, and it’s only now years later that I realize it’s quite a similar mistaken identity kind of thing as Man Up. Beer Goggles was was only 11 minutes long, but it was a really interesting experience, because I was 19 or something. Quite big budgets then as well. It was about £30,000.
Scott: Wow.
Tess: Yeah, I know. Imagine you could make two feature films for £30,000, or more! They shot it and then it was broadcast on Channel 4 over here. I was quite naive and went to set and took all my friends as extras and imagined that it would be this really idyllic thing and that I’d have loads of say in what was going on. [laughs]
That was quite a wake‑up call to being a writer. You got on set but you had to know when to shut the fuck up. So it was quite a good lesson in some ways, and it was directed by David McKenzie, who’s gone on to do quite a lot of stuff. I can’t remember what he did most recently, but he’s a proper film director now, so well done us.
I don’t know, it’s funny now. When I look back to how I behaved on set [laughs] and I think about how I didn’t really understand about how many people were there to make it all possible… I spent so much time on the set of Man Up. 85 percent of the whole shoot, I was there. And you’re so acutely aware that there’s 120 people making your film now, and if a light goes out, then you cannot continue to shoot the scene. All those things that I didn’t really know back when I was 19… I’m quite glad I had that experience to make me realize that I wasn’t in charge. [laughs]
Tomorrow in Part 2, Tess talks about her lengthy road to becoming an “overnight success” and some of the inspiration for her movie Man Up. Here is a trailer for the movie:
For GITS readers in the U.S. and Canada who want to see more original movies, especially those of you waiting for an increase in romantic comedies, Man Up is excellent — funny, touching, human, and surprising — great entertainment.
In other words, go support Man Up in theaters next weekend!
Tess is repped by WME and Julia Tyrrell Management.
Twitter: @TheTessMorris.
[Originally posted May 25, 2015]
Comment Archive