Interview (Part 3): 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 3, Tess digs deeper into some creative choices she made when scripting Man Up:
Scott: Let’s talk about Jack, who’s played by Simon Pegg. If you were trying to tell a friend about this character, how would you go about describing his personality and where he starts in the story?
Tess: Yeah, Jack is like a combination of lots of men that I know [laughs]. Like I said, I’d just come out of a relationship when I wrote this film and it had been a relationship that I thought might go somewhere and then didn’t.
So essentially I wrote a character that I wanted to end up meeting in life, that did go somewhere, if that makes sense. Because Jack is a bit of a mess, but I think he’s quite a lovely mess. Actually Simon said to me we first got together to talk about the script “He’s lovely, but he’s a bit of a dick, isn’t he?” [laughs] I said, “Yeah. You’ve pretty much summed him up.”
Scott: But he quotes movies.
Tess: He does. That’s enough for me, in a relationship. No, the thing that Simon really brought to the character on screen is a huge vulnerability, which I wasn’t really aware was on the page, and he really brought it out, because while we were filming he’d always be questioning me, like, “Why am I doing this?” and “Who is this man?”
And every time we’d talk about him we’d realize he was just this very unique combination of lots of men in their 40s that we both knew who just hadn’t quite sorted themselves out yet … similar to Nancy.
They’re both a bit lost as well. He’s been very, very hurt in the film. His wife has had an affair and he’s on the verge of getting divorced. All of my male friends date younger women too, and I like to wind them up about that, so it’s kind of an ode to them as well.
Scott: There’s a comedic well you dip into over and over again. I guess you’d call it awkward situations. The whole idea of mistaken identity is founded on that. That’s going to be an awkward thing. But from the very first time Nancy interacts with a prospective male suitor, that guy Ryan…
Tess: Yeah [laughs].
Scott: …The conversation starts off where she’s apologizing about her moist hands and that it’s not wee, like pee. Then there’s this little struggle over paying for drinks, like what you just had with Jon Boyer. Then she sees this photograph and she says, “Oh, that’s your girlfriend. She’s so pretty…” He says, “No, that’s my sister and she’s dead.”
Tess: [laughs]
Scott: There’s a lot of these funny, awkward bits in the story. Was that driven by the fact that the mistaken identity conceit is itself awkward and you wanted to maximize that, or is that your natural comedic instincts at work?
Tess: A lot of it is also to do with how bad I am at dating. Much of it is based on my own very awkward scenarios when I go on those forced setup kind of things. They’re excruciating. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know when you last went on one. Maybe it was a while ago, but they are terrible things.
So a lot of that was just trying to convey that. But yes, definitely Lake and I worked quite hard on that scene, especially in rehearsal, because what Lake has is that brilliant physical comedy as well. Obviously she writes herself as well, so she’s very good at looking for the pace of a line and adding her own little things.
When you see the film, you’ll see she has this thing where she’ll add a lot of “Ers” and “Ums,” which is a nightmare for the sound editor, but brilliant for us. She’s brilliantly awkward, but in a screwball‑y kind of way. Screwball Rom‑Coms were quite a big reference for me when I wrote this, because you have to appreciate you’ve got a very heightened concept, but you want to ground it in reality.
Simon Pegg, Tess Morris, Lake Bell
Scott: I was going to ask, are you a fan of the old screwball comedies, like Preston Sturges?
Tess: I’m more, in terms of screwball, a Katharine Hepburn kind of gal. Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story… I think that the modern Rom‑Com has forgotten that you can sometimes have quite a high concept still. I like to think that I write high‑concept films but in a low‑fi way, if that makes sense.
Because obviously it’s madness that Nancy goes on the date. It’s total madness. But she is awkward enough and also she’s being told for the first 10, 12 minutes of the film, “What are you doing? Why are you not going for it anymore?” Also, she fancies him. He quotes The Silence of the Lambs at her. It’s a big thing. And he’s charming and awkward. There’s something there.
I think I’d quite like most women to stand under the clock and wait for that. You never know.
Scott: Honestly it’s almost like a moment from The Hero’s Journey. The Call To Adventure, Joseph Campbell calls it. She intersects with this woman. You’ve done a great job preparing us for her character plowing that field to prepare her psychologically for this moment.
Tess: Thank you!
Scott: And then there’s the book, “Six Billion People and You: A Guide to Meeting Your Mate in the Modern World.”
Tess: [laughs]
Scott: You’ve got to have that moment. If you don’t have it, because that’s a key to Nancy and Jack actually meeting each other, then you’ve got no movie. So I’m just curious, when did you come up with that device, the book?
Tess: Well, I’d been reading so many self‑help books…
Scott: Are you a fan of them?
Tess: This is why I hope that it’s almost a love letter to self‑help books in some ways, because without that book in the film, she wouldn’t end up meeting a potential love of her life.
What I didn’t want to do was vilify them and make them out that they were terrible. Because actually I read “Eat, Pray, Love,” and I loved Eat, Pray, Love. [laughs] Because I read it at a certain time in my life, when I was needed it! I ate, I prayed, I loved.
But I got to the point where I had read so many that I was going a bit crazy. I was looking for the answer constantly. I think I had got to the point where I had that one, what’s it called… wait, I can look up and see it on my shelf now… “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.” I remember reading that one and just thinking, “OK, this is enough now. You’ve gone too far, Morris”
I definitely I wanted to feature a self‑help book in some way, and then I was looking for an original device for why he mistakes her under the clock. Because obviously when the guy thought that I was his date, it was just based on probably that he’d been told the girl had brown hair and brown hair and was a certain height or whatever, because I certainly wasn’t holding a flower…
Waterloo Station is the same as Grand Central, in terms of people do meet there on dates. It’s quite a thing. I was looking for something she could hold, that was original and that also I could pay off in the script… I don’t know if you remember but they talk about “Fuck the Past,” because neither of them actually read it.
Scott: Oh, absolutely.
Tess: There were lots of things that came about quite organically and accidentally. I think that’s often the way with writing. You can plan your script to the point of oblivion, but I don’t usually do more than a 7‑ to 10‑page outline. And sometimes what happens is one little thing, like a self help book device, becomes suddenly a really big part of the script.
Actually, when we were shooting it we obviously had to create a whole bandstand of books with them on it. So I’ve got a copy of the book on my shelf [laughs].
Scott: I was going to say, this is a book waiting to happen.
Tess: Yeah.
Scott: You’ve got to have Nancy and Jack years down the road. You’re author of this book, right?
Tess: [laughs] I am. I know, exactly. I remember going into the art department and seeing a load of them. I was like, “Oh my God, can I have one of those?” “Yes. You can.”
And then I opened it up, and saw… I think it’s in your script, you’ve read? When the girl on the train leaves the book, and she leaves it at the chapter saying, “Your Negative Thoughts Are Ruining Your Life and Everyone Else’s.” I remember going back and forth with my script editor thinking of chapter titles. We had about 10 to 20, and that was the one that made us laugh the most. And I opened up the mocked-up book, and there is was [laughs].
Scott: It’s a great line.
Tess: One of my favorites.
Tomorrow in Part 4, Tess and I analyze a critical choice she made in terms of the plot that would seem to go against conventional rom-com wisdom, but really elevates the story.
For Part 1 of the interview, go here.
Part 2, here.
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 27, 2015]