Interview (Written): Bryan Sipe (“Demolition”)

An Indiewire interview with Bryan Sipe, writer of the movie Demolition starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee.

Speaking of catching up, your career has had an odd trajectory. There’s almost a ten-year gap between this film and your last feature. What happened?

I came out here, and I got lucky early on. I sold this script, I had a writing partner, and I thought, “This is easy. No problem.” 24, 25 years old; I’ve got money in my pocket. And then I didn’t work again for like seven years.

Along the way, emotionally, I surrendered. I was waving this white flag and I was feeling this apathy. And that apathy was re-stimulating. It brought me back to this place where I was doing this demolition work [when I was younger]. What was happening was that I was in these burned out houses, ripping walls apart and stepping on nails going through my feet, standing around this debris or remains like a skeleton and going, “How the fuck is this my life?” I felt something so much bigger that wants to come out but I feel trapped inside of this environment.

There was that same apathy. It brought me back to that place, but now I was 27 years old or something like that and I was failing, not just in my career but in my relationships. I was broke. I was working in bar, where at first I thought, “I’m going to be here for a few months, I’m good.” I ended up working at that bar for nine years. Out of that apathy came this voice and that voice became this character and that character introduced me to these other characters.

So Davis and his experiences were what paved the way for you?

Once you’re walking down that hallway, it’s like, “Oh, there is a vending machine over there in a hospital. He walks over and hits the button and puts his money in, but the candy gets stuck probably, that’s what happens.” It really unraveled that way, and once I saw that thing that you see on those vending machines, a 1–800 number, I thought, “I got my other character.”

The movie is sort of elevated slightly above reality. There are things that we couldn’t get away with, that he says that we couldn’t get away with. But there are things that you think about, right? Maybe things that you want to say or things that you want to do. Like, it would be cool to get shot with a bulletproof vest. In this world it was acceptable. In my way, that was me doing it without the consequences. I get to explore what the consequences are for him.

A trailer for the movie:

For the rest of the interview, go here.