I spoke to Mike Mills and Lou Pucci over the phone while they were at a hotel in Portland, Oregon, one of their many stops on the Thumbsucker press tour. We were going to have an all-inclusive conversation over speakerphone, but there were feedback issues, so I ended up speaking to each of them separately.

Mike, coming as you do from a visually oriented background, what lead you to want to adapt Walter Kirn's novel yourself?

I think it's actually because of that background, you know. Even though I was doing graphics or doing music videos, I was still the author, you know what I mean? I'm still coming up with the ideas and directing the whole piece, not just a part of it. That's the kind of position I'd always put myself in. Especially with videos - you come up with your ideas, and to me the measure of a good video is the idea more than anything else, you know? So ideas and scripts and words are all kind of the same to me.

So it really wasn't that much of a leap. And actually, I couldn't not write it. Even though I wasn't a writer, I couldn't separate that part of the process from the directing. To me, they're interconnected.

So you're a believer in the auteur theory?

My answer is more personal than a full endorsement of and study of the auteur theory. People who are classically cited as auteur directors tend to be my favorite directors, but Hal Ashby is also one of my favorite directors and he didn't ever write any one of his scripts. Harold And Maude is a big influence on this movie and he didn't write that. To me it's more of a personal...my personality and the way I want to go. But yeah, I guess I'm talking about authorship in terms of directing, so I guess that is a total auteur thing.

Did you feel comfortable deviating from the original text during the adaptation process?

It was years in the making, you know? So at first, it was really pretty close to the book. And then, in the throes of adapting something to that many pages, you end up kicking things around and shifting it. And then I get a first draft done and I show it to Walter Kirn and he's very positive. And he said - and a lot of people tell me this - you really have to forget the book or kill the book to make the screenplay. So that did help give me permission to do...you know, I felt like thematically, it really is the book, and it's very true to the book and I love the book and what it's saying. And if I deviated from that, it was only to get deeper into those themes in the time that I had and with the characters and actors I had. I don't really feel like I abused it to much.

But another thing that started happening in the whole process of this is that I realized I really am Justin (the lead character in the story). I picked this book because it was an opportunity for me to relive many feelings that I had and still have and kinda work them out. In especially in the relationship of him to his mother. I needed to work on that and it mimicked my relationship to my mom. So it became very personal and cathartic in that way.

Can you talk about how you used improvisation in the film? I read that you experimented a lot during rehearsal.

We spent most of the time improvising backgrounds and the family's life together, and doing strange things like making Audrey be the kid sucking her thumb and Justing be the parent that catches her. Because family members are always so confused about who's who and everybody has each other's feelings to a certain degree. A lot of the things that came out of those improvisations in rehearsal made their way into the script, because an amazing line would be said, or some weird action would happen between two characters that would actually create a new little scene. Or on the set an actor would say "I'm not so sure about this" and we would improvise a new whole little section of dialogue together just as we're lighting the scene, and that would become the scene. And then there were a few things that we completely improvised while we were filming.

Did a lot of that end up in the final cut?

There's a lot that's in. I think that anytime you do that, you're running a bad numbers game, you know? But all you need is the piece that stays in. So there's a lot that didn't make it. And then there's a lot of things like..like, I'm very into an actor surprising me, and the scene surprising me and the day surprising me. So if Vince Vaughn or Keanu want to throw in a line in between lines, these guys are responsible enough performers to know when they need to hit a beat and when they can play a little bit, and I'm totally going to encourage it because I want them to be in the moment.

Was there anyone on the set that had trouble with that method of working?

No. Definitely not Walter, who came to visit just to have fun more than anything else. And actually, it's a great way to deal with your producers because by the time the three of them talk about it and argue about it and get back to you, you've moved on.

The press notes also mention that you wanted to achieve a sort of Dogme aesthetic to the picture.

This is a misnomer that came out of those notes. I've done documentaries and part of me was always thinking about...there's a contradiction in the film, where things in front of the camera are pretty much as real as possible. And they aren't always, you now, but that was part of the game. The clothes, the makeup the lights, like, let's do as little as possible and try to keep it real. The same thing with the actors, trying to be as organic as possible. But the camera - you now, we shot in anamorphic, which has a very low depth of field, and the 2:35 format is a very formal stylistic format. What I said to my DP, Joaquín Baca-Asay, was that we're shooting a documentary, we're shooting real life, and at the same time there's no such thing as real life. Everything is a dream that everybody makes up. There's no such thing as verite, or reality. And he was like "what?" And I was like "exactly." That little gap in there is where we're shooting from.

To me, in my lifetime, as a filmmaker, Dogme is one of the more prominent mounts that really means something to me. So even if I'm not making a Dogme film, I'm very aware of it. Like Mt. Hood sitting over there, it's something I can see all the time. I didn't make a Dogme film at all, but it's something I thought about a lot.

In lieu of actually speaking with her, what can you tell me about Kelli Garner? I really was impressed with her performance.

I think Kelli's really amazing. I really love her character, and I love what she did with it. One thing that's really great that came out of our way of working was I had her do these nature walks with these naturalists to teach us about the environment her character was walking through and to give her all this knowledge. And this lady was really kind of bossy and intense and had a lot to say. And at the end of it I said "how do you feel?" and Kelli said: "Stupid." She felt it so strongly that I was like, that's great, let's make that part of Rebecca. Rebecca was this brainypants and this environmentalist, but maybe she did it more out of a sense of duty and a way to her please her parents, or something like that.

Is the environmentalist element something personal to you that you introduced to the film? I know it's a very prevalent part of the website.

Yeah, it was in the book, but it was a little more of a pastiche. I'm in all of those clubs, and I made Kelli join the Sierra club - she joined it under her character name - and I made her try to fundraise. So yeah, it's both a personal thing that interests me and part of her character. It's been fun, they've been coming to all our premieres - we have a Humane Society table and a Sierra Club table. And just having them on the website - to me, it's really interesting to try to get this thing that's supposedly entertainment to be linked to activism, and vice versa, and everyone's really excited about it.

Well, if you're ever in Dallas or Fort Worth, you'll have to come check out my friend's restaurant, which is the only progressive vegan restaurant in the metroplex.

Oh wow. In the metroplex? You mean in the cinemaplex?

No, in the two cities.

Oh, I thought you meant like in the theater.

So what was your working relationship with Lou on the set like?

We had a lot of solidarity from the beginning, because - well, I totally identified with not just his character, but him, and I think that's part of why it was easy to cast him. We had a lot of solidarity because we were the two newcomers, in a way - you know, it's my first feature and it's his first role, and we both identified with Justin, so it was really easy to hit it off, and he's become one of the better friends in my life.

Was it really not a working relationship at all, then - was it more like you were just hanging out?

Oh yeah. And we all lived in these condos together out in Beaverton, which was pretty funny. We definitely became sort of enmeshed with each other.

I've been looking online and have been trying to find some of your short films and such - the documentary Paperboys sounds especially interesting. Are these available anywhere, or are there plans to make them available

You know there's that Director's Series? They're going to do one, so I'm going to try to get all that stuff on there. I've done a lot of documentaries and those are really hard to show people and get them out in the world, so I'm excited about that.

Do you have any other features in the works? Is that what you're leaning towards doing?

I think that...it's definitely going to be like the big building on my block. I'm going to keep doing them, and I'm doing an original screenplay right now. So yeah, I'm working on the next one.

Lastly, can you talk about the moment when you realized that the Polyphonic Spree were the perfect band to finish what Elliot Smith had started?

It was really...I went to see them play. You're from Dallas, you must have seen them.

Absolutely.

So I went to see them play, and I wasn't thinking about them doing the score. If you listen to that first record especially, I don't know if you necessarily think 'score,' you know. And I wasn't necessarily in the greatest of moods or the happiest of times in my life. And as music often does, it just sort of changed my molecular structure that night. And being negative and being not open-hearted really seemed ridiculous after watching them for an hour. It just seemed like a dead end. While being more positive or open-hearted doesn't necessarily seem easy, the Spree definitely kind of gives you a good anthem for trying. And just watching that many people be joyful is pretty contagious. So I was leaving and I had that feeling like, man, I wish I felt like this all the time. And then I also realized that this was what I hoped people felt when they watched the movie - or at least a piece of what I'm feeling right now. And then I thought about it and was like...wow...choir...symphony...obviously really talented musicians...why not have them do the score? They have all the ingredients in one band. I think Tim did such an amazing job. It was his first score, and by that time we had enough done that he could do a lot of it to picture. He nailed it. He really had an intuitive genius to know how to get right into the emotions of the scene.

A lot of them were at the press screening I went to and humming along with the score. It was pretty fun.

They came to to the LA Premiere and played an acoustic version of the song for the audience before the film started.

I think our publicist here is trying to do that for the opening night in Dallas.

That'd be great, that'll be so amazing.

Well, that's all I've got. Thank you so much for answering these questions.

Yeah, absolutely.

...and I guess I have some for Lou now, if he's around...

Okay...he's on the couch. Let me get him off the couch. I'm gonna put you on hold for a second.

A few seconds later, Lou Pucci picks up the phone.

Hello?

Hey Lou. How's it going?

I'm in the middle of sleep and not sleep. I don't know where I am right now!

That might lead to some interesting answers.

Oh don't worry, I'll say everything anyway. Just don't print everything I say.

So I really loved you performance.

Thanks, man.

It's funny...I'd seen you a few weeks earlier in The Chumscrubber, which, if I remember correctly, you did after Thumbsucker?

Yeah, it was almost a year after, I think.

The movies had a lot of similarities to them.

A lot of kind of external similarities, yeah.

I was wondering if it was odd to do those back to back, but I suppose if you had a year in between them...

Yeah, there was a good amount of time between them. Probably about eight months or something.

I was at the Berlin Film Festival and I skipped Thumbsucker because I thought The Chumscrubber was the same thing and I knew I was going to see that next month at SXSW. It wasn't until just a few months ago that I finally realized they weren't the same movie at all.

Oops! When did you see it?

It was probably about a month ago, at a press screening.

Awesome.

So anyway, I had planned on talking to you and Mike together, but I guess I'll just ask you some of the same questions I asked him. I know you guys did a lot of improv on the film. Is there anything in the film you'd like to take credit for?

Oh...there's funny things that I started to remember recently, because people have been asking me those same questions, like what parts of it are improv and what parts aren't. But really, to tell you the truth, I only remember what we did - I mean, what ended up on film. It was so kinda out there...we just did everything, we just talked and had long conversations, but I don't remember what used to be in the old script and what didn't.

I remember two things that happened, and he probably told you about one. He always talks about the one with me and Kelli.

No, actually, he didn't mention that.

Well, it's the one where me and Kelli are talking about Greenpeace at the library table. And I think we just kind of went up to him beforehand. I think we were rehearsing, sort of, we were just sitting there doing the lines, and both of us kind of agreed that yeah, we wouldn't say that. And we both just went up to him and we were like, "hey Mike, we wouldn't say any of this." And he was like "oh, okay, cool. What do you want to say?" We didn't know, so he said to just start talking. And so we just started talking and he wrote down some of the stuff we said and that was it. We just did that. That was how free we were, which was awesome.

What was the shoot like, in general? I assume it was pretty low budget, with a tight schedule...

Actually, was my first real film, for any length of time.

You did Personal Velocity, which I guess was pretty tiny...

Yeah, that was five days for me, and that was low budget. But this, it seemed like a big budget to me. I had never done anything like that. Oh, hold on one second, Mike's leaving...

...hey, sorry. So it seemed pretty awesome to me. I was getting per diem! I was like, holy shit, you're going to pay me just to be here, and you're going to pay me for working? That's awesome.

I love how in the film, there are all these actors that everyone recognizes, and yet they're not showcased in any way - it all revolves around you, and they're almost defined by the way you react to them.

Yeah, and I think that's something that Mike and I just kinda sat there and understood. I got to go into the editing, which was awesome. Mike let me into that, which is kinda cool. And that was something that we both all kinda learned: that if it doesn't stay on the main character for some reason, if it deviates from them even a little bit, if he's not in a scene it's almost like you don't want to see that scene. You can do without that scene. It's really weird. Mike started using clips from this bedroom scene that Vincent and Tilda had, except he only used pieces of it when they were talking about me, because that's the only way that it fit in. It's weird to think about it, but it's true.

It sounds like you had a really fantastic collaborative experience with Mike on this film.

I feel like I did. I think he did too. I'm glad that he let me in on so much.

As an actor, are you more interested in these smaller pictures, or do you want to try anything?

Yeah, I'm interested in doing whatever. What do you mean by smaller pictures?

Well low budget, or independent. Although I know you're doing Empire Falls for HBO...

No, I actually did Empire Falls right after Thumbsucker. It came out in May on HBO.

Wow, I guess I completely missed that. I'm so out of touch with television.

Oh yeah, me too, dude. But yeah, Empire Falls was like three days after Thumbsucker, and then I did Chumscrubber after that. And then I did a movie called Fifty Pills, which was a much smaller picture. But I was into it because it was a cool movie that made me laugh. It was a comedy, and I never even kind of thought about doing a comedy, and so it was just something completely new and it scared the crap out of me, so I just figured that'd be good to do.

Is that what attracts you to a project - how much it interests you and challenges you as an actor?

Yeah, it's whether or not it scares the crap out of me or not. It really is. Something about it does, there has to be something that keeps me scared.

I noticed on your bio that you're also a musician and magician?

Oh, that's really funny. Yeah, I sing, so I guess you could call me a musician. But definitely a magician. I've just done card stuff - all different kinds of card magic, really cool sleight of hand stuff - since I was twelve.

Well, I think that wraps up my questions, unless you have any exciting stories to tell from the set that you haven't told yet...

Where are you from? I don't even know who I'm talking to, that's how messed up I am...

I'm from Dallas.

Oh cool, I wish we could have gotten to go there.

I imagine you're pretty wiped out from the press tour.

It's been so much, so much of this questions and stuff, you know what I mean? I just want to ask someone else some questions.

Well hey, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Well how's Dallas right now?

It's nice and hot. Probably close to 98 or 99.

Holy crap, really? Where is Dallas in Texas?

It's sorta in Northeast corner. It's further North than Austin, which is closer to the center.

Are you from there?

From Dallas? Originally I'm from Milwaukee Wisconsin. So I'm more used to a colder climate.

What paper are you doing this for?

I've got a website called Reversing The Gaze, where I write reviews and stuff.

Oh, that's cool.

Well, thanks so much for chatting. I hope you get some sleep in the near future.

Yeah, I think I'm going to go to sleep right now for a little while, actually.

Enjoy the Portland weather.

Okay. Thank you, man.

Take care.