CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF PRINT ISSUE #7, WHICH FEATURES THIS INTERVIEW WITH JAMES GUNN AND JENNA FISCHER IN ITS ENTIRETY!
HE IS AN ACTOR/WRITER/DIRECTOR RESPONSIBLE FOR LAST YEAR'S DAWN OF THE DEAD REMAKE, AND NEXT YEAR'S HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED FILM SLITHER. SHE'S BEHIND THE DESK ON NBC'S THE OFFICE AND DIRECTED THE SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED-ON-DVD FILM LOLLILOVE. AND THEY'RE HUSBAND AND WIFE. TOGETHER, THEY FORM THE QUINTESSENTIAL HOLLYWOOD POWER COUPLE... OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. READ ON AS WAYNE CHINSANG IS THROWN IN THE MIDDLE OF JAMES GUNN AND JENNA FISCHER.
Wayne Chinsang: This interview is going to be a direct transcription, but you probably know that from before, James.
James Gunn: Yeah. That’s why your interviews are so good. I did an interview about Slither [James’ upcoming film] with another publication, and they transcribed every "um" and "er" and "ah". I sounded like the biggest fucking moron. I sounded like George Bush.
All: (laugh)
WC: Okay, so I was thinking about different ways that we could do this interview, and one of the ways I thought we could do it is as in character from the people you play in LolliLove [Jenna’s directorial debut].
JG: There’s such a thin line between--
Jenna Fischer: Those two things.
WC: (laughs) But then I just figured I’d interview you both as people you’re not. So, James, you wrote Spanglish, right? And Jenna, you’re on Lost?
All: (laugh)
JF: I am. It’s crazy. I go back to Hawaii next week.
WC: (laughs) Can you tell me how the entire series ends?
JF: I haven’t seen any of the outlines, but I can tell you that the numbers are going to add up to something significant. But that’s all I want to say.
WC: (laughs) Okay, so let’s talk about LolliLove. When I interviewed you awhile ago, James, you had been talking about it even then.
JG: Yeah. We made it over a number of years.
JF: We shot certain scenes from the movie three times over a couple of years. From me getting the idea to the completion of the project was almost three years.
WC: You conceptualized the whole idea, Jenna, so did you just work on it when time became available?
JF: Yeah. I did this book called The Artist’s Way, and from doing that book I got this idea for doing what I thought was going to be a short film about this couple who starts a charity for the homeless. But really it’s all about them, and it’s sort of a satire. When we started it, it wasn’t even supposed to be a real movie. It was just going to be an improv project for James and I to amuse ourselves with.
JG: That's really what it was to begin with. It was me, Jenna, Michelle Martin, and Judy Greer.
JF: Well, in the very beginning it was just me and James. We set up a tripod and a camera in our living room, and we started doing interviews in our characters. And then we decided to have some of our other friends come over, and I had the idea to have all of these young and pretty girls as our volunteers. So that's when we had Judy and Michelle come over, and Sarah Sido came over, my friend Jennifer Eolin came over--
JG: All of the LolliLove girls.
JF: So we had all of these girls come over, and we decided to do the lollipop assembly. We improvised what would happen if each of these girls had their own personality, and we did a series of interviews with each girl about why they had decided to volunteer for the project. We have really, really funny interviews. In fact, it was in one of those early interviews where Michelle Martin said, "The one thing I'm worried about with this charity is that I've heard the homeless can be somewhat aggressive, so I hope that Jenna and James have prepared some sort of self-defense course for us." So from the interview was born the idea of the self-defense course for the volunteers, which made it into the final movie.
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