Manchester by the Sea

I'm Kenneth Lonergan and this is Manchester by the Sea.

I'm the writer and the director.

This is Peter Ventrella, the content producer.

I'm very happy to be here with Kenny Lonergan

to go through and gain some insight into this really phenomenal film.

The main idea for this story

that came to me initially from Matt Damon and John Krasinski,

who had an idea for a movie they wanted me to write,

the idea of a guy who goes home after his brother dies

in order to take care of his young nephew.

The guy had left town because of a personal tragedy

and doesn't particularly want to go back,

and is not expecting to be given guardianship of his nephew.

Matt and John came to my apartment and asked me if I was interested in the story,

and I really liked the idea a lot.

And they had a lot of other ideas for the story that fell away eventually,

but pretty much was commissioned to write the script any way I wanted to,

and I eventually ended up directing it as well.

That original idea obviously grabbed you

and then there is this whole idea of the setting,

this very specific setting that we 're seeing right here of Manchester-by-the-Sea,

Why set it here, what was the inspiration to do that?

The setting was originally an arbitrary choice on their part.

They said, "You can set it anywhere you like, we 're setting it in Manchester-by-the-Sea,"

and I thought that seemed like a good idea.

I had been to Gloucester a number of times before,

Gloucester is about 20 minutes away from Manchester, and I liked the area.

And it seemed like a good setting for a movie.

And as you can see, it's quite a beautiful setting,

and once we got there, we were very happy we decided to shoot it there.

I did a lot of research on the area while I was writing the script,

more in pre-production.

And really, the most intense immersion in the area was when we were shooting the film,

and tried to work in as many details about the life there as we possibly could.

One thing I noticed when watching the movie,

and I know you've been asked about the music,

but I'll just throw out an observation in terms of the circular nature of this score.

So, you start off with almost choral voices,

and then kind of move into more instrumental classical,

then you move into pop score,

and then back to the choral at the end.

What was the thought in terms of that progression?

Well, this piece is written by our composer, Lesley Barber,

and it's called the Plymouth Chorale, and it's actually an a cappella piece,

her daughter is singing all the parts in the choral music.

It's very beautiful, and this was put in the picture pretty late.

We tried a number of pieces over the opening of the movie

and this was the one that felt the best.

And we already were using it somewhere else in the picture,

but there's just a lightness and a slight wistfulness to it that I really like,

and it seems very evocative of the setting.

And I like the lightness of the music and the slight coldness of it,

with this very cheerful scene going on underneath.

And this of course is introducing Patrick and Lee, and their relationship,

setting it up for later in the film.

It's almost like a dream that we're seeing.

I don't know if that was the intention, but it kind of plays a little bit like that to me.

I didn't realize this at the time, it was probably a visual thing,

'cause it's such a beautiful visual, looking at them going out to sea,

and Casey is so wonderful with Ben O'Brien, who plays young Patrick.

You don't realize at first that this is a memory

because the next scene we see takes place in the present of the film,

which is five years later or so,

in Quincy, Massachusetts, which is quite a different part of the world.

But that cheerful memory is a nice way to start,

considering the fact that we get into Lee Chandler's life,

which is not going too well when we first meet him.

The structure of the film, obviously, we'll see a lot more of it as we get into the film,

but the structure of the past and the present, and juxtaposing those two,

it's very unique, specifically in the way you do it.

And I noticed there's a precision

to the scenes from the past and the present that are patted together.

What point did this come into play?

The double structure of the story where we play out the scenes in the present

and then abruptly, or smoothly, jump back to the past,

came about around the second draft of the screenplay,

remained in place pretty much for the rest of the time I was working on it,

and then into the editing.

For a while, I toyed around with moving the different scenes to different locations.

I think the double structure comes from the fact

that the main character is living a very austere, self-limited life in Quincy,

and he's carrying inside him a flood of memories that he doesn't want.

Some of them are happy, some of them are extremely painful.

One of the main components of the story

is the fact that he cannot bear the memories and thoughts that he's had to live with.

So, what started out as a structural conceit

ended up being very emotionally connected to the general progress of the story.

So, the original draft was more chronological?

The original draft just started at the beginning and went all the way through,

and I got quite bored with it quite quickly.

And I tried to make it work for about six or eight months,

and then I threw out everything and restarted the movie with him shoveling snow.

The idea to start the film, the very, very beginning of the film,

with the boat going out to sea, was something that we did in the editing room,

that wasn't in the script originally.

But I love that footage, and I love Casey with the little boy.

Lee, I'm so sorry.

- That's okay. - This is so gross.

That's all right.

No, tell him to come.

Okay. Yeah.

But, Cindy, I have to tell you something.

I'm, like, in love with my janitor.

The movie plays almost like a mystery,

in the sense that, initially, we don't know why he is the way he is.

And I guess that whole element must have come in

when you had the brainstorm of this past and present.

Yeah, it does. It creates a certain tension

because you're wondering why he is the way he is,

you're not just seeing a progression of unhappy things happening to one guy.

And I think it's not like a murder mystery,

but I think Casey's behavior is odd and strange and detached.

Like in this scene, he's listening

to this very attractive, very interesting girl talk about how much she likes him,

and you can see he pays attention,

but he also doesn't follow through in a normal way.

I really like this scene a lot, with Quincy Bernstine, who plays this tenant.

She's just so cheerful, and friendly, and delightful,

and you can see Casey is responding to her in a certain way,

but that he's holding himself in check from doing anything else.

I mean, just look at him.

It's a very nice moment there because you see he's not dehumanized

to the degree we sometimes heard it described.

He's very much there,

and he's fielding all these human connections that come at him

in a way that's tailored very much to the individual he's talking to.

And this is Missy Yager, who's also a good friend of mine,

and who's a wonderful actress,

being a real pain in the ass to him at the moment.

And he just shuts her down completely.

This is the first time you get a sense of his anger, and it's kind of a clue.

Yeah, he feels no social pressure,

he just wants to keep everyone at the length that he wants to keep them at.

And he's just very unresponsive in a normal sense.

One of the other things I thought was interesting about this juxtaposition

is it gives you that contrast of the sad and the happy, the light and the dark

that, I think, is a really good variety,

and that's one of the things that drew me into this character.

I guess that's a guided by-product once you determine that this is the structure.

Yeah, one of the great things about his performance

is he's so full emotionally in every scene,

even though he's a bit close-mouthed in terms of how much he talks.

But it's just fascinating to watch the wheels turn.

I'm just trying to fix the fucking leak.

I didn't like that.

How dare you talk to me like that?

Get the fuck out of my fucking house.

- Okay. - Get the fuck

out of my fucking house before I call the police.

All right.

Did you hear me? I said get out!

I can't. You're blocking the doorway.

What the fuck's the matter with you?

You can't talk to the tenants like that.

We had a great many local actors from the Boston area,

and a lot of really terrific New York actors came up to do small parts.

Another thing about the story that I like

is that he's surrounded by people who are very much more alive than he is,

they're participating in the world much more than he is,

and he's involved with them,

but again, he's trying to circumscribe it,

he's trying to contain and control his interactions with other people.

And I suppose it makes you wonder what's up with him.

That contrast is great and Casey is a very sympathetic Everyman kind of guy,

but he also has that harder edge that really comes out in a lot of these scenes.

Yeah, he has that feeling of that inner steel

in a way that you know he's not really someone you want to mess with.

Well, on the other hand, it's just amazing to watch him,

he's just holding back this wall of feeling no matter what he's doing.

They dropped the first two. They're going to lose the next three.

Oh, my God. I'm so sorry.

This is another scene, where actress Mary Mallen is...

Perfectly normal encounter in a bar and he just shuts it down as quickly as he can,

not 'cause he doesn't want to be involved with anyone, but because he can't be.

Thanks.

Thank you. Here.

Thanks.

It's okay.

Well, now I spilled my beer all over you, my name's Sharon.

And it's also, I think, very touching, the way he wants to be able to talk to her,

but will not allow himself to, and it leaves him totally alone,

and tends to leave other people alone, too.

He's more comfortable letting other people be uncomfortable with his silence,

than he is in talking to them.

I know you had a rehearsal process.

Can you give us a little window into how you and Casey prepped

and came up with the plan on how to portray this film?

Working with Casey started out very naturally

as soon as he knew he was doing the role.

When he got the script, he called me up and started to ask me questions.

One of the first questions he asked me

was why he felt he was kind of cold to his nephew the first couple of scenes,

and I said I didn't think so.

I said he was just trying to take care of business and not get too involved,

and he just didn't relate to people in a normal way.

And the idea for the character for this particular scene,

where he's about to instigate a bar fight,

is that he's keeping busy all day long

to stop from thinking about what he doesn't want to think about.

And when he has no more work to do he goes and gets drunk,