“Throughout my career, I’ve been blessed to work with wonderful people,” says Alexander Payne. The 60-year-old filmmaker is best known for his dark comedies like Election (1999), Sideways (2004), and The Descendants (2011). Over the course of his award-winning career, Payne has earned a reputation among the casts and crews he’s collaborated with for treating his extras with as much care as he does the leading roles.
Payne says, “A great thing about being a narrative filmmaker is striving to stay connected to real life. My goal is to blur the line between real life and the life suggested on screen.” One way in which he tries to do that is with the help of talented extras. “The great aspect of being a filmmaker is that human behavior – and a rich variety of faces – is the clay one gets to work with and shape into a beautiful story,” says Payne.
Attention to Detail Is Essential for Alexander Payne
Payne pays painstaking attention to every person who appears in his films. “All of my films are a combination of highly seasoned, professional actors who typically live in Los Angeles or New York; local, nonprofessional actors, the kind that do community theater and local commercials; and nonactors. Those are the people right off the street or the farm — as was the case with Nebraska,” says Payne. “John Jackson, my casting director, and I make a point of finding the right real people for the project.”
Growing up in Omaha helped shape Payne’s future as a writer and director. So he happily seized the opportunity to cast real farmers and Cornhusker State natives for his black-and-white dramedy Nebraska. “I was trying to find nonactors who could reliably present to the camera an unselfconscious version of themselves,” Payne explains. “While I make narrative films, I have the mentality of a documentarian as well. That is why what I hope you see in my fiction films truly resembles real life.” Adds Payne: “I’m just trying to fashion the movie that I myself would want to see.”
“It’s very important for us to discover places and then leave them untouched,” explains Phedon Papamichael, Payne’s friend and the director of photography for The Descendants, Sideways and Nebraska. “It was important that we not glamorize any part of the location.”
Celebrities Praise Alexander Payne
Payne personally enjoyed directing Paul Giamatti in Sideways. “Now we’re going back 17 years, but that was a standout experience — working with Paul,” he says. “We had a perfect time making Sideways. He’s an actor who can do anything. I’m not the only director who thinks this about Paul.”
Payne and Giamatti reunite in their new film, The Holdovers, set in a private prep school. He’s happy to work with his friend once again. “Paul has always been at the top of my list of actors that I can’t wait to work with again,” he says.
The feeling is mutual. “It was an exceptional experience,” Giamatti has said about working with Payne. “We had so much fun on the set of Sideways. I mean, it was joyous. And I think the movie feels that joy and happiness because we were just making a movie for the love of making a movie — and that’s what was great about it. None of us felt we were making anything anybody would even care about that much. But we cared about it because of Alexander and his simple joy of being with actors and crew.”
Alexander Payne Respects Extras
Payne extends that kind of love to even the extras populating the background of his films. Payne is very involved with creating the perfect character for each and every extra to make his films feel as authentic as possible.
“Alexander asked me if I wanted to do his movie, and I’d been wanting to work with him for a long time,” Matt Damon has said. “When he asked me if I wanted to do Downsizing, I wasn’t going to pass it up. That was the first chance I had to work with Alexander.”
During filming, Damon discovered a newfound respect for the director. “I was surprised by how meticulous he is,” Damon shared. “He’s very sure of himself and of the shots he needs to make. I’m not saying he tries to be overly controlling. Instead, he knows when he’s got the shot — that’s good. It makes you feel like you’re in the hands of a master director.”
Payne thinks the non-stars of the film actually have to work the hardest to create their characters. “It is tough for bit players or smaller character parts, because they have to suggest an entire human being in one or two or three scenes. It’s easier on leads, because they have the landscape of the entire film to build their characters.”
So what does Payne look for when casting an either a lead or an extra? “A movie needs to be zippy, so I like actors that can act quickly,” explains Payne. “Now that doesn’t mean they have to talk fast. I am impressed when they can communicate whatever needs to be communicated quickly and effectively.”
