Lullaby was inspired by events in your life after your father passed away. For how long have you worked on the screenplay?
Andrew Levitas: After my father passed away, I didn’t have somebody to talk to. I was painting and I was writing and I was really investigating what had gone on. Your memories of these experiences change over time. I really wanted to remember and understand where I was immediately after, what I was feeling. And I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. So I sat down and wrote [Lullaby] to just remember. That was pretty easy, that was a week of work. I wrote a screenplay. I had never written one before and had just downloaded Final Draft. And then I put it in a drawer and I didn’t work on it for quite some time. Maybe a year or two later, I then picked it up again and was able to have the distance and have the larger framework of my life and time to go and then understand some of the moments in that experience, what they ultimately led to. I then sort of re-wrote the script with that in mind. I went back and kind of massaged it, and then I put it down again, picked it up maybe a year or two later again because I was just so busy with other pursuits in my life.
I sort of had this distance from the actual experiences and I started thinking about what it would look like as a more universal film. And at that point, it really left being a true story and became something entirely different. When eventually I cast my actors, I took the screenplay and moved it toward them, as opposed to moving them to the screenplay. And that process of picking it up and putting it down, is something that I have used quite a bit with my painting and sculpting and other work. At any time, there’s 50 paintings that I’ve been working on. Just because I put something down doesn’t mean I won’t finish it.
Lullaby has a stellar cast. Many screenwriters like to envision certain actors in the roles they are writing. Were the actors chosen some of the ones you had in mind?
Andrew Levitas: Actually, no. I was not thinking about specific actors as I was developing this. Certain friends and different folks along the way really helped me get the script in great shape at the end. The biggest support in the film process was actually once I had a screenplay I felt comfortable going out with actors, it was more about the truth of who these characters are. Who can I find whose own life embodies some of these traits? Going out to cast, it wasn’t looking at what these actors had done before. It was more reading articles, watching interviews, trying to get a sense of who these actors were as human beings.
Once I identified them, it was about getting it to them and hopefully they responded – which just about everybody did. And then finding some time to talk to ultimately shift the characters a bit to make them fit with the actors. Rather than having everybody push hard to become something they’re not, it was looking for similarities between these actors and these characters and trying to bridge that gap. I think that’s why you see such convincing performances from the actors. They were able to tap into something that was innately them.
Some of my favourite scenes in the film were with the kids in the cancer ward. Remarkable performances, especially from Jessica Barden. Were these moments inspired by any of your experiences when your father was in the hospital?
Andrew Levitas: Jessica’s character was one that was created later. I had experiences seeing these kids around the hospital in the limited time I was there. Once the story was down, what would make sense for our story? What would be a great way to investigate these ideas and create something dynamic? I’ve always been fascinated by these young kids, who seem to be to evolved and so clear on what life is supposed to be. It’s almost simpler. None of us want that and none of us want that for our children, but there’s a peace and a beauty to people that are going through that. I built that character from scratch. Jessica was the perfect choice, she’s just absolutely brilliant. She brought the narrative to life in a way that I never in my wildest dreams could have imagine.
With this being your first film, what’s the most valuable piece of advice you could give to new directors?
Andrew Levitas: It would be two-parted. First part is don’t rely on anybody and the second part would be the opposite of that, rely on everyone. Don’t leave anything up to other people. Make your own decisions and know what you want. Be really focused and really clear about it. Go at it and get it done. But when it comes time to make your film, listen to everybody. And, realize that there’s a reason why every person who’s on a film set is on a film set. They often have a lot more knowledge than just their circle of what their job is. It would be creating an opportunity for everybody to express themselves. You would be amazed at where some of the best ideas come from. On the Lullaby set, no matter what your job was, you wear every single hat.
The love and specificity and attention to detail is so clear because everybody was the director, everybody was the sound guy, everybody was the script supervisor. These are all really creative people. People don’t go out into the film business unless they’re artists.
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Andrew very much for his time. Be sure to check out Lullaby as it’s now playing in theatres.