You Kill Me is a funny, quirky, endearing send-up of mobsters, 12-steppers and other characters oft stereotyped in Hollywood films. Ben Kingsley plays a Buffalo-based alcoholic hitman who bungles a whack and is exiled to San Francisco where, while coming clean in AA, he falls for and bonds with tough cookie Tea Leoni—until their relationship is tested by his recall to Buffalo to deal with family matters.
Director John Dahl signed on to the project some 10 years into its development. “It was a pretty easy decision for me to take the job—not only was Ben attached, but it was a really funny script,” says Dahl. “I met with Ben. We had the same take on his character—that he’s a very honest, almost child-like guy who’s been put in a box by his family and anesthetized with alcohol, and his family only pulls him out of the drawer when they need him. So he’s this bizarrely damaged guy. I love that there’s serious subject matter that’s dealt with in a fun way, with a sense of humor.”
MERIN: How would you characterize that sense of humor?
DAHL: Well, you know, it’s a kind of unusual black comedy: The kind of humor that’s hard to sell to backers because they don’t quite see what the movie’s going to be. It was the guys’ [Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely] first script together, and it has this fresh, spontaneous, discovering-it-all kind of feel. Although it wasn’t made immediately, it got them other work. They went on to write the Narnia films.
I like that this story puts this alcoholic killer into a self-help movie, then has fun with the whole notion of self-help and self examination. And that the killer’s a gruff man from Buffalo sent to San Francisco— which is sort of touchy-feely—and he has to express his emotions. I thought that was kind of fresh, and being a Montanan, I can sort of relate to that clash of cultures.
Did you change this script much?
Not really. Ben, Tea Leoni and I all had a similar vision of the movie. We embraced what the script was—the kind of quirky nature of it. The only thing we did was go through the script with the writers and say what we needed to do to make the film affordable—for example, they’d written a middle-of-the-night snow scene with a snow plow in it, and we said we can’t do that because it’s too expensive. We also expanded the scene where Ben and Tea first meet. Tea came up with some lines she wanted in—like about the eggroll. She’s very smart, very funny.
Why does black comedy appeal to you?
Don’t get me wrong, I love big mainstream comedies, too. But I just think it’s that kind of…I mean, to me, Blood Simple’s a black comedy, and when the guy tries to wipe blood from the floor with a nylon jacket, it’s just—that always cracks me up. I love what that does to me, because I’m thinking, “That’s not gonna work, that’s not gonna wipe the blood,” and I’m invested in it. I’ve always been a fan of that slightly off-centered approach. Like, the first movie I made I set in Reno—not Las Vegas—just slightly off the beaten path.
Do you feel safer there?
Yeah, I do. There’re a lot of people who’re really good at the mainstream stuff, but I guess I go for subtle obscurity. (laughs)
Are you currently inventing any obscurity of your own?
Feature films are hard to get made because there’re so many elements involved: It’s almost like getting the planets to align. I mean, you can have the actors, but you don’t have the money. Then you get the money, but you’ve lost your actors to other projects.
The thing about feature films is that there really doesn’t ever need to be another one made. What makes a feature film ignite, if you will, is that it feels like a great opportunity in a moment. It’s a rough business.
But I love the process. It’s like a gigantic art project. You sit in a room with a script, taking an idea and visualizing it, cast actors, then there’s the chaos of shooting, then taking footage to the editing room and putting it together, watching it take shape-- I guess that’s the part I like the most.
Do you visualize everything beforehand?
I used to—because I was a storyboard artist. As a young director, I worried about shooting enough to cover a scene. Over time, I learned to take advantage of talented people around me. Now, I’m confident I’ll cover the scene. I still visualize lighting, putting layers of light through a set to give it depth on screen.
It’s most important to create an environment where actors can believe where they are and can invent the scene for themselves on that day—then, my job is to photograph that.
