TORONTO -- Somewhat surprisingly, Mike White, patron saint of neurotic, awkward man-children, appears anything but anxious in person. A couple of hours from the world premiere of his new film, Brad's Status, at the Toronto International Film Festival, the languid 43-year-old talks longingly about the nap he will get to take after his last press event of the day. If there were any kind of pinch-yourself moment, you'd figure this would be one of them, but instead White stays almost preternaturally calm, laid back, and affable. He spoke to us about middle-age crisis, interior monologues, and his strong desire for the film, which stars Ben Stiller as a neurotic, middle-aged man consumed with envy about his fabulously successful old college friends, as he takes his son on a series of college visits, to speak to a much broader audience than just white men of a certain age.
Q. Not to typecast the man, but I assume you wrote that script with Ben Stiller in mind, right?
A. Yeah, I mean he definitely was at the top of the list, but there was a part of me that was like, this could seem like a familiar "Ben Stiller" movie, and so it should never be Ben Stiller or we should just go to Ben Stiller. But the exciting part was because there's a more melancholy strain in it, it demands a more soulful performance. I just thought it'd be cool: You come in thinking it's gonna be one kind of Ben Stiller movie, and then it turns into something really different. To me that's always fun.
Q. On its surface, it's another film about a neurotic, middle-aged white guy, but Brad's jealousy toward his old friends, I think, is something far more universally relatable.
A. Yeah, well it's interesting, when I wrote the script and gave it to Ben in the first place, he was like, "I so relate to Brad", and I'm like, "You're as successful as anyone can be in this industry and you feel like Brad?" So, yeah, I think it doesn't matter where you are on the ladder of success or whether you are all about ambition. I think that the world right now, it just feels like because we have access to other peoples' lives, but a sort of curated access to their lives, it's curated with the maximum inducement toward envy. You're not usually snapping selfies of yourself in bed with moments of self-doubt and laying out all those self doubts. What you're showing is your great vacation and your new girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. When I would be on Instagram, I would find myself hating people that I really like in real life.
Q. It's kind of like the way a lot of women's magazines are designed to make the reader, whoever they are, feel as if they're totally missing out on the good life, somehow. That's how a lot of people use their social media accounts.
A. Well, it isn't just social media. It's also capitalist culture in general, which then dovetails with social media where like, especially in my industry, you'll have friends, but then you realize that your friends are also sponsoring products and everyone's selling themselves, selling something. You have this sense of covetousness and then become this craven, empty, hungry ghost. That is part of something that I was trying to get at in the movie: That sense of cravenness is not only personally unhealthy, if the whole world wants to live like that in private planes, it's not sustainable. So, it's not for the benefit for the person to be like, OK, you have enough. Be happy with what you have. The truth is that capitalism is really just about pushing consumerism and spending more money and spending more money. At some point we, as a culture, need to have a reality check. You have enough. How much money do you need? You don't need the plane. What point does it become ethically dubious to even live those lives?
Q. And if you go straight to the top of that heap -- let's say your [Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos -- it's not like he's sitting there saying "OK, finally, I'm here. Now I can relax."
A. Well, that's definitely true. That's ambitious people for you. It becomes a compulsive behavior. They don't know how to exist in the world without doing what they do. But when I first came to L.A., you meet billionaires in the business, and they're sitting on their Malibu patio, and they want to talk about the petty rivalries they have with each other. There's a reason why those people sometimes are billionaires, because they're insatiable.
Q. So, where would you place yourself on the food chain? I mean, by most standards, you're very successful in the totally cutthroat world of Hollywood. I found it hilarious that you put yourself in the film as an incredibly successful director, one of Brad's old friends who continues to bedevil him.
A. I was not somebody who even assumed I was going to be able to make a living as a writer, so the fact that I'm still able to, I see myself as a success just that way. But there are moments even here, you come to the festival and you have your movie, and you realize, "Oh, no, I'm not the only child of the universe. There are like 10 other movies that are getting great reviews or buzz or more buzz or whatever." And so you have moments where if you put too much stock in that, you're going to have your ego pricked at every step along the way. To me that kind of humiliation is good for the soul.
Q. So a big part of Brad's problem is he keeps seeking external validation instead of generating it from within. What's the secret to turning that switch?
A. Honestly, for me the things that have helped are reading certain kinds of philosophical books and meditating and all of those things, but I do actually think that there is something to just flipping the switch. I think you can if you become more aware in those moments that this is what's happening and you're being triggered by something. Just stepping back from indulging in those kinds of thoughts, you can just change your attitude. It can be as simple as that. I actually believe. I mean, it doesn't mean that you're not going to [suffer]: We always end up back in bed staring at the ceiling. But it's really more like inching toward wisdom. You learn the lessons, you forget them, but with each cycle, maybe, you circle back quicker.
Q. I'm intrigued by the fact that the film doesn't have what might be considered a potent sense of closure.
A. Yeah, I think sometimes that makes the stuff I do more audience challenged. But at the same time, especially with this movie, I couldn't end it with him hugging his son, because no one's going to buy that. This kind of guy, he'll never be namaste. He's always going to have this itch in his head, but maybe his itch is focused on something a little bit more global than his ego and the fluctuations of it or whatever.
MovieStyle on 09/22/2017