FRANCIS VEBER: The Hollywood Interview

Alice Taglioni (left) and Gad Elmaleh (right) in The Valet, from writer-director Francis Veber (below).

Note: This originally appeared in the April 2007 issue of Venice Magazine. The Valet has just come out on DVD and is worth catching. Hilarious, stunningly beautiful photography of Paris, and the return of the ultimate put-upon everyman character, Francois Pignon. In person, Veber was as sweet as could be and full of great advice for a younger writer like myself. He's a comedic filmmaking genius and I feel privileged to have shared a meal with him. When we spoke last Spring, The Valet had been optioned by the Farrelly Brothers for an American remake. This isn't as odd a pairing as it might seem. The Farrellys are completely capable of keeping the sweet edge which makes the original so memorable. There's Something About Mary, a comedy obstensibly about four stalkers after the same girl, would never have been the success it was if you didn't relate to Ben Stiller's character, who had a lifetime of losing to overcome. Where the Farrelly style doesn't always fly is when you just get the gross-out set pieces without the charming characters to balance them out, as in Me, Myself, and Irene. I don't know what the status of the remake is, but here's hoping that Pete and Bobby bring their A-game to the table if it moves forward. Their Fever Pitch never found the audience it deserved. It was also the perfect vehicle to make Jimmy Fallon a star, playing to his everyman charms, but for whatever reason, Fallon hasn't made the crossover to features star, despite having comedic chops to kill for. Okay, enough Farrellys and Fallon. On to Mr. Veber.

Francis Veber: The King of Comedy Parks His Car in a New Hit with The Valet
By Terry Keefe

Forget film school. If you want to learn how to write comedy, study the screenplays and films of writer-director Francis Veber. Shakespeare said it and I repeat it: brevity is the soul of wit. And Veber’s scripts, as well as the films that follow, are marvels of economy. Water tight, with nary a word wasted, they move like the wind, rarely allowing the audience to catch the breath that might lead to boredom. His newest, The Valet, is 83 minutes long, and, The Dinner Game, one of his previous best, clocks in at a lean 81. He’s a master (and perhaps the best writer alive) at setting up a farcical scenario and then building it naturally, but unrelentingly. If writing and directing comedy is hard, farce can be torture to create, and watch, in the wrong hands. What’s perhaps most difficult about farce is making the coincidences and circumstances which drive it believable and unforced. This is where Veber’s deft touch is so welcome as an audience member. You believe every beat. He can bring you to hilarity just from his set-ups alone, without resorting to the fat suits and bodily function gags which serve as punch lines in American comedy today.

His newest to hit American screens, The Valet, was released previously in France as La Doublure. The car-parking hero of the title is Francois Pignon (Gad Elmaleh), who just happens to walk past billionaire businessman Pierre Levasseur (Daniel Auteuil) while he’s with his super model mistress Elena (Alice Taglioni), and a paparazzi snaps a photo. The picture appears in the local tabloids, angering Pierre’s wife Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). Pierre covers himself by saying that he isn’t with Elena, who is, in fact, the girlfriend of Pignon. In order to sell the lie, Pierre tracks down Pignon and pays him to allow Elena to move into his apartment and pretend to be a couple. At the same time, Elena demands that Pierre give her several million dollars, which she vows to return if he actually goes through with his promise of divorcing his wife. More complications ensue because Pignon wishes to marry pretty book store owner Emilie (Virginie Ledoyen).

Fans of Veber will certainly know that Francois Pignon is a recurring character of sorts in Veber’s films. He’s often played by different actors though, and, as a character, is often different from film to film. Jacques Villeret in The Dinner Game, for example, played him as much more of a buffoon than Elmaleh’s lovable sad sack. What is common throughout the Pignons is that they are all likeable everymen.

The inevitable American remake of The Valet looms, with the Farrelly Brothers recently announcing their intentions to shoot it. Veber’s films have been frequently remade in America over the years and include Father’s Day, starring Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, from Veber’s Les Comperes; The Toy, starring Richard Pryor, from Veber’s Le Jouet; Buddy Buddy, the last film of Billy Wilder, from Veber’s L’Emmerdeur; and The Birdcage, from Veber’s screenplay adaptation of La Cage aux Folles. Where the remakes, with the exception of The Birdcage, have struggled is in matching the underlying sweetness in Veber’s films, even the ones with nasty characters, as well as the love he has for those characters.

What was the hardest part of The Valet script for you to nail during the writing process?

Francis Veber: That’s an interesting question, because when I was telling the story I was writing to friends here in America, people, and especially my assistant, were asking me, “Why does this girl, this supermodel, accept to get involved in such a thing?” And I had an explanation, which was an American explanation, that they were giving her millions of dollars. So, they were satisfied with that explanation that she was taking the money. Money is a god here. But when I came back to France, I told my French friends the story, and they said, “Why does she accept?” And I said, “Well, they’re giving her these millions of dollars.” And they said, “Then she’s a whore. She’s a slut.” And I understood that, because there’s a difference in mentality between over here and over there. It was then that I started to work, I don’t know how many weeks, to find a solution. Which was this: she says, “You give me the millions, and if you divorce [your wife], I’ll give you the money back.” Then, she’s sympathetic to the women in the audience, because she’s not stupid. This man has been lying to her for two years, saying “I’ll divorce my wife. I’ll marry you.” All this stuff. So she’s sort of blackmailing him, but it’s fun. So, that was one of the difficult things in writing the script. The other difficult part was that we had a hero like my little man living with a super model like that. It’s a small apartment. He’d try to see her in the shower and such. I thought, “How do I avoid that, so as not to be salacious?” But then I thought, “If he’s in love with a girl in the same league as he, a little girl, he would not be attracted to this other woman. She’s something else. She doesn’t belong to his world.” It was a very interesting screenplay to write. [In terms of production] another problem that I had was in finding an actress to play this super model, because in France, most of our actresses are small. Our Elena, Alice Taglioni, is 6 feet tall. Tall like a bird.

You also had to find a tall, super model-looking actress with good comedic timing.

I was so happy to have Alice. It was kind of a miracle. We looked at a lot of girls. She had acted before only in small parts. She’s so gorgeous. And she’s a very nice woman.

Gad Elmaleh, who is your Francois Pignon this time, has this great Buster Keaton face, sad but funny.

[laughs] It’s true. He hears that a lot. He’s a stand-up comedian in France. I think it was kind of tough for him to go from the comedy stage to a movie set. Because stand-up comedy is different. You play with the audience. Also, the guy who was performing as his best friend, Dany Boon, is an amazing actor. I think he’s one of the best in France. I’m going to direct him on the stage in August. You know, I started as a stage writer. I love directing for the stage. It’s very different work from film direction. And you know why? Because when you are directing a movie, the memory of the actors is temporary. It’s fugitive. They learn the line and then forget it. But when actors are doing a play, they have to learn the whole thing and ingest it.

What is the name of the play you’re doing with Dany Boon?

It’s “The Dinner Game”, which was a play first, for three years in Paris. I didn’t direct it then. But Jacques Villeret, who was the actor in the movie version playing Pignon [as well as the previous run of the play], died because he was drinking so much. Nobody can imagine how this man was drinking. His agent told me that on an 11-hour flight, he drank 7 bottles of white wine.

My God. He was so good in the film.

He was. On the play, we cancelled the show maybe 10 times during the three years because he was so drunk.

Do you like having a different actor play Pignon each time?

Well, Pierre Richard actually played him three times. Daniel Auteuil was Pignon in The Closet. But here, he’s the rich Pierre Levasseur. He was learning the lines of Pignon at first, and I said, “No, those aren’t your lines.” [laughs]

How similar are your scripts in terms of length to the finished film?

Very much the same. In the finished film, I sometimes lose one minute. It depends on the screenplay, you know. There are people who shoot 2 or 3 hours of material, and then they cut and cut and cut. That’s stupid, because they’ve lost money and time.

I imagine you do a lot of drafts to get the structure so tight though.

Yeah, a lot. As you Americans say, “Writing is rewriting.” It’s a very interesting process. I envy you to be young and want to write. When I was your age, it was fantastic to write. Because you’re fresh, you know. I have done 31 movies and 4 stage plays. And I start to think that maybe I’ve done my due.

Not at all. The Valet is hilarious, and as tight a script as I’ve ever seen. And I think that comedy is the hardest genre to write.

Ah, it’s terrible.

And you have to make it look effortless, while it’s anything but.

It’s difficult. You have to have a sense of comedy. I think it’s genetic. There are people who don’t understand humor at all. Which is sad.

Once you locked the script on The Valet and had the cast locked, what was your rehearsal process like?

You can’t rehearse much with actors in France. Because they are shooting too much. It’s very difficult to have them 2-3 weeks before, so sometimes you meet them on the set. It’s why you are obliged to do a lot of takes. I once did 45 takes with Depardieu. And 37 takes with Auteuil. They’re exhausted at the end of that. When I started directing, I realized how tough acting was. Before I was directing, I usually hated actors. I thought they were lazy, working for 12 weeks, making more money than I, who was working for a year. But I learned it was a tough job. You’re scared all the time, you’re insecure. With Auteuil, after I did 37 takes with him, I took him by the hand to show him that the last take was good. His hand was ice cold and wet. The effort had been so big. So now, I admire actors.

When you’re writing a farce like The Valet, do you start with the core idea of the inciting incident and then sort of develop elements to play off of it? Or do you start at the beginning and move forward linearly from there?

No, you’re obligated to structure the whole thing. When I was younger, I made the mistake of not structuring. I thought I would write and the characters would give me the story. But now I structure the whole thing first. It’s the most painful process. Because you don’t always know where you’re going. There’s a line in front of you but you’re not sure where it leads.

I’d imagine that the scene where the paparazzi take the picture of Pignon on the street was one of your first ideas though.

Sure, it was one of the first ideas. It creates the problem of the film. There’s a funny story about the making of The Valet, in that the restaurant where Pignon works is a set.

Really? I never would have suspected that. It looks like the greatest restaurant ever.

Behind it is the Museum of Modern Art and there’s nothing, just the terrace. But it was so well done, that we had Japanese tourists making reservations all day long. Party of two [laughs].

You’ve said that you do a lot of takes, but at the same time, your finished films are extremely tight. In the editing room, how much back and forth do you go through when deciding what takes to use?

It’s always about the performance. On the set, the dialogue is the same. It’s just the way you say the lines. One little change [in the way an actor says a] word makes all the difference. It’s like music. It’s a fascinating thing to direct the music of what you have written. As a writer, my advice is that as soon as you have the possibility of directing something that you have written, do it. Otherwise, giving your baby to someone who doesn’t understand him, or doesn’t treat him well, it’s very sad. I did that for 18 movies as a screenwriter.

How long was it before you thought you knew what you were doing as a director?

I still don’t know [laughs]. Because I’m a writer who directs, which is just not exactly the same as a director. There are directors who love images. For me, what I’m trying to do is be as truthful as possible to what I’ve written. So I don’t need to have my camera out running around. Whenever possible, writer-directors are usually more interested in their stories, than in being an acrobat with the camera.

Billy Wilder comes to mind also when you say that. He was rarely showy with the camera, allowing his stories to drive the film.

But he also directed very well. I just saw Sunset Blvd. again and it’s so great. When William Holden is at the New Year’s party with the young Hollywood people, the way he moves the camera through the party is already very modern. He knew his job.

And the Wilder film Buddy Buddy was a remake of your script for L’Emmerdeur.

It’s such a bad film, and I’m sad, because it was his last film. I once met him for croissants and coffee right here in Beverly Hills. So we started to talk and he started to tell me stories about his life, which were fascinating. And he knew my little films, about which I was surprised. And there was an old lady sitting at the next table, and she got up and told us, “I’ve been listening to you for the last half hour, and it was very interesting. Thank you.” Then she went away [laughs]. It was cute.

It’s been announced that there’s going to be an American remake of The Valet.

They’re going to do it. I’ve had 7 remakes here.

And some of them you’ve been involved with, and others, not?

Most of them I was not involved with. I understood that when I arrived in Los Angeles for my first remake, The Toy, and I called Ray Stark, the producer, and I talked with his assistant, and I said, “I’m the French writer of The Toy, and if you need me, I’d be delighted to work with your writers here.” They never called me [chuckles].

I’d think The Valet might translate very well into an American version.

It depends on the writers. The only thing that is maybe not American is the mistress problem. In France, it’s normal. Here, that’s not a comedy. It’s a tragedy.

Yeah, we’re definitely more uptight about that type of thing here.

And I don’t know why. Because, like in France, a lot of men have mistresses. It reminds me of an Italian story, which Fellini once told. It’s about a Man who is going to the opera with his Wife. And he’s had the bad luck of having his Mistress seated on the other side of him at the theater. He doesn’t know what to say to his Wife, so he says, “Here, in Italy, having a mistress is a sign of success. Here, look, over there is Mr. Ferrari, the car constructor. The woman to the right is his wife and the blonde girl is his mistress.” His Wife looks at Ferrari’s Mistress and then at her own Husband’s Mistress and says, “Ours is better.” I love that story. In Europe, that’s comedy.

What are you working on next?

I’m writing a screenplay now, with Pignon again.

It must be nice as a writer to have Pignon to go back to.

It’s like a new meeting. I am always happy when I meet him. There is actually an association of real people with the name of Francois Pignon that have gathered. And they wanted me to stop writing with that name. My first film with Pignon was called The Pain in the Ass. The second was The Closet, where the guy was supposed to be gay. And the third was The Dinner Game, where he was an idiot. So I received a letter from a guy who asked me to stop writing with his name. So I did something out of Stranger Than Fiction, and I called him. I said, “Hello, may I speak to Francois Pignon?” And he said, “This is he.” And I said, “This is Francis Veber.” And he said, “Bastard!” [laughs] So we started to talk, and he said, “Okay, if you’re going to keep going, then send me two seats to your next film.” And I did, I invited him to the premiere.