Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Manic

You might know him as the "teen" alien from "Third Rock From the Sun". She has been in lots of films, including Big Trouble and the upcoming Eulogy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 22 and Zooey Deschanel, 23 are "serious" actors, often passing up roles in "fluff" or popcorn actioners in favor of the meaty character part in an indie film for a much smaller paycheck. Such was the case when they chose Manic, an intense film dealing with troubled teens in a rehab unit. Zooey's character Tracey is terribly introverted whereas Joe's Lyle uses violence to solve his problems. When we spoke with the young actors in a retro-50's style L.A. hotel recently, they looked spiffy and far from "troubled". Zooey was retro '50's herself in poofy, full white circular skirt, white heels and striped jacket. Joe was looking collegiate in slacks, shirt and letterman-style jacket.

The three of us chatted about the actors' experiences with spooky "vibes" while shooting in the long-abandoned Camarillo Mental facility in California. Both expressed their distaste for the typical, mindless teen-aimed scripts they are asked to consider and we touched on more serious subjects while Zooey, who believes in eating several small meals each day, munched on an apple and string cheese.

TeenHollywood: These characters are going through some intense stuff. Did you have to stay in character to achieve that?

Zooey: Well, Joe stayed in character.

Joe: Yeah. I was kind of a wreck the whole time. I couldn't just be in pain and anger twelve hours a day, six days a week and then just go home and not be.

Zooey: I had to kind of leave her (Tracey, her character) there. To continue to be that insecure throughout the day.... I just needed like eight hours where I could say 'okay, now I can talk and be myself, recharge myself. Because this is a person who is so insecure and so introverted and holding so much inside, I kind of needed to release it and bring it all back at the beginning of the next day. We were all affected by it.

Joe: I wasn't going and beating anyone after work or anything.

TeenHollywood: Given a choice would either of you rather be in a really meaty indie film or a big popcorn flick?

Joe: Big budget corporate films can just be boring because you're going to work, doing a job.

Zooey: Unless you have some big budget director you want to work with but it's hard in that context to bring people closer together because you don't have the conditions that you're working under like indie films; no trailers. It's not like we wanted to hang out in our dressing rooms making Manic because they were people's rooms at the Camarillo Mental Institution and there's like weird bugs.

TeenHollywood: Working in an abandoned mental institution sounds pretty creepy.

Joe: It used to be the biggest mental institution on the West Coast.

Zooey: They only re-did two of the buildings. One of them was our dressing rooms, only slightly cleaned up and the lunch room where they kind of cleaned up but the bathrooms had like cobwebs. Just covered in spider webs and dead rats in the webs. There was an energy, a lot of sadness there. That place had been there for a long time and stuff happened.

Joe: It's the place, I think, where Holden Caulfield is.

Zooey: You have a mental institution that's been around since the '50's, when there were shock treatments and everything. I felt, at times like it was a typical teen horror movie. At lunch we went exploring and found this abandoned pool and there's one person making jokes and you're like 'that person dies'. Group of crazy teens going off exploring the mental institution.

TeenHollywood: Joe, when you first read the script, what made you decide this was your break-out role?

Joe: You read a lot of scripts and basically, everything written for teenagers is insulting. You can either be the nice girl or the slut or the fat girl or you can be the nice guy, the hot guy or the nerd. There's like six different people you can be and they're all on the posters of every teen movie. It's beyond insulting. It's a damaging way to portray humanity and I didn't want to be a part of it anymore. How can you people be so repetitive and with Manic immediately, I saw complicated human beings that didn't fit into any stereotype. Just as you think they are fitting into a stereotype they do something that doesn't fit in. That's the thing where a studio executive would say, 'What's this? This doesn't fit'. But that's what Manic is all about. It's realistic.

Zooey: Yeah. I was at the Beverly Hills library reading it and I was like 'this is really interesting'. I have never had to go in and try out so much as I did for this movie (Joe admits he did too). He and I didn't read together. But, by the end of the process I was just drained and I almost said 'no' to the movie. They'd spent so many weeks going 'oh, we don't know'. I think they were trying to find the right mix. Then I read it again and thought I just have to this movie. It's so good. I was curious to work this way. This was my third movie. I had only done studio movies. I had never done an independent. This was a wonderful experience. I was scared but now that's all I do. This taught me that it's really rewarding to stretch yourself and do something that is far from who you are or portray someone who is in pain. It's cathartic for yourself.

Joe: Yeah. Some of those therapy sessions were real in their way.

TeenHollywood: You got paired up with actual rehab patients. What did you learn?

Joe: I spent a lot of time with kids that had been in hospitals and we went to support groups.

Zooey: I thought I had a lot more in common with them than I would have thought. You just go, 'they're like me if I were in a different circumstance'.

Joe: Manic is not about mental health kids who are some other breed of human.

Zooey: It's about pretty average problems that are sad and far more common than we would ever like to think.

Joe: I think everybody knows somebody like Lyle. Everybody is someone like that. The only difference is Lyle slips a little bit and he can't control his anger so he beats someone up instead of cussing someone out. When I talked to people like Lyle, all I did was hang out with them like I'd hang out with my friends and we'd sit around and talk about music and whatever.

Zooey: I talked to several girls and they had a lot of the problems that I saw in high school or that I had, feelings of insecurity, just normal problems that manifested themselves in ways that became unmanageable.

TeenHollywood: Why do you think your two characters connect?

Joe: Because they're so damn hot! (Zooey bursts out laughing)

Zooey: I think Tracey and Lyle...as much as she has many problems, she's kind of a wise person, an old soul in a lot of ways. There's something at peace with her. He's very violent. They're very opposite but there's something magnetic there. She's attracted to his vivaciousness. He has almost too much life in him. It's kind of one of those weird relationships but it was wonderful. It's so sweet.

TeenHollywood: Has either of you played anyone this dysfunctional before?

Zooey: She's dysfunctional in a way that no other character I've ever played has been. It's a person that I have inside me but that gets so buried underneath all the talk. I talk, talk forever (Joe nods his agreement here). I can cover every insecurity up and make myself seem like a really happy go lucky person. Underneath all that, there's a lot of Tracey there; a quiet kind of person. It's great to be able to express that.

Joe: I did an independent movie when I was fifteen. It's called "Sweet Jane". You can get it on DVD. He had AIDs. It was another heavy movie but it never came out. I never had the opportunity really before. "Third Rock" and Ten Things I Hate About You are kind of about precision. You have to do it right, over and over again. You have to hit your mark and it's all got to be perfect. You can't be emotional because you've got to be right on time. Manic was the opposite of that. No marks to hit and we didn't do it the same way twice. It was all about getting into it and feeling.

TeenHollywood: How did you work with director Jordan Melamed? What was the process? Did you improv scenes a lot?

Joe: He shot a lot. He has tons of footage. Using little high end video cameras, tapes are cheap so we had the freedom to just leave the camera on so it wasn't really "cut". You could just go off. We stuck to the script but in those group therapy scenes we just kept going.

Zooey: It was interesting to mix it up. Some people are improvising and telling stories about institutions that they'd been in. They did a wonderful job. They were great kids. Like Lauren was like, 'my family is like people who live in a hotel'. That was great.

TeenHollywood: There is a wild scene in which the kids just go in a big room, turn on music and go basically nuts jumping around. Was that planned at all?

Joe: We just put on music real loud and went at it. It was kind of similar to what I would do in my room listening to music but there were cameras there.

TeenHollywood: How was working with Don Cheadle as your advisor or shrink at the hospital?

Joe: Don was like the anchor. What we tried to do was create a really real world for us to be in. It's a stretch for me because this character is kind of nothing like me. But, as soon as Don was there, it didn't feel like a stretch. This is my therapist. He is so unquestionably his character. The character isn't simplistic.

TeenHollywood: What is the most important thing you hope young people will take away from seeing this film?

Zooey: That Joe is a great actor. (Laughter) I feel like it's an important movie to see for everybody, particularly young people. It puts a lot of things into perspective. For me, one of the greatest things about movies, is sometimes I'll see a character in a movie and I won't feel so alone. No one likes to talk about it but it's very true. That's one of the parts of being human. It's wonderful when you can see something that makes you feel like you aren't alone in your problems. Manic is a movie that has a lot for people to relate to.

Joe: Really well said. Also, people my age, there's a big tendency towards a lot of apathy right now. You can look around at the world and there are a lot of problems and the problems look so big and deep seated. It would be easy for a lot of people to just throw up their hands and go see some stupid movie and forget about it. Manic says you can't do that. You have to struggle against it you have to try to improve yourself and the world around you.

Zooey: And go through the nihilism. You have to face the ominous presence that is these everyday tragedies.

Joe: And it's not going to be easy. It'll be hard and you're going to fail and you have to try again.

Zooey: It's the truth no matter whether you face it or not and you might as well face it. Then, at least you are aware of yourself. In the end, the film is hopeful.

Joe: One thing you can say about not turning to apathy is that it makes a difference what movies you go to. This is kind of my idealism but I think what movies you go see and throw down your money for makes a little difference.

Zooey: It's like voting.

Joe: It is like voting. We vote with money. When you go see something like The Real Cancun then there's going to be more of them. If you go see Manic then there will be more movies like it. Nirvana sold a lot of records and then radio was good for a few years. When I was growing up a bunch of great bands were on the air. So buy good records and see good movies.

TeenHollywood: Do you think parental abuse is at the root of a lot of kids' problems?

Zooey: I think it absolutely can start it. It's not just abuse, but neglect. People not facing things. Not facing problems but denying them. I myself was blessed with incredible parents. I've been so lucky (Zooey's parents are cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel). But I can see how much it effects people if you don't have good parenting.

Joe: Obviously these characters didn't have the best relationships with their parents and there are all kinds of circumstances that let them to this hospital but I think the ultimate thing the film has to say is 'okay what are you going to do about it'? Don't go pointing fingers and don't go saying what can I do? It's not my fault. The world sucks. Lyle has these horrible violent outbreaks where he hurts people really bad and his excuse is they deserved it. Okay, maybe they deserved it but that doesn't mean you have to go and beat them up.

Zooey: I remember when I was eight saying 'It's not my fault". And my mom said 'Don't ever say it's not my fault'.

Joe: Even if it isn't your fault, nobody's going to fix it for you. It's not about what you had to do with it but what you're going to do about it.

Zooey: Also, on a personal level, say, 'okay, I did that'. I have to take responsibility and fix my own problems. It's hard and you have to keep doing it.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.