Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Actor Michael Shannon has made his directorial debut with the new movie Eric LaRue. Eric LaRue is a teenager who shot and killed three other boys. The film is adapted from a 2002 play by Brett Neveu about the aftermath of a school shooting. At the center is Janice, played by Judy Greer. Janice is the mother of Eric, and she's having a hard time grappling with what her son has done. Her husband, Ron has devoted himself to religion and has joined a new church that promises to relieve him of his burdens. Ron is determined to get his wife to that evangelical church.

As Janice and Ron fight over faith and try to reckon with what their son has done, their marriage begins to tremble, crumble. Janice doesn't seem to be quite sure if she's in search for forgiveness or for an explanation. The Hollywood Reporter calls Judy Greer's performance superb and says the movie is a work of thoughtful intelligence and restraint, elegantly shot. Eric LaRue is in theaters tomorrow. I'm joined now by director Michael Shannon, playwright and screenwriter Brett Neveu, and actor Judy Greer. So nice to have you all in-studio.

Judy Greer: Thank you.

Michael Shannon: Thank you, Alison.

Brett Neveu: Thank you.

Judy Greer: Nice to be here.

Alison Stewart: Michael, this play first premiered at A Red Orchid Theatre, which you founded in Chicago in '93. Why did you want this particular play to be your directorial debut?

Michael Shannon: Eric LaRue, the play, anyway, premiered in 2002 at A Red Orchid Theatre. I wasn't involved in the production. I just went to see it a bunch. I had just finished doing a production of Bug there. Eric LaRue was the next play after that.

I had never heard of Brett. This was the first play of his that I had been exposed to. I just thought he had a remarkable and unique voice that was unlike any writing I had ever encountered before. I was kind of fascinated, magnetized by the thing. Years and years went by, and Brett became a member of our company after that. Brett and I collaborated on other plays of his. I acted in his work, I directed his work. God, what was it, Brett? 2023, you gave me the script?

Brett Neveu: No.

Michael Shannon: '22?

Judy Greer: Before that.

Brett Neveu: Oh, it was before that.

Michael Shannon: Oh, boy.

Brett Neveu: Time is hard these days. Damn.

Judy Greer: I feel like it was 2020. Well, you sent it to me in, like, 2021.

Brett Neveu: It would have been 2019. Let's say 2019.

Michael Shannon: Yes. Okay. Sorry about that. It was the night that The Shape of Water won the Oscar for Best Picture. I was in Chicago. Brett gave me--

Judy Greer: Were you in that movie?

Michael Shannon: Yes. Brett gave me the screenplay. It was the closing night of a play of his that I had directed. I read the screenplay, and I felt very compelled, first of all, by the fact that Brett had so beautifully opened up the screenplay because it's sometimes difficult to take a play into the world of cinema. I thought he had done a beautiful job of that and created a community where I was fascinated by all of the characters equally. When you act in something, you just focus on one character and follow that journey. I felt like to do that, I would be missing out on all the other journeys that I was fascinated by as well. Also, just fascinated by the idea of creating this community as a whole. I thought the best way to do that was to direct the film.

Alison Stewart: Brett, what were some of the challenges of taking a stage play and making it feel cinematic?

Brett Neveu: Well, that was one of the reasons I didn't do it for a really long time. Like Mike said, it was first produced in 2002, and I'd written it about four or five years before that. My manager, Meghan Schumacher, she encouraged me for about 15 years to adapt it. I finally had two weeks because my daughter was at camp to adapt it, and I'm like, "Oh, I'll see what I can do." The thing that was really great about it and a challenge- but I really do like challenges like this- in rehearsal for the play, which I'd seen a bunch of times because it was produced in all sorts of different places, all of the conversations we had about other people in rehearsal, like, "Where does Ron work? What does Janice do when she's not worrying about what's happened?" I was able to write those scenes. Just adding that, adding the rest of the town, adding travel. It, like Mike said, really opened it up. The challenge was not as hard as I thought it would be. It was mostly just sitting down to write it.

Alison Stewart: What intrigued you about Janice, Judy?

Judy Greer: I felt like she was a very courageous woman. I think, looking back on the experience of playing her, that I didn't really realize at the time how hard it would have been for this woman to reach out and try to get help, and to try to reach out to these other women. I think that for someone who's very introverted and experienced this trauma in a very different way than the rest of the community, what it must have took for this woman to try to go back to work, to try to have a meeting with the mothers, to reach out, even to her pastor, who she had no relationship with besides sitting in service once a week to try to get some answers, to try to have closure, to try to deal with her grief. I just thought that it would have been Herculean for any person to do what Janice did. I was really impressed by her.

Alison Stewart: Your husband in the play is Alexander Skarsgård. He plays Ron. Michael, Ron's kind of a little awkward, a little odd. Depends what word you want to use. What did you discuss with Judy about the relationship between her character and Ron?

Michael Shannon: I'm pretty careful throwing that word "odd" around about people. I think we're all kind of odd in our way. I walk down the street every day and think, "Jeez Louise, look at these people. What the heck's everybody doing?"

Brett Neveu: "Look at these people."

Michael Shannon: We're all odd in our own way. I think that something that's occurred to me a lot of times is that people can get together and have a relationship and have children or a child and spend a fair amount of time with one another without actually getting to know who these people are or be as deeply connected as the customs of our society seem to indicate that they are.

I think Janice and Ron are both fundamentally very sweet, kind people, but they may not be totally awake to themselves, or they may not be totally equipped to be the most agile parents in the world. Ron definitely struck me as somebody who was stunted somehow in his development. He even indicates as much himself in the film that he wasn't able to speak to his son about the birds and bees. I can totally understand Janice falling for Ron. I can understand anybody falling for Ron because I do believe he's fundamentally a kind person. He doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. He's not quite self-actualized.

Judy Greer: I was going to say existential in any way.

Michael Shannon: Yes. Again, I don't think that's uncommon, particularly in this little society we all are sharing currently together.

Alison Stewart: Judy, did you and Alex have any conversations about what the marriage was like before the tragedy?

Judy Greer: I talked a lot with Brett, actually, about the couple. Alex showed up. We didn't have a ton of time with him before he started shooting. He'd just had a baby when we made our movie.

Alison Stewart: What'd you talk to Brett about then?

Judy Greer: We talked a lot about Janice and Ron, about them as A couple. What they were like, their background. There was a family that he was thinking about that he knew when he was writing the play originally. Then these conversations always lead to the more fun conversations of just people in general; communities, marriages, characters, people. Like, how are we similar and how are we different from the characters that we're playing as actors? Those were conversations I loved having. It's not often that we get the luxury of having the screenwriter on set with us every day. In this case, we did, which was great, so I was able to keep pestering Brett about, like, "But why does she do it? Why do they have this conversation? When did they fall in love?"

Brett Neveu: I totally knew all of the answers to those.

Judy Greer: I know.

Brett Neveu: I didn't at all.

Judy Greer: Well, I thought you did.

Brett Neveu: Well, anyway.

Alison Stewart: When you were thinking about these two people as a pair, they can't seem to have a conversation about what their son has done. Why can't they have a conversation?

Brett Neveu: Too hard. To be as simple as I can state it, it's a really hard thing to wrap your mind around. I also think that they're going in such different directions and that the actual violence created a split, but it also created a split in their faith in their future. I felt like one is moving forward toward adulthood and one is regressing. Something that occurred to me not too long ago, actually- I wrote this so long ago, it's been in my life such a long time- that Ron, the way that I built him, was a little bit like when I was in middle school. I do believe- I was in an evangelical church at the time with my folks and everything- and I became born again. I didn't know what that meant because I was 13 years old.

I remember feeling really happy and that I had belonged to something. I felt like I had regressed to a kid. I feel like that's what I tried to insert into Ron's life, into Ron's behavior. Then the other thing that I imagined was, what would I feel like if I looked at myself back then, sitting on a couch, watching TV, and being incredibly happy about this change and how I would feel; that became Janice.

I try to, with my lead characters, make them as much as I can, like myself, examining that. I mean, different people, but trying to understand that the thing that they're going through is something that I'm interested in understanding better.

Alison Stewart: My guests are director Michael Shannon, screenwriter Brett Neveu, and actor Judy Greer. We're discussing their new film, Eric LaRue, about the aftermath of a school shooting on a community and the family of the boy who turns out to be the shooter. Michael, Janice becomes fixated on her son's bedroom. We see shots of the door. It's always sort of in the background. She ultimately goes inside. First of all, what went into the production of the boy's room? What would be in the boy's room?

Michael Shannon: It's interesting that you bring that up because there was quite a bit of research done on it. My lovely production designer, Chad Keith, who is a real, real artist, and his staff, his crew, put a lot of thought into it. The fact of the matter is, is that that room, typically, after an investigation, would be a lot emptier than it is in the movie. I had to think about that a little bit. The police probably wouldn't leave anything behind. I was just very taken with the image of that room. It was very elegiac to me. It was very poetic. It seemed to represent the story as a whole. I'm always looking for things like that, images or moments that actually kind of tell the whole story, or one version of it anyway. I thought what they came up with was as beautiful as any painting I've ever seen in a museum, so I kept it that way.

The closet, that was just dumb luck that there was that secret door in the closet. I had a feeling about that house the second I stepped into it. We had a long list of houses to look at when we were location scouting. That was the first house I saw. I said, "This is the house. I know it's the house." They said, "Well, can we look at all the other ones?" I said, "Sure." Then we looked at 15 other houses, and they said, "Which one is it?" I said, "It's the first one."

Alison Stewart: The first one. How did you know? How did you know that was a house?

Michael Shannon: Well, first of all, it's small. It was the right size for the amount of people that were living in it.

Judy Greer: Unusual for today.

Michael Shannon: Yes. It had just enough room for three people, and it was simple. There was something kind of oppressive about it in a very subtle way. The design of the house is a loop. Literally, you could just walk around in circles in that house, which I feel is a great analogy for what's going on in these people's lives, both before, during, and after what Eric does.

Alison Stewart: There's a scene when you're folding the laundry, and Alex kind of looks forward just through the doorway. Like, you just can't really get away from him.

Judy Greer: Yes. It was the first time in my whole career that I've ever been invited to spend time in my character's home before I was ever shooting there. The set decorator, Catherine, she reached out to me at work and was like, "Hey, we're going to be working in the house. I can leave it open. If you want to come on Saturday--" I got coffee and went over there by myself and sat in the living room for a while. It's very rare to even talk to a production designer or a set decorator. As an actor, we have endless conversations with wardrobe, but for some reason, we rarely talk to the people who design the spaces that we live, our offices, the cars that we drive, and anything like that, which is ludicrous to me.. That'll be in my next book.

In this case, it was very different. It was really collaborative, but it was also just really an excellent opportunity to just spend some time in the space by myself being there, having a coffee, sitting when no one was around. There's a playground across the street that we shot in, but it's literally the playground across the street from the house. It's not like movie tricks. I thought that was really cool, too, that they would look at this place where all these children play all the time, even after their son has been taken away and is in jail, that they still have to stare at the place where their child must have played. Those images are really beautiful to me in the movie, too.

Alison Stewart: How did that help you being in touch with the set designer?

Judy Greer: It was so great. It was so great. I've never experienced that before. There's a snow globe on the dresser in her bedroom that when you shake it, it was tiny little outlines of guns, which is so silly. She would show us these tiny Easter eggs. You're never seeing this in the movie, but we kind of know it's there. I don't know. Things like that that I think are so beautiful.

Michael Shannon: Yes, Catherine Bayley she really went above and beyond.

Judy Greer: She did.

Michael Shannon: The whole team was just phenomenal.

Brett Neveu: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Let's play a clip from the film. Ron is having a bit of a spiritual awakening, a religious awakening at this evangelical church. In this scene, he's suggesting to Janice-- They have a dinner with a woman who he's met at the prayer group. Let's listen to it and we can talk about it on the other side. This is from Eric LaRue.

Ron: Hi.

Janice: Hi.

Ron: Do you need some help with the groceries?

Janice: No.

Ron: Okay. Hey, I was talking with Lisa Graff and she wanted to know if we want to come by their house over the weekend for dinner, maybe.

Janice: I don't think I'm up for that just yet.

Ron: No? Okay. Well, I'll let her know tonight.

Janice: What's tonight?

Ron: Prayer group at Redeemer. She's picking me up.

Alison Stewart: You can even hear the timbre in their voices is so different. When you hear Janice is at one tone and he's like, "Hey, want to go have dinner?" Michael, how did you talk to your actors about the tone that they would take in this film?

Michael Shannon: Oh, dear. Well, it's a very delicate thing. You don't want people to be too self-conscious about how they sound or how they look. The thing to remember about actors when they go to work is 99% of them walk on the set terrified and feeling like no matter what they do, it's going to be a disaster, so you really have to alleviate that right away. What's so fascinating about it is if you can get them to a place where they're relaxed and they're not beating on themselves constantly, they actually have a neat habit of doing it themselves. You don't really have to say much to them.

The main thing you have to manage is the self-doubt, which is very understandable in this situation because it's an extraordinary feat of the imagination. Nobody in this cast has been through anything remotely similar to what any of these people have been through so it's a lot to ask. The imagination of Judy, the imagination of Alex, is so potent and so beautiful and agile that once-- You know.

Having Judy, like she was saying, get to spend time in the house, really making it feel like it's not a film set. We're not making a movie, it's not-- You know. There's something slightly luxurious about making a low-budget film to the extent that there's no bells and whistles or fancy things. The pressure is kind of up. We're not sitting there saying, "Well, I hope Warner Brothers feels like their $100 million is well spent."

[laughter]

Michael Shannon: I have nothing to lose, literally. Whatever happens, it's a zero-sum game, so it's fine. I just like to explore. We always had the time to explore, which was kind of bizarre because we didn't have a lot of time. A lot of these scenes are fairly simple and they're blocking. We're not trying to create like the Grand Inquisition or something. It's just people in a space relating to one another.

Alison Stewart: It's beautifully shot though. It really is.

Michael Shannon: Yes. I really lucked out with Andrew Wheeler. He's a phenomenal DP. He showed up with so many ideas. He was really brilliant in his use of filters in the camera. He made some bold choices. He said during pre-production," I don't know if your producer is going to be up for this but we can always fix it in post."I said, "Yes. Yes, yes."

Alison Stewart: "Oh no, not the fix-it-in-post."

Michael Shannon: When I saw the dailies, I was like, "No, this is right on the money." I appreciate you saying that.

Alison Stewart: I wanted to ask you before we go about the warring pastors in this film. These two pastors each wants to get the women together to talk. Why do these two men want so desperately to be the ones to get these women together and to have them talk?

Michael Shannon: I think the first two words you use, these "two men" for one thing. I grew up in a small town in Iowa (Newton, Iowa). I went to the Presbyterian church, went to the Catholic church, went to the evangelical church. Growing up, I went to all three. We kind of transitioned through all of them. There were really, really different approaches to healing, faith, communicating, loving each other, all kinds of stuff, what comes next after you pass. I wanted to analyze that too. I don't think I set out to create a rivalry between these two or a competition who was going to save the town, but it just kind of came about because if one pastor's going to try, especially if it's the Presbyterian church, this massive church with this big congregation-

Alison Stewart: That Janice belongs to. Yes,

Michael Shannon: -that Janice belongs to, then of course, the new church, the evangelical church, is going to say, "No, no, no, we are going to take care of this, and then turn it into something big." I also thought a lot about what happens after everybody leaves. Police leave, the reporters leave. What happens to the town? Who takes over? Well, in this case, and in my town- it's a town of 15,000 and I think there's 15,000 churches- they're going to fill in that void.

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is Eric LaRue. It opens this weekend. My guests have been director Michael Shannon- Congratulations on directing this film.

Michael Shannon: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: -screener Brett Neveu, and actor Judy Greer. Thanks a lot for being here and with us.

Judy Greer: Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Brett Neveu: Thanks so much for having us, yes.

Michael Shannon: Thank you.