411 Movies Interview: Scoot McNairy of In Search of a Midnight Kiss Posted by Tony Farinella on 03.16.2009
411's Tony Farinella catches up with Scoot McNairy again for an exclusive interview about his film, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, which recently won the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards!
It's always nice when an independent film with a big heart gets attention and praise for all of its hard work. Recently, In Search of a Midnight Kiss won the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. This was an incredible honor for everyone who worked so hard on this film. After winning this award, I caught up with the producer and star of the film, Scoot McNairy, to talk about how his life and career have changed since we last spoke in July.
TONY: When I interviewed you in July, your film, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, was just starting to get some attention on the film festival circuit. Now, it's winning awards every other day and it's getting a lot of recognition. What has it been like watching this film grow over the past couple of months?
Scoot McNairy: It's been exciting, and, at the same time, every single corner that we've turned has been a huge surprise. Obviously, we're super excited. We had a little bitty movie and it's gone this far and it's nice to be acknowledged for that, because we really did put all of our time and lives on hold and put so much energy and so much heart in this movie that it's really gratifying to see that it's being acknowledged as a great independent film.
TONY: What have been the secret ingredients that have helped your film survive and thrive in today's film world?
Scoot McNairy: I don't know. To be honest with you, it's so hard to say. You go out there and you make a movie that you think is great or a script that you think is great, and all the way through the whole process, there may be some snags that you run into. But, all and all, you keep going because you believe in the project. But even after all that is said and done, you just don't know until the audience responds to it. You just never know how they're going to respond. I couldn't tell you. There are other projects that I've worked on that I thought were going to be huge, huge successes and the audience just kind of didn't get them or they didn't come together right. I would just have to say that everything kind of lined up perfectly at the perfect time and everybody came together and really put a lot of time and energy into it. I don't know. I can't really answer why some films succeed and some films fail. All I can say is work your ass off and keep working at it, and if it doesn't, you do another one.
TONY: Do you want to produce more projects of your own in the future?
Scoot McNairy: Yeah. I was producing before this; it's just that it's really hard to get a project off the ground. So, yeah, I opened up a production company and I have other things in the works. As far as raw material, that's kind of like what I really enjoy doing the most: things that are smaller budgets. Even if I'm not a producer on it, I like to feel like I have some say on the creative stuff and my ideas and my input are taken seriously and people want to hear what my ideas and input are. I just like a smaller production because it allows everyone to be creative and be a part of the creative process.
TONY: I wanted to ask you about some of the music in your film. The movie ends with the song Winds of Change by The Scorpions. Talk to me a little bit about why you decided to include that song in the film.
Scoot McNairy: That was the director's choice. The music we wanted to keep was very independent, not necessarily because it was an independent movie, but because we had no idea where this movie was going to go and being with the limited budget that we had, we couldn't get any music that we wanted. So we went around and we have a bunch of friends who are super talented musicians and just kind of shifted through tons and tons and tons of their music and everyone that we know. I was constantly bringing the director different bands and different song to look at. As far as the Scorpions, at the beginning of the movie, we had Frank Sinatra, A Kiss is Just a Kiss and then at the end we had The Scorpions. Well, we had to cut Frank Sinatra and put something else in the beginning, and the Scorpions, they wouldn't give us the original. They said we could use it, but we had to re-record it. Robert, the crazy boyfriend, who is also the cinematographer, he went home and re-recorded the Scorpions and that's how we were able to get that song.
TONY: What has it been like reading some of the reviews for this film? Roger Ebert gave it a very glowing review.
Scoot McNairy: To be honest with you, I read reviews after Tribeca, which was about two and a half years ago, and then maybe a couple here and there after. But I read one bad review, and from there on out, I probably haven't read a review in probably about a year and a half. I get word from the director that this person wrote this or this person wrote that. I just stopped reading the reviews just because they can say one negative thing about the film and it ruins my entire day. One guy said one thing, he said, 'Scoot, a very likable but unlikely leading man.' It's a positive thing that he said, but the fact that he said unlikely a leading man, makes me just be like, 'Ah, I don't want to hear this.' It's not going to stop me from keeping on and doing my thing.
TONY: What kind of problems do you think today's economy is going to have on independent films?
Scoot McNairy: Yeah, it is a little harder when you're searching for a little bit more money. The people that have a lot of money right now in a bad economy, they only want to make large investments, eight, nine, ten million dollars, because they want to see big returns. For the lower income stuff, it's independent filmmaking; we never had money to begin with. So to not have money now, it doesn't change anything.
TONY: You mentioned earlier that you haven't really been paying attention to the reviews, but have you been paying attention to the different awards that the film has received so far?
Scoot McNairy: Yeah, me and Alex, the director, are really close friends, so he keeps me filled in on just about everything. We were really excited to win an award in Poland. We came in second place there. It would have been nice to get first place because there's a nice finance prize attached to it. Other than that, that wasn't the goal of the film. We made it because we were in a position in our lives where we were sick of sitting around and waiting to get a phone call. I was sick of doing small roles in big movies, and we just wanted to go out there and make a movie of our own and get it seen and get it out there and get our careers up and going and show people what we can do. Very similar to what Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn did in Swingers. They were going through the same thing, and they were like, 'We're talented people. Let's just do our own movie and put it together and put it out there.' As far as making money or getting awards and stuff, I think the overall goal of the film was to make a great movie and to put it out there to further our careers.
TONY: How many times have you watched this film?
Scoot McNairy: To be honest with you, through all the festivals and the traveling and everything, there's some festivals we go to and I watch it, some I don't. Some, I just pop in. I would say I've probably watched the movie about seven times, eight times.
TONY: How do you find that balance of moving ahead in your own career while also staying in contact with your friends and working with them as well?
Scoot McNairy: Well, we've been making movies together for almost ten years. And we just ran into a whole bunch of problems over the past ten years. The last movie, they wanted to distribute that movie and I'm sure it could have had some good legs as well, but we ran into a problem with the music issue. The producer on that one, we had an outside producer that wasn't part of our group. He didn't take care of the music, so that didn't further the project. But I don't think it's going to stop us. I've never, ever really felt as though, 'Oh, we have a movie that's succeeding; now we can sit back and do bigger things.' I don't think I'm going to stop doing what I'm doing, which is making independent films, auditioning or acting. I'd be sitting around doing the same thing I was sitting around doing before we made Midnight Kiss, which is waiting for the phone to ring. I'd rather just keep making independent movies. That's where my heart is and that's where the creative process, for me, is. I think that everybody involved is doing bigger things now, but it doesn't stray away from what we were doing.
TONY: Finally, what are your plans for the future and what are you currently working on?
Scoot McNairy: Well, I have a movie that's directed by Gareth Edwards called Far from Home, and it's a very ambitious movie, kind of in the vein of 28 Days Later mixed with Outbreak. It's a sci-fi thriller. Other than that, I'm still doing guest stars on TV and as far as producing goes, I have a film called Frank and Cindy that I'm currently involved with, John Malkovich's company, Mr. Mudd, and we're trying to get that movie off the ground. Another movie called The Last Time I Made Straight A's. It's an independent movie for about 500k and we're just trying to raise the last bit of financing for that to go shoot that in August. We have another movie that I'm not allowed to speak of. It just takes a long time to get a film made. So you just kind of put it out there and you work your ass off to try to get it done and hope for the best. We're not in the big leagues. We're not dealing with studios or having people throw money at us. That's not the case. People think that after you win this award, your whole life changes. Maybe it does. But for me, nothing's really changed much. Just back to doing the same thing I was doing before.
