Jay Roach talks HBO’s “Coastal Elites”

It’s not a film, it’s a special. This is something Jay Roach is quick to correct me on. And once you hear it referred to as a special, it makes much more sense. But whatever it is, Coastal Elites is reflective of an experience. The thing we are all experiencing right now. With the pandemic, with whatever your feelings might be on the current political situation, the Black Lives Matter movement. This is a moment in time that is certainly going to be remembered. And Coastal Elites, which is available now on HBO, has taken the dark moments and found the dark comedy within our harsh realities.

It is also unique in how it’s presented, too. Five monologues, all delivered directly to the audience, and it makes you feel as if at once you are not alone while also reminding you of just how much we all are. And to film it during the pandemic, proper precautions were taken, director Jay Roach assured us. Cameras were little dropped to locations, there was a small crew parked down the street from the actor’s houses, their respective family member’s served as a contact point, with Roach having to direct the actor’s over Zoom. We don’t think anyone had this on their list of things to do at the start of 2020. And yet, here they all are. Making the best of it.

We recently spoke with director Jay Roach, fresh off of last year’s acclaimed Bombshell, about the special, how he got involved, how one exactly directs over Zoom, what they were hoping to accomplish, having actors talk directly to the camera, and how he finds the comedy in even the more dramatic of his works.

So I’ve got to ask. Is this the first movie made in the pandemic to come out?
I don’t know… We don’t really call it a movie. We call it a special. HBO calls it a special, because it was a play first. It was going to be filmed before a live audience at the Public Theater in New York. And then we ended up doing it as a special. And we call it a special only because it’s five monologues talking to the camera. I have heard of other things coming out. I’ve seen plays. I’ve seen some plays coming out from The Old Vic. But it’s definitely not common. We can safely say that.

It definitely isn’t. And my apologies. I myself wasn’t sure what to call it exactly. But I think you’re right. Special sort of encompasses everything.
Because it’s almost like a series of one person shows. I like to think of it to some extent as you get to ease drop in on people’s therapy sessions. Because at least one of them actually is a therapy session. Dan Levy is calling his shrink to try to cope with going to do auditions for the first lead gay superhero character. And so he’s totally stressed out. And then Sarah Paulson’s character is a therapist, trying to make these like zen videos on how to cope with Trump-ism and all the absurdities of America these days.

So it’s not a comedy special like stand-up comedy, but it’s a comedy special as it’s like a series of 5 funny and definitely heartbreaking but also funny monologues.

So tell me how you got involved with it?
Well Paul [Rudnick] I’ve worked with before. We’ve tried to develop a couple of things. He’s one of the funniest human beings I’ve ever met. I used to read his column in Premier Magazine when he wrote as Libby Gelman. (Laughs). He is one of the most hilarious writers. He sent it to me, I read it, and I was blown away by it. And also I instantly connected with the characters, like all of us, who are just trying to figure out how then shall we get through this. And he also was able to find dark, dark humor in the middle of this crisis. And I instantly connected. I thought it would be a great thing to shoot onstage. And then when the pandemic hit, we were trying to juggle Bette Middler’s schedule and then we got shut down. And we thought it was kind of over and we’d have to pick it up some other time.

But HBO and Jeffrey Seller and his amazing producing team – he’s a Broadway producer. He did Hamilton and a bunch of other amazing things- called us and said “What if we do it now as this unique presentation where the actors are actually playing directly to the audience?” It’s like when you’re onstage and the actor steps up and addresses the audience directly. There’s this incredible connection. And I thought “This might work”. And then Paul rewrote it to connect to the pandemic and to the Black Lives Matter movement. And he wrote this new role for Kaitlyn Dever as the COVID nurse who encounters Bette Midler when Bette’s in the hospital and being tested for COVID. I love that line where Bette Midler says “I hope it’s cancer!” (Laughs). It just shows how dark that sense of humor is.

So I was just hooked. And then when we got Bette and all these other incredible actors who are so good at drama but also incredibly good at comedy too. So then there was no stopping us. So then we were trying to figure out how to do it and keep everybody safe. That was the thing. We had to drop cameras into their houses. We couldn’t go to set. We had a tiny crew just outside their house. We had to drop the gear in. And they would work with me on Zoom. I would be on Zoom with Paul Rudnick, the playwright. And then there’d be another camera they’d be talking into and I’d be able to look at that feed as well. And so I was like “Alright, let’s put on a show! We’re all stuck alone at home. Let’s figure out how to do this.” So that’s how it came about.

Now is it difficult to have to direct over Zoom? How did you adapt to that?
You would think so because I’m so used to being right there next to the camera and connecting with the actors, but it turned out to be kind of amazing. I’m sure I’ll go back to directing in a normal way, but I could see why Francis Ford Coppola supposedly directed One From the Heart from a trailer off set through speakers. So I could see the temptation of this now because when you’re directing over Zoom and the actor is all alone and I am all alone in my kitchen, there’s no crew or producer or studio people asking you thousands of questions, there’s no chasing the daylight or all the challenges of a movie set. It’s just you and the actors. So it’s much more like theater. And I had directed a play many years ago, and I remembered how focused it is.

And when I’m on a movie set, I have to say to myself every thirty seconds “Cast and script. Cast and script. Cast and script.” Because that’s what I’m responsible for primarily. And when we were doing this, that was all there was. It was just us and the cast. And it was actually very focused and very intense sometimes and very funny sometimes. But it was just us and them. And we tried to recreate that intimacy we felt with the actors for the audience. So you are actually having one of the greatest actors in the world looking right at you into the camera lens and you’re connecting with them. So it’s almost like having a front seat at one of those one woman shows. It’s Bette Midler playing right to you. So it actually had some advantages.

And that was something I was curious about going into the special, because famously it is not easy to have talking to the camera come off naturally. But you were able to somehow find a way to have it all feel natural throughout the course of the monologues.
And I’ve always wrestled with it, too. I worked with Charlize Theron on Bombshell, and there’s a whole segment at the beginning of the film where she’s addressing the camera during a tour of Fox News. And I remember Charlize going “I don’t know how to look right into the camera!” Actors are trained so intently never to look into the camera. And it was, in this case, disconcerting in a certain way, but I had them rehearse with us on Zoom for weeks before we did it. Multiple days for each actor over the course of the weeks. And then a read through happened where everyone was in their homes but they were up on this little Hollywood Squares sort of Zoom screen, reading each monologue for the other actors who were also on the same screen. And it became like one of those intimate read through a before a play. And I thought “This could work. I don’t need other cameras. I don’t need the stuff that I’m spoiled by usually. These actors are so great and so funny and so heartbreaking that they can hold my attention through this whole thing. And you could see that each actor felt that way about all the other actors, worried that they didn’t want to be the weak link. So they all really got off book and learned the whole monologue and found beautiful moments.

Was it surreal at all how fast it all came together?
We filmed in mostly late June and very early July over a three-week period. I think someone called us about the idea in May. For something to come together that quickly, you’re not wrong. It was pretty incredible. And interesting thing is I had the actors walk around with their phone and their Zoom camera on and location scout for me. I had to pick where in their house we would shoot. I had quick meetings about keeping everybody safe. With each actor, we teamed up with someone in their house who would be our contact. Kaitlyn Dever’s father, Bette Midler’s husband, Issa Rae’s husband. There were people helping us at every set that we quickly bonded with and turned them into our first AD. Although I actually had a first AD there, just off site. Right around the corner.

You just get whoever you could to help you and just wing it. And again it had a liveliness and everyone was so motivated. I’ve said this before, we tell ourselves we’re all in this together, but we’re also all in it alone. You don’t have nearly as many connections with people like “Hey are you feeling like this is as crazy or screwed up as I’m feeling?” And I think we got the best actors on the planet because I think they also wanted the kind of therapy opportunity that they’re offering the audience, and they’re certainly offering me. I’m a nervous wreck during all of what’s going on. And the actors jumped in because they felt that they could contribute to the conversation in a funny way.

Absolutely. And from what you’re saying, it sounds like there was an excitement to it all.
Yeah. There is. And also the comradery of knowing “Look. You are taking a risk. You’re just trying to minimize the risk in every way. You wanna work, but you definitely don’t wanna put anybody in jeopardy. Any of the cast and crew. So we were testing everybody. We couldn’t shoot every day, so there was always a buffer for testing and cleaning of gear and dropping the gear off to certain people’s houses. And the fact that we were a little engine that could added to the enthusiasm that we were kind of joining up. That’s sort of what’s happening these days is that we’re all sort of divided either physically divided in quarantine or politically. And to just team up with cool, smart, people with soul and heart to do something meaningful is so uplifting when it feels like everything else is so hopeless. And for our business, we were trying to be a beacon of hope for our industry as well. And it definitely was a kind of communal enthusiasm and excitement.

As a viewer, that does sort of come across. And going back to the production aspect, I just wanna say how cool it is that we’re at this point. Back in April, when you’d watch something shot at someone’s home, there was a severe lacking in the quality because people were still figuring out how to do this. So it’s nice to see how far we’ve come in just a few short months.
So we only had about four or five people at each place. It was all about prep. I had a great director of photography, Jim Denault. These guys all worked with much, much smaller crews. It was him basically and I think there was a camera assistant. Then we had a production designer, but he never got to go to any of these places. He would just have people hold things up in front of the camera. “Yeah, put that in the background or this.” And the costume thing was really funny, because we had an Academy Award winning amazing designer. And she was just having to shop through people’s closets for their own stuff. And she sent a few items to people to try on. But it was all done via remote. It’s like trying to shoot something in the international space station.

And again, the biggest thing that helped things look better, is that the actors were willing to be their own location scouts and show me places that they thing may look good for their background setting. And we did shoot with a fancy camera. And we tried to put a little effort into making it look better than your typical Zoom conversation. (Laughs). But the feel of it is still that intimate thing that we’re all trying to latch onto any way we can, even if it’s on the screen.

And can you tell me a little bit about how you managed to find the balance between finding the funny in the hardships and the harsh realities that we’re all going through? And also, you’re someone who spent the last few years moving away from the more comedic stuff and into more dramatic award contender films. How did it feel moving back to the comedy realm again?
I love comedy. I’ve gotten to do so much in my career. And even in my dramatic films, I try not to let them get too self-serious. And there is a lot of drama in this piece. There’s the thing with the pandemic, addressing the Black Lives Matter movement, and the whole Issa Rae thing is disturbing and funny where she’s trying to explain what it’s like to be asked by Ivanka Trump to be a photo-op prop. Which is so dark as a concept, but the absurdity she finds in being given a tour of the White House and being told she should be excited about the Lincoln bedroom and then imagines Lincoln in the corner going “What the f*ck is going on in my bedroom?” (Laughs).

I’m lucky because I sort of learned how to direct doing comedy. And because I got to work with so many brilliant comedic actors who are so incredibly sharp on the set and capable of improv and going with the chaos. And I try to create that same environment, even on the dramas. So yes we’ll have to deliver all these serious messages, but we are going to have to recognize irony and absurdity and insanity and do that in a funny way. Because that’s how we all are experiencing this. We’re experiencing the heartbreak of a tragedy and the grief and the rage about a lot of what’s going on. But we do cope with it often through dark comedy. And I use dark comedy sort of as a trust test. If we can get each other’s darkest comedy as we try to cope with difficult things, then we probably can trust each other. And I think the unifying thing, as much as the special is about the dangers of divisiveness driving us all nuts, it’s also about trying to find a sense of humor about how freaking absurd all of it can feel sometimes. And that’s a big part of how I think my comedic background helps me cope with these anxieties dreams that these shows often are.

And you mentioned unifying. It seems like this is a time when everybody should be on the same page, as they’re all experiencing the same thing.
They should be, right? It feels like we would be normally. Whenever we’ve dealt with really horrible experiences, World War II, 9/11, this is something at that scale. And normally we would be united by this. But instead, just to get a little political for a second, instead of Trump who calls himself the “war time President” implying that he would be that kind of leader who would unite people the way Eisenhower or Churchill or Truman did in those darker times, instead to use divisiveness as a campaign strategy and to squander this opportunity for us to come together is just so, so heartbreaking. That’s my dark moment there. It seems we’re not as unified as we could be taking this on and saving each other’s lives.

Coastal Elites is available on HBO now.

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