A little more with the minds behind "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon on the set of "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl." Photo by Anne Marie Fox, © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

Here's part two of the question and answer session with the people behind "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," featuring director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and screenwriter Jesse Andrews, who wrote the book the script is based on. The discussion encompasses the motivation for the film, the "400 Blows," and a little interlude about Werner Herzog. Audio from the interview is available here.

Q: (To Alfonso Gomez-Rejon) Why did you want to direct this film?

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon: It was a very original piece of writing. We didn't know what to expect when someone says there's this movie about high school, that you should read it. You think of high school, you know exactly what it's going to look like. Usually it deals with people I don't understand or don't relate to, like jocks in high school who are never these six-foot guys with a letterman jacket. Plus, I was Mexican in a town where you didn't have to learn English.

“The Breakfast Club” specifically is a movie I carry with me because it spoke to me and I identify with Anthony Michael Hall's character so clearly and I hadn't seen anything since then. But when I read his (Jesse Andrews') novel, I really loved everybody; there was a deep sense of compassion that was on the page for every character. And I particularly loved Greg's journey; it kind of mirrored my own or one I wanted to take. It was something I could throw myself into and make something from the heart and also something that had a very unique sense of humor.

Q: So you thought you could be the narrator like Greg?

Gomez-Rejon: I'm not that smart or that funny, but his emotional journey is one I really respected. Visually, also, it was an opportunity celebrate movies. Once you start seeing the movie in your head your like OK, I'm hooked, I have to figure this out. How do I get this out of my system? I have to get the job done.

Q: Werner Herzog: Great director or the greatest director? Because you guys reference him a lot.

Gomez-Rejon: He saw the movie and enjoyed it.

Jesse Andrews: He sent an epic email. Not epic long, just epic Werner Herzog definitely wrote this.

Gomex-Rejon: It's when you get your inbox and it says “Werner Herzog” that this isn't a joke.

Andrews: Then you hung out with him.

Gomez-Rejon: I went to his house and (he said) can I make you an expresso, for example. Then he led me to the kitchen and making an espresso.

Andrews: Very German.

Gomez-Rejon: He is tied as one of the greatest directors in the history of film.

Andrews: Tied with a lot of directors.

Q: Also referenced more than anything else is Francois Truffaut's “400 Blows.” Of all the films to pick, why that one?

Gomez-Rejon: The film is one of my favorites, if not my favorite, and it has been for many, many years. Truffaut captured life and captured that freedom … it was this freedom you can sense was very palpable of them doing something new and also capturing this very bittersweet story that's both very funny and quite heartbreaking. Especially that last scene, which when I saw for the first time I couldn't leave my seat, I couldn't stand, I didn't know what to expect. When finally he (Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud) dreams of going to the beach and he finally gets there and he hits another wall and can only go so far, it's just heartbreaking. That movie just defined me in a lot of ways, of something I hope at some point I can capture that feeling. (Truffaut) never talked down to the kids, always treated them with so much respect; so much so that you identify with that young kid.

Q: There are parallels between the boy and Greg; they seem to be kids who are a bit misunderstood.

Gomez-Rejon: Very different in a lot of ways, but that interior life, that journey is so complicated and you feel such compassion for them. Also, what posters do you put on the wall? You put up your favorite movies and you go from there. And it was a way to pay homage to Truffaut.

Q: Both characters are finding themselves through other voices, through film or through Balzac.

Gomez-Rejon: That's really interesting. Sometimes when talking about it (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) and hearing about it, you keep learning about this movie. You're absolutely right; sometimes it's a feeling there's no logic to.

Q: Something subliminal?

AGR: Exactly.

Q: Screenwriter Dan Fogelman was saying how he helped you write the script. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Andrews: Dan's the reason this is all happening in a way. So I'd written the book, and the book was going to be published. And that was already enough of this mind-blowing, holy shit I'm a published author now I don't have to live the rest of my life illegally disposing garbage out of the back of a truck among other degrading jobs I have to do. At that point I was represented by William Morris Endeavor, and they wanted to package the film rights with someone who would make it more appealing, who would make this project more appealing. So they showed the book to a number of people, and one was Dan. He read the book, and said “I want to be part of this, but I think maybe the author can write the script.” And who knows why; that's an insane thing to think, I'm a totally unproven commodity. He felt this had a strong voice and he felt maybe the author should get the first crack at trying to coax that voice into a script.

With Dan attached, it had become much more appealing, this project. Then he really shepherded me through this process of writing the script. I first had to read some scripts, or at least a script, before writing. I didn't have Final Draft, I really didn't know the form. I knew it was in Courier, I knew you capitalized some words if you think they were really important. You usually get a couple of words per paragraph maybe that you point to. I didn't know the rules.

Dan, his process was very organic, and very “I don't what you to learn more rules or shoulds and shouldn'ts than you have to.” He let me make a ton of mistakes, and some of them are still in there, and they look less like mistakes than things that make this movie a little different than other movies. That's how he works; some mistakes aren't mistakes, but you don't know until you make them.

Q: How different is directing the young kids than directing experienced actors? With experienced actors, you tell them a scene and they get it in the first take.

Gomez-Rejon: No, no, no. Not necessarily true. Not at all. You can have to 6-year-old actors and they'll both need different things. Just say three (actors): One actor may have a lot of training in a specific school and is married to that process. Another actor may be like a version of RJ with no training but just raw talent, and that is what keeps him pure. And another person that turns it off quickly and turns it back on. It's as simple as some actors like to talk and prepare, some people like to feel it and then get notes afterward. And it's the exact same way for teenagers and even child actors: Some child actors are so schooled that it's about breaking them out of that, and some are just absolutely raw. It's an intuitive thing; what does this actor need to make them more comfortable.

(“American Horror Story: Coven”) was an example: one day you could have teenagers, 20-somethings, and Angela Bassett and Dennis O'Hare, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Patti LuPone, all in one day. Everyone just needs certain things: What a 12-year-old needs is the same thing an 80-year-old might need. It's just what's best for them.

Q: How did you find a way to keep the Greg character a realistic teenager without going too far? Teenage boys are kind of the worst, but you don't want to necessarily slap him around like Holden Caulfield.

Andrews: It's just an act of calibration that you just labor over for a very long time until you get it right, and you write it the wrong way once, twice, 10 times, 20 times, until you've finally written it the right way. It just takes forever.

Teenage boys are the worst, but they also contain things in them that are good. The world view of this book, this movie, of anything I'd want to make, is anyone you see is capable of surprising you, doing something unexpected that contradicts and deepens and enriches your conception of them. You see someone and you see a type, you say all right, this is this kind of person, here's the kind of thing they say and do and think and like and hate and so forth. And then they like or do something that totally upends that.

Yeah, he's selfish, and yet he is giving. His selfishness, his desire for invulnerability for example, it's a function of how deeply and how unbearably strongly he feels. He doesn't want to feel feelings because they're of such terrible magnitude.

Q: In a weird way, his selfishness is beneficial. Everyone else is talking about the cancer except for him, so he serves as an escape for Rachel. Was that intentional?

Andrews: Nothing is ever the plan. You're never like, here's the formula, this character's obnoxious but she likes it. You create the kids first, you put them in the room together second and then if it works it's because of these underlying principles that you're describing. But it starts with just who's a kid, who's a real kid, what's the real shit that he says, and does she like that or does she hate that? Am I expecting her to like it and in fact she hates it? Am I expecting her to hate it and in fact she likes it? And when it works you just know, and then it's the right thing. And that's the point when you've stopped writing the wrong thing and started writing the right thing.

Q: What's in the future for both of you?

Andrews: I wrote a book that got picked up by my old publisher. I'm excited, and hopefully it comes out spring of next year. I've written some screenplays too; it's great to go back and forth between the two. They require different things of you as a writer, so it's energizing to go from one to the other.

Gomez-Rejon: I've been trying to pick my next project, but there are a lot of opportunities now. So I'm taking my time and focusing on getting the word out on this movie first.