“Oh. My. God. Is that you? It is you.”
The problem with courteously arriving early for an interview and with being such an unmistakable stud is that women tend to gush over you while you wait at the bar. Sam Elliott, wearing a simple black shirt that highlights his silver hair like a beacon in PJ Clarke’s, Manhattan’s historic midtown watering hole, is too polite to shake his admirer.
Luckily, Paul Weitz, the director of Elliott’s new film, Grandma, and producer Dan Balgoyen arrive on time, escorting the 71-year-old actor to a table, where they order burgers and beers.
Elliott and Weitz are in town to promote their latest film, a funny, low-budget indie about a young woman, played by Julia Garner, who goes to her grandmother, played by Lily Tomlin, to get money for an abortion. Elliott plays a former lover of Tomlin’s character.
For anyone who has followed Weitz’s career – he directed American Pie and About a Boy, both with his brother, Chris, and has made fun, sly movies such as In Good Company and Admission – an abortion comedy with intriguing characters is not exactly unexpected. What is a departure is the film’s gritty, non-studio vibe.
“It’s totally unusual for me. I’ve gone the reverse route [more] than most,” Weitz says.
In January, at Sundance, the film was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics, which released it in theaters on Saturday.
Weitz, who grew up in New York City and used to come to PJ Clarke’s with his father, the late fashion designer John Weitz, is aware of film tradition. He notes that the bar provided the setting for the best picture of 1945, The Lost Weekend.
“I had done a lot of movies about male mentorship,” he says. “And I thought it would be interesting to do something about a woman in her 70s who was kind of punk rock, Patti Smith-esque, and had the opportunity to teach her granddaughter to stand up for herself. I also like the idea that the mentee could teach the mentor.”
Weitz acknowledges the stretch it took for a man to make such a female-focused film, and he says he checked the material with Tomlin.
“I spend time with people,” he says. “And when you do something like this, you are actually learning by doing.”
Elliott is the only man with a significant role in the film: although his scene only lasts 10 minutes, it provides the film’s “hinge”, according to Weitz.
“It’s the point at which you realize what the film is about,” the 49-year-old says of a sequence that is by turns charming, menacing, sweet and devastating. It plays like a movie within the movie.
Weitz says: “I’m interested in the idea that the film is about how hard it is to move on from, as Sam’s character puts it, ‘old shit’. And how time isn’t linear. We can get thrown right back to something that had so much meaning to them in their 20s.”
How he got the scene to work, Weitz says, was to step back. Although he had Tomlin and Elliott do a reading, they didn’t given it their all until the actual shoot.
“There’s the old saw that 95% of directing is casting,” Weitz says. “If you cast it correctly, the actors will do something you won’t anticipate.”
Weitz recalls approaching Elliott during the shoot with a note. “Sam was going through a raw emotional space,” he says. “I went up to him, and he said: ‘I know. You want me to dial it back.’ I said: ‘No.’”
Elliott adds: “I knew I was going somewhere. I didn’t feel like I was going too far. It was different, though.”
It may seem early to be thinking about Oscar nominations but in Hollywood, that is a year-round activity. It’s no wonder the award-savvy Sony Pictures Classics picked up Grandma. Tomlin, who couldn’t join us tonight after being “beat up”, as Elliott put it, from a day of publicity that started at 5am, will certainly be a contender.
So will Elliott. His scene may be brief, but Dame Judi Dench took supporting gold for eight minutes in Shakespeare in Love. Six minutes got Beatrice Straight an Oscar for Network.
“I’d like to see these guys make some money,“ Elliott says, nodding towards Balgoyen and Weitz, who have finished their bacon cheeseburgers and are well into their second beers. Weitz, who was on Charlie Rose earlier in the day, admits to some wariness about drinking with a journalist after a long day of press talk.
“You can get a little punchy,” Weitz says, slowly calculating every word. “And when you get punchy, you want to amuse yourself.”
Elliott says he’s happy to watch Paul discuss the film. “He’s so measured. And I see the wheels grinding,” he says, pointing to his head. “Me, I run my mouth.”
Three minutes later, Elliott is weighing in on a TV show that featured a short clip of his scene with Tomlin.
“A partial scene,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s like half of a fuck.”
Weitz laughs. Not all directors appear to appreciate their actors the way he does.
“One worries a lot about audiences but I think about the actors being the audience as well,” he says. “I want them to have a good experience working. And I pray that they like the movie. That I do justice to what they’ve done.”
He sees his actors as players in the storytelling.
“I think there’s an overlap between acting and writing,” says Weitz, who wrote his new film himself. “When it is done properly, the writer is able to erase the boundary between himself and the character so that he is not in control.
“And actors are doing the same thing. They are erasing the boundary and they are becoming. That’s where writing and acting are very similar.”
Talk like that will warm any actor’s heart, but its effect also appears on the screen in Grandma. Two of Hollywood’s more revered – if not always properly utilised – actors stand out.
“We went through this catharsis,” Elliott says of working with Tomlin, in his signature, slow drawl.
“The characters went through it. But we as actors went through it as well. Through the grace of Paul.”
