INTERVIEW: Director Drake Doremus Talks Playing With Our Emotions in Endings, Beginnings

I would like to note that Drake Doremus has not seen a single Marvel movie but has seen I, Tonya, so maybe he’s my new favorite person. Talking about his latest film, Endings, Beginnings, Doremus got candid about the inspiration behind his character Daphne (Shailene Woodley) and how, throughout the process, it was also a way for him to learn how to love himself as well (which is, ultimately, the journey Daphne goes on in the film).

My favorite part of talking to Drake Doremus was that it was easy. We literally kicked off our entire conversation talking about how I am currently displaced at my mother’s house in South Carolina, since I was visiting family when the entire “Stay At Home” thing started to roll out and could not, therefore, get back to New York. But it made for a fun and interesting interview where I felt like I could ask more pressing questions about his characters and working with actors while calling back to some of his older work. (Yes, I brought up Like Crazy. I had to.)

The Mary Sue: I have been waiting for this movie. You’re one of my favorite directors, and then this movie has a lot of my favorite people in it, so it’s just been, kind of like, “Ugh, I can’t wait!” but weirdly it’s a very good movie to watch in a quarantine while you’re single? I was like, “Cool, I don’t need a boyfriend in quarantine. Great lesson.” So what was it about telling this kind of story, which, in its own way, is about loving yourself more than anything else, that really drew you to Daphne as a character and made you want to tell her story?

Drake Doremus: That is a great question. I think that stems from me personally needing to learn that, and I feel like a lot of the films I make are about trying to understand something personally, or look in the mirror, or look at something hard, or look at something that’s ugly or upsetting or truthful, and I feel like that’s what this was about. It was about trying to understand that, personally, and going on that journey making this movie, trying to piece together that arc really was my medicine in a way? And that’s what I was trying to do. I was just in a place in my life where I needed to understand that.

TMS: With your movie Like Crazy, that was always the movie I would put on in college when I wanted to sob, and this movie [Endings, Beginnings] hits you in a similar but different way because the entire time, it was like “What is going on?” and then it got to the end, and it was all about how she needed to learn to love herself, and it hit that that is a lesson that everyone kind of needs to understand at one point.

So, using those two guy characters (Jack, played by Jamie Dornan, and Frank, played by Sebastian Stan), who both have flaws as well as their upsides, was it using those two characters to kind of teach her the lesson loving herself rather than trying to love them both at the same time, or was it just to bring forth the idea that we are our own worst enemy a lot of the times in who we choose to love and why?

Doremus: I think it’s a little bit of both, really. I think it’s hard for this character, specifically, to love anybody or to have anything to really give that’s healthy to anybody until she’s able to do that for herself, and I think what was interesting for us to look at is that you’re no good for anybody, at all, if you’re not able to get to that place. Or if your heart’s still not done breaking and that you need to understand how to repair it. And that’s about forgiving yourself and trying to really look at yourself and trying to be the best person you can be, the best partner you can be, and I think, at the end of the day, she just wasn’t ready.

TMS: With Jack and Frank, they both end up kind of not being great people by the end. It’s like yeah, Jack got lied to and hurt by both of them [Frank and Daphne], but then she finds out [redacted for spoiler reasons], and he’s like “well you hurt me,” and is out, and later, she sees Frank, and it is kind of the same thing. So what was the inspiration behind both of those characters and how did you work bringing them to life?

Doremus: Without giving too much away, I think that it was very important that she makes the choice to be okay, really—with whatever it is, with whatever ends up happening. No matter how messed up or how sloppy things are and how complicated they are, it’s okay, and there’s a journey for you. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

And she is allowing herself to experience that in her life, and these two guys were an interesting idea, and they certainly complete each other in a way, and when I was trying to do that, I would think about “If you combine these people, would you have the perfect guy?” Well, there is no perfect guy, there is no perfect woman. So, at the end of the day, it’s this idealized version. It doesn’t exist, so in a sense, letting go of that and being okay with that was kind of the idea.

TMS: She was given the signs about both of them. In the beginning, Jack kind of has this nice guy routine and he’s warning her about Frank, and then Frank does exactly what he’s warned her about. I also just like that Frank has on a sherpa jacket because I’m just always instantly like “That’s a bad sign, don’t go with the sherpas. You should know, sherpas are not the go-to.”

But why I like the movie is because it’s not the battle between the two men, but her emotions for them, and then the rest of the movie has a very strong female presence—like, giving her advice and talking to her—so as a writer and a director, is that important to kind of find the balance of “Yes, this is two men, and she’s fighting over the two men” but then she has the advice from the women in her life vs. having her dad actually be in the picture and giving her the advice? [Daphne’s father is not in the movie. This was just an example of how it could have been men but was rather women giving her advice on her emotional situation.]

Doremus: I really wanted to make a very honest female movie, for females, made by females, so I hired a female DP and a female production designer and a female co-writer because I just really wanted to make sure it felt authentic from that perspective, inside and out, making the film. I genuinely feel like there are not enough of these types of movies made for this audience and made this way, and it’s like, those are movies I want to see.

Those are movies that make me feel something, so I’m just trying to put something out in the world that I want to see really and that I don’t think there’s enough of. So I feel like, from that perspective, that’s kind of what we’re talking about, in a way.

TMS: You love to hit the emotions, but is there a genre, as a director and a writer, that you also kind of want to tap into with that? Because you do have a specific eye, as well. As I was watching this movie, I was like, “Oh the shots of this remind me of Like Crazy,” because it’s that very intimate kind of feel. Like, there is this one moment, where it’s just on Sebastian Stan’s face, where it lingers on his face, and you hear him speaking, but his lips aren’t moving, and then it cuts to him actually talking, as if she’s lingering on him, and it was so cool. So, is there some other genre you think you can bring to life with that kind of lens or your tone to that you haven’t yet?

Doremus: I definitely want to do something tonally different next, I’m hoping. I want to do something kind of out of left field and do something that’s not necessarily a kind of love story, first and foremost. So that’s what I’m excited to try and do. That alone would be so different, but still trying to do something so emotional, kind of working on it right now, and a couple of other things, as well, so I don’t know. It’s just a matter of what feels like “Oh this is different” or “This I could maybe bring something different to,” but yeah, I think the editing of this movie is kind of a character in the movie almost.

TMS: Yeah, it was incredible. I was watching it, and the first time it happened, I was like, “Did I do something wrong?” and then I realized that was the editing, and I was just like, “Oh that’s cool as shit.”

Doremus: Someone in Toronto (TIFF) asked a question in the audience and was like “Was that a mistake?” and I said, “Yes, the film’s out of sync but come back in an hour and we’ll run it in sync. Come back and check it out.” But yeah I think Garret, the editor, and I were kind of obsessed with the idea of lingering on these characters’ faces after they say something. The in-between moments were more interesting than watching people say things. So just the idea of lingering on something or staying on something that feels more than the line would itself was just really interesting to us.

TMS: Focusing on those two characters [Jake and Frank], it’s really interesting because those actors … what they’re known for is, like, Sebastian Stan is known for being this sad nice boy, and Jamie Dornan is known for being Christian Grey, and this movie weirdly flips them in a fun way, and so when you were looking, specifically, at those two and the characters they were bringing to life, was that ever an idea with what people already perceived with them? Or just more of the idea of “This is what they fit in best”?

Doremus: Well, sadly, I have never seen any of the Marvel movies that Sebastian’s done, so I didn’t know that, but that’s so awesome to hear. But I’ve seen the first 50 Shades of Grey, so that, to me, was definitely a conscious choice. And Jamie just is so kind and funny and gentle and subtle and lovely that it just felt really right for that role as opposed to the other one, for me. And then, with Sebastian, I’d seen I, Tonya and a couple other of his films and just thought he was a chameleon and just so special, and then, after spending a couple of hours with him and having a really long, deep conversation, I just felt like he’d be really right for Frank.

TMS: We were talking about genres you would do, and I think that your style, and also because I am a fan, would work with a musical, and if you could ever do a filmed musical, would you and what would you want to do?

Doremus: I don’t know, I’ve never thought about that. I certainly like … I feel like my films are sort of musicals in a way, cause they’re so musical. There’s so much music. I feel like it’d be possibly a natural progression. I don’t know, I haven’t thought about that. It’d be really cool. Maybe you just gave me an idea for a new movie.

So, if Drake Doremus comes out with a musical next, I’d better have a fun little * somewhere in the credits.

You can see our review for Endings, Beginnings here, or just rent the movie and watch it for yourself! It’s now available on Digital today and on VOD on May 1st!

(image: Samuel Goldwyn films)

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