Double Vision

Blades of Glory helmers Josh Speck and Will Gordon are the latest two-person team to make the leap (make that Lutz) to directing Hollywood features.

text Michael Fleming

Directing a film has traditionally meant a singular vision. Why does it seem increasingly that, when it comes to directing, two heads are better than one? Speck: You hit it on the head — it’s because two heads are better than one, especially in comedy. When we first met at NYU, it was in a class called Sight and Sound. They put you to work in groups of four, and Josh and I were in the same group. We feel like we reduced the pack to two. The nature of comedy makes it helpful to write with someone, to play ideas off them. Directing as a team is just an extension of that. Josh and I have a similar sense of humor, and can keep ourselves in check on things like joke delivery. When one pitches to the other, we are being protective of the material before we put it out to cast and crew.
Gordon: If you enjoy the person you work with, it’s a lot better than being lonely.
When did you discover you worked better together than alone? Gordon: By our junior year. We’d done shorts separately, and ended up helping each other out in the editing room. I’d say, “You know what would have been funnier here?” Or Will would say, “This guy we know would have been a better choice for that role.” It seemed logical for us to make our senior thesis film together.
Directing is about control. Give us an example where you clashed over a decision in Blades of Glory, and how you worked it out. Gordon: We’re pretty much in synch. We clashed with everyone else, but not each other. Honestly, we wouldn’t do it this way if it was all about clashing. We have a deep respect for each other, and we resolve things by saying, “If this doesn’t work, I wanted it the other way, and it’s on you.” It’s hanging the other guy out to dry.
You came to directing from different paths — Will as a studio exec, Josh working in the writer’s room at Mad About You. But your break came when you signed with Ridley and Tony Scott’s commercial company RSA and directed commercials that included the Geico cavemen ads. That’s now being turned into a sitcom. Did you see that evolution as a natural extension when you made the ads? Gordon: We did. The cavemen were near and dear to our hearts. With commercials, it’s like you are doing long-form stuff and trying to shove it into thirty-second spots. We developed a vibe and a look, and created a backstory to these guys, and a show seemed like a logical extension. We worked on a script with ad copywriter Joe Lawson, and we’re in negotiations with ABC and Touchstone to exec produce and direct the pilot.
Speck: When Josh, Joe and I took the context of these prehistoric cavemen, it seemed more interesting to make it mirror how a minority might experience slights in America. That added more dimension to their being defensive and hurt. That made them wounded and vulnerable and added a level of neurosis we can all relate to.
How helpful are commercials as a training ground for feature directors? Gordon: We started at RSA right after our short film [Culture] got attention [from the Fade In Awards and the Academy Awards]. Doing great commercials is like going to the gym every day. You work with the cream of technical talent, you can bring in any [cinematographer] you want because the money is good and the jobs don’t take long. When you’re not simply shilling stuff, commercials can be done at a high level of quality. The hardest thing about making a first feature is everyone else has spent 800,000 days on a movie set, whether it’s the grips, wardrobe, whatever. First-time directors are the least experienced, but we had a lot of confidence when we showed up that first day. Because we’d told stories already through commercials and shorts.
Speck: The visibility from the caveman spots might have sealed the deal, and we’d previously gone through a phase like that when we did the “True” Budweiser campaign. Anytime you make commercials that break, this can happen. When the planets aligned again this time, we felt we couldn’t let this pass us by again. The surprise in making this movie was having so many actors bring different things to the table, which was terrifying and exciting. The in-absoluteness of things made for a lot of happy mistakes, things that made Blades of Glory much funnier.
What’s so funny about figure skating? Speck: My God, it’s the last bastion of true bad taste left in the world. It’s theatrical and gaudy, it takes its cues from opera, but it’s a sport. We love exploring the specificity of certain worlds, like Zoolander did in the modeling world. There is a heightened sense of drama, and a reality that is so ridiculous that it’s easy to exploit and explore that world. It’s no different than Hollywood, or a lot of sports or activities, like [the world of elite dog shows in] Best In Show. Anything that has levels of stakes and drama, with a set of rules and logic that makes sense to those participants, that’s funny stuff to us.
Gordon: We really wanted to do it from both sides — to make a great comedy, but also a sports movie that would move you.
Will Ferrell is very good at embracing the reality of his characters, no matter the level of lunacy. How did two first-time directors get him to say yes? Speck: We visited him in Charlotte while he was shooting Talladega Nights. He sparked to the concept as much as we did, but needed to understand what we were going to do with it, how our sensibilities from commercials would translate to films. That we would not just go for a joke at the expense of story. All these top guys bring their own specific brand and taste, and he needed to be sure we were in synch.
Gordon: We’d been fans for a long time, and for us he wasn’t a name on a list as much as the guy we had to have. He’s not unlike Bill Murray, in that he has the ability to make big choices, but ground his character in humanity and its own reality that makes him vulnerable and relatable. So when he commits to something, it is really funny.
Years from now, we might look at the current bumper crop of comedies and stars as some kind of golden age. What’s it like to be in the middle of the only movie genre that consistently launches new stars? Speck: It’s exciting, and one of the reasons we became filmmakers is you have a certain desire to belong to that club and be part of the camaraderie. This is our first time out, and we got to play with some of the biggest members of that club. Will Ferrell. Ben Stiller was our producer. Then there’s the whole next wave, and they are here, too, from Jon Heder to Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, to Rob Corddry and Nick Swardson. We just turned in our final cut today, and we feel pretty tired. And lucky.
How will figure skating purists like Scott Hamilton feel about what you’ve done to their sport? Gordon: Well, Scott does the play-by-play in our movie. Remember, this is a sport where Tonya Harding took a steel pipe to the legs of Nancy Kerrigan. So you can imagine what we’ve done by marrying that spirit to a Will Ferrell comedy.
When Jon Heder broke his ankle rehearsing, did you fear losing your cast? Speck: Everybody was very understanding, but nobody walked away because we were all so deep into it at that point. We were a little nervous people wouldn’t show up for skating practice, but they’d already bought their skates and they did show up. The way it worked out, we shot the skating scenes later, and it helped us. We were shooting and editing other scenes, and we had so much more prep time for the skating sequences. It made them even better.