The Daily sat down with Jon Poll, director of the new film "Charlie Bartlett," at Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore to discuss his directorial debut and his experiences while creating the film. "Charlie Bartlett" is the story of a privileged boy who starts attending public school and resorts to dispensing prescription drugs to gain popularity.
Poll discussed his film in the context of teen movies as a whole as well as the immense talent of the film's teenage stars.
Kristin Gorman: I haven't seen a legitimate high school movie that had so many different relationship levels in a really long time, and I was just wondering if you drew any inspiration from old high school movies or any certain characters.
Jon Poll: We were trying to make a movie that wasn't talking down to teens. I'll back up, and I'll talk about Gustin Nash, who wrote the script. He was 26 and working in a camera store in a mall in Burbank and hanging out with a lot of teenagers and heard them talking about how badly they thought they were represented in movies, and he sought out to make a film that corrected that. You know, I'm not a huge fan of high school movies; it's not anything that I was aiming for. I'm kind of flattered; people talk about John Hughes sometimes, and I go, well, that's great, I like his movies, but that's not what I was trying to do. What I was trying to do was make Gustin Nash's script, and within that - as a director you do bring up other movies to try and give the producers and studios an idea of what direction you're going. You know, "Harold and Maude" [1971], Hal Ashby who is my favorite film maker - that is what I was trying to do, make a humanist comedy; a film that had humor and heart and something of it's mind - and it happens to be about teenagers.
KG: Anton Yelchin, who I had seen in "Hearts and Atlantis" [2001], played Charlie, and then I realized that the mother and son were the same actors in this film, Yelchin and Hope Davis. Do you think that played a role in their performances at all?
JP: Anton I met really early on, before I met Nash, and I knew I wanted to cast him right away. I actually kind of got in trouble because I promised him the part before he went through the whole casting process. He came in and talked about how honest and optimistic the character was, and that's really what it was about for me, too. Hope Davis I really wanted because the character of Marilyn is very small in terms of screen time and page count and lines, but I knew she would pull it off with her own quirky sense of humor. And it's kind of shocking; movies always get edited, and lines always get taken out, but there's not a single line of Hope's that's ever been taken out of this movie, and that's a testament to how well she works. I knew she and Anton had worked together; I'd seen that film and loved it. It was great that they knew each other; they felt like mother and son. One of the things that bothers me about a lot of teen movies is that the parents are always played as kind of buffoons. Ultimately, this movie is about listening to people. People need someone to listen to them. I don't want to get preachy. It's not a message movie. I hope it's fun, and you walk away with something. But if a parent listens to a kid a little more because they saw this movie, or a kid feels like they can talk to their parent a little bit more, I would be very happy with that.
KG: What was your favorite scene to film?
JP: I think the scene I had the most fun filming was the Ritalin montage. That was just crazy. It was a lot of fun and gave Anton a chance to really be a teenager. But ultimately, my favorite scene is Charlie and Kat Dennings in the bathroom confessional, when it's just the two of them sitting there and talking to each other. What I love about it is there are these two kids, great actors, and they are sitting there talking about their issues. It's also the one time anyone in the movie listens to Charlie. It was really fun to direct because they were able to react so that the audience could see what was going on inside them, but the other character couldn't. I think there is something delicious and freeing about that, that we knew when Charlie was smiling at what Susan was saying. I found that really pleasurable, and the problems in her life were such a mirror to the problems in his life.
KG: So I noticed there were a lot of "Degrassi" members in the film. Was there any reason for that?
JP: [laughs] Yes, ironically, I'd like to say I'm the biggest "Degrassi" fan of all time, but I've never seen the show. But we made the film in Toronto, and we brought Hope and Robert and Kat and Anton and Tyler who played the bully, and everyone else we cast in Toronto ... a lot of the best young actors in Toronto happen to be in "Degrassi." And I didn't even know it! Those kids were all great. They all responded to the material and just wanted to be in the movie in any part.
KG: I was impressed by the chemistry between Anton and Kat. Did that come easy to them?
JP: One thing I was proud of was that we weren't casting the prettiest, skinniest blond girl in Hollywood; I was casting the best actress to play the part. Charlie is a pretty impressive person, and for a girl to hold up to Charlie, she's got to be an impressive girl. And I think Kat was able to embody that. Our casting director called her a force of nature. She's a strong girl. I just got lucky ... they created a great chemistry.
KG: Any challenges in particular?
JP: Oh, every day was a challenge; every moment is a challenge. I tried to have fun. I can be a very neurotic person, and honestly, I just tried to have fun on the set. I had an old orange watch that I would wear when I didn't work, my vacation watch, and I put it on the first day of shooting and never took it off. Come on, they're letting me make a movie; I'm gonna have fun. But I learned to sleep three or four hours a night for months at a time. There are always challenges, but it is a little bit like childbirth, otherwise no one would have another one.
