My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Directed by Ivan Reitman
In Ivan Reitman’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend, a regular kinda guy (Luke Wilson) hooks up with an attractive gal (Uma Thurman) who happens to have superpowers that make her a little nutsy.
“This is the closest thing to a romantic comedy I’ve done since Dave—which is really about the Presidency and decisions we make—but has at it’s core an emotional relationship. But I think Super Ex is a pure romantic comedy, and they’re hard to do because we’ve seen all the moves,” explains Reitman. “But the fact that one character has special powers, I saw as a terrific opportunity to change the political and romantic dynamics between men and women, and that afforded great comedy opportunity.”
MERIN: Other than the super girl twist, what drew you to this script?
REITMAN: Well, it was consistently funny—and that’s rare in screenplays. More than that, I have to fall in love. Deciding to direct a script’s an emotional, intimate decision. If I’m going to spend every living, breathing moment of the next year or so on it, I need to find something original that lets me bring something of myself to it that’ll make it special. You start working on a script and see if you can bring it to fruition. And, I got Luke Wilson and Uma Thurman interested in it early on and that was the start of it.
How’d you change the script to bring it to fruition?
Originally, it had a lot of comic book elements. The story was there but it didn’t play—although it was set in New York, it was no New York that I’ve ever seen. There was a group of other superheroes called the Liberty Squad and flying robots that she was fighting—lots of mythological quasi-comic book stuff that I stripped out. I focused on asking the reality-grounded questions: OK, if this is really happening today in New York, how would it work? That’s the same way I approached Ghostbusters. In that way, the two movies are similar.
Other than cutting comic book elements, what special Reitman touch did you bring to the script?
Just taking advantage of superhero mythology and playing with that in a real relationship. Things like, OK, she’s going to make love to him one night and discover, “Oh damn, I’ve still got my damned G-Girl uniform on.” I just thought of the superhero in regular terms, and that raises lots of questions—like, does she have a cave or what? Well, she had a big closet—which isn’t in the finished movie—but we shot it. It’s adding that kind of reality level, that naturalism to the superhero stuff.
How was shooting in New York?
Great. It’s the fifth time I’ve done it, and I’ve gotta say, I love shooting here. It’s my favorite place in the world to shoot. It has a great effect on me, energizes me. Apart from the architecture, the sheer intensity of the streets makes for good filmmaking. The people here are remarkable, look remarkable. I love working with New York extras; they’re a big part of the movie. And, it’s fun. So, I’ll do it again.
The architectural shots in the film are amazing...
Thank you. I paid a lot of attention to locations. I thought of the romanticized New York in Woody Allen’s 1970s movies, and I said there must be a fresh way of doing that in this century that’s not cliché. And, a lot of this movie is in the sky, so I found skyscapes. And if we were going to see standards like the Statue of Liberty, we were going to see them in a way we’ve not seen them before.
How’d you accomplish that wonderful effect of liquid movement as G-Girl flies through space?
That’s the great thing about new visual effects technologies: they help create things we couldn’t do back in Ghostbusters. Like lovemaking in the sky; that’s a tribute to Dick Donner’s Superman, where that lovely flight takes place. I thought, “You can’t do that again, you have to do something different, a little more hysterical and edgy that falls into our story—and that involves forced lovemaking 20,000 feet in the air and a free fall. That was hard to do. It was the scene I was least looking forward to doing because we had to strap Luke and Uma up and put them in uncomfortable positions. And, I couldn’t rely on what’s in the script because—like the other lovemaking scenes—this was all about business as opposed to dialog. That puts responsibility on the director to figure out how to do that stuff—to make it interesting and funny, not pornographic.
With many effects requiring precision shooting, was there improvisation on set?
There’s always improvisation on my movies. It’s not that actors are allowed to say whatever-the-hell they want. But within character and situation, with each subsequent take, I look for ways to refresh the lines and ideas. Although what we try to accomplish in the scene is always the same.
How do you communicate with actors to…
I’m pretty direct. Some directors pussy around, come at things indirectly. I’m direct. Sometimes I may seem result oriented (if you’re speaking classical Strasburgian technique), but I combine specific requests, down to: I think you need a longer pause before that word. What’s great with Uma is she’s fearless about over or underplaying something. I’d have her do both so we could find the right tone: How mean is she? How nuts? When crazed, how far does she go? I guess Uma trusted I wouldn’t use bad stuff—‘cause when we were shooting, we didn’t know what’d be bad.
One of the nicest moments for me was when Uma saw an early cut and said she was pleased by how modulated her performance and the movie were, and liked its nice, light touch. That made me feel really good.
What’s the essence of comedy?
Most people think timing, but that’s just one thing. Think what makes music work: melody, voicing, rhythms, pacing. When those come together, you create good music. It’s the same with comedy, and it’s impossible to answer the question.
What’s next for you?
My production company has several things in the can. There’s a funny comedy from the Trailer Park Boys—a very popular Canadian group I hope to introduce to the rest of the world. We built a really funny movie around them. And, there’s Disturbia, a small horror movie, a thriller, we’ve just finished for Dreamworks. It’ll be released in about six months. I produced both, directed neither.
