Shopgirl
An Interview with Steve Martin & Claire Danes

Steve Martin needs no introduction. A gifted writer, comedian and actor, the prolific gentleman is responsible for countless laugh out loud classics. Whether you’re a Saturday Night Live disciple or a Three Amigos man, everyone is familiar with at least one thing he’s done. More impressive than his resume, he has looked the same for the past twenty years. Adapting his own best-selling novella for his latest film Shopgirl, Martin discusses his theory on translating material to a different medium.

“I know the process but as far as adapting my own work, I had a little experience to stay a little bit distant,” Martin said. “I knew what I wanted. I knew what I liked about the book. I knew what I wanted in the screenplay, but I still know that you have to be pretty cold sometimes. I have a saying that when you’re adapting something, it takes the process of a failed marriage. Adapting something is like a failed marriage. It starts with fidelity, then there’s transgression, and then there’s divorce. What I mean by that is you start off going, “Oh, we’re going to use this. We’re going to use this. We’re going to use this.” Then you go hmm. There’s a moment where you think maybe this thing isn’t necessary. Maybe I could rewrite something. Then finally you completely separate it, look at your own work and it’s internal mechanics and make sure it works correctly and not just salvage things from the book.”

One of the hardest questions for a writer to answer is where they get their ideas from. Regardless, Martin gives it try.

“It’s hard to answer because some is personal. Some isn’t,” explained Martin. “Like anything, it’s a work of fiction. It’s a work of imagination I hope. It’s also that you draw characters from life. The character of Lisa Kramer in the book and the movie is really three specific women that I’ve known in my life or talked to or interviewed or whatever. Every event has almost a multiple source. Every storyline has, “This is from this part of my life. This is part of someone else’s life.” I remember a woman told me that she slept with someone because he wanted to so badly. I thought, “It can work that way?” I actually used it in another play. So, you’re collecting anecdotes. You don’t know what you remember until you remember it.”

Building a lifelong career as a funnyman, the accomplished comedian is drawing attention and praise for his work as Ray Porter, a decidedly dramatic role. For Martin, it’s not that much of a stretch.

“I had a friend who’s a comedian call me up and say, he just did a drama, he got all these kudos for doing this drama. He said, ‘Steve. Steve. If I got praised for my dramatic acting, it’s only because when they were cutting to me, I was thinking about where I was having dinner.’ Meaning he was stoic and a lot of emotion is written in nothing. Then Ray Porter is quite stoic.”

Comedy is serious business…

“In drama you worry, and in comedy you really worry because you’ve got to get the laughs too. A drama can actually survive in silence and a comedy can’t. So you’re constantly thinking, you’re constantly cutting sharper and sharper. You’re constantly cutting for where the joke takes place. Where the laugh comes. It’s like another element with pain that you have to deal with. Drama is just as precise, obviously, but we also have this obligation in comedy to make people laugh.”

While she cannot boast the same amount of years in the business as her on-screen co-star, Claire Danes has garnered more than her fair share of critical acclaim and success in her young career. Playing the titular sales clerk of the film, she sums up here her thoughts on her latest role as Mirabelle Buttersfield.

“I think she’s really inexperienced in a lot of ways,” said Danes. “She’s just gotten out of college pretty much. Most of my friends who are at that time in their lives, in that transitional period, I mean every period seems to be transitional, but that is particularly so, feel very ill equipped to do very practical things. They know how to talk abstractly and theoretically about sophisticated ideas, but actually paying for their rent and applying those ideas in a practical way is totally overwhelming and alien. So I think she’s searching. I think she’s just trying to figure out where her edges are. She’s moved. She’s in a new city. She’s just out of step with the culture. She’s trying to get a sense of it and engage with it and she’s a little slow. I mean she’s very clever and I even think that she’s emotionally savvy. Capable. She’s an artist and she’s an observer, but she’s not so aggressive.”

Could she identify with her cinematic counterpart?

“I think because it’s so well drawn, she’s easily relatable. I don’t feel like her twin at all. I had to find her and make her sensibility and her story relevant to my own. Yeah, I mean, she’s creative. I’d like to think that I’m creative. She’s pretty sensitive. She’s very sensitive and I think I am too.”

There is a moment in the film where Mirabelle surprises her older beau with an impromptu strip. Her first experience with on-screen nudity, Danes justifies the artistic validity for the bared skin.

“I’m not a flasher typically. I think that it was important for a couple of reasons. One, they were in a sexual relationship. I mean it was a reason they were together. I think it was the dominant reason initially. It grows into something more complex than that but… To discuss that, like directly, I think was useful. And it’s an erotic story and I think that needed to be rendered. But also, she’s surprising because she is really unsure of herself in some ways. Then in other ways she’s very sure and confident and bold even. So I found that compelling. Kind of paradoxical. It just surprised me about her and I assumed it would surprise the audience and it made her more dynamic.”

Screenwriter Martin, the man responsible for envisioning the moment, throws in his own defense.

“Actually it’s a perfect example of a, we’ll call it a nude scene, being essential to the story in this way,” said Martin. “If you recall the scene, they’re sort of warming up to each other and he gets a phone call and he leaves the room and while he’s gone, she takes off her clothes and lies down on the bed. She knew this was the night. She accepted it and she took charge of it and didn’t let the game go on, you know this, ‘Oh don’t, oh don’t, oh don’t…’ She admitted, said this is it. And I think it’s a very surprising moment.”

When asked which character she would rather be with if given a real life ultimatum, Danes bravely did not placate the co-star she was sitting beside.

“Well, I would rather be in a breathing, reciprocal relationship. I think that the one she finds with Jeremy [Jason Schwartzman], ultimately, is more so. I think, it just makes more sense for them to be together. There’s more room for them to be together. But I think that she loved both. I mean she really fell in love with Ray, that was sincere.”

One of the more interesting choices of the film is the fact that, while not belonging to his character, Steve Martin provides the voice-over narration. He talks here about the unorthodox, yet surprisingly effective, decision.

“Well, it’s an interesting point because I originally wrote the narration to be read by an older woman. It was suggested by the director that I give it a try. At first I was puzzled by it. Ultimately, I liked it because it did give Ray a feeling that he was in a way looking back and apologizing. That he was observing this, now from a more distant place and being rational about it. That he had more insight than he did at that moment.”