Are We Done Yet
McGinley Talks Are We Done Yet
“She was horrified when she saw John McGinley’s interpretation of what exactly goes on in a birthing room,” he said. “So I borrowed pretty liberally from the Lamaze class that I attended before my son was born and kind of made it into an amalgamation of first year acting breathing when you have different teachers who are teaching you how to be long in your instrument and wide. And what fathers to be are bombarded with in Lamaze classes when they’re bleary eyed and don’t know what they’re signing up for. I kind of fused those two to the horror of probably every Lamaze teacher in the history of the planet.”
While the different occupations of Chuck are uniquely quirky characterizations, McGinley made sure not to go too far. His motivation comes from a sensitive revelation in the plot. Spoiler alert, McGinley gives it away below:
“The number one thing I didn’t want to do is make Chuck psychotic. So where I worked backwards from was that lovely scene at the end of the movie when Cube comes and finds out what’s missing. So this guy who keeps overcompensating for everything, he’s a person we all know who’s always doing something. Well, Chuck doesn’t have a family and it’s this huge missing piece. So in the context of the film, it becomes at Cube’s family’s expense, or Cube’s expense, he kind of adopts them without them knowing it, or in fact hijacks them. That’s delicious stuff but the way not to make Chuck a Jim Carrey kind of psychopath, was to work backwards from the missing piece.”
Don’t worry, this only comes out in a comedy way, to the extent that, as McGinley explained, John Candy’s character in Plains, Trains and Automobiles also lost his family. “It was kind of thrilling to have in a young people’s movie that little scene at the end where these two men talk to each other about what’s missing. There was this lovely poem that I saw before we did the film by Marie Evans or Mary Evans and it goes ‘If there be sorrow, let it be for things undone, undreamed, unrealized and to these add one, love withheld.’ That’s what I wanted Chuck to be. I wanted him to not withhold love. So working from there, the way he expresses his love and the way he feels he’s contributing to Cube is the way he expresses love. The way it impacts Cube is what kind of hopefully gives birth to funny stuff.”
If not, at least his hair is funny. “That was pretty calculated in my head. I wanted my hair really long because I have pretty sharp features and longer hair softens some of my features. That’s what the thinking was. The longer my hair gets, the more ratty and curly it gets and that’s exactly where I wanted Chuck’s to be. I just wanted him to have a mop on his head that he probably hasn’t washed it since his wife died. It’s just this curly rose bush and that’s what my hair is when it’s long.”
Are We Done Yet? opens to theatres this Friday, April 6th.
Stay tuned for updates.
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