Ep. 14: The Breadwinner Interview | Director Eric Appel & Nate Bargatze's Unexpected Comedy

In Episode 14 of The Cinephile Mind Podcast, Spenser sits down with director Eric Appel to discuss his latest film, The Breadwinner, starring comedian Nate Bargatze.

Eric dives into the origins of the project, working with Nate Bargatze in a leading role, balancing comedy with heart, and bringing this unique story to the screen. The conversation also explores the creative process behind the film, the challenges of directing comedy, and what audiences can expect from one of the year's most anticipated comedic releases.

Whether you're a fan of Nate Bargatze, great comedy filmmaking, or behind-the-scenes conversations with filmmakers, this is an interview you won't want to miss.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this special episode of The Cinephile Mind. Today I had the opportunity to sit down with writer and director Eric Appell to discuss his upcoming family comedy movie starring Nate Bargetsi. Eric is a filmmaker whose work blends sharp comedy with a real understanding of character and tone. Over the years, Eric has directed across television, digital comedy, and film. He's built a reputation for projects that are both hilarious and incredibly well-crafted. He's perhaps best known to many audiences for directing Weird, the Al Yankovic story, which was a wildly inventive satire starring Daniel Radcliffe that became one of the most talked-about comedies of the year a few years ago. And now he's bringing that same comedic sensibility to this upcoming movie with Nate called The Breadwinner. In our conversation, we talk about collaborating with Nate Barghetsi as someone who has never acted before. We talk about his influences on his career up to this point and his journey into being a filmmaker. We talk about finding emotional truth inside comedy, the challenge of directing humor that feels grounded rather than exaggerated. And then, of course, how the breadwinner came together from script to screen. So please enjoy my conversation with Eric Appel. I got to see The Breadwinner earlier this week and really enjoyed it. I mean, I was laughing all throughout, but before we talk more about that, I'm I'm always interested to know how an artist gets started down their path. So, like for you, was there a moment early in your life that you recall being a major influence on like putting you down this path to filmmaking? Was there like a specific movie you saw or event that occurred that kind of was that moment of inspiration?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, I mean, I I think about all the movies that I saw in my in my formative years. Um, I can't necessarily think of the one that made me think I can do this. I remember Jurassic Park being like a huge I want to do this movie for me. Um but this is a really bizarre, this is a bizarre one. My my grandfather had a video camera in the early 80s, like one of the first like VHS uh consumer VHS cameras. And my parents were divorced. I had moved to upstate New York to live with my uh uh my my mom. We moved into my uh grandparents' house. So my um my mom's younger siblings, a few of them still lived there. It was like this big house in upstate New York. And I had this uh weirdo stoner Frank Zappa obsessed uncle Pete who one night when everyone was sleeping, went into the there was like a barn behind the house where they kept uh there were like a couple of dogs that lived back there. And he must have been like super stoned or something, but made this uh stop motion video called Army Men Chase Dog Shit. Wow. Which was which was little green uh army men stop motion chasing like uh dried pieces of dog poop that that in a couple of frames you could see the pliers that he was moving the poop around with. They they like blink in and out, and it was like a silent film. It worked, you know, there was like cards where then the poop like vaporized the army men into piles of sawdust. Wow. That is the weirdly enough, that's the thing that made me say, like, oh, I can grab a camera and make stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Um, yeah, so throughout my entire youth, uh I I made movies. I'm I made movies with my friends, you know, in junior high, um, in high school. Uh you know, I I I in my senior year I became friends with like the other kid from the other side of town who made movies with a different group of friends. And like we all kind of combined and were making uh movies together and having like premiere nights with them and parties and like getting kids that like would have never acted in front of a camera, you know. These were all like irreverent comedy, silly things, you know. But uh but like that's that's really where and and I never thought that it was going to that it would lead to a future and I would be like an actual filmmaker. I went to college for animation. Um while I was in school in Pittsburgh, I started doing improv comedy. Um that led me to New York City, which is where the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is. I started there uh taking improv classes in early 2002. Um you know, I I came up in the class of improv students that, you know, it was like Zach Woods and Donald Glover and Aubrey Plaza and Ben Schwartz and you know um Amy Polar had just got on Saturday Night Live, and and uh and I started doing um that's where I started like directing sketch comedy shows and and I mean I was like full throttle into like UCB, uh which led to me writing for some sketch shows and some MTV and Comedy Central things, and and uh which ultimately led to me uh getting hired at Funny or Die uh in its infancy as like the senior writer, because I was the only one with TV experience there at the time. And that's where I picked up a camera again for the first time since I was a teenager, um, and started producing and directing my own sketches, uh which then I just like wanted more and more. I convinced them to let me make like a 20-minute short, um, which was like my first real narrative. Uh, it was called The Big Dog. Um uh I'd made it with my friend Charlie Sanders, who who ended up who wrote for Keen Peel, and um Bob Odenkirk was in it. Like we got like real people to be in it with him, and and uh screened at a couple of film festivals, and and and then I was uh that that was the moment where I was like I connected it finally back to my youth, and I'm like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah, and uh, you know, that was that was nearly nearly 20 years ago now, and uh, you know, and here I am.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

I gotta say, that's a very unique uh origin story uh with uh animation stop motion uh with your with your uncle's film. Uh I love that. Um yeah, you've had a very interesting journey. And just like talking about comedy in general, you yeah, you have a great eye for quality comedy. You know, I will say you've been involved in directing you know episodes for some of my personal favorite TV shows, Brooklyn 99, New Girl. I actually just finished re-watching Silicon Valley and I, you know, I saw your name, uh, which is one of my very favorites. Um what was it about this script and the breadwinner that you know drew you to it, made you want to be a part of it?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

When I first read this script, uh yeah, it was it was the the beginning of last year. I I got this script by Nate and and Dan Lagana, and it um, you know, it reminded me of the kind of movies that I used to go see in the in the theater when I was a kid, the John Hughes kind of sort of uh, you know, everything from like Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire. Um, but like all of these uh that era of theatrical comedy that was um, you know, the movies were like safe enough that they served general audiences, right? And they were all like comedian-led. You know, that was an era of like, you know, you would never have Bill Murray in Rushmore if you didn't first have Bill Murray in, you know, Ghostbusters and What About Bob and all of those, you know, uh those more general audience uh movies. Um but it was like it was Bill Murray, it was Rick Moranis, it was Steve Martin, it was Eddie Murphy, it was, you know, Sandler did some more family type movies, but but those all seemed really like high concept and like click and bedtime stories and things like that. This just reminded me of those like, oh, it's a grounded family story, um, that that is that is like pretty simple, you know. The story is like pretty easy to follow. There's there's you know, there's nothing uh uh otherworldly or you know, it's like a a normal domestic relatable family story. Um that uh that also contains a ton of Nate Barghetsi's like specific humor. And I'd become a big fan of Nate's over the last few years, as like you know, most of America has. And uh and I was just a real fan of his and his performance style and his just like his vibe, his cadence. And I can, and that was like imprinted all over the script, like Nate's voice. And being a fan of his and being able to read it in his voice, I was like, oh, I feel like this is kind of a winning recipe for, you know, I I think I can really do a good job making the first like Nate Barghetsi movie. And and even though he's never acted before, um, I think that if I can just get Nate to uh be comfortable in this movie. And that was part of why surrounding him with like a bunch of comedians that he knew, right? They were in a way, they they were like our safety net, you know. It's like, well, we could always lean on. We have the these guys are all seasoned movie people now. Um, and I think they're gonna help Nate be himself. Because really, I'm just like, I need Nate to be himself. There's nothing like too incredibly heavy. He has to be heartfelt, you know. He he has to give the speech that one in a movie like this gives when we wrap it all up and he's learned his lesson, and he has to be sad, and he has to, but but I'm like, I think I could get him there. And I think if I do all this, I I I just think it will remind people of those old movies that they love, the kind of movie that you throw on at Thanksgiving when your whole family's around. Yep. And uh and and hopefully we could bring these back to theaters and like remind people that they like sitting in an audience full of others and and laughing at this kind of thing on the big screen and not just like at home on Netflix or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah. Um it's so I'm I'm glad to hear you say that because that is truly one of the things that struck me as I was watching this. Well, even before I started it, is the fact that it's a PG-rated movie. And like this, you know, these comedies that are truly for an entire family to enjoy, just like you said, was I feel like it's a bit of a they're kind of a lost art these days. You they're more rare. We we just don't see them um like we did in the 90s, kind of early 2000s, just like you said. Um was that was that aspect, I mean, clearly was in your mind, but like was there any hesitation, you know, based on that this is more of a rare path in filmmaking now, um, or was that more an exciting part for you to like kind of you know bring try to bring this back?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yeah, I mean it's it's more of an exciting part for me. I mean, with there there's risk with with everything, right? And I'm like, um the the trickiest thing in my mind is like how you market a movie like this to a modern audience who is used to something. Uh because I also don't want to say that like, oh, we feel like a Netflix movie, movies like this just go to Netflix, because I don't feel like we necessarily we feel like a streaming movie either. Um and you know, with our trailers, hey, our first trailer came out, it's a lot of Pratt fall, you know, it's all it's all the big, it's Nate falling, it's Nate getting splattered with stuff. And uh and and it's like because you need to hook kids, right? If it was just like the stuff between the adults and the more uh dramatic stuff, not that the movie's that dramatic, but um, if it's more adult-oriented stuff, then kids aren't gonna say, I want to go see this movie. We want kids to be like, oh, this looks really funny for me. And but we want it to work for the adults on the same level that it works for the kids. Not like because I'm also there, there's plenty of family movies that are in the that are in the theater. I just saw Sheep Detective, so I thought it was fantastic. Um, but most of these movies are like animated movies where there are also going to be jokes that the adults like, or there's going to be certain things that adults connect to. But I know plenty of adults that are just like, nah, I don't want to watch that. It's a cartoon, even if it's like a Pixar movie or you know, something that actually has you know weight. And um, and yeah, I mean that's that that's the the exciting thing is to bring a movie like this back that is purely like a comedy, like you know, like these it's the comedies that it's not like super message heavy, it's not, you know, it doesn't get like too dramatic. It's just like a fun, light comedy that does have a good message and and and and and has just like the vibes are really good. It's funny on the way we just premiered the movie in Nashville um uh two nights ago. And when we were my daughter and I were flying back, uh I was like, oh, let's watch the same movie at the same time on different screens, you know, where we both like press play at the same exact moment. And we watched Romy and Michelle's high school reunion. Um and again, that's another one. I'm like, man, this movie slaps. Like, why are we not talking about like Romy and Michelle is so so funny and just so great, and like those movies aren't getting made either. It's just like those comedies. I really want comedies to come back in in theaters, and it's such a fun theatrical you know experience. And it's funny that they go, they they change over time, and it's like, okay, there's too many, you know, uh a couple of bombs come out and spoil the broth, right? For everyone. And and then and then uh Hollywood says, Oh, people just don't like movies like this anymore. And it's like, no, they do, they just want good ones, you know. And and then, and then like in a really edgy, R-rated comedy comes out, you know, and then it's like, oh, they all have to be edgy R-rated comedies, and then like the culture changes, right? And and people start getting offended by more things, so like the edge then gets stripped back, and then you're left with okay, we're not making the edgy comedies really anymore. We're not making comedies that families can see anymore. All of this stuff is on streaming where it's like it'll find its audience.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I I I really hope this you know moves us in a different direction, like the the the mid-budget comedy.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

I totally agree. And um, I yeah, I hope the same thing, and I think this is certainly one that can you know ascend to that. Um I'm I'm interested to hear in your collaboration process with Nate, you touched on the fact that you know he's not really acted before. Um, we know like in comedy, a lot of times the you know, most comedic moments come from you know, things that are not scripted and allowing actors uh room to improv. Obviously, you you know, you talked about your background in Upright Citizens Brig Brigade. What was your approach to improv in this film? You know, was there did you leave a lot of room for it, or you know, obviously Nate is newer to acting, is do you feel like it needs to focus more on the script?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

You know, it's it it it kind of like depends on what the scene is, you know. If it's a scene where I I would say like the more dramatic scenes, or or you know, when you get closer to the third act or the heartfelt stuff, or when he's apologizing to his kids, and you know, um, that that stuff is more uh tightly scripted, but Nate worked on scripting those parts with us, so you know, um so he had a way of kind of putting things in his own voice where it was a little easier for him. Uh in the more purely comedic scenes, or you know, when we had Zach Cherry and Kumel in the car dealership, or Colin Jost and Kate Berlant, or Colin and Nate on their own, um definitely more improv in those scenes. Uh nothing like too crazy, you know. We would uh nothing that was like totally outside of what the scene was about, but we definitely colored outside the lines on on those. What was really funny for Nate, the first three days of filming were the car dealership, just because how schedules worked out and and you know, this Toyota dealership was we we were lucky enough that they like gave us this dealership to shoot in for three days, which was still an active dealership that was working. Like right on the other side of the cameras, there's like people getting their cars serviced in in like rural Georgia, you know, a half hour outside of Atlanta. And um, but Nate uh, you know, his his very first scenes were all these scenes with Kumel and Zach Cherry, and these guys are doing improv, and these guys are, you know, they're like killing on set. The crew's all trying not to laugh. And Nate, I guess what he wasn't expecting or wasn't used to is like being the straight straight man in those scenes because all those dealership scenes, he's like reacting to things that Kumel is doing or like things that Zach is saying, and he's much more like passive in those in those scenes. And I remember Nate being like, man, these guys are like killing. Like, I wish I was funnier in these scenes. And I'm like, well, dude, in a movie, you know, like we're we're with your character on this whole journey. Like, we need the you know, there are moments where you're not really going to be driving it that where things have to happen to you, and and you're not gonna be necessarily the one that's killing in these scenes. Your reactions to what they're doing are gonna be what's fun, you know, are gonna make what they do even funnier. Um, but they were doing all this improv, and Nate was like, Am I allowed to do that? And I'm like, Yeah, man, like of course, whatever. You wanna like we'll we'll get what we need to get, but time permitting, I will keep the cameras rolling and play around. You know, like I'm not like, oh, let's rap two hours early today. I'm like, how much time can we spend on this scene before we have to move to the next scene? Um, and let's spend that time just exploring and trying new things. And and it's funny, that came from me working with Lord and Miller. I did this show called Son of Zorn on Fox years ago that they were the executive producers of. And uh, you know, Phil Lord was like, we keep shooting until they shut the lights off on us, you know. And he he's like, uh, they had just done Last Man on Earth, and he's like, some of the funniest stuff in that pilot was just us like, you know, we're kind of done shooting in the scene, and we're like, all right, Forte, what do you want to do? Like, uh try this, do this weird thing. It has nothing to do, it's never gonna make it in. But like, maybe it'll lead us to something else that's funny that we could put in the movie. A little gem, a little moment, a look, and and you know, we found those things on this, and then you know, some of them were in the movie for sure. Yeah, I feel like when

SPEAKER_00 22:00

You have that many comedic talents around, like it just you're gonna stumble on that type of stuff. Of course, yeah. Um, do you have a personal favorite scene from the movie?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Um, yeah, you know, it sort of changes from from scene to scene. Uh for me, there's a scene, it's like the heart, it's a heartfelt scene that is my favorite movie. It's Nate apologizing to his daughters after he after things blow up for him. It's him, he's like, you know, they're they're like camping out in the living room and he's got a tent set up and and he's trying to make things right, and they're like, you know, they they still sort of don't believe he blew every he blew it, you know. And uh and he says some really he's he gets like kind of vulnerable with them for the first time, and uh, and I that I I think that's my favorite scene in the movie, just just because it's the first time that you like really see a new color of Nate, you know, and and uh and like I have kid it's so sappy of me. I what I really love is when you could get affected when you're on set and you can get affected by what's happening, and like Nate apologizing to the kids, and like they're those kids were such good actors in the movie. Um and it just like felt real, and I remember on set being like like feeling it, you know, like oh boy, wow, that was act like that really worked for me. Like I'm I'm like really feel this between you guys. And uh, and I remember when we were doing our you know, in in the Weird Alp movie that I did, there's a moment where uh uh where Radcliffe um he goes back to work at the dad, the factory that his dad worked at, and his dad comes up and and uh tells him he's proud of him, and it's like this really unearned. It's like we we I went into it thinking it was a joke. I'm like, oh, this is so funny to do with the satirical version of this kind of scene, uh, because it's so unearned. He just goes to work to the factory, and the dad just all of a sudden is like, you know, I've actually been proud of you this whole time. But when we shot it, I was like, God, I feel it. The emotion between these actors. I'm like, am I gonna cry at like Daniel Radcliffe dressed as Weird Al? You know, he uh seeing him hear his dad say he's proud. But it really worked, and and and that's kind of the key to movies, I think. It's lead, it's like maybe not all movies. There's a lot of different kinds of movies, but leading with heart, you know, like uh Jeremy Latcham, who is was producer on this, and he worked on a bunch of Marvel movies, Iron Man and and and you know, Spider-Man, all these Guardians, all these Marvel movies. Um heart, humor, spectacle in that order is it would you know, is sort of the his guiding principles, you know, uh for making movies. And and I found that too, like heart he uh heart first. So like don't undercut the heart with jokes, yeah, but but have enough jokes where the jokes work and the jokes are great, but like don't step on those heartfelt moments because like that has to land in order for your movie to be successful, and like that's a moment in this movie where I'm like, uh, it lands, like we we're landing it, yeah. And it propels and like having that scene there propels us into our third act, and I think our third act continues to get big laughs because like we stopped down and like gave some real heart to the audience.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah, absolutely, totally agree. Um, I I want to kind of before we wrap up here, I'm you know, talk about go back to your like influences and kind of your career perspective. Is there if you can, you know, say one film or one comedy film that you feel like is one you revisit regularly or one is like a major influence to you, what would that one be?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Um yeah, you know, it's it's interesting to say comedy film because uh for me I think it's like boogie nights. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

I'm such a huge PTA fan, so that's a I love that answer from you. One of my all-time fans.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, I mean it yeah, like that's the interesting thing. Like, I make comedies, um, but like the comedies, I don't know, air quotes that that are my favorite movies are like the it's the comedy that is nested inside PTA's writing and his and his filmmaking, and Quentin Tarantino and the Cohen brothers. Like those are the movies that like I came up on and I find myself re-watching the most. Alexander Payne is another one, like Election is another uh in fact when we did the uh when we first put together, when I did my director's cut of this movie, our I had like all this music from Election was like in our temp score, um, which wasn't necessarily right for our movie, but it was only because Election is another one. It's just like one of my favorite, all-time favorite comedies. Which like I have a 14-year-old daughter now, and I'm I'm I'm I think about what I watched when I was 14, and I was like, okay, I watched every R-rated movie when I was 14. So she's at the age where I can now show her all of these movies, you know, uh that I that I grew up loving. And uh I have not Boogie Nights is a little too rough for us. Yeah. Right now, maybe I gotta wait till she's 15. But uh, and even then there were certain scenes I will probably oh I'm gonna run to the bathroom real quick while you watch this. But um, but yeah, it's those, it's it's like the it's the comedies that like ride that line between comedy and drama. And and a lot of the stuff that I find funniest is the moments of levity in a more dramatic story, really. Yeah. Um which is like a it's very I know very weird for me to say uh boogie nights in a conversation about the breadwinner. But but it's but I think that what those movies do for me and what what I can't ever stray too far from is like keep it grounded. I think like that's the really the the takeaway is like I I don't want things to be too silly and comedic to not believe that like these characters all feel the way they feel, and everything that's happening in this story, these people all take very seriously, and it's it's you know it's life or death for them, you know, it's it's it's their world, um, and they have to treat it as such, you know, even though we're we're making jokes along the way.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah. Well, I mean, being a fan of Boogie Knights, you got to recreate the a parody of the uh a scene from there in the weird movie. So that had to have been pretty thrilling.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

For sure. For sure. Yeah, and you know, the other thing too, it's just uh it's making sure that those movies are all the comedy comes from character and characters being so specific. And I think it's like the specificity of every character in a movie, uh, like that's what I think makes great comedies work so well. And that's why in this movie, like every character has their like specific thing, even if it's a little heightened, like Zach Cherry, his ridiculous like look, we don't talk about family at work, yeah, is like silly and heightened, but like to him, you know, the fact that Nate like takes a leave of absence from work and Zach treats it like he's some jaded lover, you know, that like is is being cheated on. It it's it's that specificity of character, I think, that's really you know, yeah, where where the comedy lives.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Well, I think that's a great place for us to end, Eric. I very much appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. Uh really excited about the breadwinner, you know, being released to wider audiences. I am excited that a film like this is having a theater run, and you know, it is something that all family, you know, members of all ages can enjoy. Um, so uh congratulations on it. It's uh it's very funny, uh, it's very heartfelt. Um, and I really enjoyed it. Awesome. Thank you. Uh really great talking to you. Thanks so much.