Jason Biggs has spent decades in front of the camera, but now he steps behind it for the first time.
His directorial debut, 'Untitled Home Invasion Romance', bends genres and tones, blending comedy, thriller, and gore into an 80-minute tightrope walk.
Metro recently spoke with Biggs about learning to trust his instincts, his collaborators, and the chaos of first-time filmmaking.
I've been looking for something to direct for a really long time. I started acting when I was a little kid, and I've always been fascinated by the idea of directing. With the directors that I've worked with, I've always appreciated what they've brought to the position and always tried to pay attention and I thought it could be fun, particularly working with actors. I felt like I certainly had something to add on that side of things—still knowing I had a lot to learn on the sort of photographic and technical side of things. But this felt like a natural next step for me and something that I was very interested in.
I did find a project that was a little more akin to ‘American Pie’, but ultimately, I decided that [for] my first directing project, I wanted to do something that was a little more unexpected. Initially, it had come to me just to act in to play the role of Kevin. I went back to them and the producers who had offered it to me and said, I like this and I like the role—and I'd also love to direct it. And fortunately, they agreed and I was able to get money and backing, and so people took a chance on me to direct it.
I feel like this sort of bends genres a little bit—it's got a thriller component, a who-done-it, a little bit of gore, but ultimately it's a comedy. Whenever we were on set and whenever we had a question about how to choose something, how to deliver a line, how to light something even, it was always, okay, this is a comedy first, and then we went from there. But to me, [the film] had just enough of a challenge. My goal for this movie was to live in a world where we could go to places comedically, but also still surprise people.
I certainly knew that I was going to have a lot to learn; I looked at it as a big learning experience. I've been on many sets, but there are lots of things I still don't know. What I do know is that you need to rely on your team. There are people who are better at this than I am or better at that—so my goal was to bring in people that I could trust and who were good at those things. I feel like I was able to do that.
Just from being on sets, [I know] that things are going to happen completely out of your control and that are totally unexpected. No matter how much I prepared myself for things to go wrong, there were still things that happened that totally threw me for a loop—and you have to adapt. So that was hard at times. Ultimately, I watched the movie and I'm happy and proud. The fact that I got a movie made at all, I will happily pat myself on the back. It is not an easy thing.
That being said, things went wrong. I didn't get this shot; I wasn't able to do that. This isn't quite how I pictured it, or we didn't have access to this set on this day, or this person fell out. So it's just constantly making adjustments and working with what you have. And so to that end, is it how I pictured it? In my mind's eye, of course not. But I'm really happy with where we landed, given the constraints of time and money that we were working with, especially.
With Meaghan (Rath), she really came in and she was just so down—it’s not an easy role. If you zoom out a little bit and you go, oh, well, look, I had her jumping in a freezing cold lake multiple times, doing scenes soaking wet, there was physicality and all kinds of things required. And frankly, the movie is really on her character's shoulders, I believe. And I shot it as such, when I talk about this movie, it is her story. But I think the scenes where I had the most fun were the ones I was not in, where I could just sit back, watch and really focus on the other performances and focus on the other shots.
There's a scene in the bar where Meaghan [as] Susie is talking to Anna Konkle’s character, the Sheriff, and they're catching up. First of all, I think Meaghan and Anna both are just brilliant in that scene. But I remember directing it. It was in our second week, and I was giving them notes and they were being so responsive. They were both so good at taking notes. I remember thinking—this is why I want to direct. This is the feeling I have right now, directing these two great actors in this really nice scene is why I want to do it. So I think if I have the opportunity to direct again, either I would have no role or a smaller role.
I hope they have fun. It's 80 minutes, it's a quick, fun, unexpected ride is what I hope people see. I hope they are surprised by the movie as a whole and they're surprised at the turns and twists that happen throughout. And I hope they laugh—there are, I believe, some really nice, big laughs throughout the course of it. And I hope they're shocked. I hope they squirm a little bit. I hope they see Megan's performance and I want people to talk about how brilliant she is, and the whole cast. And I'm hoping they find me as a director and say, oh, I'm excited to see what else he does and what's next.
‘Untitled Home Invasion Romance' is now available on digital.
