With “The Nines,” John August is making his directorial debut. But while this is his first feature, he’s written a ton of movies you probably have seen like “Go,” “Corpse Bride,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Big Fish.”

Melissa McCarthy is mostly known for her work on “Gilmore Girls,” where she played Sookie St. James. But for those who’ve seen the movie “Go,” that’s where she met John August and they’ve been good friends ever since.

Now before getting to the interview, some background.

I saw “The Nines” for the first time at Sundance and walked out of the theater not knowing exactly what I felt. I knew I was blown away by the film and the story, but I wasn’t sure if it was due to the no sleep and the surprises the film unexpectedly threw at me. So I decided before attending the junket that I ought to see the movie again and take it for a second spin. Thankfully, the film was even better the second time as I was able to catch a lot of little things that I missed during the initial viewing.

But while I bought into the film hook, line and sinker, I did speak to some friends and they were less than impressed by John August’s feature debut. And this doesn’t surprise me. I really think John has made a film that will polarize the audience. Some of you are going to be like me and really dig this movie. And some of you are not.

But that’s also what’s so great about this film, the ability to be so different to so many people. It’s not like this is a huge budget Hollywood spectacle and it needs to appeal to all four quadrants. “The Nines” is a small budget indie that needs to just find a small passionate group that get it. And I’m happy that I’m one of them.

And before getting to the interview, I think you do need to know that the film unfolds in three parts, featuring the same actors in different (and in some ways overlapping) incarnations. Here’s a summary of the parts…

“The Prisoner” tells the story of a troubled television star (Ryan Reynolds) who finds himself under house arrest, with his chipper publicist (Melissa McCarthy) and disillusioned next-door neighbor (Hope Davis) providing his only links to the outside world. Mysterious events lead him to question whether one or both women are deceiving him about the nature of his incarceration.

“Reality Television” is a half-hour episode of “Behind the Screen,” a Project Greenlight-style documentary series tracking the process of creating a network television drama. Having shot the pilot, creator/showrunner Gavin Taylor (also Ryan Reynolds) faces post-production with the help of his best friend (and lead actress) Melissa McCarthy and development VP Susan Howard (Hope Davis).

“Knowing” finds an acclaimed videogame designer (also Ryan Reynolds) and his wife (Melissa McCarthy) facing car trouble deep in the woods. Their daughter (Elle Fanning) uncovers information which leads to a difficult and irrevocable choice.

And as I’ve said previously, “The Nines” is definitely not for everyone. I’ve been reading reviews of people who really didn’t get it, like it, or even understand it. But unlike some people, I really dug the film and found absolutely worth watching. 

As always, you can either read the transcript below or download the audio of the roundtable interview here. It’s an MP3 so it’s easily placed on an iPod or a portable player.

“The Nines” is currently in very limited release.

So John wrote this for you?

JA: I did.

MM: Not bad, huh?

Did you ask him to do it?

MM: I begged him. I just came and cried on his porch every morning. "Please write me something." No, but I certainly enjoyed it. It's kind of based on something from, what was it, ten years ago?

JA: Melissa was in Go, which was my first movie. And she had a small role and just kicked ass in it. Then I wrote a short film starring her. I didn't even know her; I was just like, "I really like that actress. I'll write a film for her." She was great in that. And that ended up getting her busy with doing a lot of other stuff. She was also in Charlie's Angels and D.C., my TV show. So when it came time to start writing this, I knew I wanted her in it. So I talked to her about it before I put pen to paper, because I wouldn't do it if she wouldn't do it.

So you knew what the movie was about before?

MM: Not really. He basically just gave me a really rough outline of it. I think he just said, at least for my character, that he was going to take the character from the short and he just kind of wanted to play with where she was ten years later. And I think it changed quite a bit from that simple kind of statement.

So what was your reaction when you read the script?

MM: When I read it? Initially, to re-read it, immediately. Because I liked it some much and I kind of had the same feeling, I think, when people see it. You want to see it again right away and watch from what you missed the first time around. And I just loved it. I thought, for the love of God, I get to play three different characters, and it's really good. It's the best thing I've ever read, for sure. There weren't a lot of drawbacks.

I heard you used the short film as your basic demo reel.  

MM: Yeah, I really did. It was more interesting. I liked everything about it, better than a lot of things that I'd done. So I was like, "Why not?"

What's different about John when he's behind the camera, compared to when he's just the writer?

MM: Obviously, much more input. I found it easier, especially for things like this, I can't imagine anyone else directing it, you know? It's out of his mind and it's such a kind of wild ride. It's three simple stories that make one bigger story, but I can't imagine someone else trying to explain that to you. I feel like the wheels would have come off the track if someone else was then having to interpret what John meant. John's very specific and very clear. So he made something that could have been a little confusing like, "No, its this. This part leads to this..." He just kind of simplified it all down.

What do you tell your friends when you want to sum up this movie?

JA: I usually say it's three short films that all start at the same three actors playing different roles and it's only through the movie that you actually realize that they're not separate movies, that there's something bigger going on. It's challenging in that it's a comedy but it's also scary, and it's a drama. It does a lot more things than a movie would usually try to do. So that's challenging, but I avoid copping out with the whole "Oh, you can't describe it." You can describe anything. A writer's job is to describe things.

It's tough to put into a logline.

JA: It's a hard logline. And that's honestly why it couldn’t be a studio movie, because they need to be able to say, "It's Spider-Man." They need to be able to say this is what it is, and there's just not a one thing that we can kinda grab onto for the movie.

As an actor, how do you prepare to play three different characters, and how do you distinguish between them?

MM: First I had to calm down from my initial thing, which was to make them incredibly different. You go a little nuts with like, "Oh, this one will have an accent and a limp." You go like "actor school crazy," because it's such a fun thing to be able to do. So of course your mind goes to like, what are the opposites? How different can I make them? But then it's like, that's not what it's about. It's not like, "Look what I can do." It's about serving the story. So one, it was calming down, having John tell me, "No wigs." Which I was like, "What?"  To prepare for it, I think how John shot it helped tremendously. We shot each one kind of as a separate entity, so there was no crossover, which would have been one, physically impossible, because just hair changes wouldn't have been possible. He helped keep them separate little movies, so when one ended, it was completely done and we moved on. And the next day you were a different person, you started a different thing, so it helped the focus stay. I think it was just realizing that, yes they're three different characters, but there's also a really specific through-line and there's a reason that she's always there, that she's not a completely different person. And then his style of shooting helped keep them different but not a wacky different.

John, why did you decide to shoot it that way? Is it because you thought it would be easier?

JA: Yeah. Each story really demanded its own approach, its own style of acting, its own style of shooting it, and logistically it would have been just impossible to try to be doing two different things in one day. We used different crews, largely, for the different sections. When we got down to -- the last thing we shot was the documentary, part two. And we shot it like a documentary: one or two cameras, video, a completely different crew, one sound guy. We didn't look like a movie. We looked like yet another reality TV show shooting in Los Angeles. And that was a tremendous liberty because we could shoot in different places without permits and people wouldn't bother us. Our footprint was so small, people wouldn't pay any attention to us. Getting back to what she said, it was important to me that the actors prepare each character for who that character was and not try to react to things, not try to keep the characters separate in their heads or keep them away from each other. The characters aren't aware of who they were in the previous section or the next section. They just need to be true to that story, and simple.

John, did you have any experience playing Second Life or games like that?

JA: I haven't played Second Life, but I played way too much World of Warcraft. So the conversation after part three was really my World of Warcraft, which was, I was the Orc boyfriend who just played entirely too much. What's so tough about those games is that they reward you for doing incredibly simple things. So like in real life, I wouldn't want to go out and pick leaves, but in there you can get a level by picking enough leaves. And then you trade them and get a better sword, and then you can do this. And you never question like, why am I doing this? There's this constant reward system. And writing is so hard and so unrewarding so much of the time, and that was so easy and so much more straightforward, that I ended up wasting entirely too much time playing that.

Did you see the South Park World of Warcraft episode?

JA: I did. The South Park episode is genius. It's incredibly accurate of what that experience was. I would find myself getting so emotionally frustrated by like what was clearly like a 13-year-old kid in Dubuque. I wish there was some great altruistic reason (for quiting) like, "I really should put my family first," or "I need to put my writing first." I was in a dungeon instance with some party that I'd just met and they accused me of doing this horrible thing and poaching this one sword, and I was like, "I didn't do it!" And I was angry: "Oh, I hate these people."  And then I turned off my computer. It does feel really real to me. Online I saw the new expansion pack. They had a video of it and I was like, "Ahhhhh," and I was totally like that crack guy who's seeing a guy shooting up in the corner. It's tough.

Can you talk about your writing process?

JA: I end up keeping nine to five office hours. My life is still like midterms in college, where sometimes I'll have to pull an all-nighter to finish something up. That's just the nature of being a writer. I can beat myself up for being lazy or for being unproductive, but that's just my process. So sometimes I am sort of the up-all-night writer guy. Increasingly I am -- because I have a family, I'm responsible to them, too -- I'm not allowed to be exhausted all day. So I do have to keep office hours.

Some writers believe that there's a limited window each day when they can be creative. Do you believe that?

JA: I think that is true. Sometimes you don't know when those productive hours are going to be, buy hopefully you're using those hours to do productive work and not to play Warcraft. That's the challenge. I'm glad that I'm spending those productive hours now in this roundtable with you.

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