How B.J. Novak Wrote And Directed ‘Vengeance’ And Discovered An America That Surprised And Inspired Him (2024)

He’s best known as an actor, but B.J. Novak’s debut feature as a writer-director proves he has what it takes to secure a fruitful career behind the camera too.

Vengeance is a mystery-comedy that also features him in the lead role as a serial dater from New Yorker trying to make his name as a podcaster. When he gets a call telling him a former hook-up has died in her small town Texas home, he sees investigating her death as both an opportunity to do good and achieve a career goal.

I caught up with Novak to discuss the accomplished and very funny film, taking Hollywood to rural America, and the jokes people questioned, but he knew he wanted to keep.

Simon Thompson: For a debut feature, I was genuinely impressed by the strength of the writing and great direction. It feels well worked. I’m assuming Vengeance is an idea you’ve been playing around with for a while before it came together?

B.J. Novak: Yeah, it is. I had this idea, and there are so many different versions of this movie because it’s a comedy, a movie making fun of New Yorkers, a film about Texas, a thriller, and a mystery, and it’s an idea movie. I basically had ten movies that didn’t fit together that I had been working on in my head for several years. It all started to coalesce when I met Couper Samuelson at Blumhouse, told him the idea, and showed him a version of the script, and he helped me pare it down into a 90-minute version.

Thompson: Didn’t that meeting come out of a tweet you sent about The Purge movies? Had you pitched anywhere before that?

Novak: It did, but I hadn’t pitched it at all. I had written it and was figuring out who I would go to with it. How do I do that? He swooped in with that meeting and said, ‘Let’s make it.’ I sent him a script and said, ‘Look, if you’re serious, I won’t go to anyone else, but I need to know you want to make it.’ At this point, Jason Blum was involved, too. They said, ‘Yeah, we do,’ and so I said, ‘Deal.’ I like them a lot. I love their track record of betting on new directors and small budgets but giving people a lot of freedom.

Thompson: There are so many nuggets of great dialogue with an edge that I know will land well with audiences. Were there any that you were particularly pleased with but weren’t sure whether they would make the final script or cut?

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Novak: Probably all of them (laughs). The great lines are always the ones that are right on the line. The question is, ‘Can you get away with that and still make it believable and not take you out of it?’ There’s one joke in particular that I told everyone, and they were like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work,’ so I said, ‘I’m going to make that work.’ That was the joke where one of the characters says to me, ‘You look like a guy from a Liam Neeson movie. Which one am I thinking of? Schindler’s List.’ People were like, ‘I don’t know,’ but I was like, ‘No, trust me.’ That’s sort of the green M&M in the rock star’s rider. It was the comedy lines that were on the line. Is that too jokey, or, on philosophical lines, is that too heady for the moment? Because the actors made them realistic, they ended up in the cut. I’m a big believer that real life has a lot of comedy in it and that comedy people shouldn’t lose their sense of humor when they do other things. I mean, Jordan Peele is the best example ever.

Thompson: The ensemble cast is great. You’ve been around for several years and have these relationships, but how did you get that cast together?

Novak: It’s really excellent. I think I was lucky because the way I write, especially in this story with so many different people with opinions, there were a lot of monologues. Cynically, I think actors scan a script and think, ‘Do I have any big monologues that I can chew on?’ I think really good actors at least read the script, and that definitely helped. I think people were attracted to Vengeance’s themes and the fact that these are characters where no one was the butt of the joke. Everyone was meant to be a three-dimensional person with a viewpoint that the person could put their heart behind. Unfortunately, it’s rare with a lot of scripts. I get plenty as an actor, and you play the bad guy, or you play the fool, but this movie really respects all its characters, even if they’re getting laughs or they have a point of view that seems a little out there.

Thompson: Something that struck me with Vengeance is that every character, big or small, whenever they’re in a scene, they’re there for a clear reason. All of the characters have something to do and have a purpose. Some of the cast I know you already had relationships with such as Ashton Kutcher.

Novak: It’s such an eclectic cast in terms of the actors’ backgrounds. J. Smith-Cameron has been on Succession for the whole run, and that’s such a New York show. Louanne Stephens was on Friday Night Lights, Issa Rae is such a powerhouse, and Ashton Kutcher is such a surprise if you’ve seen him in other things. I really wanted the movie to feel like a blend of tones, not just in the writing but within the cast.

Thompson: Blumhouse produced this, and they have a knack for doing a lot with not much money. Obviously, when you’re doing a first feature like this, you will not have a lot of budget to play with. I don’t know how much you had to make this.

Novak: I didn’t know budgets either, which is helpful. I just said, ‘Here’s what I’m doing.’ Sometimes friends would ask how much I thought this movie would cost. I had no idea. I don’t know the difference between $500,000 and $50 million in terms of a budget. Now I do, but I didn’t then. I said, ‘Here’s what I need. Here are the scenes,’ and they did the budget for me. There are a lot of battles. Once you get on set, and you say, ‘I need an extra take,’ or, ‘We need to redo this,’ you end up battling every day against the limitations. In general, our line producer, Chris Warner, and the people at Blumhouse would tell me what I had to work with, and I would tell them what I needed.

Thompson: There are a lot of subtle jokes in Vengeance, as well as the ones that are more center stage. I love the energy company sponsor mentions at the rodeo.

Novak: Thank you! That was straight out of real life. I went to a rodeo in Paducah, Kentucky, and they announced the sponsors, and the word energy was in every single company.

Thompson: How many of these things in the movie come from real-life moments?

Novak: A good number. I went to small-town Texas on multiple trips, at first to research it and then just because I loved it and had research as an excuse. Many phrases and details worked their way in, like the rodeo observation. What worked its way in was the unexpected warmth of the people who were so intimidating from a distance. It’s all those things like everything’s bigger in Texas, Don’t Mess with Texas, the guns, the trucks, and yet the feeling once you’re there was so amazingly warm and welcoming. That is, I think, the most important thing that worked its way in from the research.

Thompson: I was going to ask about that because different worlds are coming together in Vengeance. It’s very much the same when you are from the East or West Coast and go somewhere in the middle of Texas, with preconceptions on both sides. How did people respond to you there when you were doing this research?

Novak: They were extremely welcoming. They definitely teased me for being out of place, but mainly because I wore white sneakers in West Texas. At first, a lot of people were like, ‘Oh, I know you. Aren’t you the guy from The Office?’ After a while, I’d meet someone, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know you. You’re the guy who’s wearing those white sneakers.’ He didn’t know who I was from TV, but a guy in town was wearing white sneakers, and that was a news story to him. Who is this stranger who has come to town? I was not met with the skepticism I expected as I’m an obvious blue state, Hollywood guy writing a movie that, for all they know, could be making fun of them. I was scared that was what they would think, but I got the benefit of the doubt as a human being everywhere I went.

Thompson: Are you looking forward to getting the reactions of people who might assume this might mock them when it’s actually affectionate and understanding?

Novak: I just returned from a sneak preview tour in Texas. We played in 12 cities, and it was the best response and definitely what I had hoped for. I think people in Hollywood don’t get out of their bubble enough, and you end up with many stories like Entourage, and everyone else is an afterthought. I wanted to get under the skin of a different place and put something else on the screen.

Thompson: There’s a great last line in the movie that says, ‘It’s all regrets. Make them count.’ Any regrets with Vengeance?

Novak: Oh my God, there are a million (laughs). I probably wrote that line to myself, and I repeat that line to myself now when I think, ‘I should have lingered longer on this shot,’ or whatever. It’s all micro things because I’m happy with the big picture. It’s tiny things like, ‘I wish the music was louder here or quieter there,’ or, ‘I wish this opening shot has brighter light,’ and then, by the way, the next day, I changed my mind, and I’m glad it was the way it was. I can’t help questioning everything. The movie is about regret. It’s about someone who doesn’t want to commit to anyone because it could lead to regret, but then he decides vengeance is as well. He reckons with those regrets in pursuing vengeance, which is the perfect way to end it. That’s the secret. It’s all regrets. So yes, this movie is all regrets, and I did make them count.

Vengeance lands in theaters on Friday, July 29, 2022

How B.J. Novak Wrote And Directed ‘Vengeance’ And Discovered An America That Surprised And Inspired Him (2024)
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