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David Gordon Green: Prince Avalanche has been an interesting movie in a lot of ways. I’ve traveled pretty extensively with it in the country and internationally and it’s the first thing that I’ve done that doesn’t piss anyone off. I’m sure there will be people who are bored by it. It’s not for everybody, but no movie I ever do will be for everybody.I look at my career like I’m a character actor. Sometimes there’s a gig that comes my way that seems like a great idea, it has financing, somebody’s written the script, and actors are attached and that’s cool. Other times I need to dig into a personal place and make a movie like this where it’s very expressive. I’ve designed it specifically for a few people to watch—people I know that want to see this, who will know what that line means—and it has that kind of intimacy in the target of it. I wrote this movie for about six people and as long as those six people see it, then I’m totally cool. The various projects that I entertain always have some selfish core in there, which I don’t cry about. That’s the best part of my job.With Prince Avalanche you’ve made your first remake, based off the 2011 Icelandic film Either Way. What was that experience like and how did you come across the film?
I found this state park in Bastrop, Texas, a few months after this major forest fire. I loved it and really wanted to put together something immediately and use it as a backdrop. It’s a beautiful landscape with this road winding through it. I wanted to make a movie that’s like two guys in some very simple scenario, really like a character piece, and get an opportunity to work with some of my actor friends who wanted to do something raw and small. I didn’t know who at the time.
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It came together really quickly. I saw the Icelandic film in February and we were sound-mixing the film in July. I mean, it’s quicker than most scripts I’ve written. I wrote this in three days or something really quick. Just plagiarized it from the movie and put my own spin on it.Where did you stray from the original film?
It was a 65-page script that worked as a great treatment where we could loosen it up and have ideas on set. We used that as an opportunity to integrate situations and characters like the older woman sifting through ashes in her house. She wasn’t in the script, that was just someone we met. But when you meet someone that has this incredible magical quality and you’re in production on a movie you immediately invite them into your creative process in any way you can. But once I found Either Way, it became a perfect playground to add my eccentric touches, modest symbolism, interpretations, and a lot of ambiguities into it. People can read into it or watch it on the surface and be fine with it.
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I want to do a lot more! People roll their eyes at remakes, but it’s no different than adapting a book. You’re taking someone else’s vision of something and taking characters out and rewriting the ending and all this shit. To me, it’s just a great foundation. I didn’t need to write anything to get the funding. I showed this film and said, "Me plus Paul plus Emile plus this film equals give us money." We got it in less than 24 hours. It’s a great blueprint: Here’s the idea and we’re going to go do our own personal thing with it. Through production we always had the confidence that we could turn to this brilliant original film if we needed to or take any detour that came to mind. It gave us incredible freedom, because everyone believed in the framework. I really enjoyed it. However, there are certain movies I wouldn’t want to remake.Are you still slated for Suspiria?
I don’t know. I think that moment might have passed. I hope it gets made though. Either by me or someone cool.Screw those “uncool” filmmakers.
Yeah, no uncool filmmakers. It’s just at a point where right now in the trend of the horror genre that everything is down and dirty and nitty gritty as possible. So maybe later.

I like things that are emotionally challenging. Serious content dealt with in a funny manner, or something that’s funny taken very seriously. I wanted an actor known more dramatically and the other more comically and also someone that was open to being paid very little and going out in the middle of the woods for a couple weeks.
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Yeah, sporting a badass mustache and some happening blue overalls.Emile was a revelation to me. I had no idea he could be so funny. Did you have to work with him or was it natural?
I know Emile very well and knew that was all within him. Even hanging out on press days there are moments where you want to get him in a headlock and other times where you want him to ramble on. There’s a long story he tells in the movie about not getting laid and he’s very emotional about it. The one direction I gave him was, “This hurts to tell. It’s a painful story and I want you to make everybody in the audience cry when they hear it.” He goes for the drama of that, but it’s written so stupid. Now he sees people laughing and at first he was confused, because he thought he’d done a really dramatic scene. It’s cool now because he says, “I don’t care who laughs at that scene, cause I know there’s one guy who is on the same level as Lance. There’s one guy in the audience who’s like, ‘I know, man.’”He’s got this idiot savant sort of presence. Where you dismiss him because he doesn’t know what a chiropractor is and then realize he’s somehow oddly perceptive. His stories are better than the sex would have been anyway.
Yeah, and the movie is still rated R. It’s the least rated R movie ever. There’s not even a cuss word in it. There’s a middle finger and Emile simulates jerking off. That gets an R and World War Z is PG-13.
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It was 16 days of summer camp. It was a really good crew, most of the guys I’ve been working with almost 15 years since film school. Everyone works for $100 a day. My producer, Craig Zobel, works at Columbia and he brought a bunch of students down to come PA and hang out with us. It was a great mixture of old, cynical bastards and young, hungry, aspiring filmmakers. It was the kind of energy that at the end of the day, everyone goes to the same bar and gets trashed. It was an amazingly intimate experience.Sounds good. Thanks for chatting.
Absolutely.Prince Avalanche is now playing in theaters and On Demand. Check out the film's website here.@PRISMindexMore film stuff on VICE:I'm Short Not Stupid PresentsWatch the Trailer for the New Spike Jonze Film, 'Her'All Over the Place in New York
