Michael Showalter is an alt-comedy icon. So what's he crying about? The ‘Spoiler Alert’ director gets emotional talking about his new movie and his road to becoming a go-to guy for dramas.
©USA Films/Everett Collectionwas ripped by critics, but today is a cult classic that regularly brings costumed fans to midnight screenings — not that Showalter found any real way to capitalize on that. “It didn’t help me one bit that college kids were dressing up as characters from my movie,” he says. “I still needed a job.”a rom-com parody centered around a sad sap who’s perpetually dumped in favor of someone more charismatic. It was another box-office bomb — and this one had no afterlife.
The failures forced Showalter to do some uncomfortable soul-searching. “I thought I stood for something that was counterculture-ish and subversive,” he says. “But as I got older, my priorities started to change. I was married, having kids. I wanted to have a life, but ego gets in the way. I felt like, ‘How can I just take a job?’ I thought I was this alternative-comedy person with a reputation to uphold.”however, everything changed. “It was this surrender,” he says.
Showalter was ecstatic. He sent the script to Sally Field’s agent in the hopes she’d consider taking the title role. It felt like an enormous long shot. Luckily, while Field had never heard of Showalter and had never seen any of his prior projects, her sons Sam and Peter were big fans. She took a meeting — and ended up taken by him.
Field’s participation led producers to bump the budget to a solid million dollars — just enough for Showalter to make the movie that was in his mind and not have it look cheap. “I honestly consider it one of the most creative, energizing projects of my life,” says Field. “We worked so fast. I don’t know how often we even did two takes. It gave me a big hit of that ‘I’m so glad this is what I do’ kind of feeling.”won the Audience Award.
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