Adam Saunders goes back to school in ‘Re-Election’

On the center left Adam Saunders in Re-Election Photo provided by Picturehouse For multiple of us high school was a time of awkwardness and pain But for Jimmy Bauer Adam Saunders in Re-Election it was the greatest time of his life In Re-Election which was also written and directed by Saunders Jimmy s life post-high school hasn t turned out exactly as planned After his rival Manish Singh Rizwan Manji beat him out for senior class president Jimmy took a downward spiral He didn t finish high school and now at the age of works at his father s memorabilia shop But after learning that Manish is running for a second term as the governor of Texas Jimmy decides to go back to high school and certainly become class president Generational differences and hijinks ensue but Re-Election ultimately becomes a sweet story about finding yourself and the importance of putting the masses first when it comes to citizens system The movie also stars Nathalie Kelley as an old classmate of Jimmy s with a lingering crush Patty Guggenheim as Jimmy s sister and the school principal and Atlanta native Bex Taylor-Klaus as Noa a non-binary high schooler who is tasked with helping Jimmy acclimate himself to the new rules of high school Rough Draft Atlanta in the past few days spoke with Saunders Manji and Taylor-Klaus about the making of the film This interview has been edited for length and clarity Adam I yearned to start with you I know there s a lot of your personal roots in this story so I m sure it s been percolating for quite several time But when did you start officially thinking about making it a movie Adam Saunders I started writing in There were a couple things at play first of all this notion of this prison of self that I ve been talking about something that I could certainly relate to and I feel like as we ve been showing the film other people have been too Social media does it so much We re comparing ourselves to other people all the time Why am I not there Why am I not doing what that person is doing That sort of fixation on I m not where I m supposed to be in my life That was one big part of it I think the other part of it was the political state right Seeing as the world was getting more and more polarized and wanting to make a movie that people both from Texas where I grew up and LA and New York where I ve lived the last years could sit together watch a movie talk about kindness empathy things that I feel like are universal themes and and maybe have a conversation I want to touch on the political thing again but how did you two come to the project Bex Taylor-Klaus I auditioned like every other non-binary schmo in LA For several reason this guy thought it was me and I m really glad he did Saunders I did And you know it s a really hard part to cast Other than Jimmy Noa is the lead in the movie So you have to have somebody that does identify as non-binary but also has the chops to play the lead in a movie and also I felt like we had a good dynamic Even just here we ve been going back and forth about politics Bex as a human being is very informed and has very strong opinions And Noa has to have that Noa has to care Noah has to be smart Noah has to empathize They have to have that Taylor-Klaus It s rare to find non-binary representation in media where you read it and you re like Yeah this feels real This feels accurate This feels at ease and honest but also kind I believe in trans rights and trans wrongs and to play a trans right is really nice How about you Rizwan Rizwan Manji I got a call from my agent saying that Adam desired to do a Zoom I ve done a lot of these Zooms where they re like Oh they re interested and then they re like No that s not the right fit But we got on the Zoom and we got along so well We talked for a really long time and I think by the end of it you were like Well I think I want you That s never happened Laughs Saunders To Rizwan You don t even know this story Riz and I are very close friends we play poker every week more times than we should say laughs Riz you were brought to us by your company I was a fan I d seen him in a lot of his stuff Then there was a moment where your name was off the list They reported Oh no he s not coming in I was pissed off about that I was like what happened to Rizwan Manji So when I veritably did meet with you I was like I ve gotta be on it You don t even know that Manji Here I was like We re just really getting along Laughs I think you narrated me on the Zoom At the end he s like Well I d like you to do this That never happens by the way Maybe like a year later somebody s like Oh remember that thing Laughs Taylor-Klaus That s what happened with me as well We had a Zoom meeting and Saunders was like Now I know you don t want to play high school And I m like Wait hold on I thought you guys wouldn t want me to play high school I m down I m so in Saunders I mean look they say that directing is percent casting was it William Wyler or Billy Wilder or Martin Scorsese It s attributed to everybody But I think it s true So in both of these cases I was a fan of their work So the idea that they were coming in and meeting I demanded them assuming the meeting went well and they both seemed like normal people I later exposed out they re Manji Definitely not that Laughs Saunders But they present really well Bex I know your background is in drama but I ve heard you say that you needed to do comedy But Noa I think they re one of the more grounded characters in the film How did you work to integrate the comedy and the groundedness and also how was working with two people who have a lot of comedy chops Taylor-Klaus Particular of my favorite comedy is the comedy of ridiculous circumstances happening around a grounded character I think an honest response to a ridiculous scenario can be peak comedy For example Old man gets mad ukelele was moved screaming yelling upset Hilarious It could also be High schooler coming back at years old actual high schoolers confused The hilarity there is equal I m very used to doing the more comedic character in a drama and it felt really fun to play the opposite I was telling Adam a couple weeks ago you cast the non-straight not-man to play the straight man to your clown and I love that Saunders Just to piggyback off that it s a farce it s a satire it s a ridiculous concept right So if it s about personal responsibility and someone feeling like they haven t made it where they want to be in their life but I ve got a guy living in a shed that s extreme right There s a lot of farcical thinking I wished to show that Jimmy felt uncomfortable in his clothing and so I ve got him in a massive ketchup stain that s way bigger than any real stain That s the satire of it But the only way that lands I think as a director is if it s played straight if it s played for truth Because then people say Oh but he really is upset about the ketchup stain or Noa is really confused about why this guy is here The audience can get on board with the satire If it s all just ridiculous then people just change the channel Taylor-Klaus I love being able to add things that I have been narrated I m good at by this industry playing the level headed or emotional I like being able to bring that into something that brings me enjoyment Throughout this press tour I ve heard you talk about the collaboration that took place on set Rizwan I believe your character s accent is one of those things I d love it if all three of you could touch on the collaborative aspect of bringing a character to life once they re already on the page Manji As I revealed Saunders and I Zoomed We also ended up meeting for coffee right before we started shooting before he was leaving for Louisiana We had a conversation about the character There s obviously what s written on the page He wrote it and I was like this is the idea that I have I brought up the governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal that s what I was thinking about Bobby Jindal s accent was supposedly not as exaggerated as mine is but he also I feel is doing various kind of fake voice and presenting in this way We had a conversation and we were on the same page My idea was we should make Manish like this I think we should go full force with him being the villain It was to Adam s credit that he was like no I think that we can also have him have certain humanity which comes out at the end I love that He commented Look Jimmy has spent his whole life up to this point thinking about Manish and Manish perhaps has spent very little time thinking of Jimmy I think that little thing clicked I appreciate that because we can go in and we can have this conversation Then we took a little bit of both and that s how we were able to come up with the character Saunders I think that s right It s engaging Manish is a very triumphant politician He s the governor of Texas I m very interested in politics What are the reasons that politicians are flourishing They find particular truth in the way they relate to their electorate I think what Manish has done since high school is he s figured out a way to connect to his people It was the magic eight ball in high school and now it s this put-upon accent or the grandiose stuff like You re gonna work for me one day All that stuff drives Jimmy nuts because that s not how Jimmy relates to the world Jimmy relates to the world just from truth He can t understand why anyone s getting behind this character But do we have to come about it from an organic place so that we can understand why this guy s prosperous I think to Rizwan s great credit he becomes that guy People love Manish when they watch this movie and they can totally see why this guy would be the governor He s charming and he s charismatic and he s flamboyant and he s also cocky and he s all the things that drive Jimmy nuts but we understand him All of these characters they re created by a writer in this incident me and then they are given to an actor who makes it their own Then it s my job as a director to make sure we re staying within the lines of the tone of the movie But both of these characters far exceeded what was on the page Jumping back into the politics of it all I ve heard you talk about wanting to make a movie that both people in LA and people in Texas can enjoy before Obviously this is a very fraught political time and I don t think this movie to its credit shies away from gender issues and social issues and political issues Adam and Rizwan and Bex you can approach this from an acting standpoint as well could you talk about from a writing standpoint crafting this work and keeping both of those things in mind Saunders My position is that if we just have the conversion that s enough Literally the fact that we are having the conversation is far more than we do if we re just both sitting on our sides with our fists up Just having a character that s non-binary in the movie just literally the fact that they exist and they re going through human issues dealing with bullies and dealing with wanting their own ambition and dealing with their own insecurities just seeing that character I think that s enough Or having a governor of Indian descent who s putting on an American Southern accent That s a conversation starter Riz and I are doing a TV show now about Jews and Muslims that play poker together We re not hammering home particular of these issues that we were just talking about We re just talking We re just playing cards you know and that s something that we re doing next The movie that I did before this was about Black face you know what I mean But it wasn t It was but it wasn t We re talking about these issues that are really fraught issues but we re doing it in a way that s not banging people s heads against it It s just the fact that it exists in the story allows people to then have the conversation Manji The first time we watched the movie after it finished my two older kids came to the screening and just watching them watch the movie they re living through these things So the cringe moments of Adam having this conversation with Noa it really rung true for them because they ve been in these situations where these conversations happen It s gripping to me how the younger generation will find something in this movie that maybe the rest of us don t see It was thought-provoking to see it through their eyes Saunders I ve had people come up to me since seeing the movie and say But wait why isn t it the same as the RuPaul situation Somebody else came up to me an older person and noted But what does they them really mean Is it he or is it she Just the fact that they re now asking those questions I think we re doing our job They re asking the questions Taylor-Klaus Personally I love getting sought those questions because it means someone cares enough to ask It means someone is interested enough in figuring out why it means something to me to ask that question so I ll answer I ll answer every time Everybody s different Specific people when they get that question they feel put upon They feel like it s not my job to do the emotional labor I will do that emotional labor because at least you re asking me At least you are not just making assumptions and blowing it off You are seeing that it means something to me and you are willing to try to at the very least understand why it means something to me It s thought-provoking bringing up the different reactions between older and younger generations Have either of you two noticed a difference Saunders I feel like the movie is really playing great for people our age Riz is a little older than me our age and older Laughs I also think it s playing really well for high school kids I feel like those are the two ages that are really resonating with the film Because I think to Riz s point his kids are like I m so used to you out-of-touch old people not getting it And we older people chosen older than others are really used to not getting it Taylor-Klaus My friend s son came to the New York premiere and was just absolutely raving about it I can t wait to make my friends watch Really sweet Tonight veritably particular of the grandparents and borderline great-grandparents are coming So I m excited to see how they respond Saunders Let s see how far our demographic goes The post Adam Saunders goes back to school in Re-Election appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta