When marketing a $1 million independent film, a downbeat tale of an alcoholic stumbling through the gray winter of Atlantic City, the entire strategy hangs on David Schwimmer’s familiar chagrined look and three-day stubble.
Literally.
On the publicity tour meant to bring attention to “Duane Hopwood,” writer-director Matt Mulhern sits in a Denver restaurant and watches his marketing budget go from Schwimmer’s fork to his mouth.
“We blew it on that chicken roll,” Mulhern says with a shrug. “That’s the budget, right there.”
Luckily for Mulhern and “Duane Hopwood,” people recognize Schwimmer just about everywhere. And if people recognize him as “Ross” from the 10-year NBC hit “Friends,” Schwimmer is happy to transfer that free publicity to his new project.
“I have no problem doing anything and everything necessary,” Schwimmer said. “For a movie like this that has little or no chance” to be seen without help, he added.
Schwimmer and Mulhern came to Denver last week to show “Duane Hopwood” at the 28th Starz Denver International Film Festival; the movie opens today at Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli. The duo are following their movie as it rolls out across the country in small venues, drumming up interest in a darkly humorous tale.
“‘Downbeat’ is a word that strikes fear into my heart,” said Mulhern, though he knows it’s an accurate term for the well-crafted tone of “Duane Hopwood.” Personal appearances, they hope, will make up some of the attention deficit often created by “tragicomic” films. Similar labels have helped doom the chances of higher-profile movies this fall, including “Shopgirl” and “The Weather Man.”
Duane Hopwood nearly has hit bottom when we meet him. He’s about to lose a casino job through a dumb, though warmhearted, mistake. His drinking is about to cost him his family. He has no direction in life, blown all over the chilly boardwalk by melancholy winds.
Schwimmer said he reads two or three scripts a week looking for characters that interest him. He wants good writing and collaborative film sets, because with the money he has made from “Friends,” “spending a month at this stage in your life … life’s too short,” he said.
He doesn’t consciously look for characters opposite of the familiar “Ross,” still gracing TV sets a few times a day in lucrative syndication. “I wouldn’t do something just for the character – I might like to play the psychopath, but then the script just (stinks),” he said with a laugh.
Schwimmer remembers picking up the “Duane Hopwood” script and feeling his jaw drop a few pages in: a drunk-driving Duane has been stopped by a high school friend who wants to let him off easy. But the cop discovers Duane’s young daughter asleep in the back seat, and audiences let out an audible groan at how low Duane has sunk.
“I was speechless, just as a reader,” Schwimmer said. “How am I going to forgive this character for what he has done?”
He didn’t ever, completely, Schwimmer added. But he kept reading, and understood the sadness eroding Duane’s judgment. Duane’s failing, which at times becomes his salvation, is that he doesn’t take anything seriously enough until it’s too late.
“There’s a gallows humor in Duane,” Mulhern said. “David has that. You don’t want someone overtly funny.”
But Duane plays positively morose compared with his motormouth friend Anthony (Judah Friedlander). Anthony wants to break out of his service job and become a headlining comic at the casino, and he simply won’t stop talking. Ever. Duane gets more and more agitated, and wonders whether to unload his only remaining friend.
“It was fun to be kind of the straight man,” Schwimmer said. “Duane recognizes a fellow lonely soul. Misery loves company.”
While keeping an eye out for movie scripts, Schwimmer directs and acts in plays, and is developing sitcoms for the networks. Though all of the networks have struggled to find a comedy hit as bankable as “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” or “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Schwimmer said the problem isn’t so much the format.
Newer sitcoms like “The Office” and “Everybody Hates Chris” are doing fine, he said. “But you can TiVo everything, there are so many channels, there’s Web content. It’s just tougher trying to get people to come and watch. And there are fewer ideas out there, and less courage among the networks.”
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
