Ever since John Hindman was ten years old, he has wanted to make movies. Since then, he has performed as a stand-up comic in the San Francisco Bay Area and worked in L.A. both in front of and behind the camera. After working as a writer for hire, he began writing his own scripts. And four screenplays later, he finally got the chance to sit in the director’s chair and bring his own screenplay to life.
“I set about writing a story that would be the kind of movie that I would like to see. For me than meant getting personal,” says Hindman. “I poured every bit of my life into that story although nothing in the movie actually happened.”
In 2007, that screenplay was included on the Blacklist, a year-end list of the most well-liked, unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. This July, its story comes to the big screen as The Answer Man, a movie about one man who supposedly has all the answers, an eclectic variety of individuals looking for answers, and what happens when their lives collide.
Courtesy of a San Francisco publicist, I was able to sit down with Hindman while he was in town and talk about The Answer Man, its questions, its answers, and what it is any of us know in the first place.
HJ: Great to have you here this morning. Thank you for coming to see us in San Francisco.
JH: Thank you for wanting to talk to me.
HJ: You’re welcome. So, The Answer Man—very intriguing film, a comedy, but one that deals with some pretty serious themes, and also your first film. Now, you’ve said that you’ve wanted to make films since you were ten years old—
JH: Correct.
HJ: So this first film has been a bit of a long time coming. In what ways would you say The Answer Man is the first film you thought you would make, and in what ways did it surprise you?
JH: Well, it’s surprised me that it worked out at all. That was a huge surprise. And no, it’s not the one I thought I would make first. Nothing ever happens the way that you think that it’s going to, or the way that you think it should. The Answer Man was the fourth screenplay that I had written, and it was the one that I thought was the least likely to be made.
HJ: Any particular reason?
JH: Yeah, it was just really personal to me. Everything that I loved, I put in that screenplay. Movie monsters, coffee, every little thought I had—like about like how come when kids get a good grade, it’s a four and not a one—all these little personal things of mine. I thought that my family and I would love it, but ironically, I guess by being that personal, it reached the largest audience that I had up to that point.
HJ: I think that there definitely is power in being personal because we are all personal beings.
JH: They say if you are trying to write a story about everyone, then you write a story about no one; if you write a story about one person, then you tell a story about everyone… some version of that.
HJ: Like you said, this is a very personal story with many of its details and themes are drawn from your life… Where exactly did Arlan Farber come from?
JH: Faber.
HJ: That’s right. Faber. Sorry.
JH: Named after the pencil that was on my desk—Faber pencils. Had the first name, and I’m just looking around like, Faber, that’s sounds great, done. I have to like it, and it has to be easy to type. ’Cause I’m not the greatest typist. Nothing with a “q.”
Where did the idea for him come from? Ultimately, I really wanted to write a story about fathers and sons—fathers who are missing, fathers who have left, surrogate fathers, fathers who have died… if there’s a heavenly father, what’s up there? With your relationship there? So, towards that end, I needed someone who would kind of unify all those stories, and could be the person who was asking the central questions, and to whom the central questions were being asked.
That being said—although that sounds far more lofty than anything I had in mind I think when I sat down and struggled through a page at a time—I also wanted to make fun of New Age psychobabble. And I’ve read a lot of those books. Some of them are really good. Even the ones that are terrible, you can find something in them, right? Oh, and let me be clear, I’m not like Mr. Spiritual Book Guy. Every film festival I go to, people are like, “I just read this book and I really want to talk to you about it.” It’s like, “Hey man, you know what? I’ve read other books too. Not just these.” I like A Course in Miracles—terrible title, amazing book, virtually impenetrable, written by a woman who found herself getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning and just writing this stuff down. She was then (and died) as a complete atheist, and there’s no way for a human being to on their own write down what she did. It’s just amazing.
HJ: Was that an inspiration for—
JH: Yeah, that idea, the irony of that. A Course in Miracles, the theme of it is: nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists, herein lies the peace of God. It’s a thousand pages long. It’s stunning. And to write that and not believe in anything at all? Those two states coexisting was fascinating to me… and then I like to tell jokes.
HJ: Going back to fathers, you mentioned fathers was a major theme in the movie—fathers who have left, fathers who have died, a possible heavenly father. Was there a certain statement you were trying to make about fathers or father-child relationships in the meeting of all those different fathers?
JH: The only statement that I’m attempting to make in the movie is this—whatever God is, it seems to me that He works through other people. That’s all I know. And “know” is in quotes. Although people talk a lot about God in the movie, I don’t want to see… some “godly” movie. Those are usually totally boring to me. I want to see a fun, entertaining movie. Neither I nor the movie make any definitive statements about anything, because how could I? What? Does John Hindman know something all the sudden? So, I wanted to show three people who get better because they know each other. If you look at the movie, you have people at every stage of life—you have the little kid, Alex, who’s, like, seven, then you’ve got Lou Taylor Pucci’s and Kat Dennings’ characters who are in their early twenties, you’ve got Lauren Graham, Jeff Daniels, then you have Kris’s dad. Showing all those people at every stage—without there being an infant—getting what they need, though not what they thought they wanted, from another person in the story, enabling them to get where they need to go.
HJ: Talking to people after the movie, I think you did a good job in terms of people not feeling like it’s a sermon or all about God. They think it’s a funny movie and it does deal with God and it deals with a lot of other things too.
JH: It deals with the questions that we have about God… You know, I have really close friends who I love who are devout Evangelical Christians and I also have close friends who I love who don’t believe in anything, and I would like for all of them to just enjoy going to the movie.
HJ: I think they will. Like you said, the movie deals with questions. It’s called The Answer Man. And in the movie, there are specific questions that characters ask and answers that characters give. Where did those questions and answers come from?
JH: Well, they all came from me. I guess I’m the author of those questions and answers. There’s a point in the movie in which Lou Taylor Pucci’s character has made a deal with Jeff Daniel’s character, Arlen Faber, and asks him a series of questions. I wrote 17 questions and answers, and then I picked the ones that I thought were the most entertaining. Also, there’s 12 different ones that I wrote that are actually in the opening credits, that are questions from the book that Arlen Faber wrote. They’re just sort of in the field, in the background. I didn’t have to put quite as much thought into those as I did the ones you’re paying attention to in the movie, but certainly, you’ll get the tone of Arlen’s questions. Like, “I don’t believe in you; now what?” “War? What’s up there?” Just the real simple questions that people have been asking for millennia.
HJ: In the movie, one of the central questions is where any answers come from, specifically where this book that Arlen wrote and the answers in it came from. Maybe they came from God. Maybe they came from somewhere else. As one of the characters says—
JH: “Maybe God used my pain and anger to make me part of some divine plan, but He sure as hell didn’t let me in on it.” Well, that’s how I feel. And I think that all of us are attempting to reconcile ourselves with a creator who is silent. It’s a tough spot to be in, even though you occasionally get glimmers or a direction presented to you or intuited or divined. For the most part, you know, it’s us here, constantly scratching at the surface of what we know to try to get to… the truth? Whatever’s supporting this? Obviously something is. You know you look around and you see there’s an order and an intelligence at work, and something magical and special, not to be purely scientific. I mean everyone’s been trying to get at it. Eugene O’Neill in Long Day’s Journey into the Night, there’s a quote in there that I love. He says: “It’s as if the veil of things as they seem is drawn back by an unseen hand, and for a second you see and seeing the secret are the secret.” So, I’m hopefully following in the footsteps of people both great and small trying to address these issues in an entertaining way.
HJ: Do you mind me asking what sort of faith background you brought to the movie?
JH: In terms of my own personal faith, I think I brought to it the heart of a seeker. Like I said, I don’t have any answers. I like reading works of Thich Nhat Hanh. I love Tony Robbins. There does seem to be for me a force upon which I can rely if I am right-minded, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it though I count on it on a daily basis.
HJ: Going back to the movie, like you said it’s very much about the interconnection of these people’s lives and how their interaction affects each other. At one point one character basically says to another, “You are the answer to every question I’ve ever had.” Can you talk a bit more about that line and what it means in the context of all these big questions that are asked?
JH: Well, that’s the theme of the movie… that God works though other people (it seems to me). Or that your life works better, regardless of what you believe in or don’t believe in… wherever it is that you got to, you didn’t get there on your own… I’m no good on my own. I need all the help that I can get. I’m better because of my wife. I’m better because of my kids. I’m better because of their flaws. I’m better because of my flaws.
There’s a great essay by Schopenhauer in which he talks about a man jumping off a bridge and what makes another man, who doesn’t know the first man, jump after him and save him. Why is it when you hear somebody hit their brakes a couple blocks away, and there’s that squeal of tires, why do you cringe? Without thinking about it? You can’t see who’s in danger, or if anybody is. It’s just the sound of brakes. But for a second your personality is gone and your humanity and that connection that you feel with everybody else surprises you and you don’t have the time to put your personality in place, and in that moment you realize that you are connected to that stranger who you can’t see. So, that was kind of the idea behind that. And so Arlen Faber, who’s written a book that’s answered everyone’s questions except his own, needs to find, as we all do I think, that perhaps the answers to life’s biggest questions aren’t found in the clouds or in books but in each other.
HJ: Another theme in the movie is fear. Can you talk about the role that fear plays in the movie?
JH: Well, I think we all have things that we’re afraid of. I wanted to show three people who were all trying to keep something out, and the lengths that you go to to do that, no matter how unreasonable they are. Like Arlen, Arlen’s dad has died many years ago. Five years ago his dad died, and there’s a little mystery behind that. You know, he hasn’t dealt with that, so in a way, he’s keeping the death of his father out. Lauren Graham’s character, her little boy’s father isn’t around anymore, and that’s not something that she and the boy are going to talk about. So she’s keeping the reality of that out, trying to keep it at bay by, like, dancing over here. And with Lou Taylor Pucci’s character, he just got out of rehab and is living with his dad who’s a practicing alcoholic, and he’s going to need to go to AA or do something, and he’s sort of trying to keep that out, keep that at bay, find substitutes for that, like asking Arlen questions… It’s interesting to me how the things that we think are important, even though they’re the things that may be upsetting us or not working for us or might be our flaws, often can no longer stand in the face of the people who come into our lives, can no longer stand with the new information we receive from people that we love or meet in passing.
There’s the last line of this poem by Rocca, it’s called Archaic Torso of Apollo. It’s a great poem. At the end he says: “For here there is no place that does not see you; you must change your life.” And I love that line, like when who you are just can no longer exist in the face of what has happened. And that was absolutely one of the elements that I was trying to bring to this story.
HJ: That reminds me of what you said in your director’s statement: “I want to be there when they’ve tried every trick in the book and the only thing left is the truth.”
JH: What I like is when all the facades fall away and you’re reduced to your essential self. What will you say? And who will you ask for help when you reach out from the deepest part of the night? Or even can you? Did I mention it was funny? ’Cause it all sounds so important.
HJ: I was actually just thinking about that.
JH: I got a bunch of jokes in there, you know?
HJ: Definitely. Even though it does deal with some very serious issues and themes, it’s also a really funny movie. Can you talk about what you feel you were able to bring to this movie from your comic background, and maybe how you feel you were better able to tell its story and explore its themes with comedy?
JH: You know, from doing stand up, I learned one thing and one thing only, and that is: don’t tell a story with jokes; use jokes to tell a story. Sitcoms are a really good example of that, like jokes that also contain in them information and advance the character or the story. So, I’m good at telling jokes. I had to write a lot of jokes doing stand up, and I’ve worked as a writer in L.A., so joke construction, I’m good at that. And also, as Plato says, first entertain. From doing stand up, I learned that I could say anything that I wanted, as long as I could make you laugh. I could talk about any subject. Because death and alcoholism and God, I don’t even want to talk about those things. But as long as I’m making you laugh, I can talk about anything I want. Plus it’s fun; you see movies that make you laugh and cry.
HJ: Now, like you said, this is the first movie you’ve directed. You’ve got some pretty major talent in it and so far the buzz seems to be good. What are you thinking of doing next? Or are you currently working on anything?
JH: I am. I’m really trying to re-put together—’cause Wall Street didn’t help me last time—a movie called Christmas in New York, that is six different stories that all drive through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The idea being that, although you usually feel like the world is against you and out to get you, if you want to be a better person, if you want to step up and be the person that you hoped you could be, there’s only two days a year when the world’s actually on your side, when someone will hold the door for you, they will let you in traffic, kids are singing songs about angels, banners in the streets say peace. Right? Like, it’s time to take your shot. I love that story. I love the people in that story. I just want to meet them. And I have some wonderful actors attached to that… awesome people that you love to see in movies. It’s a little more commercial than Dream of the Romans—that’s what it [The Answer Man] used to be called, The Dream of the Romans. There’s a scene after the end… where Lou was in an AA meeting and gave this really great monologue in which The Dream of the Romans made sense, so sometimes I slip and say The Dream of the Romans. The Christmas movie is not quite as philosophical, let’s say, not as much angst as in The Answer Man.
HJ: Could you talk a little bit more about that original title? What it meant and what was in that last scene that you cut?
JH: It’s just an idea that I’ve had for a long time, I just made a character say it. The idea being that, you know how we dream about people in the future and we wonder about them? Like, oh, they’ll be able to cure any disease, and they’ll fly around in little air cars. Right? Like, wonder what it’ll be like? Well, 2,000 years ago, I’m sure the Romans were doing the same thing about us, wondering what we’d be like and who we would love and what we would love and what we would try and what we would give up. And so, they were dreaming of us. We were the dream of the Romans.
HJ: That’s a fascinating thought. And one last question: ten, fifteen years down the road how do you think you’re going to remember your experience making this movie?
JH: The thrill of being there for the best part of these character’s lives. Really, I love those people and they’re alive in my heart and in my mind…I know what they’re all doing now.
HJ: Great. Thank you very much.
JH: A pleasure.
HJ: And I hope to see more of your work in the future.
JH: Thank you.
