This Father’s Day, Netflix will be premiering Fatherhood, based on the book Two Kisses For Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love by Matthew Logelin. The film follows Matt as he struggles after losing his wife and has to raise Maddy all on his own, slowly learning how to live his life all over again.
We had the opportunity to speak with Paul Weitz, best known for his work on classic comedies like American Pie and About a Boy. We spoke on how he adapted Two Kisses For Maddy, collaborating with Kevin Hart to help bring this amazing story to the big screen.
He also discusses how his main goal was to pay tribute to Matthew Logelin’s story about grief, parenthood and starting anew. Fatherhood premieres on June 18 on Netflix.
What was the most important thing that you wanted this film to show, and what did you feel needed a lot more emphasis from the original story?
Paul Weitz: Yeah, it's based on a memoir. Honestly, I really care what the audience thinks. But my first audience is the actors and, in this case, the guy who wrote the memoir. It’s a memoir by Matthew Logelin from Minnesota, who actually went through this tragic thing. He had his wife die the day after having their first kid, and he ended up having to take care of this baby and bring up the daughter.
But there's actual humor in the memoir. The first thing for me was that I wanted this movie to be funny, because I feel that's how people deal with stress and how I deal with stress. One of the great moments for me was Matt looking at the first minute of the movie. I needed to make sure that there was stuff that he could laugh at, as well as stuff that you knew was going to be serious. So, there's this scene after the funeral where Kevin's friends, Lil Rel and Anthony Carrigan, are inappropriately trying to shake him out of it and help him. They talk about camp, and how he got blisters at camp and the girl who had a crush on ran away screaming.
And this is not something that's going to help him on a deep level with his grief. But when the real Matthew Logelin saw that, he said, "That reminds me so much of my friends." He said they were complete idiots around this thing. “They didn't know what to say, but it made me feel normal because that's something that hadn't changed.” So, the first thing for me was to make sure that Matt thought that it was okay.
And then in terms of everything else, I worked with Kevin really closely on the script. And in terms of [acting], both Kevin and Lil Rel, Alfre Woodard - everybody on set had ownership over their character. And when I work with people, that’s what I try to do. They can come up with stuff; certainly, I want them to tell me if something's fake. So, that is the second thing: to make sure that Kevin and everybody believed in what they were doing.
Also, to try to keep light on its feet. Because with something like this, where it's emotional but also funny, you have to make sure that you don't go down a rabbit hole.
This was one of Kevin's first ventures into a more dramatic role. Did it seem like that on set, or did this seem like second nature?
Paul Weitz: It seemed like second nature to him. Look, I'd seen all of Kevin's comedies and also seen The Upside - and I found him riveting there. I'd also read his autobiography, where he’s talking about really jarring things, but he's really funny. So, I knew that's how his mind was working already. I think he trusted me, and I 100% trusted him. It was quite natural.
I’ll tell you the trick, though. He's working with Alfre Woodard, who's kind of a deep method actor doing intense stuff before the take. You don't want to disturb her while she's preparing for the take. And in the same scene, he’s working with Melody Hurd, who was dancing around and doing stuff; trying out a new dance move and then going into a really emotional thing.
So, actually, he had to be like a point guard distributing the ball to these different actors.
Other than Matt's character, which other characters did you need to have a strong presence in the film to help portray the hardships that he went through?
Paul Weitz: Alfre Woodard, who plays Matt's mother-in-law. In real life, I think that the real Matt didn't have that contentious relationship with his mother-in-law – at least said he didn’t.
Out of love for this kid, Alfre's character says, “You have to move back home, because I need to help you take care of this kid.” Matt doesn't want to move back home. He's got his life there, he's got his job, et cetera. And he feels like he can do it on his own. So, there's a natural conflict between them. I needed a really formidable adversary, and Alfre was amazing.
I asked Matthew Logelin, the real Matt, to ask his mother-in-law if she was okay having that relationship onscreen and having more conflict on screen. She gave the okay, and she just saw it apparently.
