Exclusive Interviews with More Twisted Minds Behind Manson Family Vacation – J. Davis and Tobin Bell
Hot on the heels of our interview with Jay Duplass and Linas Phillips in celebration of their film Manson Family Vacation (review), today we bring you our chat with director J. Davis and co-star Tobin Bell. Read on for the goods, and click the above link if you missed yesterday’s talk! The film is currently available on iTunes/VOD and will be available on Netflix beginning October 27th.
DC: J., how did you come up with this idea of a family bonding film over such a horrific series of events?
J. Davis: I had an interest in the Manson Family and crimes, and my friend Jay Duplass was horrified by that, so I decided to explore that difference between us in a movie, and Jay agreed to help me produce. As I was writing, I asked him to act it, and he hadn’t acted at that time; he hadn’t done “Transparent” yet, and I had no idea if he was going to be interested in acting, but it turns out he was and he agreed to do it.
DC: I covered Bag Head when it came out, one of the first movies that he and his brother, Mark, did, so we know he’s a terrific director. What was it like directing a newbie actor, who is a director?
J: It was fantastic; he was a director, and Linas is a writer/director also. But they were very much actors, and they really worked on their characters and their back stories and brought it all. It was a basically two-hander shoot so when we had scenes between the two of them, we would get the scene in the can and do some exploring because they had a special vibe together.
DC: Having talked to you, Tobin, so many times on the Saw films and your TV shows, I know how prepared you come to each and every role you do, and how much thought you put into it. So my question is, what did you think when you first read J.’s script on how you would play this guy? Blackbird has got some layers that we have to read into as we watch the performance unfold.
Tobin Bell: My first concern was the story because you always want to be a part of a good story. I got lucky. I believed in these guys because Josh Polon, who was one of the producers, called me about this and said about these guys, “They’re first-rate. They know what they’re doing, and they can do this, so they’ll be good to work with.” So that was the first thing. Then I read the story.
JD: Tobin came with notes, thoughts about his own character, thoughts about the brother relationship, and was very focused on the whole, which I really appreciated.
TB: You’re only as good as the whole; it’s all about the whole, it’s like a team, it’s like a baseball team. If there’s a weak link in it, that weak link is going to expose itself at some point in the game. And so I trusted that these guys would cover all the links, that they would have all the players for all the different situations. And they did… I mean, in my view they did. When I watch this film, and I have seen it now three times, I always feel that it’s dynamic, it’s surprising, it’s entertaining, it’s amusing, and it’s heartfelt; and it leaves you thinking, which is a great thing.
DC: I remember my first exposure to the Manson murders was the book Helter Skelter; I’d like to know what your first intro to that fascinating story was, J. Tobin, I know that you were in your 20s when the actual crimes happened so you were kind of there, seeing it on the news in real time…
JD: Yeah, mine was exposure to the book, which had this kind of blood-colored font, and there were pictures of these young beautiful people side by side with these horrific crime scenes, and it just took me aback. I wanted to know more about what had happened.
TB: The way other people lived their lives.
DC: It is a glimpse into the mind-set, from three sides – the victims, the killers, and the law.
TB: It was like… you couldn’t think that stuff up. It was so bizarre with the Sharon Tate aspect of it, the Hollywood aspect, and the commune aspect of it, and the cultural implications. It was the first time people started locking their doors at night.
JD: It sort of unfolded piece by piece; they were solving it as they went along.
TB: Well exactly. They were murdered, and then who did it? [We all saw it on the news.] And then once they found out who did it, who were these people and what were they about? You found out a little more every day, and it went on and on and on, and then there were the trials. We learned about this dedication to this figure, this guy Charlie, and then the fact that he wasn’t even there when it happened. So, it was very shocking and very scary, like a window into this other world people were living in, and who had aspirations to making some impact on society, and how far from reality people can actually get in terms of how they’re going to make an impact. And it continues to happen in 2015. People do all kinds of things and with self-aggrandizement in their minds, even if it’s somewhere lurking underneath the surface.
DC: So do you have a brother, J.? How do you make that sort of chemistry between those two guys that are so different from one another?
JD: I’m an only child; Jay has his brother, Mark, and Linas has brothers as well, so they were able to bring their brotherly relationships to the table. For me working on it, it was more the thing of two sides to my personality.
DC: Manson is kind of in zeitgeist again, what with some other movies [House of Manson], and the TV series “Aquarius”…
TB: The thing about this film is it’s not about Charlie Manson [and it’s not a period piece].
DC: It’s not, but people will think so when they see the name of it: Manson Family Vacation. Then they are in for a really interesting, more complex surprise.
JD: At the time that I developed that, I had no idea that these things would be happening concurrently.
TB: And there’s a lot in this business that’s outside your control, and that’s one of them, but hopefully you can focus on things you’d have some influence on.
JD: I guess it’s just strange that other people were interested in it at the same time.
From writer/director J. Davis, The Manson Family Vacation stars Jay Duplass, Linas Phillips, Leonora Pitts, Tobin Bell, Adam Chernick, and Davie-Blue. It tells the story of two brothers: one who’s devoted to his family, the other who’s obsessed with the Manson Family.
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