By Robert Goldrich

Director Shawn Levy will soon have two of his feature films released within a mere few months of each other–the first being This Is Where I Leave You which is scheduled to go wide via Warner Bros. Pictures in mid-September; and the second being the third installment of the popular Night at the Museum franchise, slated for release by 20th Century Fox in mid-December.

Levy both produced and directed all three Night at the Museum films: the original blockbuster in 2006 which starred Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, Hand Azaria, Amy Adams, Christopher Guest, Jonah Hill, Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney; then the ‘09 release Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian; and the upcoming Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb which adds a lineup of new cast members, including Sir Ben Kingsley and Rebel Wilson, to such franchise holdovers as Stiller, Williams, Wilson and Gervais.

The Night at the Museum fare has reinforced Levy’s reputation in tentpole family comedy. His filmography in this vein also includes Cheaper By The Dozen starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Ashton Kutcher and Hillary Duff (a film which grossed more than $200 million worldwide). Levy also helmed the Martin-starring Pink Panther. The director’s comedy chops have additionally been exhibited in Date Night starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey, and The Internship in which Wilson and Vince Vaughan play a pair of slackers who earn positions with Google.

Levy departed from the comedy discipline but not the family theme with Real Steel, a futuristic father-son boxing drama starring Hugh Jackman, for DreamWorks.

But now Levy makes his most significant departure with This Is Where I Leave You, a blend of comedy and drama centering on an at times dysfunctional yet somehow endearing family based on Jonathan Topper’s best-selling novel of the same title. The cast includes Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Adam Driver, Timothy Olyphant and Abigail Spencer. This Is Where I Leave You marks Levy’s first R-rated picture.

In addition to his directorial pursuits, Levy is developing several films as a producer through his company 21 Laps Entertainment which is housed at 20th Century Fox. He is currently producing the October 2014 Walt Disney Studios release Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day directed by Miguel Arteta and starring Carell and Jennifer Garner. Levy recently produced the coming-of-age drama The Spectacular Now directed by James Ponsoldt and starring Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller. 21 Laps earlier produced the Tom Vaughan-directed hit comedy What Happens in Vegas starring Kutcher and Cameron Diaz.

Levy’s road to feature filmmaking was paved through television. He directed 20 episodes of various series before landing his first theatrical movie. His very first TV directorial gig, the “Lies and Secrets” episode of Nickelodeon’s The Secret World of Alex Mack earned him a 1998 DGA Award nomination in the Outstanding Achievement in Children’s Programs category.

Levy studied in the Yale drama program as an undergrad. He started directing at Yale. From there Levy went to USC Film School where he earned his Master’s degree. His short thesis film, Broken Record, which he produced and directed, helped open some doors for him. The short won Gold at the Chicago Film Festival and was selected for screening at the DGA.

SHOOT: Typically a single film takes a year or years from a filmmaker’s life. You have two major studio movies being released in a matter of months. How did this come about?

Levy: It’s an anomaly and a little deceptive. There was overlap in that I was doing pre-pro on Night at the Museum along with the end of postproduction on This Is Where I Leave You–the two were unusually close to one another. But the real factor in the release times was that Warner Brothers felt that This Is Where I Leave You was a fall, fourth quarter kind of movie. I had finished the movie almost a year ago but they wanted to release it in the proper way and time.

The other piece to this is that Ben Stiller and I have felt very strongly for years that Night at the Museum is in its DNA a holiday film franchise. We were very clear with Fox that if we were ever able to make a third film, it was going to release during the [Xmas] holiday season.

SHOOT: The two movies are distinctly different. What were the biggest creative challenges these films posed to you as a director/producer?

Levy: The difference between the two movies was the point. The careers that I admire are fairly eclectic. That’s why following the success of the Night at the Museum movies, I tried very hard to challenge myself in diverse ways, rather than just continuing to do tentpole family comedy. It’s why I did Date Night and Real Steel.

I waited 10 movies to make This Is Where I Leave You, a character-centric, smaller-scale film enabling me to place performance and character as the true north priority of the filmmaking–not gags, not camerawork. It all comes down to the authenticity of the relationships.

For Night at the Museum 3, the challenge is the general cultural skepticism of sequels. We didn’t commit to making it until I felt that both spectacle and theme would be worthy next levels for the franchise. I’m old enough and experienced enough to know that a franchise like this is a gift in your life. For the third movie we worked for five years until we felt we had it right.

SHOOT:  What drew you to This Is Where I Leave You?

Levy: This is a book I read five years ago and I adored it. It was funny and sad in equal measure. I wanted a movie that was hard to categorize.

Perceptions of us kind of get fermented at a certain point–because of the Night at the Museum movies and Cheaper By The Dozen, I became the family comedy guy. I love that but I also want to branch out.

The movies I love most are from Jim Burrows, Cameron Crowe, Peter Weir, Ron Howard–strong character movies.

SHOOT: While This Is Where I Leave You breaks new ground for you, at the same time it still carries a strong family theme which is something you’re known for. So in that respect is this film as much of a departure for you as it seems?

Levy: When I directed Real Steel, I thought that I was doing something wildly different than anything I had done before. But what seemed like a testosterone-laden robot fight movie turned out deep down to be a movie about a father and son. So I have come to realize that our movies reflect what’s in us as filmmakers. Clearly, family thematics are part of my world and what’s interesting to me.

Still, though, This Is Where I Leave You is different. It’s my first R-rated movie, my first movie with a decidedly complicated ending. But at the same time, it’s connected to my prior work about family, the ties that bind–both the absurd and the live-saving aspects of family. The challenge for me on This Is Where I Leave You was to resist the expected. When you think something is going to be resolved in a neat happy way, it’s not. When you think the camera will go fast to a close-up, it instead lays back. You let the audience do the work in a different kind of way than you would in a big-budget family film. It’s why I kept the budget very much lower than my other movies. Talent worked far below our regular rates. We wanted to make this exactly how it felt right. We weren’t chasing a big market audience. This is a movie for grown-ups and had me exercising different muscles.

SHOOT: You certainly asked Tina Fey–whom you previously directed in Date Night–to exercise different muscles as a performer.

Levy: I went to Tina first with this project. Usually you would cast Judd [Jason Bateman] first but I instead called my friend Tina. Over a meal I told her I was going to do something different and that I thought she would love to do the same. We both have had success with comedy but now we could take on something more dramatic and surprising. It was very rewarding to take that leap together. There is a shorthand between us but we were taking on a scary kind of new frontier.

SHOOT: What about seeking out talent you hadn’t worked with before due to the nature of This Is Where I Leave You?

Levy: I turned to a cinematographer, Terry Stacey, who has an eclectic résumé. In our Skype interview, he evoked a movie that he shot years ago–The Door in the Floor, an adaptation of a John Irving story. It’s a small movie that I completely adored. It was about an eccentric Bohemian played by Jeff Bridges who’s in a troubled marriage with Kim Basinger. The movie had a beauty in the midst of realism. And that’s what I wanted for This Is Where I Leave You. I wanted beautiful images that still looked like real life does in a house.

I also pursued Michael Giacchino to write the score. He did the score for Up [winning an Oscar for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score] and The Incredibles. He’s a rare talent. He was wall-to-wall busy. But I implored him to screen our movie. He did and that day he said yes.

I knew I didn’t want a big score. I wanted a lyrical and poignant score that would complement the performances. He used almost no strings. It wasn’t very orchestral. It was a piano-based. The camera, the music, the style–none of them were more noticeable than the performances which we kept front and center. I hope the characters resonate for people, that they see themselves, their siblings and parents.

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