We talked with writer-director Tallulah Schwab and actor Crispin Glover at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) about their new thought-provoking film, Mr. K.
The fantastical drama stars Glover as Mr. K, a traveling magician who finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of the hotel he has slept in. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.
The film had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2024. Read our review from TIFF here, where we described Glover’s performance as “wondrous, awkward, and passionate.”
HGL: Tallulah, where did the film’s idea and concept come from?
Tallulah Schwab: I had the first draft for this film twenty years ago, a long time ago. The idea actually came from my own feeling of wondering why people had so much more knowledge about how things work, social structures, and how you deal with each other. I was always looking at how it works. It’s like human nature to try and understand things, understand the world around you and try to control it, control your own life, and discover it was impossible to understand everything because you knew too little.
There was always something more, something outside of your knowledge. You need to come in and pop the bubble you’ve made for yourself because then, suddenly, everything looks different.
HGL: Crispin, how far along in the initial process were you before you realized this was something you wanted to be a part of?
Crispin Glover: I got the script and got the visualization of it, the mood board, and it was evident it would be a quality production. The script was good and I could tell the production design would be appropriate for the film. Tallulah and I had a Zoom meeting and, yeah, I immediately thought this would be a good part in the film.
HGL: You talked about the film’s visual look. Was it hard to translate that? Did working with the visual aspect of the film help you as an actor?
Crispin Glover: Yeah, it was obvious what the mood would be, seemingly obvious. There were some things that I discovered more as we were shooting, but there was an overall idea that was very apparent.
Tallulah Schwab: I had a very clear idea of what I wanted, and also, because the environment is very much a part of the story, it was always going to be very important. I wanted it to be a very essential part of the whole production.
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HGL: It’s an understatement to say the character Mr. K has a very interesting journey in the film. I found it fascinating that while he was trapped, he also found moments of peace and happiness. Do you think that part of the story compares well to real life, where sometimes we are just looking for peace amongst all the chaos?
Tallulah Schwab: Definitely. My idea is that all of the people, not just Mr. K, but all of the people in the hotel, were looking for meaning in their life, how to find control of their life, something that made sense. They create these little bubbles because they are afraid of the stories, like what they can’t control, they make it small but it feels safe so they are happy, and that is a big thing.
There were some people when I was writing the script who wanted me to take out the kitchen part. But for me, the kitchen part was essential because that is where Mr. K feels at home, where he finds everything he could actually want in life. A father figure, people who love him, they all think he’s great. Then, having to step out of that, for me, was very important in the scenario.
HGL: Crispin, you had so many great scenes where you were selling a scene simply by your facial features. Is that difficult to do as an actor? Tallulah, is that challenging to direct? Were there times you left Crispin to explore the scene on his own?
Crispin Glover: No, you are concentrating on what the character needs or wants, and ideally, things will come through naturally.
Tallulah Schwab: True but not everyone can do that. I wanted someone for Mr. K who could give that, who would give this interesting mystery so when he’s sitting there it’s not just someone sitting there. You have this mystery about this person you’re wondering about, and that is what Crispin Glover has always had in all his characters: something undefined, something interesting underneath that you can’t completely pinpoint.
I wanted it so when you come into the hotel, you’re not completely sure you should like this person or not. Is he the pill or the ailment? Crispin is someone who very naturally manages to give that.
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HGL: There are quite a few fantastical elements to the film, and it seems to be less about the end of the long journey and more about what Mr. K discovers and appreciates along the way. From both of your perspectives, what were the difficult moments putting this film together? Was it all mapped out ahead of time?
Tallulah Schwab: I think the biggest difficulty was to make this whole film for a lower budget than maybe it should have had (laughs). But it was pretty much all mapped out in the story.
Crispin Glover: The mapping out of the story, for me, the screenplay and the final output of the film is clear in that it is something which is less interpreted for the audience. There are things that can seemingly be clear in a screenplay, in terms of intention, what I was talking about before, what a character is wanting, are not necessarily mapped out in the screenplay. There are things in the screenplay that I had mapped out in my head that were not necessarily what were mapped out in Tallulah’s head so there were things that were figured out as we were going.
Sometimes, for me, there were actually strong shifts from what I had originally intended, but ultimately, the overall feeling of the film is something that leaves interpretation up to the audience, and I like that a lot. That was always in the screenplay and is still in the film. It doesn’t matter what those specificities are but yeah, that took some doing.
Tallulah Schwab: I also think every actor has to find a way into their own character. As the director, you can’t tell somebody what to do because nobody can do that. I cast in a way that I think that person can find the right tone and then when you have the right person you don’t have to do so much.
Crispin Glover: There were tonal things for me that were actually really different in my head, but I understood when we were doing it what was wanted, so I did that. But they were not necessarily what my initial intention was. The main thing is the film has something for interpretation for the audience and that’s something I, as the audience, always liked. I don’t like it when I’m being dictated to so that’s in the film too.