Mark Duplass Talks Greenberg, Noah Baumbach & Mumblecore

A Greenberg-centric post at The Playlist blog has pointed us towards an entertaining interview from last summer in which actor-writer-director Mark Duplass, one of the leading figures of the Mumblecore movement, chats with Movieline's Kyle Buchanan about his involvement in Noah Baumbach's upcoming movie.

Here's an extract:

Who do you play in Greenberg?DUPLASS: I play Eric, the ex-best friend and ex-bandmate of Roger Greenberg, Ben Stiller’s character. [Roger] comes out to LA to house-sit for his brother for a while, and we try to rekindle our friendship but there’s kind of a fucked-up past there.Noah Baumbach has really been dipping into mumblecore lately — Joe Swanberg’s muse Greta Gerwig is in Greenberg too, and Noah produced Joe’s last film…DUPLASS: He’s a mooch, you know? That’s essentially what it comes down to: He’s not talented. [Laughs] No, he’s very different [than a mumblecore director]. I see why he’s interested, because he has a realist aesthetic and he appreciates all the minutiae in a performance, but he is also a very exacting director. He knows what he wants and he hears the cadence of the dialogue in his head. It was not an improv fest on Noah’s set. It was really great for me to try something different. I actually kind of don’t think I’m as good in that environment as I am when I’m let loose to use the two or three skill sets I have as a writer/director/actor to sculpt something, you know? So it was a challenge.

You can read the entire interview here.