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The Water Park Behind ‘The Way, Way Back’

Fox Searchlight/Everett
Liam James (left) and Sam Rockwell in 'The Way, Way Back'

In deciding where to set their new film, "The Way, Way Back," writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash  knew they wanted it to be in a coastal town on the East Coast, with access to a water park. But that was it.


They ended up choosing Massachusetts as a setting -- but not the North Side that Faxon knew. One of the film's lead actors, Steve Carell, summers in Marshfield, Mass., on the South Shore. "As a way to lure him in, we offered to shoot it where his family was going to be," Faxon said. "He said yes, and we literally shot in his backyard."

A half-hour away in East Wareham, Mass., stands Water Wizz Park, where a substantial part of the film was set. "It was a lot of fun although slightly tantalizing in that we were shooting this movie all day and it was so hot, and you were watching all these kids frolic on water slides and you weren’t able to do it," Faxon said.

Rash struggled in a slightly different way. "I’m naturally pale, but I might have gone through maybe five cases of sunblock over the shoot, just to maintain it for [his character] Lewis," he said. "I probably went overboard and created a layer that still exists over my skin."

"The Way, Way Back," Faxon and Rash's directorial debut, took 25 days to film, with a budget of $5 million. Besides Carell, the film stars Toni Collette, Maya Rudolph, Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney, and Liam James.

Rash also stars in the NBC show "Community" and will host a Sundance Channel show called "The Writers' Room." Faxon is doing a pilot for FX that also stars Judy Greer. They are also co-writing a new film for the producing partners of "The Descendants" (Alexander Payne, Jim Burke and Jim Taylor) for Fox Searchlight. "Again delving into some personal pain, a family dysfunction film," Faxon said.

The writer-directors talked with Speakeasy about their new film. (For more, click here.)

It’s rare that you have two co-writers who are also co-directors, and taking it a step further, you also act in the film. Did you have to adjust your collaborating process?

Faxon: It seemed pretty seamless to be honest, in terms of making the transition from writing together to directing together. We knew the script so well and we really had a unified vision of what we wanted and the tone and direction we wanted to take with it. The only obstacles we faced were things that were out of our control, such as weather and scheduling and having to shoot so much so quickly. In terms of our creative process, we’ve known each other for over 15 years. We’re really good, close friends. We’re able to use our training from the Groundlings and our training with improvising to remember to listen to each other and to try to put our egos aside. So it wasn’t a huge change as far as the two of us working together. Certainly directing itself had many stressful moments, just because of the responsibilities that you’ve taken on and the thousands of questions a day that you're asked. It was also an adjustment in terms of directing and all of a sudden remembering that you were in a scene, and having to then go act [laughs].

In the film, Jim plays an oddball and Nat plays a bit of a sketchy guy. How did you decide on these roles for yourselves?

Rash: They ran pretty much from that first draft. Nat just plays sketchy well so that felt like a fit. Then a lot of people commented as we screened it that they were sort of impressed that I had lost weight for the role. I said, that’s not necessarily what happened. I think the amount of stress we endured was just making it shed off me. When we got back- we had no playback to be able to look at ourselves, so when we got back I started looking at dailies and I was like, what happened to my face? [laughs]

Steve Carell plays against type. Sam Rockwell does too, in a sense.

Rash: In terms of Steve, we knew we wanted to go against type with the role of Trent. Steve came to mind early as someone who has an innate likeability to him as a performer and a person. We really wanted Trent to have this underlying likeability. You wanted to understand why in this current moment in her life, Toni’s character Pam, regardless of the bad decisions she makes and the blinders she has on, we wanted to see what attracted her to him. And then what attracts him to his friends as an outgoing person. I think Steve recognized this was a character that by design is not a typical character that begins one way and then slightly evolves and has some kind of epiphany or change. This character was designed more as a circle rather than an arc, someone who was sort of stuck in this vicious cycle that he created on his own and he’s very aware of in that he can pronounce that he needs to change and be a better person, but he just can’t seem to act on what he says.

With Sam, that was another person that came early to our minds. Who’s our Bill Murray? When you meet Sam, he’s such a loving person and very outgoing and personable with people. He recognized the Bill Murray of it all and it was one of those gifts where we never really had a table read before we started shooting- we barely had any rehearsal, maybe a day with him and Liam, who played Duncan. But he just got it.

Liam James is a newcomer, he was 15 when you filmed and he’s in almost every scene. Did you cast a wide net to find him?

Faxon: We got lucky. There was some trepidation going into it, thinking we would need to cast a wide net just to discover someone because we knew this needed to be a discovery in some sense, somebody that audiences really hadn’t seen before. So we had a casting session in Los Angeles and Liam flew down from Vancouver and we were lucky because honestly as soon as he walked in, we kind of felt this could be very right. Just right off the bat physically he felt like Duncan with his concave chest and his stooped shoulders. He said himself, I am this kid a little bit. And he is introverted and an observer. So as soon as we had him read, it was very apparent we had the right kid.

How difficult is it to achieve the balance of comedy and drama? Do you go through many rewrites or takes?

Rash: We knew we wanted to launch from this very dramatic scene that is a little bit shocking. Then [introducing kooky neighbor] Betty is this nice little moment of relief as we ponder Duncan’s 1-to-10 conversation. It’s fun to find the rhythm of taking people on a journey that is at times complicated and a little hard and emotional, and then just this nice little relief whether it comes in the water park in “The Way, Way Back” or out of Scottie’s irrational behavior in “The Descendants.” It’s a balance and ballet of all these characters that is the fun of it.

For more on the film, click here. Follow @barbarachai.





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