The Skeleton Twins
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The Skeleton Twins PRODUCTION NOTES Starring Bill Hader Kristen Wiig Luke Wilson Ty Burrell Boyd Holbrook Joanna Gleason Directed by Craig Johnson Written by Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman Produced by Stephanie Langhoff, Jennifer Lee, Jacob Pechenik Executive Producers Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Jared Ian Goldman A Duplass Brothers Production A Venture Forth Production The Skeleton Twins Cast Milo Dean Bill Hader Maggie Dean Kristen Wiig Lance Luke Wilson Rich Ty Burrell Billy Boyd Holbrook Judy Joanna Gleason Carlie Kathleen Rose Perkins Dr. Linda Essex Adriane Lenox Crew Director Craig Johnson Screenplay Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman Producer Stephanie Langhoff Jennifer Lee Jacob Pechenik Executive Producer Mark Duplass Jay Duplass Jared Ian Goldman Director of Photography Reed Morano, ASC Production Designer Ola Maslik Editor Jennifer Lee Music Nathan Larson Music Supervision Randall Poster Meghan Currier Costume Designer Kaela Wohl Casting Avy Kaufman, CSA 1 The Skeleton Twins Logline When estranged twins Maggie and Milo feel they‟re at the end of their ropes, an unexpected reunion forces them to confront why their lives went so wrong. As the twins reconnect, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship. Short Synopsis After many years of estrangement, twins Maggie and Milo lead separate lives on opposite sides of the country. When both feel that they're at the end of their ropes, an unexpected reunion forces them to confront how their lives went so wrong. For Maggie, that means re-examining her marriage to sweet “nature frat boy” Lance and her own self-destructive tendencies, while Milo must face the pain of an early heartbreak he never quite got past. As the twins‟ reunion reinvigorates them both, they realize the key to fixing their lives just may lie in accepting the past and mending their relationship with each other. Long Synopsis As children, Maggie and Milo Dean seemed inseparable. But tragedy hit their family as teenagers when their father died, sending them on different paths, and ultimately leading to a decade-long estrangement. Now in their thirties, another set of near-tragedies brings them together. Melancholic Milo (Bill Hader), a frustrated actor with no prospects, decides to accept his sister‟s offer to return to their hometown in bucolic upstate New York. However, he‟s unaware that Maggie (Kristen Wiig) herself is barely holding it together, secretly unhappy despite her loving husband Lance (Luke Wilson). At first, the bond between the twins is tentative: A surprise visit from their mother (Joanna Gleason), a new-age practitioner who refuses to recognize her children‟s pain, only seems to amplify just how little Maggie and Milo have recovered from the events of their childhood. Secretly Maggie and Milo separately seek out relationships that are destined to go nowhere. Maggie enjoys the flirtatious attention of her hunky Australian SCUBA instructor (Boyd Holbrook) a little too much, sabotaging her interest in having a baby with Lance. Meanwhile, Milo meets up with his first love, Rich (Ty Burrell). After their father‟s death, Milo (as an older teenager) had an affair with Rich, his high-school English teacher – a scandal that drove brother and sister apart. At first, Rich is seemingly happy with a girlfriend and grown son 2 and resents Milo‟s sudden return. Desperate to get his former lover‟s attention, Milo pretends to be successful and happy, which is enough to get Rich to consider rekindling their romance. With painful wounds that only the other can understand, Milo and Maggie grow closer as they try to guide each other through this newest set of secrets. But as the hurt from the past catches up to the confusion in the present, their special bond is put to the test once again. They bring out not only the best in each other, but also the worst, and they are each desperate to avoid owning their own mistakes. Eventually Milo and Maggie grow to understand that living truthfully and sharing their lives with each other, pain and all, is the only way they can move forward and reclaim the happiness they once enjoyed together. 3 Director’s Statement The Skeleton Twins is about a brother and sister and their strange, messy, beautiful, funny, volatile relationship. At its core, it's a love story: Maggie and Milo meet essentially as strangers and then discover, or, in this case, re-discover their love for each other. But what interested me most about this story were the small ways in which brothers and sisters interact, reflect each other and connect – specifically through humor. I am very close to my sister and, even though we are wildly different people, we share an offbeat sense of humor. My sister can make me laugh in almost any situation, light or dark, and I wanted that sensibility to infuse Maggie and Milo‟s relationship. More than their common history, more than the mutual feeling that they've screwed up their lives, more than their shared taste in 80s music, it is their ability to crack each other up, often in the face of tragic circumstances, that bonds them together. This bittersweet dynamic is key to the tone of the film. I wanted the The Skeleton Twins to feel like real life in all its messiness and unpredictability. That means it needed to be both funny and sad, often within the same scene. These kinds of contradictions help to humanize the characters and create a film world that is recognizable – perhaps painfully so. Maggie and Milo are damaged, prickly, sardonic, and self-obsessed. But they are also passionate, generous, hopeful, and full of love. And, most of all, they‟re funny. The moment we are about to judge them, they come through with acts of grace and humor that disarm us – and remind us not only of our own brothers and sisters, but of ourselves. We're all struggling against life in our own ways, and if you can't face the darkness and chuckle, you're done for. 4 The Skeleton Twins About the Production Poet Maya Angelou writes “I don‟t believe accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.” That‟s definitely the case for twins Milo (Bill Hader) and Maggie Dean (Kristen Wiig). An almost impossibly close bond as children brought them together through very dark times surrounding their father‟s death. But that same bond was shattered as the events of the subsequent few years made them realize that truly being there for each other in the most critical moment can be an impossible task, even for the closest of siblings. After a decade of not talking to each other, circumstances bring them back together in a poignant and painfully funny drama that director and co-writer Craig Johnson calls “a love story between a brother and a sister.” The Skeleton Twins delicately balances two lifetimes of pain, regret, and loss with a buoyant and joyful celebration of two people rediscovering themselves and each other just at the right time. It also features eye-opening and powerful dramatic performances from several actors better known for their comedic abilities. Inspired by the witty and emotionally resonant real-life dramas of filmmakers like Alexander Payne, Lisa Cholodenko, and Noah Baumbach, Johnson and co- writer Mark Heyman knew they wanted to tell a story that would make audiences both laugh and cry while identifying with familiar and flawed characters. It was nearly a decade ago when, as graduate students at NYU‟s Tisch School of the Arts film program, the idea first occurred to them. “We‟d written kind of a broad, dopey comedy, and really enjoyed the process of working together,” says Johnson. “We sat down in a coffee shop and said, let‟s write a movie that is real and sad and funny and unique, and we started throwing around ideas.” The germ of the screenplay would come from Heyman‟s suggestion to revisit an incident from his own teenage life in New Mexico, when one of his peers alleged to have had a relationship with a teacher. “It was clearly inappropriate,” Heyman remembers, “but the student was almost eighteen and the teacher was very young, so it was just on the edge of „almost acceptable,‟” he says, explaining how he thought the situation might make for a compelling backstory. The idea quickly resonated with Johnson, whose parents had both worked as teachers. But in order to flesh out the situation, they needed more. “We came up with the idea that there had been a sibling who interfered in the relationship,” says Johnson. “Eventually, we realized we were more interested in that brother-sister relationship, and the affair with the teacher became secondary.” The screenplay went through several drafts over the course of a few years and was put aside to gestate as Johnson and Heyman both continued on their individual journeys as film professionals. Johnson made his first feature, True Adolescents, starring actor/writer/producer Mark Duplass, while Heyman worked as an executive for filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, co- producing The Wrestler and writing Black Swan. 5 But neither forgot about The Skeleton Twins, and Johnson eventually asked Duplass to come aboard as an executive producer. “He loved the script and agreed to help produce, and that really legitimized the project.” One of Duplass‟ first choices was to bring aboard Avy Kaufman, one of the industry‟s busiest, best connected, and shrewdest casting directors. “We always knew that we‟d need a significant cast to get this movie off the ground,” says Johnson, acknowledging that the sometimes-sensitive subject matter set the project apart from the usual Hollywood fare.