Last night, the fourth season of the Film Independent at LACMA Series kicked off with a screening of The Skeleton Twins, followed by a lively Q&A with co-writer/director Craig Johnson and stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. Series curator Elvis Mitchell introduced the film, a darkly comic drama which premiered at Sundance this January, as being not your typical “Sundance movie,” and claimed that Hader and Wiig walk the line—which he described as “not actually a line, but a chasm”—between sketch comedy and dramatic acting incredibly well.

Hader and Wiig play twins Milo and Maggie, reunited by twin crises after a ten-year estrangement: Maggie is contemplating a handful of ominous-looking pills when she gets a phone call from the hospital where Milo is recovering from his own interrupted suicide attempt. When Milo is released from the hospital, he goes to stay with Maggie and her husband (Luke Wilson) in their hometown, where the siblings find both comfort in their childhood bond and fresh grief in their troubled history.

In one memorable, hilarious scene, Milo puts on Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and dances and lip-syncs along to the schmaltzy ballad in an animated effort to cheer up his sister. Johnson’s original plan for the scene was a bit different: Wilson Phillips’s “Hold On” was the song written in the script. “But if you all remember a movie called Bridesmaids,” Johnson sighed, “that song is prominently featured.” Johnson’s producer called him after seeing that film and told him to choose a different song. “I took a day in my apartment,” Johnson recalled, “lip-syncing to every mid-80s cheesy ballad—I did Tiffany, I did the Bangles, I did Debbie Gibson, I did Gloria Estefan…” Hader dissolved in giggles at the mention of Gloria Estefan, and then he and Wiig improvised what Johnson’s neighbors’ reaction might have been to his lip-sync day.

As in that moment, the whole Q&A—not to mention the film itself—was characterized by the chemistry and quick wit of the film’s famously funny stars. “I won the lottery in terms of their chemistry,” Johnson said, “because there is so much embedded history between these two, that made my job easier. I had so much to work with.” Hader and Wiig had known each other for almost ten years and worked together on Saturday Night Live for seven when they made The Skeleton Twins, and they agreed that their existing relationship deeply informed their onscreen dynamic. “My performance wouldn’t have been the same if Kristen wasn’t in the movie,” Hader said. “I have two younger sisters, and people would ask, ‘oh, you put that into the movie—your relationship with your sisters?’ No, this is my relationship with Kristen. That’s the movie.”

While the actors’ history together is based in comedy, their excellent rapport was crucial to the film’s dramatic scenes as well as its more comedic moments. “Those scenes can be difficult,” Wiig said, “and when you have someone that you’re reading with that’s very close to you, you feel safe.” She recalled being genuinely distressed by some of the horrible things she had to say in character to both Hader and Joanna Gleason, who plays Milo and Maggie’s mother. “Joanna was only there for a couple days,” Wiig said, “I didn’t know her very well, but even just saying those things to her, and she started to cry—I felt bad!” Hader said he had never—in real life or otherwise—seen Wiig so angry as she is as Maggie in one climactic scene. When they shot the scene, after Maggie says something particularly cruel, Hader completely neglected to deliver his last few lines and just walked out of the shot, past the crew and down the street in the emotional moment.

The first scene Hader and Wiig shot together was Milo and Maggie in a bar on Halloween, dressed in drag and a cowgirl outfit, respectively, and laughing, dancing and reminiscing. “I remember we did our first take, and we improvised a little bit… Craig said ‘cut’ and, like, danced over to us,” Hader recalled. “He was so happy. It was kind of cool for me because it was like, ‘oh, he’s been living with these characters for so long, and now here they are, talking to each other!’ That was a moment where we were like, ‘The movie is working. This is feeling really good.’”

Mary Sollosi / Film Independent Blogger