Interview: Jesse Peretz On Why He Related To Juliet, Naked

Rock fans of the band Lemonheads will recognize the name instantly. Jesse Peretz. He was the bass guitarist for the band back in the 90s. Fan adulation is nothing new to him. He too, like most of us had an age-appropriate music obsession. Read on to learn who it is.

Peretz switched the bass guitar to direct shows such as Girls and his latest outing is close to the heart in many ways. Juliet, Naked is a sweet and charming story of Duncan (Chris O’ Dowd) and his long-term girlfriend Annie (Rose Byrne). Duncan is obsessed with an obscure artist Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) and when an old demo surfaces, Duncan gets to meet his idol. The film is based on the Nick Hornby book. I caught up with Peretz to talk about how close to the heart this film was.

How did you get involved with Juliet, Naked?

My producers had bought the novel and had a script by Tamara Jenkins and Jim Taylor that they had been working on for a couple of years when they reached out to me to see if I was interested. Reading the script and then the novel, it felt impossible for me to say no to. On some level, I was intrigued by cracking how to tell Annie’s story and really seeing her as the protagonist of this movie, I really felt like I related to both of these male characters. Once upon a time, I was a major music fan and would have music obsessions at an age-appropriate time in my life. Also, from being in a band with a guy who’s not entirely unlike Tucker Crowe, I also really felt like I had an insight of that sense that musicians, in particular, can have, the way their fans project their fantasies on to them. But also, how important every word they mutter or how important a lyric of a song is.  There’s ultimately something you feel, as a musician is fraudulent and bogus about the esteem that you are held to.

I loved the idea that in the story was this character that felt like a fraud and felt like a loser of an adult who has failed as a parent and as a lover, and trying to keep his head above water by not fucking up with his 6-year-old kid. I loved that he felt like his life was fraudulent and exploring who that character is and where the truth lay with his perception of himself and the fans perception of him. I tried to unpack the relationship between the fan and the art that they worship and the artist who makes the art and may distance themselves from it.

From your own background as a musician, how personal was this to you? You’ve also been the obsessed fan, and you’re bringing that to the film with Nick Hornby. How did that work?

In a sense, like many of Nick’s books, Duncan is really the Nick Hornby character. The details that are placed in the book by Nick, make it so clear who that guy is. We’ve all known people like that. That was fun to have such accurate detail in the book to put that on the screen.

My background of being in a band helped me have a more specific understanding of who was Tucker before he gave everything up and what his life was like? I feel in some way had a clear understanding of what that life was that he gave up. For me, the real draw in cracking the story was more about digging into what was it that made Annie such a caretaker and what made her stay in this town that clearly wasn’t inspiring her. In what ways was she trapped having to take care of her sister and her boyfriend.  At the same time, I look at Tucker and for me, I was really moved by what  I read in the novel of a guy who really feels he’s failed as a parent and the potential that he has for this relationship with Annie to push him out of his atrophy in not dealing with his demons. Lizzie, in the concrete sense, represents all his kids who he has failed and that makes him feel unable to do anything because he feels like a failed father and a failed human being.  I tried to figure out how to make those two trajectories in a way that each of them could affect these things that they’re stuck in and cause them to take a risk to take a big turn in their life.

Talk about casting Ethan Hawke, casting the perfect Tucker Crowe and casting Annie.

Rose had been tracking this project because she loved the novel. She was aware this project was happening right around the time that I became attached to it. We met early on and I remember I was such a fan of hers and she’s so funny. She’s a real well-rounded actress and thought she was too pretty to play the part. It seemed to be very important that there be something homely and normal about Annie. Then I spent an hour and a half with her and her insights into the character and novel were so spot on and felt helpful as we were in the process of doing our own script. By the end of that meeting, whatever my hesitations were, went away and I was going to make it work because her take on this character and her ability as an actress was exactly what this movie needed.

With Ethan, the character is written ten years older than him. We were constantly saying that Tucker Crowe is a cross between Ethan Hawke and Jeff Bridges and right between their ages. When I heard Ethan had read the script and was interested in the part, it was a similar thing. I thought there was no reason for this character to be pushing 60. I needed to let go of the decision I had made in my head because this guy was made to play this character. He was so helpful in the process of helping us re-write the character and pushed us to make him a bit more rascally. He gave us the confidence that he could play it and still redeem himself that an audience and want there to be some possibility between him and Annie. It was a process of two great conversations between those guys who were built to play these characters.

Two weeks before I got the script, I had just worked with Chris on Girls and I was obsessed with his comedy chops. I remember ending that shoot thinking I really wanted to find a movie to do with Chris. He’s so great. I’m reading the script and 20 pages in, I thought I had to do it because he would kill this character.

Who was your biggest obsession?

My first crazy obsession was Joan Armatrading. When I was a teen and I was into rock, it was Alex Chilton. That was my number one obsession. We used Big Star’s third record as the prototype as the record Juliet should be. Even for fans of Big Star it was a bit weird and alienating and dissident. For the true fans, it’s the ultimate record for those exact same reasons.

Music is the core of the film, how did you build the soundtrack?

In terms of building the soundtrack, we asked 70-75 songwriters to write songs saying we couldn’t promise to use it but if we used the song, we’d pay them and if we didn’t, then they had a new song. It was a scary process and we gave people a biography and references and a lot of music was great and didn’t really work but eventually ended up with enough songs that we felt were really right for what we were looking for. Ethan Hawke, Nathan and a few musicians went into the studio right before the holidays and before the songs need to be put in for the cut for Sundance. They had a three-day session and I was so excited about the fruit of those sessions.

Juliet, Naked is on release from Roadside Attractions