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Matt Aselton is the co-writer and director of Gigantic a slice of life film about how people come together and how lives are connected. 

Gigantic stars Paul Dano as Brian, a mattress salesman and ‘surprise child’ who meets an business man (John Goodman) and his daughter Happy (Zooey Deschanel),  The young couple becomes increasingly intimate and find that the path to love has many hurtles, most of which come from the family headed by Dad (Ed Asner). The film also focuses on Brian’s desire to adopt a Chinese baby.  The film has a feeling of randomness, as if events of life just happen without reason or order.  It is a charming and quirky relationship comedy.  It is a part of the Target Narrative Feature Competition.

Matt Aselton is in Dallas for the AFI Film Festival where Gigantic was screened and we had a chance to chat via e-mail.

What drove you to make Gigantic and how long did it take to make it?

I really wanted to do something original, as in, we wrote it.  I co-wrote with a friend and writing partner Adam Nagata back in 2006 and we brought it to Mindy Goldberg.  So, I guess it took about two years to actually do it and now three years later its coming to theaters which seems like a small eternity when I think about it, but I think as these things go, that’s pretty typical.

This is such an impressive cast.  How did you go about getting it together?

We cast Paul Dano in the lead, which was what gave the movie it’s original shape and soon thereafter Zooey Deschanel came on.  I begged John Goodman for about six months until he finally gave in and on the strength of that, we put the rest of the cast together.

Both John Goodman and Ed Asner are giants in Hollywood.  What advice, if any, did they give you when making the film?

They are giants and I’ve been watching them for so long I almost feel like I knew them.  I remember getting to the set very early one morning in Chinatown (NYC) and it was nearing the end of shooting.  I went up to the set which was on the fourth floor of a building and sat down at the kitchen table to go over the sides for the day. After a few minutes, Ed Asner walked in reading his newspaper.  He looked at me sitting alone in the kitchen and said, “That look on your face, that’s why I don’t direct.” Not really advice but I thought it was funny.  You can learn a lot just by watching those two (John and Ed) work.

What was it like working with such a bright new talent like Zooey Deschanel?

I loved it.  She’s pretty, she’s smart, she can be mean, funny, sweet—I just believe in her.  She’s been around for a long time though, and she knows exactly what she’s dong, The trick is she doesn’t let on.

In one scene John Goodman tells the story of him using meditation to get rid of his cancer.  How did you come up with the idea?

There is something very brave and arrogant about trying to cure your own cancer with meditation, it seemed to fit with the character.

The music almost becomes a character in Gigantic.  How did you go about finding and placing the music throughout the film?

Two ways.  Roddy Bottum composed the score which is very spare and was a great addition to the film.  Joe Rudge (Musical Supervisor) and I worked on the music.  Early on we were listening to the Troggs, Francois Hardy and Dead Prez and wound up with Edith Frost, Animal Collective and Mast Killa.  Some of it was financial but mostly we just wound up liking some things more than others.  It was a fun but exhaustive exercise.

What is your favorite scene in Gigantic and why?

I think it’s probably when Goodman arrives at the mattress store.

What was the most difficult aspect of Gigantic to capture on the screen?

How much I love New York City.  I lived there for 12 years.  It’s such a robust city and you could spend your whole day shooting it and still want more.  We shot a lot of little portraits of New York that were necessarily iconic i.e. the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. (It’s a) more of a pedestrians NYC., like stacks of air conditioners and odd rows of buildings.  I feel like that’s how I relate to that place.  I would have shot it all day long if they’d let me. 

What would you say the theme of this film is?

That’s too hard.

Dano’s character has a friend who is a researcher doing studies on rats in a lab, swimming until they fatigue.  What parallels do you see in the rat world and the real world of the Gigantic world?

I guess Gigantic is really referring to the bigness of the world, or NYC, or the smallness you can feel in the shadow of bigger things and the rats in the pool keeping their heads above the water has some relative application I suppose, but really I think the rats swimming has less to do with struggle and more to do with acceptance.  This is where I am, this is what’s happening to me.

What was the hardest part of making Gigantic?

All of it. 

What was the most difficult part to leave on the cutting room floor and why?

Oddly, the more you leave behind, the better the movie gets, so it was really great to be unburdened by things.  Get rid of it is easier to say than “Okay put that back in,” I think.

How close is the finished product from the the vision of the script you co-wrote?

It’s the same movie it’s ever been in my head, but that movie has been evolving for three years.

What advice would you give a young filmmaker?

I heard Robert Altman speak a few weeks before he died and the same question was posed to him.  He said, “Don’t listen to anyone, including me.”  I think that’s right.

What are you working on now?

The next one.

Gigantic plays as a part of AFI in Dallas and soon opens nationwide. 

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