Rob McKittrick, Director of Waiting

Interview: Rob McKittrick, Director of Waiting

I recently had the chance to sit down and have a terrific conversation with Rob McKittrick, who wrote and directed the very funny Waiting (see our review by clicking on the link to the left.) Rob and I talked at length about the film and his start in Hollywood,and I have to say he was one of the nicest movie people I've met so far. He even drops hints about some great easter eggs on the DVD. So check out Waiting on DVD, and enjoy the interview!

Mike Spring: Hi, Rob, how are you?

Rob McKittrick: I'm doing great.

MS: So let's start off with a really important question. Did you know that if you go to www.waiting.com, there's a website for people who are waiting for someone in a coma?

RM: I did, absolutely. I wrote the script back in 1997 and at some point I was like, "Wow, I should get a web page." Naturally, I went to waiting.com, and I thought maybe I could purchase it. But it was like, "Hey, could we maybe use your website? I know this is really a serious website, but I'd really like to have it for myself for a comedy about a bunch of guys showing their dicks to each other. How would you feel about that?"

MS: So I know you used to work in a restaurant and you wrote a screenplay, but fill us in on the details for those readers who don't know the whole story.

RM: Well, it was 1997 and I was 24 years old and I was working at The Roadhouse Grill, down in Florida. In Florida there's a ton of chain restaurants.

Editor's Note: At this point we went off on a five-minute tangent as we discussed all the areas we both know since I'm also originally from Florida. I'll skip to the good stuff!

RM: Prior to that, I worked at Steak & Ale and Bennigans, and working at Friday's in Orlando after working at Steak & Ale and Bennigans in Bradenton, it was the consistency of experiences that really struck me. "Wow, this is actually kind of universal. This is the exact same kind of people, just transplanted into a different restaurant." After it happened all over again for the third time I thought, "This is a good idea for a movie."

MS: And that was '97, so it took a while for this to come to fruition.

RM: Yeah, when I first wrote the script, I had no aspirations to make it for $3 million, which is what we ultimately made it for. I was going to go the Clerks route and make it for 30 grand. I didn't know anything about Hollywood, I was raised poor, and it just wasn't realistic. After a couple of years, we just got it into the hands of someone in Hollywood who was hot to make it. That's when it came to Jeff Balis, one of the producers on the film, from Project Greenlight. I wrote it in '97, and at the end of '99 is when Balis read the script. At the end of 2000, I moved out to Hollywood, and we optioned it to Artisan Entertainment, which was like the best thing ever because they had just done Blair Witch. But then Artisan just had a really sh---y year. So the movie kind of got lost, and two years went by. Eventually the rights reverted back to me.

MS: So how did you manage to end up directing it?

RM: Well, I didn't originally, I whored myself out for the money and gave up the right to direct it just because it was a great opportunity not to be a waiter anymore. But after the rights reverted back to me, my foot was in the door, so it seemed silly for me to not insist on directing, especially since we couldn't get it made with somebody else anyway. Then I just got lucky and found an independent financier who believed in me.

MS: I was really impressed with the DVD extras, and it seems as if you really enjoy the DVD process. Is that something you were looking forward to?

RM: Oh yeah. I was a big laser disc fan, because that was the only place you could get extras before DVD. When it came to the DVD, I come from the mindset of "Let's just put as much stuff on there as possible." I figure you can watch it all if you want to, or you can just watch the movie if that's what you feel like. What I like about the extras overall is that the tone of them is just very much my sensibility. I'm very sarcastic, I'm very perverted; so the movie is kind of me in movie form, for better or for worse. There's a lot of stuff on there that's just us making fun of each other; you know, me giving Dane Cook a hard time or giving Ryan Reynolds a hard time and them giving me a hard time. It strikes a good balance between being informative and just fun to watch.

MS: Speaking of Dane Cook, I'm a huge fan of his. Do you have any great Dane stories you can share with us?

RM: It's funny, I feel the same as you, and I thought Dane was the funniest stand up comic that I had ever seen. As soon as I made myself a director, he was the very first actor meeting I ever took, just because... I think I just wanted to meet him. At this point, Ryan was already attached, and we felt like Dane had that similar energy. So I was trying to find that right role for him, and he was kind of falling through the cracks. As much as I love him, I just couldn't find the right role. And then I came up with Floyd. And at the time, his name wasn't even Floyd, he was just The Cool Cook. And anytime something f--ked up happened that wasn't happening to Raddimus, who is played by Luis Guzman, it happened to The Cool Cook. I really, really wanted him to do it. And he said no! Because he was like, "I don't want to be Cop #5." Because the guy's name in the script is The Cool Cook, and he's thinking that's like Pedestrian #4. And I said, "No dude, it's not going to be like that. First of all, I'll give you a f--king name, don't worry about that. You're going to be like Floyd (oddly enough) in True Romance. You know, Brad Pitt? He only has like four scenes, but it's so memorable. That's who you're going to be."

MS: Speaking of the cast, one of the things that impressed me the most is what a great cast you put together. How did that come about?

RM: It was a few things. One, people just liked the script. Plus, I sort of filled them in on how I saw the movie and stuff like that, and to their credit, they all just did it. And to a person, nobody got paid more than $15,000 bucks. They just did it because it was a quick shoot, it was 23 days and it was a fun little movie.

MS: So with all those people and all the crude humor on the set, was it hard to get any real work done?

RM: No, not at all. It was great, because we had these young actors who had all done indie movies. The actors were really, really on point. Now that doesn't mean that they didn't do a lot of ad-libbing or that they didn't hang out off set, but when it came to actually working, it was really wonderful. Of course, as soon as I said cut, everybody would just start cracking up laughing.

MS: So, do you EVER eat out anymore?

RM: Of course. I just stick my head in the sand and I don't think about the horrible things people do [laughs]. No, the bottom line is it's a comedic exaggeration. I mean, the five-second rule, of course that happens. That happens at home, but unless my dog just pissed there, I'll pick it up and eat it. So that happens, but beyond that, obviously the whole tainting the food scene is an exaggeration of what really occurs, and furthermore, I'm nice to my server. And that's the biggest thing. I heard a lot of people say this movie will make you never want to eat in a restaurant again, but it shouldn't elicit that response. It should just make you want to be nice to your server. There's two ways you can handle things, you can be nice or you can be a dick. I mean, they probably won't stand in an assembly line and put pubic hair and dandruff on your food, but they very well could teabag it. I know I did.

MS: So what's next on your plate? No pun intended.

RM: Ooh, that was good. Well, right now I'm working on a comedy project called The Wingman. The script was written by the guys who wrote Harold & Kumar. I'm attached to direct and Christopher Walken is attached to star. And then there's this other project over at New Line that is called Man Crush that is hopefully picking up steam as we speak. It's a romantic comedy between two guys that's never gay or creepy. I'm also working on a couple of other little super-secret things.

MS: So is there anything else you'd like our readers to know?

RM: The suits wanted to get some gratuitous tits on the DVD. There's no tits in the movie. I love tits, I love them to death, but it wasn't the movie I wanted to make. I love tits, but if I'm going to make a movie, it's all ball sack. No seriously, if you look around the DVD, and this was not my idea, but if you hunt around on the first disc, there are some hidden tits. (Editor's Note: We still haven't found them. If some eagle-eyed reader finds this easter egg, kindly drop us a line. Thanks!) We actually had an argument, there was a little bit of a flare up, but I guess with the Van Wilder DVD it helped them sell a bunch of extra copies, so... Other than that, anybody who's interested in the story of how the movie got made, I have a blog, over at www.robmckittrick.com. It's a pretty fun read, so if you're bored, there's a lot more s--t about when I was in Orlando and serving and stuff like that.

MS: Well, Rob, it was great talking to you. Thanks a lot for taking the time.

RM: You got it. I appreciate it, take care.

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