A Charlie Day performance might be characterized by a triumphant sort of chaos.
Day co-created and co-stars in in 2021, del Toro looked over the rewrites and gave Day notes. “It meant a lot to me,” Day says, especially as not everyone he talked to had the same advice, to follow his creative instinct. One “very successful writer friend” told him in a pragmatic, not dismissive, way, that “half your movie works. Chalk it up to a good first try, and move on with your life.”
It wasn’t bad guidance. In fact, Day says, this friend was probably right. “To do what I did required a lot of work, and there’s no guarantee. In fact, statistically, odds are that the movie won’t be a big box office smash. People don’t go to the theaters to see things that aren’t Super Mario Bros. But I got to make the movie the way that I knew it could be right. And that, to me, was invaluable.”
Roadside Attractions
Well, not totally invaluable. Reshooting 27 pages of an already completed film costs money. A lot of it. And, because this was a movie made outside of the studio system—and Day’s baby—that meant the cash was coming from his pockets. “I was willing to fund a chunk of the reshoot, because I just got an offer from Mountain Dew to do a bunch of commercials. I said yes to Mountain Dew, so that I could pay my cast and crew. And I gave everyone a raise [for] coming back.
“I understand if you’re maybe reading this article, and you’re in film school, you don’t have that luxury,” he adds, laughing. “And by God, I hope I never have to do it again that way. In fact, I never would.”
Still, it all boils down to opportunity, as so much of his career has. When was anyone else going to give him the chance to play a largely silent character, in a film like this?
“[Someone notices that] you can play a nervous, put-upon guy, because you did it in Horrible Bosses,” he says. “Well, Hollywood has a tendency to go on to ‘copy and paste,’ right? So they say, ‘OK, well, Luigi is nervous ,and he’s put-upon, so you can do that. And I’m happy to. I don’t want to quit my day job.
But that archetype is not how Day sees himself. “On It’s Always Sunny, I don’t feel as though my character is quite that. He’s more extreme and explosive,” he says. “But, you know, chances are I’m not going to be your first thought for a heavy drama. I’m not going to be studios’ first thought for an action film. I’m not going to be their first thought for a silent character. But I might have an itch to do that, and I think I have some ability to create that for myself. So why not do it?”
There was certainly chaos in the making Fool’s Paradise. But in the end, he got to, in classic Charlie Day fashion, have his triumph.
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