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Exclusive: Interview With Joshua Seftel, Director of "War, Inc."

by Jane Boursaw on April 9th, 2008

“War, Inc.” premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 28, and opens in L.A. and New York theaters on May 23.

It’s a political satire set in Turaqistan, a war-torn country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former U.S. Vice-President. In an effort to monopolize the opportunities there, the corporation’s CEO hires a troubled hit man, played by John Cusack (pictured with Joshua Seftel), to assassinate a Middle East oil minister.

To do so, he’ll have to pose as the corporation’s Trade Show Producer, maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff) a Middle Eastern pop star. He also has to keep a sexy left-wing reporter (Marisa Tomei) in check.

I caught up with Joshua Seftel, the director of War, Inc., who talked about making a funny war movie, delivering babies with his obstetrician dad, and watching John Cusack crash a car in the movie.

Jane: Tell me a little about the film.

Joshua: I watched it again the other day, and to me, it’s just a wild-ride comedy spilling over with ideas, observations, and commentaries about the war.

Jane: So it’s a comedy about war. Awesome.

Joshua: Yeah, it’s pretty unusual. A lot of the war films in the past few years have not been comedies or satires. So we feel like we have something really different here. 

More after the jump…

Jane: Yeah, I just saw Stop-Loss the other day. Great movie, but depressing as heck.

Joshua: It’s a weird time right now. You turn on the television and see all this depressing stuff about what’s going on over there. I think people are just fatigued.

Jane: Definitely.

Joshua: I don’t know if people are up for seeing a really earnest, gut-wrenching movie. “War, Inc.” is different. It’s really entertaining and at the same time, it has a lot to say.

Jane: Is it like a Christopher Guest movie? That’s what I keep thinking in my head.

Joshua: I don’t know if I’d compare it to Christopher Guest. It definitely has an absurdist quality to it. It’s fast-paced and irreverent in a lot of ways.

Jane: I know you’ve done a lot of documentaries. Is this your first feature film?

Joshua: Yeah, my first scripted feature. I’ve done a lot of documentaries, a lot of short fiction and commercials and things like that. I made this short film a couple of years ago (Breaking the Mold: The Kee Malesky Story) that did well on the film festival circuit. Alexander Payne (director of Sideways, producer on King of California) saw it and tracked me down. He said, “Look you should be directing a feature,” and he introduced me to John Cusack.

Jane: That’s probably the cool thing about film festivals – you get some great exposure for your project and then people come looking for you.

Joshua: I’m very happy that Alexander was so taken with my work. It was one of the highest compliments, because he’s one of my favorite directors working today.

Jane: So “War, Inc.” seems like it has a bit of a documentary quality to it. Would you say it’s a blend of doc and feature films?

Joshua: Yeah, it’s funny because people say, “Wow, what a departure from your past work.” To me, it really isn’t. I try to make all my films about something that’s important to me. They tend to be about what’s going on in the world, and they tend to be funny. I like to bring humor into it, but at the same time, have a point. If a joke isn’t saying something about our world, then it’s almost a missed opportunity. You know, shine a light by making people laugh.

Jane: How is Cusack to work with? I read your note about how he always brought different takes to the scene – one funny, one thoughtful, and so on. Is that his usual M.O. to do that?

Joshua: Yeah, John is great. He’s such a talented, versatile actor. I was just blown away by his skills and preparation. He’s always so prepared, and he’s an incredible kick-boxer!

Jane: Oh, really?

Joshua: His kickboxing instructor told me that John is one of the most accurate, precise kick-boxers he’s ever known. In a sense, I feel like he’s that way as an actor too. He has a precision about the way he works, and he can adjust from one take to another to such a fine degree. It’s remarkable.

Jane: As a director, that probably gives you a lot of options, right? It might take the film in a different direction than what you anticipated.

Joshua: Exactly. You have all these great options once you’re done shooting. Different shades of a performance. And John is so passionate about his work. He did all his own fight scenes – complicated fight scenes that took days to shoot. He was really into it. He even crashed a car in one scene.

Jane: Another thing that struck me is that you have such a wide assortment of actors in this film — Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley… They’re all such professionals, and I’m guessing they just got in and did the job.

Joshua: As a director, it was a dream come true to have that kind of a cast to work with. And you’re right that the professionalism was just incredible. Someone like Ben Kingsley…again, he’s so prepared when he walks on that set. You know you’re going to get something fantastic. And he comes to the set with lots of ideas. As a director, that’s the greatest gift when an actor comes to you with good ideas. It’s just like, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Jane: I was looking over your bio, and you really came out of the gate big-time with Lost and Found (a 1992 documentary about Romanian orphans). You were nominated for an Emmy for that at age 22. Was that surreal at such a young age?

Joshua: Well, I was supposed to be a doctor.

Jane: Right, because your dad was an obstetrician.

Joshua: Yeah, my dad is a physician, and he’d always bring me to work. I helped him deliver babies. I was pre-med in college, and this film thing was just a temporary diversion. I always imagined myself working for Doctors Without Borders, traveling the world and helping people. Then I started dabbling in film, and my first film (”Lost and Found”) was nominated for a national Emmy. So I thought, ok, I should probably make another film. I probably shouldn’t bail out yet, because I was doing pretty well. So I did another one, and before I knew it, I’d done a whole bunch of films. So the idea of going into Doctors Without Borders…I was lucky to be able to combine the two, in a sense. When I approach my work now, I still think about how I can make a different and say something of importance.

Jane: Taking on the Kennedys…did you make any enemies while making that film? It seems a little dicey.

Joshua: Well, let’s see…how can I answer that?

Jane: You don’t have to answer!

Joshua: No, it’s fine. Politics is a dirty business, but then again, so is movie-making. But I don’t think I made any enemies. I made a documentary, a cinema-vérité documentary where I simply followed people around with my camera for six months, then took what I shot and tried to distill it down into the story of what happened. The title probably implies a more provocative, biased film than it actually is. It’s really about American political campaigns. It’s a microcosmic look at how campaigns work.

Jane: Got it.

Joshua: It’s both funny and depressing. I think those are two hallmarks of my work. I have to say something important – and, unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I have to say is pretty depressing, so it also needs to be funny. But I don’t think I made too many enemies with that film. There’s nothing in it that isn’t true. It’s just footage I shot.

Jane: And it could probably have been made about any politician, I would think.

Joshua: Exactly, it could have been taking on the Bushes or taking on the Gores. It doesn’t matter what party or era, really. It hasn’t changed that much.

Jane: And you’ve worked with Ira Glass on This American Life.

Joshua: I have, a couple of times.

Jane: I’m a big fan of “This American Life,” as are a lot of my friends. What was that like?

Joshua: That was great. The first time I worked with him was when the radio show was still pretty new. My best friend and I went to South Africa, and made a documentary about our travels there. That was, I think, in ‘97. I think the show was maybe only a year or two old at that point.

Jane: What was the name of that doc?

Joshua: It’s called Trek, an hour-long special, and I think you can find it on the Web site of “This American Life.” It ended up being a documentary about race, because my best friend is black, and I’m white. So it became,”‘Let’s look at this new country through two different sets of eyes.” We probed a lot of issues regarding race.

Jane: What else did you do for Ira?

Joshua: I did another thing last year called Still Life for his TV show on Showtime (Episode Two: My Way, March 29, 2007). I think you can watch that online, as well. YouTube my name, and you’ll probably find it. It’s an excerpt from a feature-length documentary about a photographer who took pictures of a woman who had fallen into the ocean. He was taking pictures of her rescue, and she ended up drowning. It ended up winning all kinds of awards and furthering his career, but at the same time, he had to deal with the moral ambiguities of that situation.

Jane: For “Lost and Found,” you actually stayed in an orphanage in Romania, right?

Joshua: I did.

Jane: Was it totally depressing, or did you feel like, “Ok, I can do this and make a difference”?

Joshua: I’ve always been drawn to intense life-and-death situations – I worked in a morgue during college — so this kind of fit in. Yeah, it was intense…Draconian conditions with children really suffering. I think it’s actually easier to be there in those situations, then to watch them on TV or at the theater. Because at least you can be involved and have some control. You can reach down and pick up a child and hold them, whereas if you’re watching on TV, you feel helpless.

Jane: You really made a difference with that film, though.

Joshua: Yeah, I feel like it made an impact. We raised lots of money, and hundreds of children were adopted in the United States by people who saw the film. It’s rare when that happens, where you can have such concrete results from your work. It’s just a dream come true.

Jane: Back to the melding of documentaries and features, it seems like you’ve brought a lot of your own experiences to “War, Inc.”

Joshua: It’s interesting because I’ve actually been in war zones for my documentary work, so a lot of the stuff that ended up in this film I’d already experienced first hand. That enabled me to bring some reality to the situation. I think it makes the feature work more authentic.

Jane: Right, and viewers aren’t dumb. We know when something is authentic or not.

Joshua: I’m really proud of the war scenes and the action in this film. There were guns going off and bombs, explosions, and black smoke…there’s an authenticity to it that I think is really important. At the end of the day, there’s a point to this film. It has to feel real.

Jane: Are you hoping to cause a stir in the political community? Do you have hopes that it’ll make a difference in the big picture?

Joshua: Well, you know, that’s always the hope, right?

Jane: What’s coming up next for you?

Joshua: I’ll continue to work in documentary…that’s my love, it’s where I started, and I’ll always do it. At the same time, I’m going to continue to do feature work. I have a few projects I’m developing. One is about the rescue of the Ethiopian Jews, and there are two other projects I’m developing that are based on real-life events or documentaries I’ve made. So there’s this sort of cross-pollination that’s happening, for sure, in my work.

Jane: Michael Moore is from my hometown in Traverse City, Michigan, and he founded the Traverse City Film Festival. Have you ever worked with him?

Joshua: I’ve not worked with him, though I have to say, I’ve been a fan of his work. Seeing Roger and Me was a big event in my life, definitely an inspiration for me, as a young filmmaker.

Jane: Well, thanks so much for the interview. I appreciate all your time.

Joshua: Thanks for spending the time with me, Jane. I appreciate it, and it was fun to talk with you.

Images: War, Inc.; First Look International, 2008; Seftel/Cusack photo by Jessica Miglio, courtesy of First Look Studios

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