Who hasn’t heard — or lived — the coming-to-New-York story? Generations of American teenagers grow up with the city’s skyline hovering beneath their eyelids at bedtime. And it’s no different for Louis Ives, the young gentleman-hero of “Extra Man,” Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman’s new film.
Louis, played in the film by Paul Dano, comes with some unique baggage: a possible penchant for cross-dressing, which gets him fired from his prep school teaching position and catalyzes his move to New York. He bears a palpable aura of nostalgia not unlike that of his new roommate, Henry Harrison. Played with infectious whimsy by Kevin Kline, the mercurial, mysterious Henry is (maybe) a playwright, an eccentric, an aristocrat and an ‘extra man’ — a man the city’s richest old ladies call to fill out the table for dinner.
Dano admitted that the making of “Extra Man” was not a physically rigorous exercise, but it had some unique challenges.
“I didn’t even think about the cross-dressing when I accepted the part,” Dano said, referring to the fact that throughout the film, Louis dons several items of women’s lingerie. But as filming approached, Dano grew worried: What if his next thought became, “Oh shit, I’m into this?”
Fortunately, wearing lipstick proved awful and the actor became more fascinated by the contrasts of the story.
“The image of Louis carrying the woman [one of Henry’s nonagenarian client-friends] up the stairs is in a weird way so sweet and so romantic,” he said. He also welcomed the “great excuse to read Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John O’Hara,” some of Louis’ favorite authors.
Dano is still getting milkshakes sent to his table by fans of his performance as a greedy preacher in “There Will Be Blood,” so the chance to vary his resume — as well act out Jonathan Ames’ gently hilarious novel, which he read several times while filming — was appealing, as was the prospect of working with cast members like John C. Reilly, Katie Holmes, Kevin Kline, Patti D’Arbanville and Celia Weston.
Much of “Extra Man’s” cast had worked together previously, but none as consistently as directors Pulcini and Springer-Berman, who have collaborated since their 1994 marriage. After several documentaries, as well as the Academy Award-winning “American Splendor,” they almost missed out on adapting “Extra Man.”
“Our manager called, [saying] ‘I have a book for you to read over the weekend’,” but this was a different Ames novel, Springer-Berman said. Luckily, Pulcini accidentally read “Extra Man” instead, and a love affair began: “We didn’t even know about all the previous development plans,” she said.
Funding came together like a dream: “We got the money right before the economy completely collapsed,” Springer-Berman said, sounding grateful. And the material was more than fertile — “you could make much more than one movie from this novel.”
Much of her favorite dialogue, as well as memorable characters like Louis’ elderly aunt, had to be cut in the screenwriting process.
But the essences of those only-in-New-York individuals like Henry — and eventually, Louis — who “survive on the edge and the fringe of culture,” remained, as did the only-in-New-York set pieces: the Metropolitan Opera, Central Park, the Russian Tea Room, a Times Square transgender bar and Henry’s alarmingly cluttered apartment (he’s “morally repugnant but lovable,” Springer-Berman said).
The man who brings Henry to life is very New York himself. A Julliard graduate, Kline frequently appears on the stage as well as on film and has Tony Awards to go with his Golden Globes. When it came to “Extra Man,” though, Kline “loved the material,” particularly Henry’s “great style and panache and joie de vivre.”
Kline said he found Henry Harrison appealing because he misses “the bygone days when people had a mystique” and admires Henry’s “poetic, imaginative streak” — both a life-long act of “willful self-delusion” and a canny way to survive on his own terms.
“They’re both outsiders,” Kline said about his Henry and Dano’s Louis. Yet both characters become intensely lovable despite their flaws: Louis’ confusion, and Henry’s … fleas, boot-blackened ankles (to make up for a lack of socks) and much-touted ability to piss nonchalantly while walking (a skill Kline, while shooting, had time to perfect). Extra men they may be, but to the rich, warped wool of “Extra Man’s” New York City, they are indispensable.