CHICAGO - If things had turned out differently, it is possible that film director Richard Ayoade would be a recognizable American television star.
Well-known in Britain as a comedic writer and performer, his distinctly off-kilter sensibility came to bear on shows such as the "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" (a lampoon of bad TV dramas from the '80s) and "The Mighty Boosh" (a surrealist sketch comedy show). More recently he starred in "The IT Crowd," a popular U.K. workplace comedy about a pair of basement-dwelling computer nerds that was adapted for American television in 2007 with Ayoade reprising his role opposite Joel McHale. The pilot was picked up by NBC, but due to a regime change at the network, not a single episode was shot beyond the pilot, and the show died a quick death.
It is probably just as well. If Ayoade was tied up with a sitcom, he most certainly would have missed out on the opportunity to write and direct his first feature-length film, a coming-of-ager called "Submarine." Set in 1980s Wales, it bears some stylistic and thematic similarities to films of the French New Wave, as well as Wes Anderson's "Rushmore."
Adapted from the 2008 novel by Joe Dunthorne (also called "Submarine"), the film centers on the experiences of Oliver, a 15-year-old boy who meddles in his parents disintegrating marriage when he's not obsessing about his own virginity and an enigmatic girl at school who has caught his eye.
To hear London-based Ayoade tell it, he much prefers to be behind the camera anyway. Through his connection with McHale, he directed an episode of NBC's "Community" last season called "Critical Film Studies," which mashed together elements of "Pulp Fiction" and "My Dinner With Andre."
A shy but unflaggingly polite interview subject, during a recent trip to Chicago the filmmaker talked about his dry sense of humor, his self-proclaimed social ineptitude and his overall discomfort with discussing his own work.
Q: If the American version of "The IT Crowd" had worked out, your life would be very different right now and you would probably be living in L.A. Were you disappointed with the outcome?
A: It seemed so unimaginable because so many pilots don't get picked up - as a betting person you kind of bet against it, so I didn't imagine that it was going to happen. But then it was picked up, and that was kind of terrifying for a short period because it just, I don't know, I had just got married and I felt like I would be uprooting us both. (Ayoade and his wife also have a 15-month old daughter.) And Joel is so suited to "Community," it's such a great fit for him that it's kind of a really good thing that it didn't happen.
Q: I read a quote where you said the making of "Submarine" was excruciating.
A: I could well have been joking.
Q: Are your droll responses frequently misunderstood?
A: Yeah, but that's probably my fault because I'm not funny enough.
Making the film is really enjoyable when you're actually making it; watching it back with other people is excruciating - sort of presenting it and all of that kind of self-regard. It feels completely inappropriate to try to persuade people to see something you've done. It feel like lobbying for your own exam results.
Q: You're not fully comfortable going out and promoting your movie, I gather.
A: It is a bit like an abstract expressionist who would not feel very comfortable expressing themselves verbally, but then be called upon to describe a painting. You have spent your entire life trying to avoid having to verbalize things, and you are immediately put back in that arena that you are fleeing from.
With writers - because you're not terribly socialized or verbally dexterous in reality - you're composing things in a more structured, controlled way. (But once people come in contact with the work) you're immediately thrown back into extemporizing about it in a noncontrolled, potentially trivial and rubbish manner. I literally don't think that the things I say off the top of my head are particularly worthy of record - but they do become worthy of record. Everything is recorded now, I find. I wonder whether there's going to be an infinite archive in the future where everyone has five hours of footage of themselves a day to contend with.
Q: A profile on you that ran in The Guardian a few years back asked, "What's behind the loser act?" and a fan posting online elsewhere answered with this bit of praise: "He's so talented (at) pretending he's not talented."
A: Yeah, well that makes it sound like it's completely disingenuous shtick, which of course, it is - it's incredibly, dangerously, Donald Trump-level arrogance. Yeah. This is a construct.
Q: You've made analogies between "Submarine" and "Taxi Driver," although I'm not sure the connection is obvious.
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