In 2010, Shawn Levy, then best known for directing and producing the Night at the Museum and Cheaper by the Dozen franchises, had an opportunity to pitch his idol, Steven Spielberg. There
was just one problem: Levy was having a panic attack and it was getting progressively worse. Minutes before the meeting, the Canadian producer-director started hyperventilating.
Levy called his wife in Los Angeles in a frenzy as he circled the block in Midtown Manhattan where his pitch meeting was to be held. She was in the shower and couldn’t come to the phone. The only person around to talk him off the ledge was his 12-year-old daughter.
“She said, ‘Dad, it’s like you always tell us—you know what you have to do. You’re ready,’” Levy recalls, speaking via Zoom from his Lower Manhattan home. “Now, go do it.’” It stopped him in his tracks.
The scene could be straight out of a Levy film, brimming with recurring themes in his work—role reversal, the wisdom of children and wish fulfillment. Levy’s came true: He landed the job directing Real Steel for Spielberg, an executive producer on the project, and learned numerous lessons, including to have faith in his vision.
In many ways, Levy’s latest movie, The Adam Project, which premieres on Netflix on March 11, is his answer to Amblin’s Back to the Future. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as a fighter pilot from the future who travels through time, joins forces with his 12-year-old self and tries to save the future by enlisting their late father (played by Mark Ruffalo).
Here are some things Shawn Levy and his colleagues revealed to WSJ. Magazine…
Levy on what he learned from working with his idol Steven Spielberg:
“I asked, ‘Steven, how do you know what the right shot is?’” Levy recalls. “And he goes, ‘The way you picture it in your head—that makes it right. It was formative,” Levy says of the experience. “It has had a profound impact on how I direct and how I produce.”
Spielberg on Levy:
“I very strongly relate to the virtuosity of Shawn’s filmmaking,” says Spielberg, “because he tells stories so enthusiastically and with such unabashed love just in the doing of it.”
Reynolds on The Adam Project:
“It uses a genre vessel—time travel—as a vehicle for a movie about male identity and fathers and sons.” The larger message, he says, transcends gender: “Ultimately you can’t have a healthy and happy adulthood without making peace with both your former self and your parents.”
Reynolds on their similarly challenging upbringing being mined for The Adam Project:
“My usual pattern was to create an unexpected moment out of comedy,” Reynolds says, “but with Shawn I get to create unexpected moments out of truly deep, honest emotion. That’s the thing I’m really grateful for.”
Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO and chief content officer, on Levy:
“Working with Shawn definitely takes a lot of the risk out of the bet.” “The thing every one of his projects has in common—comedy, action, sci-fi, drama—they have a lot of heart,” says Sarandos.
Levy on an interaction with Johnny Depp being the deciding factor on his decision to pursue directing instead of acting:
Four months out of school, Levy landed a lead guest-starring role on 21 Jump Street that helped him decide his career path. Levy remembers greeting Johnny Depp, the show’s ascendant star, before their first scene together: “Hi, Mr. Depp. My name’s Shawn Levy. I’m so excited to be here.” Depp slowly turned to Levy and replied, “Welcome to the puppet show. You like to dance, puppet? Because that’s what you do for a living now. Dance, puppet, dance.” Levy recalls Depp mimicking the movements of a marionette, making him think: “Maybe I want to direct and hold the strings.”
Levy on his career path:
“My career has been a gradual recognition of the filmmaker I am,” Levy says. “Warm-hearted, funny humanism—that’s what I know how to do, and I love doing it.”
Levy on what Hugh Jackman (whom he directed in Real Steel) told him about Ryan Reynolds:
While making Real Steel, Levy befriended the film’s star, Hugh Jackman, who began telling both Levy and Reynolds, his close friend, “If you guys ever work together, you’ll never stop.”
Reynolds on Levy:
Levy and Reynolds currently have four films in the works, including the sequel to Free Guy. Levy has found his leading man, and Reynolds his secret weapon. “He’s a Swiss Army knife—a Canadian Army knife,” the actor says. “There are a lot of tools in there, and it’s really interesting to watch him unearth tools that I’m not even sure he realized he has.”
Levy on his upcoming dramatic project, an adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See:
“The time feels right,” he says. “It wouldn’t have been right at 30, but now I’m taking my chips and shoving them to the middle of the table.”
Mark Ruffalo on All the Light We Cannot See:
“It’s something Shawn was circling and wasn’t giving himself permission to do,” Ruffalo says of Levy’s latest project. “He gets to open up a whole new door on his career.”
Reynolds on Levy’s prolific creative output:
Already, Levy’s production company, 21 Laps, has 18 feature films lined up at Netflix, a Real Steel series in development at Disney+ and talk of the film’s sequel—as well as a movie starring both Reynolds and Jackman. “The guy is incredibly prolific, more so than anyone understands,” Reynolds says. “I don’t know what his Mount Rushmore epitaph is going to be, but it’s going to be longer than any chiseler wants to spend up on a mountain, trying to encapsulate Shawn Levy.”
Levy on seeing his career as a rejection of the old adage art can come only from great suffering:
“I know for a fact that art can emerge from joy and love,” Levy says, breaking into a smile. “My movies express the way I live: emotionally, warmly, with humor—and no cynicism.”
Read the full article here.
Photo: Guy Aroch via Netflix courtesy WSJ. Magazine
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