The Cast and Creators of ‘Tenured’ Talk About Education, Kids and Going to Tribeca

 

An Interview with the Cast and Creators of Tenured

After previously premiering their short Teacher of the Year at Tribeca, director Chris Modoono and star Gil Zabarsky, rewrote the film as a feature. Although the character of Gil’s foul-mouthed fifth grade teacher with marital problems is more or less the same, they’ve gone further with his character’s feud with his assistant principal Gruber (The Office’s Kate Flannery) and add a school play to direct, that he rewrites to express his feelings towards his estranged wife (Emily Wilson). Modoono, Zabarsky, Flannery, and Kathleen Littlefield, who plays a good-hearted, almost unbearably perky fellow teacher who confesses to a dark cheerleading past, were at the festival to promote the film.  We talked with the filmmakers and stars of Tenured about turning their short into a feature, working with kids, and taking on the education system.

The IBang: How do you find children to cast in movie with a lot of cursing and inappropriate behavior?

Chris Modoono: Good question. When they sent this script out to casting for auditions, they were very clear about the type of film this was going to be. Parents were told not to skim through the script, really read it and make sure you are alright with content. But all the parents we had were cool and on set, I was always super apologetic every time Gil had to curse at them. And they were supportive of the project.

The IBang: What is it like for you to have to do scenes opposite them and say exactly the wrong thing to a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds?

Gil Zabarsky: It’s weird. The kids were so professional and good that it was actually pretty easy to work with them. But I felt guilty and weird, so I would tell them “hey man, I’m going to be doing some stuff, I hope you’re okay.” And most of the time the kids were just like “yeah, fuck that shit.”

Chris Modoono: Also, while we were shooting, because of the hours kids are allowed to be on set, we would shoot wides with Gil and the kids, but when we were shooting close ups and medium shots in the classroom, the kids weren’t even there. And I never asked you if that helped because you thought you could go further, not having to look at them?

Gil Zabarsky: It was weirder for me when we did the short. Just to be saying these awful things in front of kids for the first time, I felt terrible. And the kids in the short were a lot younger.

Chris Modoono: Do you remember just before the first scene of the short, you were like “are we sure everyone is okay with with?” And one of the producers was standing there and yelled to the parents “you’ve all read the script right? You’re all okay with this right?”

Gil Zabarsky: I just felt like, what have I become?

Kate Flannery: It’s sort of like the scene from Bruno, when he’s interviewing the parents and he’s like “there could be heavy machinery around your babies” and they’re all like “yeah, that’s fine.”

The IBang: It should be said that while you are a very bad teacher, you are not a cruel or abusive teacher.

Gil Zabarsky: Yeah, there is a line in the sand there. But seriously, I’m always kind of hyperaware of myself anyway, wanting to be a good guy. And especially in this weird film world. So with kids, even the verbal stuff was awkward. So I hung out with the kids when we weren’t filming, hanging in a real way, so they know I’m not that kind of guy, and so it feels like they’re acting with a friend, not some weird guy with a beard.

Kate Flannery: Personally, I witnessed a lot of kindness on set, and I think it kept them calmer than if you had stayed in character.

Chris Modoono: I totally agree. And part of the reason we were able to pull this movie off in the first place was the fact that Gil was this kind of Pied Piper, in a good way, with the kids. They all just loved him and looked up to him, and he really fostered great relationships with them.

Gil Zabarsky: And I had this sack in case they misbehaved.

The IBang: How about acting opposite kids for you?

Kathleen Littlefield: Well my work with them was pretty easy, because I didn’t have to do anything terrible to them, just be wonderful and sweet. And I had younger kids, so it was good I didn’t have anything terrible to do to them, because if I had said what he said, they would have just been like “why are you doing this to us Ms. Abigail.” They actually called me Ms Abigail on set and were just so cute and sweet, I was so happy not to have to say anything cruel to them. So I just stayed in character. So I would tell them “I’m so sorry, I know it’s hot. We’re just going to walk across this parking lot one more time, and then you can have mini-Gatorades.” So I just bribed with sugar.

Gil Zabarsky: But really, for a five year old, a mini-Gatorade is just Gatorade.

The IBang: The movie equivalent of orange slices after soccer practice.

Chris Modoono: Those were the best as a kid.

The IBang: And you are their boss, but you don’t start out a bad boss, you are driven to becoming a bad boss by Gil’s character.

Kate Flannery: Well, I’ve even experienced in my own life, when I have a good argument about something, but then you just keep pushing the argument a little too far, to the point that you are becoming worse than the person you have the problem with. And then you start looking around for people to be on your side. There is this thing where the idea of being right can turn anyone into a monster. And it was a nice rivalry Gil and I had. I hope it will be the first of a six picture deal.

Chris Modoono: And we were talking about that before, that she is the villain or the antagonist in the film, but coming from a complete sense of riotousness. She is going about getting him fired the wrong way, but he should not be doing what he’s doing in the classroom.

The IBang: I would even say that for the first half of the movie, she’s in the right and he’s in the wrong.

Kate Flannery: Thank you! I’ve been saying that this whole time!

Gil Zabarsky: It’s when it becomes this weird personal vendetta for her, where she doesn’t care about the school, just being right. But you know what someone pointed out yesterday, was the fact that he speaks to the kids like they’re adults, and she speaks to my character like he’s a child. She’s just breaking everything down like he’s a moron.

The IBang: That is a good point, and you have that scene of her getting upset because he didn’t give his food preference for a luncheon. That is what children do when they check their lunch choice off for pizza day.

Kate Flannery: That is just part of occupational insanity. People with a small sense of power in the work place often have to try to justify their sense of power with the most minute details. They just micromanage like crazy.

Gil Zabarsky: I swear I didn’t plan this, but there is line in The Office, where someone says “this is the least amount of power to go to someone’s head.”

Kate Flannery: That was a constant theme.

The IBang: And we do create these little microcosm in our professional worlds.

Kate Flannery: And I do think that the idea of working in any job, an office or the classroom, has that similar dynamic. The teacher is the kids’ boss and you have to deal with the same people every day. Kids just aren’t getting paid.

Chris Modoono: Kissinger said…(everyone started mocking Chris for knowing Kissinger)…he said that he hates education because it’s like politics without any of the stacks.

Gil Zabarsky: But he said it like this (does a terrible impression).

Chris Modoono: Exactly how he said it.

The IBang: The premise of Tenured, in which he can’t get fired unless he does something terrible, is an interesting premise because we also have a lot of teachers losing their jobs and schools being closed because of low scores on standardized tests. Were you thinking about the real issues with the public school system at the time that you made the short and this?

Chris Modoono: Somewhat. My mother is a high school administrator and Gil and I spent a day talking to her and her administrators, asking to hear stories. And that was when we decided to make tenure the main plot point of the film. It’s funny you bring up those two issues because in this feature, not the short, those are the two main issues as to whether he will be fired or not. And we were definitely influenced by what was going on in the news, and what we heard talking to them.

The IBang: Did you film at a real school?

Chris Modoono: Yes, the school is named Pine Crest, and it’s a charter school in LA. We actually got really lucky because we didn’t start filming until September, when there are no schools available to be filmed in. We should have started 2 weeks early when every school is available. But this school had just closed. They had done summer sessions but closed in September, and they still had a lot of their furniture and we didn’t even need to change the orientation of the rooms. We just thought, this is how it’s been done for 40 years, this is how we’ll film it.

The IBang: Did you ever have particularly bad teachers or teachers you knew were at their breaking point?

Kathleen Littlefield: I didn’t, but in elementary school, we were convinced that two of our teachers, the math teacher and the science teacher, were having an affair, even though neither were married.

Chris Modoono: That’s not an affair.

The IBang: How old were you?

Kathleen Littlefield: Like nine. But we would just say “I think they’re dating. They’re doing it” And we were convinced, but I don’t even know if that was even true or we just thought it.

Chris Modoono: When you say doing it, what did you think they were doing?

Kathleen Littlefield: Holding hands in a closet maybe.

Kate Flannery: So not scissoring.

Kathleen Littlefield: Nope, didn’t even know what that was.

Kate Flannery: I had a seven grade teacher that quit in the middle of the year. She lost her mind. And then we had a replacement teacher, a man, and when I saw him last year, he was much shorter and gayer than I remembered.

Chris Modoono: I don’t think I had any teachers who were at their breaking point like that. How about you?

Gil Zabarsky: I had a lot, and I can’t name them by name. I had one who cried.

The IBang: What did you guys do?

Gil Zabarsky: I didn’t do anything. It took years of therapy to realize it wasn’t my fault. But I had one teacher, won’t even say the grade, who would come in always looking stressed out, and I would make a joke and she would just look at me like she wanted to kill me. And at the end of the year, I sang the song She Drives Me Crazy. And she looked like she wanted to kill me for that and we found her crying. The other teacher asked us what we did to her. She once grabbed my face. And ironically we had just covered stranger danger. We had a ginny pig for some reason as a class pet, and every week one of us had to take it home because she didn’t want to take care of it. She was pretty bad.

The IBang: Your mom being a teacher, has she given the movie her stamp of approval?

Chris Modoono: She loves it.

Kate Flannery: She slapped me.

Chris Modoono: Unrelated. She loved it and last night she brought her superintendent to the premiere.

Gil Zabarsky: I didn’t know that.

Chris Modoono: And he loved it and he sent it to a friend who is a distributor.

Gil Zabarsky: Thanks for telling us now!

Chris Modoono: I wanted you to have an honest reaction. I don’t think educators would be insulted by this movie. I can’t speak for everyone of course, but Gil and I teach at NYU, so we are teachers and I think there is a lot of truth in the movie, with an exclamation point. We all know there are great teachers who should be celebrated…we also have bad teachers.

Gil Zabarsky: And I would take it a step further and say, this is also a critique of the system. Ethan is pitiful and pathetic, but we are not saying its okay that he’s doing this.

Kate Flannery: And it’s circumstantial. He’s had a bad turn, and he hasn’t been like this the whole time.

Chris Modoono: And there’s probably not a single person in education who would say everything is perfect.

The IBang: Did you ever consider showing Ethan being that good teacher he used to be?

Gil Zabarsky: I think so. There was an idea we wanted to stress that it isn’t just his marriage that failed. He has this larger sense of being a failure in life. Ambition that died and hope that he never realized, that is making it impossible for him to be an a good teacher. But I don’t think it was necessary to show that in flashbacks or something.

Chris Modoono: And in the short film, his wife isn’t even character.

The IBang: All being skilled in improv comics, did you stick to the script or go off page?

Kate Flannery: It was so well written, I didn’t have the need to improv.

Gil Zabarsky: Chris and I love improv, but we did all that while writing the script. And we had a pretty tight filming schedule, so we stuck to the script.

Chris Modoono: There were a couple of jokes that made it in. The math joke and a lot of the school board scene was improvised.

The IBang: You’re biggest scene is the cheerleading story which you have to tell completely deadpan. Was it hard not to break?

Kathleen Littlefield: I had a hard time with that because it was so funny. But the good thing is in character, she’s so excited to be telling the story, so I was able to use the urge to laugh to get through it. But Gil will tell you, I messed up a number of takes laughing.

Chris Modoono: There is a take in the film with Kathleen and Alex Mills, and we got to the last frame of the scene, and they broke because she looked at Alex’s face.

Kathleen Littlefield: That was so hard because there is no preparation for Alex being there.

Chris Modoono: If you watch the film again, if you watch Alex’s face, he starts to crack and then they just lost it as soon as I said cut.

Gil Zabarsky: And about Alex Mills. I went to school with him.

Kathleen Littlefield: So did I.

Gil Zabarsky: But we were in the same year. And he was literally the best actor in my class and we were roommates. And as a human being, he is so intense and focused, that I can’t imagine turning around and being inches away from his face.

Kathleen Littlefield: It was so hard, I had to practice turning around and looking at him before we even started filming. And I ask “who are you” before I turn my head, because if I turned and tried to speak, I would start laughing.

Gil Zabarsky: Alex and I did a web series called Dracula and the Pre-Med student, and Chris directed a couple of those too, and it is impossible not to laugh at Alex.

Chris Modoono: The other scene that had people cracking up was the school board scene. And it was so funny, because going in, I was so excited thinking “it is a scene with all adults. They’re going to be so professional and on point.” And then they just kept cracking each other up.

The IBang: How did you two meet and come up with the short?

Gil Zabarsky: We met at Stone Street Studios, the screen actors studio. He was teaching and I was a student. And I’m ironically teaching there too.

Chris Modoono: That is not ironic.

Gil Zabarsky: Ironically, Chris was not an asshole back then. So we were constantly making each other laugh. And when I was high school, and a teacher was late, I would do a version of the character. And I did the character for Chris.

The IBang: Would you get in trouble for doing that?

Gil Zabarsky: Yes, but as a kid, I reached the point of thinking the things I get in trouble for bring me more pleasure than the pain from the punishment I get. So it was worth it.

The IBang: How did it become a feature?

Chris Modoono: We brought the feature to Tribeca and they promoted it and we got a lot of buzz online. So someone from Fox Digital Studios contacted us and asked if we had a feature length version. We said no, we don’t, and they hired us to write and make a feature. And it all happened very quickly. But it was easier to write the feature than to write from scratch, because we already had the characters and some of the scenes. We just had to add to those.

The IBang: And how about the casting for the feature?

Chris Modoono: Rachel Dratch was in the short, and she’s great. But when we were filming the feature she wasn’t available so we contacted Kate and thought she’s amazing.

Kate Flannery: And it was funny because I know Rachel Dratch from doing improv in Chicago.

Chris Modoono: Glad to have created some tension between you two. And Fox had seen the short, so they wanted Kathleen and Gil to be in the feature too.

 

 

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