Paul Feig is best known for directing the movie Bridesmaids. Here, the 63-year-old filmmaker talks about the important women in his life, including an over-bearing grandmother, his emotional mother and falling in love with his wife, Laurie.
Paul Feig: “I love directing women and try very hard to create a safe environment.”Credit: Robert Ascroft/Lionsgate
My maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, was British and lived in Canada. She was proper, quiet and demure. I named my gin label Artingstall’s after her.
My paternal grandmother, Clara, was a boisterous Jewish woman, an overbearing, cartoon-like mother-in-law who terrorised my mother.
I am an only child and I was very close to my mom, Elaine, growing up in Michigan. She was funny and liked goofy humour. She was also very highly strung and emotional – I had to hide bad news from her. And I was mindful not to be upset around her when bad things happened to me, especially when I got into showbiz. We had a very interesting relationship.
Mom became a Christian Scientist after meeting my dad when they were in their late 30s. My grandmother Clara was also a Christian Scientist; apparently a lot of Jews converted in the 1920s.
Dad wanted a big family but Mom didn’t. She was almost 40 when she had me and didn’t have any success having another kid. She confided in my wife a story I didn’t know – that my dad wanted to adopt another child. He had it all set up and ready to go. When the adoption agency came to our house and Dad left the room, my mother told them she didn’t want the child. They got turned down by the agency and Dad never knew why.
Dad wanted a big family but Mom didn’t. She was almost 40 when she had me and didn’t have any success having another kid.
PAUL FEIG
Mom got me piano lessons as a five-year-old, then ballet classes. She could see I wanted to be in the entertainment industry and encouraged me. At 15, I wanted to be a stand-up comic. At 17, I moved to California.
Growing up, I was constantly in love with girls who didn’t give me the time of day. Marlena was a beautiful Italian girl with black hair, very mysterious-looking. Mom gave me a special bracelet to give to her. I wrapped it and put it on her desk. I never said anything about it being from me.
Mom died suddenly in 2000. Being a Christian Scientist, she hated anything to do with medicine or doctors. Losing her was a big shock.
My drama teacher in high school, Stephanie Conrad, was a brassy blonde woman. One day at school there was an emergency phone call for me and I ran to the office, thinking my parents were dead. It was Stephanie. She’d gone home with a guy and left her car at a bar. She wanted me to pick her up. I was this kind of weird enabler for her, but she also taught me so much about theatre and how to have confidence in myself. She died young.
I met my wife, Laurie, in 1990. It turned out I’d met her at a few parties, but I didn’t remember. After meeting, we went back to my house with a six-pack of beer. I guess I was her type – she thought Jerry Lewis was sexy.
I had a career as an actor and Laurie became my manager. I also had a huge fear of commitment – we dated secretly for four years – but when the 1994 Northridge earthquake happened [near Los Angeles], I was with Laurie and it was pretty terrifying. In that moment, I thought, “Let’s get married!” I fired her and proposed to her on the same day.
Neither Laurie nor I wanted kids. We’ve got some godchildren but it’s always a case of we’ll see them when they can drink.
I love directing women and try very hard to create a safe environment so people feel that they can try anything. Actors Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney are like two thoroughbreds to work with. In The Housemaid, Sydney’s performance is super subtle, right up until things go haywire. Amanda has to be this unpredictable, crazy person. I was amazed at where they could take their characters.
The Housemaid is in cinemas December 26.
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