The School for Good and Evil’s Paul Feig on putting females front and center of his films
MANILA, Philippines — Perhaps at first glance, The School for Good and Evil doesn’t fit the mold of a “signature” Paul Feig film.
But once upon a time, Feig (Spy, Bridesmaids, The Heat, Ghostbusters) did a drama that could be seen as a precursor for his new fantasy drama on Netflix, which is based on the international best-selling series by American author Soman Chainani.
“When people kind of say, ‘Oh, this is such a different movie for you,’ I can go, it’s kinda like I did 20 years ago with Freaks and Geeks. There’s just not a lot of more magic in it,” Feig told The STAR during a recent virtual interview, referring to his 1999 series Freaks and Geeks that drew inspiration from his own high school experience.
Nevertheless, the fantasy genre was uncharted territory for Feig when he took on The School for Good and Evil.
In the film, best friends Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie) find themselves on opposing sides of a battle when they’re swept away into an enchanted school that identifies and trains future heroes and villains to keep the balance between Good and Evil.
“It’s scary because, you know, people are really... this book is really important to them,” he spoke about the challenges of adapting a well-loved book series into a film.
“So, it’s really just kind of making sure that you take all the main parts of it that tell the story that they love, and then figure out all the things that you can pull out of that, because obviously, there’s just too much story in the book.”
Below are more excerpts from his responses to the The STAR’s questions about his film that features a support cast of Hollywood big names — Charlize Theron, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh and Kerry Washington. Feig, hailed by Variety as King of Feminist Comedies, also bared why he enjoys putting women front and center of his works.
First and foremost, what attracted you to this project?
“Well, it is the relationship between Sophie and Agatha, this strong friendship between these two young women. I thought it was such a lovely message and I just love how dedicated they are to each other. How Agatha really never gives up on her friend even when things get very, very dark and bad between them and how their friendship really saves their lives. That means the world to me and all the world that we’re in for, that is all the window-dressing in the fun way to tell that story.”
You’re known for female-fronted films. Why are you drawn to these kinds of stories?
“I just feel more in tune with women’s stories. I don’t know. I grew up with a lot of women. I was an only child, very close with my mom, all my friends were girls. And, you know, I just saw them portrayed so poorly in movies. You get to know all these smart, funny women and you see them being one-dimensional characters and especially in comedy. I mean, you know, women had a bad time in comedy. They’re just the foils for the funny man. So it just kind of added up to going like, I’m only really interested in these stories. I just think I relate to them more because I’m not an aggressive person. A guy in a lot of men’s comedy is very funny but it’s very aggressive you know, it can be. And then, I just enjoy hanging out with the ladies just having fun.”
You’ve done different genres, what made you go into fantasy?
“I mean, outside of the story really drawing me in, it was the excitement of getting to create a world from the ground up for the first time. I’ve never gotten to do that before. Like, Ghostbusters is supernatural, but it’s in our world. But this, I get to design everything from the look of the buildings to the costumes and the clothes, the way people’s hair is. So, I think that was really the catnip for me.
“And then on top of that was getting to work with a lot of special effects to create magic and come up with new ways to do magic. You know, this whole thing we have in the movie, the (blood) magic is something that I came up with just because I wanted to separate this out from magic I saw in other movies. And it was then really fun to work with these amazing special effects people who then make it come to life and you’re just always amazed that you can have some crazy idea and suddenly they can do it. So yeah, so it was just really fun to build this world.”
What was your approach to the visual effects? How did you make it real even though it’s a film about magic and all?
“Well, we tried very hard to keep all the magic elemental. So that was kind of the earth and of nature. Eric Nordby, my special effects supervisor and myself, we didn’t want to… if you don’t ground it in some kind of reality, even though it’s magic, the sky’s the limit, you know what I mean? And then it starts to feel fake to me.
“So it was that but also doing as much practical effects as we could in camera. So like the wolf guards are actual guys in these big wolf suits, and they’re animatronic… but then we use CG to just kind of put a little more expression in their eyes, their ears and all that.
“Then when we were doing things like the Hester’s demon or the stem, that kind of thing, we would have big puppets that would kind of look like these things that. We had a puppeteer called Mikey, who would put on the green suit and run around and enact that out for them. So they were actually interacting with something more than size of what would be on the screen, as opposed to looking at tennis balls and laser pointers and all that kind of thing.
“It helps the actors and it helps me as the director, and it helps the crew capturing this to have that scale and to have it actually happening on camera even though some of it we were going to replace with special effects later.”
I’m curious, did you get to draw from any school experience, which informed and inspired how you directed this film?
“Yeah, I mean, while I did it. I created a series called Freaks and Geeks you know, about 20 plus years ago, and it was all about my high school experience, and it was all about bullies and then in being insecure and then kind of feeling like you’re trapped in the wrong place and you know, being judged and all that. So, honestly, I think, when people kind of say, ‘Oh, this is such a different movie for you,’ I can go it’s kinda like I did 20 years ago with Freaks and Geeks. There’s just not a lot of more magic in it.
“But I don’t think we ever get past that. That trauma of having bullied and being put down upon by, you know, people around you. I really think, you know, putting this in a school like that, which is so polarized, is a great way to kind of tell these stories so that young people learn.”
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