Deliberately disconnected

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This article was published 28/09/2017 (3300 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — Of all the Seven Deadly Sins, envy is probably the most dominant transgression in Hollywood.

You wouldn’t know it to look at most Hollywood movies, which tend to emphasize the flashier offences, such as lust, greed or wrath.

But envy is front and centre the invisible star of the indie comedy Brad’s Status, starring Ben Stiller as Brad, a middle-aged Sacramento do-gooder who should be satisfied with his modest middle-class life in sunny Sacramento. He works facilitating for charities at his own organization. He is married to a lovely, understanding wife (Jenna Fischer) and he is accompanying his 18-year-old son Troy (Austin Abrams), a musical prodigy, on a tour of East Coast colleges.

Yet Brad becomes overwhelmed with self-doubt when circumstances force him to consider his more successful friends who somehow managed to emerge from the same college program with considerably more caches of wealth and/or fame.

The film was written and directed by Mike White, who has certainly enjoyed successes on projects such as School of Rock and the HBO series Enlightened.

Yet White, who also stars in a non-speaking role as one of Brad’s flamboyantly wealthy college chums, acknowledges that envy is the coin of the realm in Hollywood, where the successes of others are constantly broadcast for all to see.

“In Hollywood, you feel like people are winning the lottery all around you,” White says during a round of Sunday-afternoon roundtables during the Toronto International Film Festival. “And you’re like: ‘Oh, he’s not that good. And he just got a 10-picture deal for $4 billion?’

When he was sending the script around to actors, White says Ben Stiller was “a no-brainer choice for this.”

“He’s such a great actor, so I sent it to him and he read it and said, ‘I so relate to Brad.’

“And I’m like, If Ben Stiller, one of the most successful people in the industry that is my contemporary, if he relates to Brad, this may be a universal thing.”

“I just thought it was a very valid human feeling, a tendency we have,” Stiller, 51, says of his character. “And it’s valid to explore because it’s relatable. I think we all have that on a certain level.

“That’s what social media is all about, staying connected, yes, but it’s also about comparing.”

Hollywood actually is calibrated to compel that kind of thinking, Stiller says.

“Being creative in this world of show business, it does get competitive in the way it’s set up,” he says. “Going down the street and seeing billboards, you can see a million things you’re not being cast in.

“I’ve gone through that and it brings me no happiness whatsoever. So I really decided that’s not where I want to be, but the pangs happen all the time.”

The way Stiller has removed himself from the fray is bypassing social media, at least in part.

“I’m not on Facebook, which I think is the main way for people to keep up with each other,” he says. “I just never got in on Facebook when it started and then I still don’t understand it … which is why I’m not a billionaire.”

“I do Twitter, and a lot of it I do for charity stuff or for fun, but I’m not that comfortable doing the play-by-play of my life.”

Indeed, Stiller is in the public eye enough that details of his life, such as his recent marital breakup with Christine Taylor or his surgery for prostate cancer, will get attention whether he wants it or not. In that way, he can actually relate to the characters in Brad’s life who regularly inhabit cable news or the pages of lifestyle magazines.

“It’s a slightly strange thing to know that people you went to school with can keep tabs on me,” he says. “It’s always funny for me when I see people I haven’t seen in a long time,” he says with a laugh. “‘Oh my God, they got so old! That’s incredible! I didn’t age at all. What happened to them?’”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing