Mark Duplass Says Therapy Has Made Him Okay with Not Being a Coen Brother
Occasioned by the Netflix release of “Blue Jay,” Exclaim! has published an interview with the prolific Mark Duplass. The film’s writer and star — who, along with his brother/collaborator Jay, is set to make three more films for the streaming platform — talks about turning 40, high school regrets and how therapy has made him okay with not being one of the Coens.
“I’m a nostalgic and melancholic person,” Duplass admits, and though he rarely expresses that in his work, “Blue Jay” represented an opportunity to “open the fucking floodgates and just let it all spill out over a black and white movie.” He and Sarah Paulson star as a former couple who have a chance encounter years after their relationship ended. As for therapy, Duplass says it’s helped him to grow as a filmmaker — he’s now able to say, “Huh, I don’t know. Let’s try to figure this thing out.”
READ MORE: Mark Duplass Explains Why He Bailed on Hollywood and Embraced Netflix
Prior to therapy, he says, he was “so deathly afraid to do that, because I thought it meant I was a shitty filmmaker. And the admitting of the not knowing and the hunt to figure it out has turned out to be what I have to offer as a filmmaker, if anything. And I used to be ashamed of that, because I’d watch Coen Brothers movies and think, ‘These guys fucking know everything!’ And now I’ve learned to forgive myself for not being a Coen brother and it’s okay.”” Read his full interview here.
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