SLIFF 2016 Interview: Doug Archibald – Star and Director of I LOVE YOU BOTH

I LOVE YOU BOTH screens Saturday, Nov. 5 at 6:00pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Director/writer/co-star Doug Archibald and writer/co-star Kristin Archibald will be in attendance. Ticket information can be found HERE

In I LOVE YOU BOTH, the charming first feature from St. Louis native Doug Archibald, twins Krystal and Donny (real-life siblings Kristin and Doug Archibald) are codependent, still living together in their late 20s in a converted one-bedroom house. When they both meet and start dating the same guy, however, the twins confront the fact that they can no longer live the same life — a choice needs to be made. With nowhere to turn for advice except their only two friends — a former Tae Bo teacher and their mother — the twins are finally forced to look for answers from within.

Doug Archibald took the time to answer some questions for We Are Movie Geeks about his film I LOVE YOU BOTH.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman

We Are Movie Geeks: What was your filmmaking experience before you made I LOVE YOU BOTH?

Doug Archibald: Before making I Love You Both I had line produced a feature the year after I graduated from UCLA’s film school in the undergrad program.  I had taken a grad class there on producing features and my friend Ryan Finnerty (who produced I Love You Both) hired me to line produce on the film. After that, I worked on various other digital and television productions, producing and script supervising, while I was writing I Love You Both with Kristin. But I think that class, where we actually broke down a script and had to produce a budget, and then line producing a real feature was what gave me the confidence to do it on my own. My emphasis at UCLA was also directing, but I hadn’t directed anything except the pitch trailer for I Love You Both since my thesis short at UCLA.

WAMG: How did you get the idea for the I LOVE YOU BOTH story? Is it at all autobiographical? Were these characters based on people you know?

DA: Kristin and I came up with these twin characters when I was on my first summer break at UCLA. We were writing a feature about these co-dependent twins that had nothing to do with the film as it is now, and then we remembered that a long time ago we both liked the same person for one day–(and then immediately stopped liking him when we realized that)–but started thinking about what would’ve happened had we not immediately stopped talking to that person and if we had both continued to hang out with him for an inappropriate amount of time. We changed the script dramatically then over the course of a few years writing it. It became more of a comedy-drama than just a comedy. The only character based on a real person though (besides ourselves) is our mother, who essentially plays herself.

WAMG: What is your relationship like with your sister in real life? Are you really twins? Did she have to audition? What’s your code word for “party emergencies”?

DA: We are not actually twins but we are definitely best friends. Both of us had to “audition” ourselves for the film. We made a pitch trailer together where we produced a few scenes from the script with friends and tested ourselves as actors, playing the twins, to see if we were terrible or not. Surprisingly the response to that was the opposite–people actually really liked the “natural” energy between us and the pitch trailer ended up being a big help in getting the film financed and getting other actors in to read for the other parts. And we do not really have a code word for party emergencies. Ha. But we probably should.

WAMG: Which one of you is your mother’s favorite?

DA: Ha. I’m sure she doesn’t have a favorite.

 WAMG: Were any other family members involved in the film?

DA: Both of my parents were incredibly supportive in making this film, and that goes for the rest of my family as well. Everyone was involved in some way. We raised some of the funds for the film on Indiegogo and we relied heavily on everyone in our family to spread the word about our campaign, not to mention making donations themselves. My cousin Jessica (Luther) also played a major role in connecting us with Jes Kramer, who was one of our composers, as well as many other bands who were kind enough to let us use their music in the film. We had to use every resource imaginable. Our aunt connected us with a friend of hers in Riverside, who let us shoot at her home for free (it’s our mother’s house in the film.) It was amazing how everyone came together for us and is something I will never forget.

WAMG: Where was I LOVE YOU BOTH filmed?

DA: It was filmed in Los Angeles, Riverside, and Solvang, CA.  The twins “treehouse” is actually my house in Bel Air, so that was convenient. Many friends were kind enough to let us take over their apartments/homes for a day. The hotel exterior was shot in Solvang as well as when Krystal and Andy are walking to the show. The interior of the motel (the forest room) was actually an upstairs room in someone’s house in LA that we found. Initially we were going to dress a room as the “forest room” but my boyfriend actually found this amazing room instead and we didn’t have to build, which was nice. Thank God!

WAMG: What were some of the challenges in getting this film completed?

DA: Funding the film and finding the time when Kristin and I could take a month off from our day jobs and personal lives were the biggest challenges.  During writing the film, Kristin still lived in St. Louis and I was in LA. So the script was written over the phone mostly, which was really difficult. Then, when it came time to make the film, Kristin actually moved to LA permanently a year before production. Luckily, we were able to find exactly one month in 2015 to shoot it when the show I was working on went on hiatus and Kristin could be off work. Everything else had to shift around that. Besides that, all the normal challenges of making an independent feature were of course present, but we were working with amazing people who always rolled with the punches and at the end of the day we got pretty lucky actually! We never encountered anything that really set us back or deterred us from shooting that we couldn’t overcome. We were able to shoot every page of the script without having to make any changes due to setbacks in the schedule, thanks to a really dedicated team of awesome people.

WAMG: Were you involved in the filmmaking community when you lived in St. Louis?

DA:  I was still trying to figure out what to do with my life when I lived in St. Louis (ha).  When I was studying film at Webster I was also studying piano performance, so I was very busy and still very unsure about my path. But about when I decided that filmmaking was what I wanted to do full-time is around the same time I got into the UCLA film program, so I never really had the chance to get into the filmmaking community in St. Louis. I think by the time I would’ve started making more films with my classmates  at Webster I was just transferring out. But Webster was full of amazing, talented, nice people, many of whom are still friends of mine, and it would’ve been amazing to continue at Webster, but ultimately I wanted to move to LA. :)

WAMG: Did you grow up a movie buff?

DA: Only in the sense that I loved making films. I made a feature in high school and was obsessed with making films specifically since middle school when we did a stop motion project. I did not binge watch movie by any means though. For some reason I never felt the obligation/desire to binge every Tarantino movie like other filmmakers do. I definitely should have, but I think sometimes after watching so many films I feel exhausted.

WAMG: Who are some of your favorite filmmakers?

DA: This is a really difficult question to answer. I don’t really have favorites.

WAMG: Did the actors improvise much or did they stick closely to the script?

DA: There was not much improvising. The film is pretty true to the dialogue in the script. Oddly enough the most improvising was done by my mother. A lot of her dialogue was based on things she had said before and she did a really good job expanding on that. My Mom has never acted before, but when she showed up in LA her script had pencil markings all over it and lines of dialogue scratched out. She was really serious about it and added a lot of great stuff that ended up working.

WAMG: How has the film been received so far? 

DA: We have been feeling very good about the film’s reception. We received multiple offers on the film at Cinequest and right now we are working through and deciding on the best home for it! Once we make a decision, we will be able to announce a release date sometime this year!

WAMG: What’s next for Doug Archibald?

DA: Kristin and I have a pilot script that we are very excited about. The story doesn’t have anything to do with the film, but also we do eventually want to come back to these characters and write something for television. But I think right now we have had so many ideas in our head the last few years that we’ve had to put aside while making this film, and we want to explore them now that we have the time. And ultimately I think you should write what excites you. I write on my own, as does Kristin, and I want to continue directing, but I think Kristin and I just love writing together and we work together really well, so we end up writing together primarily. As siblings, we play off of each other’s strengths and we have fun doing it. I think for right now, we’re excited to be working on a project that doesn’t put us both under the microscope as people.

This interview was conducted when I LIVE YOU BOTH screened at QFest in April