The Infinite Man was my favorite discovery at SXSW this year. The time travel comedy stars Josh McConville as Dean, a scientist who uses his latest invention to go back in time and save his relationship to Lana (Hannah Marshall). Marshall and the film’s writer/director, Hugh Sullivan were in Austin to discuss the film. I tried to keep the interview spoiler light since most of you won’t have a chance to see The Infinite Man for a while. However there are some awesome time bending events early enough in the film that I felt it was safe to ask about them.
CraveOnline: I have a few questions about the time travel. What did they eat for a year?
Hannah Marshall: [Laughs]
Hugh Sullivan: Non-perishable tinned food.
Did Dean think of that?
Hugh Sullivan: He tends to have a plan so yes, there would have been supplies nearby.
Did they do laundry?
Hugh Sullivan: Yes, actually. We cut a scene of them doing laundry, brushing their teeth and eating. There were scenes of Dean eating from tinned food so all of the things that explained how they survived for a year were actually cut.
How did each of you keep track of which versions of alternate Deans and Lanas were in each scene?
Hugh Sullivan: Yeah, I had been with the story for quite some time by the time we were on the set, so for me it was probably easier than others just by virtue of the fact that I had been with it for so long. I’m very curious to hear, go ahead, Hannah.
Hannah Marshall: Mine wasn’t as hard as Josh’s obviously because there were so many but we tracked it. Remember that diagram?
Hugh Sullivan: Yeah, we spent most of rehearsals just drawing diagrams.
Hannah Marshall: And working out where exactly they were when they switched so therefore what versions [I’m playing]. It was sort of up to the point where the partners switch over that we could track where each Lana was, but because of where the film goes, whereas Josh got clearer towards the end the different versions of Dean, you weren’t supposed to be aware until you re-watch it that there are slightly different versions of her so that I didn’t give it away.
Aren’t there as many Lanas as there are Deans because each time – –
Hannah Marshall: [Shakes head]
Your’e saying no, there are more Deans?
Hugh Sullivan: There are more Deans. He travels back more times so there are more Deans.
I figured every time you switched with the previous Lana it created two more of each in the time loop.
Hugh Sullivan: Dean is operating, and I guess the audience is as well, under a slight misunderstanding of the truth of the situation. Lana’s journey is actually a lot simpler than Dean believes, and the audience as well because the audience is along with Dean for his whole journey. So in some ways, his story’s a bit easier to track whereas Lana’s is actually the simpler journey but just experienced by the audience and by Dean in a slightly nonlinear way.
Hannah Marshall: So by virtue of when you have the full script and can read and track it, you could work it out. When you’re watching it like that, it’s not until the very end that you see.
So if we go back and watch, are you wearing a microphone and earpiece in the first scene where you meet future Dean?
Hugh Sullivan: Yes, yes, that’s right. I think you’ll find that it was there on the day but it’s generally concealed by hair but were were sure to put it in so that it would be there. I didn’t want to cheat.
And you purposely obscured it when you shot that portion.
Hugh Sullivan: Yes, we wanted it to appear as invisible to the audience as it was to Dean I suppose.
You never identify them as Past Dean or Future Dean. You just say the other Dean. What was the decision not to come up with more clear identifiers?
Hugh Sullivan: The script was quite different and in fact every Dean and the other Lana, all the multiple versions of themselves were numbered. It created an unpleasant reading experience. It was just very dry and not so interesting. We wanted people just to go along with it and to always be with the one Dean as he travels back and back. They’re always just with the one and we’re not cutting so much between. The multiple Deans were always following the one person’s point of view, so that’s why it just seemed easier for an audience to simply refer to them as “other” rather than getting into a numbering system.
Hannah Marshall: And there are details when we’re filming it that distinguished the Dean if you went back. There are physical things, the shirt and the h[air], they get more disheveled. If you look at it, his actual physical self changes, but that’s for the second and third viewing.
But there’s the same state of stubble on every Dean. Why not have one version clean shaven?
Hugh Sullivan: It would have added a further complication to scheduling. It was such a tight schedule. Josh was playing the multiple Deans at once. First he’d play one Dean and then skip over to the other side and play the other, so it created complications. Maybe with more time, we could have built those added things into it but we felt it wasn’t essential to the story we were telling.
Everyone jokes about having sex with each other’s past selves, but it turns out there’s still jealousy, isn’t there?
Hannah Marshall: Yeah, I loved that aspect of it because ultimately they did become different people to them even though it’s their own self, so that jealousy and even when Dean is watching his future self, past self. Is it his past self having sex with Lana?
Hugh Sullivan: Future.
Hannah Marshall: His future self. It was a very interesting aspect of the human psyche.
Hugh Sullivan: Perhaps one looks at one’s more youthful and more accomplished self with a degree of envy as time passes. I just wanted to tap into those sorts of ideas and feelings in a very literal way.
When the two Deans make contact, they don’t melt like in Timecop.
Hannah Marshall: [Laughs]
What is your theory about same matter? I always thought the Timecop thing was bullshit myself.
Hugh Sullivan: To be honest, this film is obviously partly science fiction but it’s certainly leaning more towards the fictional than the scientific, so it was just a vehicle to explore these characters and these thematic ideas that grow out of his idiosyncratic thoughts.
You seem like a man of exquisite tastes. I assume you’ve seen Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Timecop.
Hugh Sullivan: Yeah, perhaps if it assisted the story in some way, we may have used it but we were dealing with enough as it was.
They were ten years apart in Timecop so that’s clearly different matter, but I think even if you’re one year apart, even one second apart, your molecules change so much that it’s different matter.
Hugh Sullivan: You’re changing every single [moment], that’s right.
Where did you find that abandoned motel?
Hugh Sullivan: I’d written the script and we were looking for a location. It was set more in a caravan park type space. We searched for most of south Australia which is quite a large space, just at every rural caravan park. Then we finally found this one. It’s an operational caravan park in Woomera and out the back is this section, part of which is unused. So it just looked like the perfect space for a comedy romance. Yes, I re-tailored the script to the space so it informed the story a great deal.
It was definitely a great location for the movie, but it didn’t look like it was ever a nice place for an anniversary weekend. Was it ever a more luxurious place?
Hugh Sullivan: I think its history is more military so I think Dean’s tastes are eccentric to say the least.
Hannah Marshall: Yeah, I think of them as a couple that it was less about it being a fancy resort as it was just a beautiful weekend they’d had together.
Hugh Sullivan: Dean creates experiences.
That’s what I got even before any of the time travel started, just the idea that repeating the events from a good time doesn’t make it another good time. Did that theme appeal to both of you?
Hannah Marshall: Yeah, I thought that was really interesting, that desire to recreate and wanting, even the thing in the film that the tighter you hold onto something or try to control it, the more damaging it can be. I thought that was a really interesting thing to look at and yet that same aspect of trying to recreate something exactly the same way doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to fix it.
We’ve all done it.
Hannah Marshall: Exactly, we’ve all done it.
Hugh Sullivan: And it’s interesting just the parallels between Dean and us as filmmakers. It’s this guy seeking to create some sort of perfection in this contingent universe and just failing as a result, and yet we’re trying to do exactly the same thing, just control our surrounds entirely against similar sort of disasters.
Hannah Marshall: At times it’s giving into the weather and the schedule and the budget or whatever, completely.
Did you have to have as much control over the film as Dean did over his plan to pull off the movie?
Hugh Sullivan: That’s exactly what I’m saying. That was certainly the attempt but as with Dean, there are just aspects over which you have no control. You just have to surrender yourself to but I certainly had to be on top of things with a story like this.
How did you like wearing the same dress every day?
Hannah Marshall: [Laughs] Yeah, my God, it was so nice when we wrapped to just be done with the one, but it was kind of great because there were no surprises from one day to another. We knew what we were in and we knew what hair and makeup was doing.
Hugh Sullivan: I think as soon as we called wrap on the final scene of the film, Hannah just stormed off towards the horizon.
Hannah Marshall: It definitely became like a second skin so it was nice to get into regular clothes.
Hugh, you had done four shorts before this film. If people become fans of The Infinite Man, are your shorts available online?
Hugh Sullivan: I believe not. They were very much learning experiences.
Hannah Marshall: They’re great. You should put them on [a DVD].
Hugh Sullivan: [Laughs]
Hannah Marshall: You’re like, “No.”
How long has The Infinite Man been gestating?
Hugh Sullivan: A while now. It’s been a few years. The scripting was what took a lot of time. It was a set budget that we were working to. There was no money to throw at problems. It all had to be worked out on the paper. I just wanted to create something that would be very enjoyable while still being at the lower end of the budget spectrum.
How did you begin mapping out the story?
Hugh Sullivan: It changed dramatically as I wrote it. With every draft it would become a different story almost, so I think by the time I had the story that ended up onscreen, it just pretty much existed in my head. I found I would draw diagrams to Hannah and the other actors and pretty much to anyone who read the script and instantly asked for a diagram. I felt I just had been living it for a while now.
Hannah Marshall: On set, for sure. When we had any queries you knew exactly why and how which was really helpful to keep track of the time traveling and what state and why and what we were doing. It was very helpful because he was so inside it. It was cool.
What was the first version?
Hugh Sullivan: I can’t clearly recall. It was just something different. Always the same characters but different things happened.
Hannah, you’ve done a lot of Australian television. Was The Infinite Man one of your first movies?
Hannah Marshall: Yeah, it was the first feature that I’ve done. I’d done a lot of TV and theater so this just came on the eve of finishing the show that I’d done in Australia so it was amazing timing. It was nerve wracking and exciting.
Did you audition for Hugh?
Hannah Marshall: We never met until shooting it, but I auditioned before Christmas and found out just before Christmas. I sort of felt like it was maybe a joke, because I was like, “No, really? Are they serious?” Because everything shut down for Christmas and then it turned out it was real. You hear and I was so excited but maybe they’ll change their mind, so it was nice to actually go back and do it. So yes, it was my first.
What do you want to write and direct next, Hugh?
Hugh Sullivan: I’m working on something at the moment with Sandy Cameron who was the producer on this film. It’s a sci-fi comedy type thing. It’s looking to be a strange film. That’s all I can say at the moment.
Do you think this will be a genre you always gravitate towards, sci-fi with a twist of comedy?
Hugh Sullivan: I think not exclusively, no.
Of course not exclusively, but it’s a rare field for creative people to be involved with.
Hugh Sullivan: It just seems it’s an interest and it’s a vehicle for just telling really interesting stories. It’s a great way of exploring the thematic ideas that I’m interested in.
What’s next for you, Hannah?
Hannah Marshall: I’m living in L.A. now so I did a couple jobs after this one in Australia and then moved out in September/October. So not as yet but we’re waiting.
Do you do an American accent for roles?
Hannah Marshall: Well, I do an Australian because I’m from New Zealand so I do an Australian accent in this film. I’m Kiwi and out here, of course, yeah, I have to do an American accent. You have to be a vocal chameleon.
Can you do British, French or any other accents?
Hannah Marshall: Yeah, I’m a big fan of accents and I’m sort of an accent snob so I learn by mimicking people and grew up watching movies. Of course most of the films we grew up on are American or British generally, so yeah, we copy those. I think my Scottish accent’s kind of a joke Scottish accent. I literally learned Scottish from So I Married an Axe Murderer. “I got a Garth Brooks juice maker. Juice everything now.”
Who did you mimic to do Australian?
Hannah Marshall: Oh, living there for a while it sort of became part of the bones but I started because I just like to not stand out because the accent is quite different between New Zealand and Australia. When I first moved to Australia I was working as a waitress and giving people change, in New Zealand we say sex, and Australians say seex. It’s a slight difference, but I’d give people change and then they’d go, “Uh?” and so then I just started speaking like an Australian just to blend in.
Hugh, what to you are the most satisfying time travel movies?
Hugh Sullivan: I don’t know if it counts but it often seems to be brought up by people. I think Groundhog Day is kind of a perfect film but I guess that’s not quite what you’re thinking. I really enjoy the film.
I guess it is. Technically he goes back in time to the beginning of the day, just no other days.
Hugh Sullivan: He’s still traveling through time I suppose. So that would be for me a perfect kind of film. Back to the Future is a lot of fun. Primer is a great film. That was quite inspiring just in terms of its low budget and its success working within that budget. There are just so many.
Hannah Marshall: I think Memento.
See, that’s time travel to us watching it, but it’s chronological to him.
Hannah Marshall: Of course, but it’s his disjointed memory.
Hugh Sullivan: La Jetee as well.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
