Shrek Forever After's Director Faked An Illness To Go Work For David Lynch Instead
In my younger, more debaucherous days, I faked sick for all sorts of reasons. Maybe I didn't want to go to school that day, maybe I wanted to drive three states over to hang out with someone I met on Tumblr (I never said they were good decisions), or maybe I just needed a break. There's no harm in playing a little bit of hooky, but "Shrek Forever After" director Mike Mitchell should be in the Hall of Fame of faking sick. Mitchell spoke with Total Film magazine about his upcoming film, "Kung Fu Panda 4" and shared some fun stories about the first time he directed the fourth installment of an animated franchise. As it turns out, there was a week of production during "Shrek Forever After" when Mitchell suddenly became very ill and needed to take the week off.
Well, apologies to DreamWorks, but Mitchell was faking it.
"I shouldn't say this on the phone with everyone from DreamWorks listening ... but here's what happened: I was directing 'Shrek 4' at DreamWorks, and I found out that David Lynch needed an on-set [production assistant] for a night shoot on 'Inland Empire,'" he explained. "It was a very difficult shoot that he was doing." Mitchell confessed that he faked sick for a week to be an on-set production assistant, doing anything Lynch asked of him. "He had a one-legged blonde Asian woman with a monkey. He had a lumberjack sawing wood. He had 12 Nubian dancers. It was Laura Dern and Isabella Rossellini. It was on a mansion floor, and it was a spectacular, giant, one-shot sequence. And David was on the camera himself," he said.
Mike Mitchell followed his Lynchian dream
"Shrek Forever After" brought in over $752.6 million at the box office, so it's safe to say Mitchell's week of faking sick didn't impact the film's overall success. The animated film was a financial hit and Mitchell had the chance to work with a legendary director. As far as I'm concerned, everybody won.
"It was a blast. And then I learned how David Lynch makes a movie," he said. "He gave me as much direction as he gave Laura Dern. He's very serious and focused. It was amazing." David Lynch is the type of director as famed as an individual as the works that he makes, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a creative in the industry who wouldn't also do what Mitchell pulled off. David Lynch is a one-in-a-million kind of filmmaker, and there's always something new to learn from him.
"By the way, he's one of two directors I've worked with that's allowed to smoke on the set," Mitchell joked. "Smoking is not allowed on sets. But the guy smoked his face off the whole time." This tracks with what we learned about Lynch on the set of Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans," where he reportedly smoked 16 cigars while on set for his role as director John Ford. Smoking is super bad for you, there's no doubt about it, but Lynch doesn't seem like the type to put much concern about that. Does smoking make him cooler? No, but his devil-may-care attitude certainly does. He's definitely someone who would probably encourage faking sick to hang out on his set.