Its a pretty common dream: Lets make a movie.
It gave him a story to tell, and everyone knows thats the main ingredient for making a movie.
I had wanted to make films since I was in college, says Birbiglia, 34.
Adam Beckman
But he didnt know what he was doing, and his amateur filmmaking endeavor turned into a fiasco.
I lost so much money and didnt even finish the short, Birbiglia says.
I found it to be completely devastating.
I couldnt even finish editing the film.
I was so deeply embarrassed.
So he gave up.
I was like, I justcant…make… movies, he recalls.
Thats when he began chasing another quixotic career: stand-up comic.
The appeal at the time was that comedy seemed, if not easy, at least less hard.
It was just him and a mic.
If he failed, nobody would know.
Nobody except the people in the room watching him.
A WANNABE COMEDIAN WALKS INTO A BAR …
I thought: Icould live on that.
So he went for it, and realized again… he had no idea what he was doing.
Its much more difficult than it sounds, Birbiglia recalls with a pained laugh.
It was really hard and long hours driving to parts of the country where people dont want to go.
He also wasnt good.
Its a profession built on failure humiliating failure, where you either kill or you die onstage.
Birbiglia died a lot.
He had girlfriend troubles, and parent troubles, just like anybody.
Then the sleepwalking problem came up, a manifestation of his unsettled mind.
Not everybody has that.
At one point, he woke up covered in glass after crashing through the window of his hotel room.
Like the Hulk, as he says in his act.
That was the key the act.
The worse his life got, the more material he had.
For years, I could not tell people that story.
I was so ashamed, so deeply ashamed.
Now, Im telling it on a national radio show.
But for literally 10 years, I didnt utter a word about that story to anyone in my life.
Those are the stories you should tell.
The one thing youre most reluctant to tell.
Thats where the comedy is.
It began kind of independently of us, Glass said at Sundance this year.
They now have several projects in the early stages of development, butSleepwalk With MewasTALs first big cinematic endeavor.
Glass wanted to make a film.
Birbiglia wanted to make a film.
We decided, Why not have a go at make this a film?'
From the moment he suggested it, it was obvious it could be a movie, Glass says.
You have a character going through this change, that anybody could relate to.
Ira and I are bothnotof the Hollywood mindset of, like, Lets keep developing …
Both of us are just very muchdoers.
And theres an upside to that and downside of that.
Ira produces a national radio show every week.
Its absurd, the amount of productivity involved.
Were both always in the process of writing and producing and completing things.
We were like, No.No, weare.
Were just going to go make it for less money.
I will owe peopleforeverfor helping me make this, Birbiglia says.
Im just praying they all dont plan to write and direct and star in their own movies.
Hed like to make another indie film soon.
Probably the happiest ending is not just that he made the movie, but that hes still around.
But he made it, so we can all laugh about it now.
To paraphrase Nietzsche: that which does not kill you… can be kind of hilarious.
Yes, you need time, certainly from the embarrassing moment.
Thats the thing about telling these stories for the first time.
They were not funny the first 10 times I told them onstage because I was so deeplyuncomfortabletelling them.
Telling those stories enough times, and actually bombing with them, helped find the little nuggets of comedy.
Does he still bomb today the way his novice character does in the movie?
Any time I try anything new, Birbiglia says.
It takes a tremendous amount of failure to make those stories work.
