In my theatrical review of The Internship, now available on Blu-ray, I expounded at some length on a curious quirk of casting: Rose Byrne plays the love interesting “Dana” in The Internship. She also played the young Moira MacTaggert in X-Men: First Class. At one point in The Internship, the heroes watch the X-Men movies. So… who plays Moira MacTaggert in the X-Men movies in the universe of The Internship? Does Dana look like Rose Byrne or does Rose Byrne not exist in this world, and if so, who played her parts in movies like Insidious and Bridesmaids?
Today, Shawn Levy answers my questions and… surprise! He thought about it too. He also admits he has begun to question whether it was wise to set The Internship at Google headquarters, and provides a somewhat disappointing update about the future of Real Steel 2.
Watch our CraveOnline exclusive preview of the Blu-ray special features from The Internship.
CraveOnline: There’s something that’s been plaguing my mind since I saw The Internship.
Shawn Levy: Let me see if I can unburden you.
That would be great. Thank you. In The Internship, the cast watches the X-Men movies, but Internship co-star Rose Byrne also stars in X-Men: First Class. Now, does this mean that her character looks exactly like Rose Byrne, or that someone else starred in X-Men: First Class within the universe of The Internship, just like in Last Action Hero?
I love that you’re going full nerd on me right out of the gate. Thank you. Super appreciate it. You’ll notice that Rose Byrne, of X-Men: First Class, is not IN the scenes where they’re watching X-Men, so I tried to sidestep such burdensome thoughts.
So that did occur to you while you were making the movie?
It did, actually. I think it occurred to me after the fact, and I really liked X-Men: First Class. I saw it and I have a lot of friends who worked on that movie. But it certainly did. I was more conscious of taking a clip from the old school Patrick Stewart and Hugh [Jackman] style, so I skirted that troublesome issue. But it sounds like you really like mindbenders, so I think you’re going to love Days of Future Past.
There’s a scene where the interns come up with, actually, a pretty good idea for a phone app. Were there other app ideas you came up with and didn’t use?
There were. The biggest problem… We worked, a lot of us, brainstorming apps for a long time. The problem is that any really good idea almost certainly exists and is likely famous. So the truth is, I believe, someone told me there is an app damned similar to the one they hatch at The Golden Gate Bridge, but it’s not too famous that everyone knows that. So there were other apps. I don’t remember what they were, but they kept getting eliminated because if it was a genuinely good idea, it almost always existed in real life.
And it’s tricky because if it’s not a really good idea, that scene doesn’t work.
Exactly right, and yet if it’s a really good idea it’s probably in the real world already. So that was definitely something that we had to deal with.
You also had to deal with the inner workings of Google itself. You couldn’t really make “this” movie at a fake company.
Well, it’s interesting. I’ve thought a lot about this subsequently because I absolute felt that I couldn’t make this movie at a fake company, because it would feel cheesy. And yet by making it at a real company, I feel like there was some resistance to the movie because people felt like they were being sold. I really kind of thought about it in retrospect. What was the answer? Would a fictional company have been better? In my mind it was cool to see the inner workings of something ubiquitous in our world, and yet as soon as we made that decision we were opening ourselves up to some degree of backlash for showing a corporate titan in too positive a light. So I don’t really know what the right answer was, but it’s a tricky double-edged sword.
Would the right answer possibly have been to have someone evil working at Google? Not an intern, but showing Google behind some sort of sinister conspiracy?
I guess so. I mean, I tried to make Chetty a dick, the Aasif Mandvi character? I tried to kind of complicate the rose-colored glasses view of Google. But even he turns out to be nice in the end. [Laughs] It may be that I should have adopted a more cynical viewpoint from the beginning. I’ve also wondered if maybe it would’ve tonally been a different thing if I’d just released the R-rated cut that’s on the DVD, which is fucking funny. So I don’t know what the answer is, but I’ve certainly spent a bit of time over the remainder of the summer thinking about it because it’s always an interesting thing when you put a real company in a movie.
Is there a cynical version of this film? It almost seems like a throwback in some ways…
I know, that’s another thing that I’ve heard. I think I don’t know what the cynical version would be, because it’s not the version I would make. The thing about my movies has tended to be, it’s not going to be for everyone, but I definitely seem to… I can’t deny this anymore. I’m on my tenth movie, and they do seem to be unified. Even Real Steel, which I’m sure a different director would have made that dark and more violent. I do have a pretty positivist, humanist, warmhearted world view, and clearly I can’t help myself but to put that in the work. So for better and for worse, The Internship does have an uncynical viewpoint in telling that underdog tale.
You bring up a good point. Your films really do feel kindhearted. Do you have a serial killer movie in you somewhere?
I don’t. I think that I have dramas in me, but again, they’d probably be cathartic, ultimately feel-good dramas like Shawshank Redemption or Good Will Hunting, which are heavier and more serious, but still feel so good because they’re ultimately affirmative and kind of aspirational. I think I’m at a point in my life where that’s clear to me, and I just made my first movie that’s as much drama as comedy, and it’s got the same kind of aspirational heart. So I think that’s just kind of how I’m built.
Do you enjoy darker movies personally, in your private time?
I do. Part of what I love about them… I’m trying to think of a recent one. Like Mud, I suppose that’s darker. I fucking love that movie. I loved it so much I reached out and just called Jeff Nichols, because I think it’s such a fine film. So I guess my point is, my taste as an audience is not always in complete synch with the things I would like to direct, and I try to direct movies that I feel I can do a particularly good job at. So yeah, I love a good thriller, but I don’t if I see myself making one.
This isn’t an Internship question, but again, I’m a big fan. The sequel to Real Steel was announced before the film came out. Is that still a possibility? Is anyone still working on it?
Yeah, there is. But with chagrin I will tell you I get asked this question probably more than any other question. There was something really unique about that movie, and I don’t want to make a second one that’s just different robots fighting. So it has proven much harder than anticipated to crack the script on that. We have not given up but we are not going to rush it into production. So far we haven’t found a stellar enough draft of this story to make it worth making, but it’s something Hugh and I are still committed to. We have, as I told you, crazy affection for that movie, and if we can find a second chapter worth telling, we will tell it.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
