Director-actor-writer-producer Michael Showalter’s career ranges from straight-up comedy such as “The State,” “Wet Hot American Summer” and “Search Party” to more nuanced projects including “Hello, My Name Is Doris,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (for which Jessica Chastain won an Oscar) and “The Dropout” (Amanda Seyfried won an Emmy for that limited series). His latest film, “Spoiler Alert,” which was released Dec. 2. through Focus Features, is based on Michael Ausiello’s memoir and stars Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge as a couple who face tragic illness and personal difficulties but persevere. Along the way, there are lots of Christmas decorations, Sally Field and even more Smurfs — which Ausiello collects.
• Is Sally Field your muse? She does such nice work in “Spoiler Alert” and of course “Doris.” Yeah, she is in a way. I just really love her. I mean, just in terms of her acting, she’s someone that is so versatile in terms of the range. She’s so good comedically but she’s also got this just endless well of humanity and there’s just such complexity in Sally and I think, whether that’s heartbreak or anger or strength or vulnerability, she’s just so many different things.
• How did you land her for “Spoiler Alert”? We all from day one talked about having her play that role and one of the screenwriters, David Marshall Grant, was one of the main showrunners of the TV show “Brothers & Sisters” (on which Field starred) so between David Marshall Grant and me, we felt Sally had no choice.
• You seem to draw award-winning performances from your actors. I come from an acting background. For the first kind of part of my career, I was doing a lot of performing … I sort of understand the craft a little bit, so maybe that helps me speak the language. I also have a deep love for it, and so there’s a part of me that is a fan; I’m part director, but part audience member and I’d like to believe that I’m very supportive of people.
• What do you like best? Acting, writing or directing? I really like the directing process — that beginning to end of telling a story. You know, the acting thing I really don’t have a lot of desire to do anymore. I have great appreciation for it but it’s not something that appeals to me terribly. I love telling a story, developing characters, creating a world and working with all the different departments that I collaborate with in the telling that story.
• What are the kinds of stories that you want to tell? “Spoiler Alert” is a funny and touching rom com. I think I’ve found, as I’ve kind of gone through my career, especially as a director, I like it when there’s some sort of larger relevance to it.… I found that I like telling a story that can be funny, that can have humor in it. I mean, “The Dropout” is a really good example of that. It’s so funny. “The Big Sick” is really funny, “Spoiler Alert” is really funny. But then I think I need that other thing [where] there’s some bigger thing going on that helps me get more invested in it because that’s what real life is like. Real life is both very serious, but also very ridiculous at the same time.
• Where did you get all the Smurfs for Michael’s bedroom scenes? He very graciously donated it to the production, but we had to be very careful with it so that he could get all of it back intact. I mean, that was only a very small portion of it too — he has a way larger collection than that.