Kieran Culkin on His Role in Esoteric New Flick Wiener-Dog

This week sees the return of the master of suburban American disillusionment, Todd Solondz, to our screens with his eighth feature, Wiener-Dog. As with all of Solondz's films, it is by its very nature divisive: if you're looking for a comedy untarnished by references to rape, death and unrelenting despair, then this is not for you. But in spite of its mordant overtones, it is a film that takes you on an epic journey – much like that of its titular character, the glistening coated wiener-dog, who scurries across the theatrical backdrop of an unfurling globe with all the magnitude of Clint Eastwood in the movie's memorable, theme-tuned interlude – flitting from poignant moments of mortal reflection to absurd black humour at the drop of a hat.

The aforementioned dachshund is the film's linking thread, weaving together four individual stories in her quest for a secure home. Her first owners are a wealthy couple (Tracy Letts and Julie Delpy) who purchase the pup for their son, a nine-year-old cancer survivor who names her Wiener-Dog. Cautionary tales of doggie rape and never-ending streams of diarrhea (gloriously captured in a sustained tracking shot by cinematographer Edward Lachman) ensue. Then onto Greta Gerwig as a grown-up reprisal of Dawn Wiener, the protagonist in Solondz's cult classic Welcome to the Dollhouse (originally played by Heather Matarazzo), who is now a vet and rescues the dog from near-death before bumping into her former high-school cohort, the troubled Brandon McCarthy (Kieran Culkin). She and the now renamed Doody accompany Brandon on a visit to his brother and sister-in-law, a happily married couple with Down's Syndrome, who are smitten with the dog, prompting Wiener to leave her in their care.

But that's not the end of Wiener-Dog's journey – Solondz would never lapse into such sentimentalism for long. Two more, brilliantly acerbic vignettes follow suit, featuring Danny DeVito, as a disconsolate and thoroughly disparaging film professor at NYU who uses the silken sausage dog as an avatar for his self-destruction, and a superb Ellen Burstyn as Nana – an invalid grandmother with failing sight but razor-sharp cynicism, who proves the dog's final owner, renaming her Cancer. 

Solondz has said in interviews that his decision to use an animal as the focal point for a film was inspired by Robert Bresson's masterpiece Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) and its donkey hero, but that he never intended it to be a film about a dog: more that the dog provides a filter through which he can explore the themes that preoccupy him, like mortality. And as The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody points out "he gets at [these themes] with a sense of style, insight, terror, self-excoriation, scorn, and empathy, creating a film that wouldn’t be unworthy to share a space on the shelf somewhere near Bresson’s great work". Here, ahead of the film's UK release, we sit down with Kieran Culkin – no stranger to the cult indie genre (think: Igby Goes Down, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and his recent role in the TV edition of Fargo) – to talk Solondz's unique directorial approach and the inherent difficulties of working with wiener-dogs.

On getting the part...
"I was sort of thrown in at the last minute! I was given the script and [the casting directors] were like, 'Do you wanna audition?' I was out of town so I said, 'Sure I'll audition when I'm back in a couple of days'. I came back in a couple of days and they said, 'Uh actually, Todd just wants to give you the part, if you want it?' and I was like 'OK great! When do we start shooting?' and they were like, 'The day after tomorrow'."

On meeting Solondz...
"Sometimes you read [a script] and you can't quite comprehend what the story is, you kind of have to work it out, and this was one of those, so I was like, ‘Can I meet Todd first?’ – and I asked to meet Greta too so we could talk about it – but he was totally content to just show up on day one of shooting, say 'Hi, nice to meet you I’m Todd. All right: action!' And I kind of freaked out at that concept (laughs). I said, ‘Do you ever do readings, rehearsals?’ And he said something like if he ever heard his stuff read out loud he could never shoot it."

On Solondz's directing approach...
"Some writers I know, they need reading after reading. Over the course of a year, they'll have groups of actors come in and read the script and then they take the notes and they change it, to try to 'actor-proof' it, but it's not all on the page with Todd. The scene when I first meet Greta in the deli could easily read as like a very polite conversation and I really had no idea [how it should go] so I had to ask him, 'What is going on in this scene? Tell me!' and thankfully he had such a specific idea for what he wanted that I would do a take and look at him like, 'Is that a ball in the ballpark of what you want?' and he would direct me from there. He knows exactly what he wants so there's little of my choices or performance in this movie, it's all his."

On reprising the role from Welcome to the Dollhouse...
"This is probably something I shouldn’t admit, something I should be embarrassed about, but it wasn’t until we were shooting the movie that I realised that I was playing a character from Welcome to the Dollhouse. I don't think that it was relevant to Todd – to him it was cool that these were the same characters, but I don't think he cared if his actors knew or not. He didn't make it clear (laughs). When I realised, I said, 'The kid from Welcome to the Dollhouse is really good, but I don't wanna do an impression of him, I don't wanna do that.' And he was like, 'Well good, I just want you to do your version of it'."

On seeing the finished film...
"The shoot itself was like ten days or something and then it was over and I remember going home going, 'Did I just have this really strange dream when I was dropped into a movie and I didn't know where I was and I had to have this guy hold my hand through every moment?' But when I saw the final film, it was awesome. What's great about it, from my point of view, is that sometimes it's really hard to watch yourself or to be objective about anything you do, but because I just had that 15-20 minute segment in the middle, the rest of the movie I could actually sit back and enjoy and not have any attachment to it so I could just really enjoy the rest of the film."

On working with the dogs...
"Have you talked to anybody else about the dog? So they were very sweet dogs – there were two but there was one that was mainly used. They were show dogs, so they were not movie dogs. They didn't know to sit still when they had to sit still, they wouldn't listen to anyone including their owners. I'm sure, if Todd needed a ten-second shot that he would shoot for three hours to get those ten seconds!

I guess that breed can be skittish and this dog was the definition of skittish! When I would be holding her, her heart would be just thumping in my hand. We had to do this scene, that they ended up cutting, where I stand up and yell at the waitress in the diner. The dog was next to me on the bench and every time I stood up to bang the table and scream at the waitress, we'd turn and look and the dog was slamming herself into the window door trying to get out, thinking if I can slam hard enough I can just get out and escape. After we did our segment – because we were the first ones they shot with – I remember thinking, they're probably gonna get a whole new dog and I'm gonna have to go back and reshoot!"

On reprising any of his past roles...
"See, I loved doing Igby Goes Down, that was one of the best experiences of my life actually, but I've never even considered that there could be another one, or being able to play that character again. But I don't know, if Burr Steers decided to write it and put that character in then yeah I'd consider it.

But what's funny is that every two or three years there's a rumour that they're making a Father of the Bride sequel and people come up to me and go, 'Hey are you doing the new Father of the Bride?' It's just a rumour, but every few years I wonder, 'Wait, are they really making it?' because I would totally go back and play that guy – the brother of the bride character. I think at the end of movie he ended up with a baby sister, who by now would be like 20, so she could be a bride... who knows?" 

Wiener-Dog is in cinemas nationwide from August 12, 2016.