5 Questions with Annie Brennen
1) Can you talk briefly about your background(s), and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I was a drama student in college who forsook any theatrical involvements to instead participate in film students’ projects (also, no one in the theatre department ever cast me in anything). In doing so, I learned to love and appreciate filmmaking through my slightly-better-than-vague understanding of its process, but lacked the confidence to learn the minutiae that would enable me to do it myself. In that world in which factoids about Paul Thomas Anderson were currency, I was very intimidated and very broke (and worst of all… a theatre kid!!).
Eventually, I decided I was a writer (more clout!). I downloaded FinalDraft because I had read about it on Reddit. After graduating in 2017, I had a resurgence in confidence and managed to secure a writer assistant job. I quickly learned more about filmmaking by pretending I’d known everything about it all along — reverse engineering my education in film by nodding first and googling later.
Finally (ca. 2019), I was a self-proclaimed director/filmmaker, too, — my interest was no longer a passive one, and I made Fauxmous with my now more-than-slightly-better-than-vague understanding of the process. For so long, filmmaking had felt too lofty a goal for me to reach and too insular a community for me to penetrate, but the more I insisted on using titles that I gave myself, the more I believed I deserved them. TLDR: I started acting in student films in 2014 and fell in L-O-V-E.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
Fauxmous originated when Dan and I bonded as roommates during our first year in LA. We’d attended the same drama school, where we’d both been involved in “the comedy scene”, but had rarely crossed paths until we graduated. While living together, we developed a bit of constantly and aggressively singing our own praises, while lamenting over how, in our first year of post-grad life, we weren’t yet famous. Eventually, I decided to write six sketches expanding upon our joke. I wanted to make an absurd series about two weirdos who had incredibly inflated senses of self with no visible drive and no visible skills. And in doing so, I wanted to showcase the talents we actually had — I wanted Dan to sing and have a moment of sincere dramatic acting (even if it were gibberish) and I wanted some of my writing to finally see the light of day. It was a passion project for me that was also incredibly utilitarian. I’m a Capricorn :)
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most, and the least?
The biggest challenge was raising our budget. I retroactively resent all the times I heard, “Just make something of your own!” Because now I know that to do such a thing often requires the kind of money that I don’t have lying around (and many, many people don’t have lying around). “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,”… I had a will, and the way was: now I’m in debt. Next time someone tells me to “just make something,” I’m going to tell them to give me $5!
Everything else was a dream. I’ve always loved acting, and I really love writing, but what was most exciting about this project was that in making it I discovered that I’m obsessed with directing. And I hope to do it a lot more. I’m lukewarm on producing. Not my cup of tea (unless it were, say, the executive kind on a network television $how… please feel free to always invite me to be an EP on your network television shows).
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
This question got me sweating. I watched a rom-com recently that made me cry but it’s objectively not good and to say that I loved it would effectively end my career. I also just saw Cats which I’d…love to do a TedTalk on, but that’s not the same thing.
I guess I’m gonna go with Dolemite is My Name. I had fun watching it. I felt all the ethos of the community of creatives depicted, and I was inspired by the confidence and determination of the titular character. I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life asking for permission to do something weird (which, of course, takes all the fun out of being weird). And this movie was a nice reminder to stop waiting around for everyone to “get it.”
5) What’s next for you?
More work as a writer’s assistant, mostly. I’m also currently in the early stages of developing a new script for a short film — it’s a story I’ve been trying to adequately tell for a few years now, and I think I finally found my angle. It’s more dramatic than comedic, which I’m excited about. Hopefully there’s more directing in my near future, too! All I can say for sure is that there’s definitely going to be karaoke in the next 24 hours.
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Instagram: @anniebrennen
Twitter: @annie_brennen