5 Questions with Henry Loevner
“Nest Egg,” by director Henry Loevner, tells the story of a young California woman considering becoming a surrogate to a Chinese couple, to the dismay and discomfort of her husband. We asked Loevner about the origins of the project, creating comedy from a serious subject, and language barriers…
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in movies?
I’ve been making films since I was a kid, shooting home movies and sketches with friends. But I didn’t go to film school.
I was born in Hong Kong and spent most of my teenage summers in Mainland China. So after graduation I moved to Shanghai and found a job as a PA / Mandarin translator for a little production company. I cut my teeth working in production in Shanghai for about two years. That’s when I realized how passionate I really was about writing and directing. I relocated to LA to give filmmaking a serious go. And I eventually found a job working as an in-house scripted director at BuzzFeed, which was basically my film school experience.
2) What’s the origin story of this project? What sparked the idea, and how did you make your first moves to get it rolling?
I actually have three cousins who were surrogate babies, so I’ve been interested in the subject matter for ages. Then about two years ago I learned about this crazy phenomenon of Chinese nationals pouring into California to hire gestational surrogates. There’s so much to mine in this story: politics, sex, race, money, technology, etc.
I knew I wanted to make something realistic and honest. So for about six months, I conducted dozens of interviews with surrogates, intended parents, doctors, lawyers and case managers. I was writing throughout the research process, incorporating what I learned into the script. I experimented with different points of view and different conflicts. But I ended up exploring the POV of a surrogate’s husband because there’s something inherently funny about his predicament.
3) There’s an interesting mix of tones here, it's hilarious but also really poignant. Can you talk about finding that balance? Were you surprised at how some of the scenes ending up feeling? Can you think of a scene in particular that was the hardest to find the right tone?
I waffled a lot in the writing process on how to craft the right tone. Earlier versions of the story were serious, heavy dramas. But that’s just not my style. I also didn’t want a harsh, cynical story about people exploiting the surrogacy process. My research convinces me that most surrogates really are altruistic at heart.
I think the film’s tone came down to casting. Dan Gill and Brooke Trantor (Jon & Brittany) are wickedly talented comedians. And they were able to find the funny in scenes that could have easily felt schmaltzy if approached as strict drama. This is especially true of their bedroom argument. But they improvised quite a bit, finding jokes here and there to dodge melodrama. Their banter really grounded the scene.
4) Language issues play a large part in the film. There are several scenes revolving around translations — I can’t imagine writing those intricate scenes with the overlapping dialogue, and the selective translations, and also the digital translations from the phone. How did you approach those scenes, and what were you most interested in capturing?
I was terrified that the big meeting scene wouldn’t work, that it would be confusing or sluggish because there’s overlapping dialogue in two languages. I definitely wanted it to be funny and cringy. So I watched as many bilingual / translation scenes I could find. Obviously Lost In Translation was a big influence. But I actually borrowed just as much from the Coen brothers. So much of their humor comes from miscommunication. That scene takes a lot from the priest, pastor and rabbi debate in Hail Caesar.
Fortunately, we had the opportunity to rehearse the big scene beforehand. And to my surprise, it worked almost immediately. ChenChen Julian, who plays the Translator, had the hardest job because she had to drive the scene by actually performing simultaneous translation. But all the confusion and chaos that I worried about ultimately worked in our favor.
The phone translation scene was way more challenging. Almost all of the phone translations you hear were recorded live, on the day. But we had trouble getting the app to function properly. Sometimes the mistranslations made for funny, happy accidents. But the pacing was disjointed because the actors had to wait a few seconds between each line for the app to translate. That scene really came together in the edit when we cut out the dead air and paced things up.
5) What’s a film from the last couple years that you had the biggest emotional reaction to?
Lion really rocked me. The entire film, you know exactly what’s coming. But the ending is still so emotionally satisfying.
Bonus Question: Any new projects in the works?
I’ve got a few features that I’m looking to make next. They’re more genre than Nest Egg – horror, sci-fi, and thriller. But they all leverage comedy though miscommunication in one way or another. So I’m absolutely applying what I learned from Nest Egg to my next projects.
Contact Info:
Website: https://www.henryloevner.com/
IG: @hloevner