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Summary
Summary
The multitalented writers, directors, producers, and actors (as seen on The League, Transparent, and The Mindy Project ) share the secrets of their lifelong partnership in this unique memoir.
Whether producing, writing, directing, or acting, the Duplass Brothers have made their mark in the world of independent film and television on the strength of their quirky and empathetic approach to storytelling. Now, for the first time, Mark and Jay take readers on a tour of their lifelong partnership in this unique memoir told in essays that share the secrets of their success, the joys and frustrations of intimate collaboration, and the lessons they've learned the hard way.
From a childhood spent wielding an oversized home video camera in the suburbs of New Orleans to their shared years at the University of Texas in early nineties Austin, and from the breakthrough short they made on a three-dollar budget to the night their feature film Baghead became the center of a Sundance bidding war, Mark and Jay tell the story of a bond that's resilient, affectionate, mutually empowering, and only mildly dysfunctional. They are brutally honest about how their closeness sabotaged their youthful romantic relationships, about the jealousy each felt when the other stole the spotlight as an actor (Mark in The League, Jay in Transparent ), and about the challenges they faced on the set of their HBO series, Togetherness -namely, too much togetherness.
But Like Brothers is also a surprisingly practical road map to a rewarding creative partnership. Rather than split all their responsibilities fifty-fifty, the brothers learned to capitalize on each other's strengths. They're not afraid to call each other out, because they're also not afraid to compromise. Most relationships aren't-and frankly shouldn't -be as intense as Mark and Jay's, but their brand of trust, validation, and healthy disagreement has taken them far.
Part coming-of-age memoir, part underdog story, and part insider account of succeeding in Hollywood on their own terms, Like Brothers is as openhearted and lovably offbeat as Mark and Jay themselves.
Advance praise for Like Brothers
"Wright. Ringling. Jonas. I'm sure you could name a bunch of famous brother teams. They're all garbage compared to Mark and Jay. I can't wait for you to read this book." -From the Foreword by Mindy Kaling
"As creative partners, we sure learned a thing or two from Mark and Jay Duplass' journey through the Hollywood machine. Like Brothers is an essential guide for making space for yourself in a world that doesn't always encourage individuality and innovation. As useful to an aspiring filmmaker as it is to a pair of siblings wondering 'How do we turn our connection into something great?,' this book will be essential on your shelf." -Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner
"The Duplass Brothers have a genius for conveying deep feeling without ever straying into sentimentality. Here they capture the often wonderful and occasionally terrible business of collaborating professionally with someone you love." -John Green and Hank Green
"In my next life I'd like to come back as a Duplass Brother. But until then I'll just enjoy their hilarious, insightful book." -Judd Apatow
Author Notes
Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass are the critically acclaimed filmmakers behind The Puffy Chair, Baghead, The Do-Deca-Pentathlon, Cyrus, and Jeff, Who Lives at Home . For HBO, they wrote and directed Togetherness, produced the animated series Animals, and created the anthology series Room 104 . Their producer credits also include the feature films Safety Not Guaranteed, The Skeleton Twins, and Tangerine . As an actor, Mark has appeared on the hit comedy The League and in such films as Your Sister's Sister, The One I Love, and Blue Jay, while Jay has a leading role on the Golden Globe-winning series Transparent and has appeared in such films as Landline and Beatriz at Dinner . Both brothers have recurring roles on The Mindy Project .
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The Duplass brothers, who run Duplass Brothers Productions and frequently write, direct, and star in their own productions, bring a free-flowing conversational style to the highly enjoyable audio edition of their joint memoir. The book alternates between chapters chronicling the brothers' upbringing in Metairie, La., and those detailing their professional relationship, including their regular brainstorming sessions at airports, in which the brothers create intricate backstories for the people they observe waiting in terminals. The most memorable part of the book involves an annotated version of Mark's edgy short story "The Blowjob," along with Jay's feedback, in which the brothers effectively use tone, pitch, and comedic timing to convey the often-tortured nature of the creative process. The brothers both draw on their acting chops to recreate their points of view in anecdotes from their childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Though primarily of interest to inspiring filmmakers, the brothers' fun-loving dynamic should appeal to all types of listeners. A Ballantine hardcover. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Indie darlings Mark and Jay Duplass offer a peek inside their decades-long collaboration as the writer-directors of the films The Puffy Chair and Jeff, Who Lives at Home, as well as their acclaimed HBO series, Togetherness. Four years apart in age, the brothers have always been especially close, even sharing a twin bed while growing up in a suburb of New Orleans. Jay and Mark started their filmmaking endeavors in 1985 at the ages of 12 and 8, respectively, using their family's video camera and launching a partnership that would lead to their first independent film in 2000. Though they regard that film as a failure, their next outing won them a coveted spot in the Sundance Film Festival. The brothers alternate the tale of their climb with all sorts of asides, from the stories they crafted about people they observed in airports to sharing unvarnished email exchanges in which they work through their differences. A thoroughly enjoyable peek into the brothers' creative process, filled with tips and guidance for those who want to follow in their footsteps.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IT'S A STRANGE SYMPTOM of our increasingly thin-sliced culture that you may spend your whole life without encountering the work of the Duplass brothers, or you may feel as if you see it everywhere. As a duo, the sibling filmmakers, Jay and Mark, have written and directed a couple of innovative and endearing low-budget independent features ("The Puffy Chair," "Baghead") and a few modestly sized studio movies ("Cyrus," "Jeff, Who Lives at Home"). They're creators of the dearly departed TV comedy-drama "Togetherness" and the oddball anthology series "Room 104," both for HBO. Individually, Mark, who is 41, with short hair and a dude's dude looks, starred in the FX comedy "The League," and Jay, who is 45, and often bearded and bespectacled, plays one of the neurotic siblings on the Amazon series "Transparent." The Duplasses are cool enough to know that it's not cool to admit to having a brand, but they most assuredly do: They represent a style of storytelling that's naturalistic and unapologetically earnest, along with a supportive, if-we-can-do-it-you-cantoo spirit of creativity. Those same sensibilities permeate "Like Brothers," the pair's first book. It's a likable memoir of how Jay and Mark Duplass blazed their idiosyncratic trail, and an inspiring how-to guide for anyone who might wish to follow it. Sure, there are also parts that seem extraneous or simply don't work, but the Duplasses never pretend to be masters of their craft. As they write in the book: "It seems that people like the Coen brothers have a specific vision of what their movies will look like from the moment they begin writing them, and then somehow are able to realize that vision and make those movies, for the most part, inspired and impeccably amazing. We, however, are not the Coen brothers." In episodic chapters, the Duplasses recount their upbringing in Metairie, La., and boyhood rites of passage like getting cable TV and a video camera to shoot their first movies. There's a refreshing unpretentiousness to these sections: The brothers are unabashed fans of kitsch like "The Karate Kid Part II" and the soft-rock duo Air Supply, and their close-knit kinship turns poignant when Jay has an emotional breakdown as a student at the University of Texas at Austin and Mark, still in high school, travels there to take care of him. Though their early, self-financed foray into grown-up moviemaking is a mediocre "Rocky" knockoff called "Vince Del Rio," the brothers eventually earn acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival: first, in 2003, with a $3 short film called "This Is John," and then, in 2005, with "The Puffy Chair," a relationship road-trip feature. Initially, the Duplasses seem to be living the fantasy of every indie filmmaker: "Buyers, agents, managers, producers and studio executives were all swarming us," they write. But they quickly realize that these industry big shots are interested in developing other ideas with them, not in acquiring the movie the Duplasses made using $10,000 borrowed from their parents. "In short," they write, "we seemed to be in demand, but we couldn't figure out how to actually make money." It takes many months for the brothers to receive a legitimate offer for "The Puffy Chair," and while they are eager to accept it, for the amount of money alone, they somehow find the fortitude to resist, and end up agreeing to a different deal - one that provides no money up front but includes distribution from an upstart DVDby-mail company called Netflix. It's a valuable lesson in patience that has continued to pay dividends for the Duplasses, who signed a four-picture deal with Netflix earlier this year. While I appreciated the brothers' honest tales of dealing with anxiety, filial conflict and failing equipment during their collaborations, I was less taken with a chapter in which they reproduce an early draft of one of their unfilmed story ideas, along with Jay's handwritten notes, though readers' interest in this sort of paraphernalia may vary. Other sections, in which they compile and consolidate lists of their Top 10 films of all time, or imagine elaborate back stories for strangers they see at airports, may seem charming to devoted fans but felt like filler to me. More worrisome were passages in which the brothers, for all of their enthusiasm and desire to get others to participate in cinema, seem unaware of their inherent privilege as white men from a comfortable background, and who, as siblings working together, have an irresistible gimmick. It's probably not especially helpful for struggling, financially strapped young filmmakers at the start of their careers to be told to buy a house as soon as possible and pay off the mortgage by renting out bedrooms to creative pals. And the brothers' advice to invest in the stock market - the Duplasses say they bought "a slew of shares" of Netflix in 2005 - isn't practical unless you possess a trust fund or a time machine. Still, it's hard not to root for the Duplasses in moments like the one when their sales agent tells them they're not allowed to attend the Sundance after-party for their film "Baghead," lest it appear that they're not engaged in heated efforts to get the movie sold. In another passage, they find themselves fighting with studio executives who want them to reshoot a scene from "Cyrus," because they feel the apartment of its lead character - a depressed divorce - needs more throw pillows. After getting uncharacteristically loud and standing their ground, the brothers win the day. "From that moment forward," the Duplasses write, "they pretty much let us do our thing. Which was a wonderful and terrible thing in the end." DAVE ITZKOFF is a culture reporter at The Times. His latest book is "Robin," a biography of the comedian Robin Williams.
Kirkus Review
A quirky inside portrait of brotherhood within the "insane Hollywood system."Marx, Coen, Farrelly. Add to that list the Duplass brothers, who have been carving out a place for themselves as writers, directors, producers, and actors (Mark in The League, Jay in Transparent, etc.). In her foreword to this jumpy, eclectic collection of odds and ends, Mindy Kaling writes that the brothers are funny, "woke as hell," and have a "tireless entrepreneurial spirit that inspires." The brothers write that the book is "filled with essays on all kinds of things," which isn't exactly true. There are somee.g., a short piece on why the band Air Supply is so good or the value of The Karate Kid Part II (even though "there are so many things wrong with this movie")but mostly this is a hodgepodge of autobiographical sketches, lists of favorite movies (actually the same list slightly edited over and over), emails, rough screenplays, advice to young filmmakers, Mark's short story "The Blowjob," edited by Jay, comments from their wives, and "Airport" 1-5, in which the brothers make up filmic scenarios inspired by the people they see walking and sitting about. We learn that they grew up outside New Orleans and had great boyhoods. Creative and ambitious kids, they played around with a video recorder their father gave them and started writing little scenarios and filming them. In 1996, they started Duplass Brothers Productions and got to work. We follow them in action as they fail (Vince del Rio) and succeed (Cyrus). They made The Puffy Chair for $10,000 and premiered it at the Sundance Film Festival. Other successes followed, including HBO's Togetherness series (2015), until cancelled, and Room 104 (2017).A rather chaotic and messy tale of talent, determination, and success in the world of independent film and TV that hardcore fans will enjoy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
I. It is dark. It is late. It is 1984. We are lying next to each other in one of our twin beds. But, predictably, we are not asleep. We are talking about life. And our dreams. And the great mystery of cable television. "Jay?" "Yes, Mark?" (Silence. Mark has always loved the dramatic silence. I am older by four years and should find this annoying, but I love this about him.) "When is it coming?" "Soon." "How soon?" (I take a moment to mitigate expectations and not get my seven--year--old baby brother too excited.) "Dad said by next week it'll be here." "What does it look like?" (I actually do not know, but I have a few theories.) "I'm not sure." "Is it, like ... a big cable?" "I think so?" "Do they just drag it down the street and plug it into the house?" "I don't think that's how it works." "How does it work?" "I don't know." (Mark thinks on this. Wide--eyed. Young mind grappling with what it all means.) "What is going to happen to us, Jay?" "Nothing crazy. I don't think. Or maybe everything." "I'm so excited." "Yeah, me too." (Pause.) "Jay?" "Yes, Mark." "I have something to confess." "What?" (Again, the dramatic pause.) "I don't know what cable is." (I try extremely hard not to laugh. I am careful never to condescend, because he is smart and very sensitive. Still, I am an older brother and can't help myself. ... ) "If you don't know what it is, then why are you so excited about it?" "I don't know. I just ... I heard you talking about it to your friends. And ... I can tell how excited you are about it. So ... I got excited about it." (Not an extremely eloquent response, but quite prophetic in many ways as to the nature of our unique brotherly bond and complex relationship to come.) "It's going to be bringing a lot of movies, and TV shows, and a bunch of new channels into the neighborhood." "Do you think it's gonna change everything?" "I don't know." (Pause.) "Jay?" "Yes, Mark." "When we grow up do you want to get houses next to each other?" "Definitely." (Mark considers this.) "Do you think ... we could share the same cable? Or do we have to get different cables for each house?" "I could probably figure out how to share one." (Mark believes me. He believes that I am very good at this kind of thing. Good at everything, actually, if you asked Mark in 1984. This was a huge part of building my confidence.) "What happens if we wanna watch different movies but we share the same cable?" "I think we'd have to watch the same movie." "So what do we do if we ever want to watch a different movie at the same time?" (We both consider this question. It's a troublesome thought. Might there come a time when our interests, and therefore our lives, diverge? The question hangs over us like a fat black cloud for a moment. But then we smile. Because this is a ridiculous thought. We will always want to watch the same movie. We will always live right next to each other. We will always lie in bed at night and talk about our lives and our dreams.) Two weeks later, cable arrives at our home. And everything changes. The Woog Do you feel weird inside? We do. All the time. Sometimes we call it depression. Sometimes we call it anxiety. Sometimes we just call it "The Woog." As in "I'm feelin' woogie today." At the core of this weird feeling is a sense that there are, at minimum, two people inside of us at war. And we don't know how to make them get along. "I'm gonna stay up all night and write and put on my weird hat and two different socks and smoke weed and eat cereal and maybe pizza too and try to crack a new kind of story and make something fascinating and different and I don't care if I never make any money because I'm an artist who is trying to represent the underrepresented and create empathy for all. ..." And. "I probably should go back to business school. And learn how to buy and sell companies and make millions and millions and maybe billions and use that money to start charities. This is the better way to live. For others. Not for myself and for my artistic vision. That's ... that's kind of a load of selfish horseshit in the end. ..." And then some other voices start to pop up. And it's hard to tell if they are subsets of these two main people or if they are actually secondary characters that also live inside of us. "I just want to live a quiet, simple life with my family. I want to stay home and be there at all times with my kids. Read to them. Cook for and with them. Play board games. Just be a good parent and husband and, in the end, just kinda be ... "TEACHERS! That's what the world needs now. Leadership for young kids who don't have positive role models. Give myself and everything I can to them. An innocent child needs a thoughtful role model, and even though I'm not perfect, I am likely willing to give more than what I hear the average burned--out public high school teacher can give, so I should get my teacher's license and ... "The world is hard enough. Who am I to think I can help and save anyone? I'm just an average--intelligence person trying to get by. It's enough just to make my own way in the world. I should just go inside myself. Stop talking and start listening. Get small and find a small sliver of happiness in the world and hang on to it for dear ..." You get the picture. Do you ever feel this way? Hopefully not. And if you don't, feel free to skip to the next chapter. But if you do ... we want to say sorry. Sorry you feel conflicted like we do. That you are uncertain as to what the right path is in life. Sorry that you want so badly to be useful but also happy. To be inspired but also at peace. To make change but also just get by. But we also want to say ... CONGRATULATIONS! Because, in our opinion, you may just be part of a dying breed. There will be fewer and fewer of you, and because of that and so much more, you are truly special. Here's our theory: When our parents got married, it was a time when people mostly married young. And in many cases, they married without fully vetting whether they would be a good matrimonial fit. Let's face it, they often got married because their religion said "no sex before marriage" and they really just wanted to start humping and not go to hell for it. They got married because they were sexually attracted to each other. And that attraction was often a result of the "opposites attract" theory. So when we were made, we were made from very different individuals who came together mostly because they liked the way the other smelled, as opposed to any long--lasting traits that made for a sustainable partnership. Hence, the two different people inside of us. Excerpted from Like Brothers by Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
| Definitely Start Here | p. vii |
| Foreword | p. ix |
| Prologue | p. xv |
| I p. 3 | |
| The Woog | p. 7 |
| II p. 11 | |
| Movies Not Meetings | p. 19 |
| Airport #1 | p. 23 |
| III p. 31 | |
| Some Thoughts on Compromise | p. 37 |
| IV p. 43 | |
| In Defense of The Karate Kid Part II | p. 47 |
| Unsolicited Advice Part I: Housing | p. 51 |
| V p. 55 | |
| Girlfriends | p. 61 |
| Eighty Is Enough | p. 65 |
| Airport #2 | p. 69 |
| VI p. 75 | |
| Some Thoughts on Arguing | p. 79 |
| An Apology, Very Late | p. 83 |
| You (An Exercise in Empathy): Part I | p. 87 |
| VII p. 93 | |
| The Ball | p. 101 |
| Psycho | p. 105 |
| VIII p. 109 | |
| IX | p. 119 |
| Lemons | p. 127 |
| Hikes | p. 133 |
| Unsolicited Advice Part 2: Cars | p. 141 |
| The Cavalry Isn't Coming | p. 143 |
| X p. 157 | |
| You (An Exercise in Empathy): Part 2 | p. 169 |
| XI p. 175 | |
| Some Thoughts on Lying | p. 181 |
| The Blowjob Chronicles | p. 185 |
| XII p. 201 | |
| Wives | p. 209 |
| In Defense of Air Supply | p. 215 |
| Airport #3 | p. 219 |
| XIII p. 227 | |
| True Believer | p. 233 |
| Unsolicited Advice Part 3: Investing | p. 237 |
| XIV p. 239 | |
| The Box | p. 245 |
| Children of the Mountains | p. 251 |
| One Out of Five | p. 257 |
| XV p. 263 | |
| I Am Jealous | p. 269 |
| I Am Also Jealous | p. 271 |
| XVI p. 275 | |
| Airport #4 | p. 279 |
| The Waterslide | p. 287 |
| Friends of This Book | p. 291 |