Jemaine Clement takes on 'first good dad role'

Jemaine Clement unleashes the dad jokes as a father in a bittersweet new American comedy. He talks about it and his many other projects to Russell Baillie.

He's done plenty of kid stuff in recent years. The voice of a minion or two. The voice of a parrot called Nigel in the two Rio movies. And his next feature film has him in a Steven Spielberg adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's story The BFG.

But Jemaine Clement hasn't done a lot of acting with kids - or played many characters who were grown-ups.

No, his vampire Vladislav in What We Do in the Shadows might have been thousands of years old, but he wasn't exactly mature.

But in People, Places, hings Clement is a father of young twins on the way to becoming a single dad.

Yes, he was an absentee father in Eagle Vs Shark, he reminds TimeOut on the phone from Wellington's Island Bay: "I played a terrible dad. This is my first good dad role."

The character of Will is indeed a decent father role.

While the Brooklyn-set independent film by New York writer-director Jim Strouse was autobiographically inspired, the role is a departure from Clement's previous American film parts. He's the lead, for one thing. He speaks in a New Zealand accent, too.

"I am usually asked to be the jerky other guy or a villain. I think that is probably another thing that was different for me. It's hard to keep coming up with villain voices. I could just speak in my normal voice."

Clement says he tried an American accent at an early read-through but Strouse figured it wasn't actually important that Will was from America. Just be someone who wasn't a native New Yorker.

"He wanted the character to be an outsider, I suppose, to reflect his own experience. He's from a small town in Indiana."

The story follows Will, a graphic novelist who also teaches, as his married life falls apart.

He walks in on his longtime girlfriend - the mother of their twin daughters - being unfaithful at the girls' 5th birthday party.

A tale of single fatherdom, bad single guy apartments and dating again ensues. It's comedy making good use of Clement's deadpan delivery and references to New Zealand, but a bittersweet tale.

"I am comfortable with that description. It was always clearly about a man who loves his children and loves his partner even though the relationship was ending he didn't know how to hold on to it or how to let it go."

Jemaine Clement features on the cover of this week's TimeOut:

That dating part also ensure it's a bit of a rom-com.

"To be honest I didn't notice it was a rom-com. I thought it was a movie about breaking up and fatherhood. I said to the director, 'I feel like you've tricked me into being in a rom-com.' I thought it was about other issues."

Though the funniest scenes come in the interactions of Will and his twin girls played by Clement's supporting co-stars Aundrea and Gia Gadsby.

They're normal kids, says Clement, not theatre kids. Their career is on a roll - their next movie is playing the same supporting role in David O. Russell's Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence.

Clement didn't know at first how autobiographical to Strouse the film's story was. He began to have his suspicions as the shoot wore on.

"You know what? Sometimes I would turn up to set and we would be wearing exactly the same thing.

"I would be wearing the costume and he would be wearing his clothes and we could be in exactly the same outfit. Same shoes, pants, shirts, even satchel.

"It was quite weird, but obviously he's not from New Zealand and some details have been tidied up and cleaned up and some have been dramatised or based on things that have happened to friends of his. But all of us in the cast were always sounding him out.

"When he first talked about it he talked about it as a fiction but he would play it close to his chest what was real life and what was from from his mind."

The shoot marked a return to New York, the scene of the breakthrough Flight of the Conchords series.

"That was another attraction for me to do the film was to go back there. It was great. The apartment they put me in for the film was much crappier than the crappy apartment I had in the film."

Such is life working on a American independent film, of which Clement has done quite a few.

Jemaine Clement as Will, with co-stars Aundrea and Gia Gadsby.

Though his next big feature will be at the other end of the spectrum. He spent three months in Vancouver shooting The BFG with Spielberg.

"I see big things for him," quips Clement of the director of the Dahl adaptation.

"He's great. You just kind of trust whatever he says. For a lot of the time I couldn't believe I was talking to him. But he is very good at making people feel comfortable."

So far, who he is actually playing in the movie remains a mystery.

"I'm not sure I am allowed to say."

But being part of the Dahl story about a Big Friendly Giant who refuses to eat humans unlike the rest of his kin, took Clement back to his own childhood.

"It was a big deal in my classroom in standard four when it came out. That story was a big one. It made an impression on us. In the book they mentioned Wellington - kids from Turkey taste of turkey, kids from Wellington taste of boots. That hasn't made it to the film, unless they put it back in. But we sure tried."

Clement wasn't exactly homesick during the Vancouver production. He had his family of wife Miranda Manasiadis and son Sophocles with him.

And the number of other US productions in the area meant he had Cliff Curtis - there for Fear the Walking Dead - as an occasional jogging partner. Rhys Darby was also in town for his role in the X-Files revival.

But now Clement is back in Wellington, he's got time for projects he's helped initiate.

Yes there's plans for a Flight of the Conchords American tour next year with Bret McKenzie. Yes, they'll need some new songs, but he's reluctant to commit to a new album.

"The touring is fun and anything else to do with albums with stuff ... I don't really like studios. Bret likes studios. He's really taken to it. I just like playing guitar in front of people. That is more immediate and exciting.

A possible werewolves-oriented sequel of What We Do in the Shadows hasn't got much further beyond its working title - What We Do in the Moonlight.

"It sounds like Cher might be in it."

Shadows did better than he and co-star and co-director Taika Waititi had hoped.

"We were hoping it would pay itself off and have dedicated people who loved it. But if we had known it was going to do as well we probably would have gone for bigger budget and paid people better.

"We might have been able to spend a little bit more money on effects and stuff. We are both keen on looking at that technique of making the film for the werewolves one. We just have to think of a story first.

His next collaboration with Waititi will be the as-yet-unnamed comedy anthology they are doing for HBO, produced by Judd Apatow.

"It's not going to be a big series. They are like specials, in a way. That's perfect for me as I live in New Zealand. A full series would mean relocating. This is just the right level where I get to do something that I really want to do and still live in New Zealand."

And as far as something for the hometown fans, there's the forthcoming podcast series The Mysterious Secrets Of Uncle Bertie's Botanarium, a radio play series of sorts created by Duncan Sarkies, James Milne/Lawrence Arabia and Stephen Templer.

It will feature Clement as the voice of "a horrible aristocrat", who heads from his stately pile in Damprot Upon Tyne to Aotearoa.

"So New Zealanders have got to listen to that - even though it's going to be another overseas production by New Zealanders. I think it will be more fun for New Zealanders."

Who: Jemaine Clement
What: People, Places, Things
When: At cinemas from September 10