From writer/director Ike Barinholtz, the political dark comedy The Oath shows what can happen when a controversial White House policy turns a family against each other and makes Thanksgiving dinner a tense and unpleasant experience. When Chris (played by Barinholtz), a 24-hour progressive news junkie, and his wife Kai (Tiffany Haddish) host a holiday family dinner on the eve of the deadline to sign a loyalty oath to the President approaches, it leads to much sparring among relatives, as well as an unfortunate incident with two government agents (John Cho and Billy Magnussen) that sends the night completely off the rails and perfectly illustrates why it’s best to never discuss politics with family.
During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor and filmmaker Ike Barinholtz talked about the inspiration for The Oath, telling a story that’s a bit too close to the reality we’re currently living in, why he wanted Tiffany Haddish to play his wife in the film, the challenges of shooting the Thanksgiving dinner scene, how Seth Rogen ended up as a story point, which industry friends he screened the film for and got feedback from, and how excited he is to direct again soon.
Collider: You wrote this right after the election night, so I’m guessing that it was somewhat inspired by that, but what was the seed for this? What was the thing that it really started with, and that you really wanted to explore?
IKE BARINHOLTZ: Well, it was really that Thanksgiving after the election, where I had my whole family come over. After dinner, during some cocktails, my mom, my brother and I got in a huge fight, and we were arguing about what happened and whose fault it was. The next day, I woke up and said to my wife, “We’re on the same side. We voted for the same person.” And I just knew that, if this was happening at this house, that at other houses, where everyone wasn’t aligned, it must have been not so good. And as I talked to friends of mine, who were going home and then telling me about their war stories, and I started talking to some of my own relatives, I knew that the American holiday table, as we knew it, was done. That was definitely something that I wanted to explore, and I wanted to make it a little bit bigger than just a family. So, I started breaking this side of the story where there’s this looming government crisis that’s bearing down on them, which turns the heat up.
This also seems like one of those cases where you’d prefer life didn’t imitate art, and yet it seems like we’re inching closer and closer to that.
BARINHOLTZ: I keep checking Twitter to make sure it hasn’t happened.
Did you ever find yourself hoping that the story you were telling would somehow become less relevant before you could actually tell it?
BARINHOLTZ: Every day! People were like, “If Trump got kicked out of office, this movie wouldn’t be as relevant.” And I was like, “Okay, fine.” But the crazy thing was, there were all these beats along the way, where scenes were happening that were echoing what was already us echoing life. When I started writing it a few weeks into his administration, there was this bizarre cabinet meeting where they all went around and talked about how they were going to be loyal. And then, he pinned down Jim Comey. After we had shot it and were going to show it to people, he tweeted about something called National Loyalty Day, and it was just so strange. All it did was reinforce our confidence that we had to get this movie out, as soon as possible.
As you wrote the character that you played, did you always keep yourself in mind? Do you write specifically to things that you wanted do in the movie?
BARINHOLTZ: Yeah, a little bit. I knew that I was gonna be the POV – me and my wife. I was so obsessed, at the time, with listening to the news non-stop, and I was reading every single article that came out on Twitter. I was really overdosing on outrage and making everyone else a little crazy. I knew that it would be a little cathartic for me, personally, to be able to yell at my brother and make fun of his opinions, but I also knew that because I was really trying to do a true satire, I knew that would make my character look bad. Even though he’s ultimately proven right and even though I, Ike Barinholtz, agree with him politically, he’d be a jerk. The most important thing in satire is, if you’re gonna make fun of everyone, you also have to make fun of the belief system that you hold, so I definitely used myself.
Tiffany Haddish is so great in this, but this is quite different from what we’re used to seeing from her. You’ve said that you thought of her, from the start, for this. Why is that? What did you see in her that led you to feel like she could really bring something interesting to this?
BARINHOLTZ: She’s incapable of being inauthentic. I based the character off of my wife, who is incredibly tough and her heart is totally in the right place, and we hold the same belief systems, but she’s just trying to get the trains to run on time. She’s just trying to keep the family going. And it’s that toughness that I really, really knew Tiffany could bring. I like when I see different sides of an actor, and I knew that to show her, at least for the first part of the movie, internalizing everything and rolling her eyes and shaking her head, whenever her husband is going of on yet another one of his tangents, would be different. And then, I knew that once that fuse ignites, I’d seen her in that zone, where she’s mad and telling people, “Shut the fuck up,” so I had confidence in her. We talked about it and broke down the character together, and it was just such a delight to watch her as this quietly suffering wife who finally just says, “Fuck this!"
As her scene partner, were you ever tempted to have her go off on an improv tangent, but as the director, were you like, “No, we can’t do this”?
BARINHOLTZ: I welcomed her improv, and it gave me some pretty great moments in the movie. I wish I could take credit for writing the term “trash pussy,” but I can’t. That is definitely something that exists, solely in the mind of Tiffany Haddish. There were moments like that, where she pulled something out that was so crazy and funny and different. I just knew, the minute she said some of those things, that it would be going right in the final cut.
What are the biggest challenges about shooting a big Thanksgiving dinner scene and having to act while eating? Did you guys ever get so into the food that you’d forget that you were supposed to be doing a scene?
BARINHOLTZ: Tiffany definitely did. I remember she got to set that day and she was like, “I’m hungry!” I was up early cooking that food with my prop master Jon Gold, so I was a little scattershot, trying to do a million things at once, but she was digging into that food. I was very worried about that scene because it’s a monster. It’s a long scene, and it goes one way, and then stops and goes another way. I was worried that was gonna be, by far, the hardest scene to shoot. One of my biggest surprises was that, when the cast came to set, they had been sitting in a room by themselves for two hours while we lit it and they had run the scene backwards and forwards so much that they had already established a rhythm. We did the first take and I was just like, “Holy shit, we just nailed the master perfectly!” By establishing that solid baseline, we were able to extend it a little bit and push it a little bit more. That was the scene that I was the most worried about, but it was also the one that I thought turned out the best and was actually a joy to shoot.
So, what ended up being the hardest thing to shoot?
BARINHOLTZ: It was hard to shoot the road rage scene because I really wanted to get that feeling of trapped panic and it was an early morning exterior. But the most challenging thing was the fact that 80% of this movie takes place in the house. It’s easy to write a movie that takes place mostly in one location, but to shoot it and make sure that the viewers don’t get visually bored is hard. So, we had a lot of discussion about that. What I tried to do is make sure the actual physical look of the film evolves as the story does, so you notice when you see it. The first 40 minutes or so, it’s pretty wide frame with nice, vibrant colors, and people are moving in and out of frame. By the end, I’m holding that gun and we’re as tight as you can get on my face. The color of the movie has that dark orangey-red feel, where you feel like you’re trapped in this house. I had an amazing DP, Cary Lalonde, and Tony Nako, my gaffer, did such a great job at making sure our physical look kept changing.
In the film, you use Seth Rogen as an example of a public figure that the government makes disappear. Why Seth Rogen, and did you ever consider anybody else?
BARINHOLTZ: Yes, initially it was Mark Ruffalo, but he has such mournful eyes. Seth Rogen was just weirder and funnier, but Seth is also politically active, so it makes sense. I’m also friends with Seth Rogen, so it’s much easier to get him to pose for a photo than to get Mark Ruffalo. So, I thought it was better for the movie, and certainly better for production.
Before directing this, what were you really expecting, going into it, and what most surprised you about what it took to direct this film?
BARINHOLTZ: Going in, I knew it was a different type of movie that had a slightly more complex tone than certainly any movie I’ve been in. I wanted to tell a story that I thought was reflective of the insane, absurd era that we’re living in right now, so that was my goal. And I just wanted to make people laugh and think a little bit. For me, the heart of things is just the amount of talking and moving around. I’m a pretty loquacious guy. I like to hear my own voice a lot. But at the end of every day, I was like, “Shut up. Just give it a rest, bro.” That was hard, all the way around, but it was still fun. Even the nitty gritty of post was still fun. And now that I get to go around the country and show it to people, and talk to people afterwards and hear how people relate to it, it’s like, “You filmed my family at Thanksgiving. I’m you!” It’s so exhilarating, I cannot wait to do it again.
Did you do test screenings for this, or did you screen it for friends and family, to see if everything was working how you wanted it to?
BARINHOLTZ: Yeah. The first people to see it were Seth Rogen, Mindy Kaling and Jordan Peele, and they all gave such great, different notes. I tried to get as many perspectives from family and friends, and not just political perspectives but from people with different jobs and who not in the industry at all, like random friends of crew members, so that I could get as much of a diverse feedback loop as I could get.
When you screened it for Seth Rogen, Mindy Kaling and Jordan Peele, what sort of feedback did they give you that helped you?
BARINHOLTZ: Everything from Mindy saying, “Cut this scene, you don’t need it,” to Jordan Peele giving me a lot of tonal advice on how to make sure we’re not tipping the balance too much one way, either funny or scary, or to Seth Rogen who was very adamant that we do some more work on the sound and the score. So, if you have friends that are creators or filmmakers, and who are good and will be honest with you, that’s the money spot
You said that you want to direct again. Have you thought about what you might want to direct next?
BARINHOLTZ: Yeah, I have a couple of things. One is more of a big, pure comedy. There’s one that me and the guys who produced [The Oath] are cooking up right now that also examines some of the darker aspects of our society, specifically the danger of interacting with strangers on social media. That’s something I imagine we’ll hopefully be shooting later this year. We’ll be getting out there again, as soon as possible, before the world blows up.
The Oath opens in select theaters on October 12th, and nationwide on October 19th.
