John Krasinski on pursuing directing after 'The Hollars': 'I know I have to earn it'

By: Gibson Johns

John Krasinski's turn at directing "The Hollars" came about almost by accident. As he recounted to me over the phone this week, he was "openly ugly crying" when he initially read the script over six years ago -- that's how good it was -- but after a series of unsuccessful financing efforts, the film was nearly scrapped for good. That is, until he bought the script and decided to direct it himself.

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That make-do attitude is what characterized the rest of Krasinski's approach to directing the film, out now on Blu-Ray and digital. Between forgoing a casting director and calling his desired actors like Anna Kendrick, Richard Jenkins and Margo Martindale himself and using his current favorite songs for the film's soundtrack, Krasinski took his role as director incredibly seriously because he "respects [directing] too much" not to.

I caught up with John Krasinski this week to talk about his struggle to get "The Hollars" made, flipping through Netflix with his wife, Emily Blunt, and whether or not he wants to keep directing in the future.

See photos of John Krasinski through the years:

Check out my full conversation with John Krasinski below:

First of all, I loved this movie -- it's the kind of movie that just doesn't get made enough these days.

You took the words right out of my mouth: The reason why I chose to direct ["The Hollars"] is that it was a movie that I think you don't see very often, and I grew up on movies like this. We've all seen a lot of family movies, and this one had a specificity to it and a real heart to it that I hadn't seen in a long, long time -- since movies like "Terms Of Endearment" or something like that. I was so thrilled to do something like this, so I jumped on board.

What was it like directing the film while also being in front of the camera?

It was weirdly easy, believe it or not! I think it was easier for me to direct the cast, because I got to be in the scenes. What I mean by that is [the cast] was doing such incredible work that I think me yelling "cut!" from behind a monitor and then coming in, giving notes and then going back behind the monitor would've really ruined the vibe. That's exactly how it was for us: We just left the cameras rolling most of the time, and then I would very quietly tell people a couple of ideas and go right back into it. It almost felt as if we were doing a play.

Speaking of the cast, it's pretty much second-to-none in this film. Everyone is so good. What was the casting like? Did you have your eye on some of these actors?

To be really honest, I had my eye on all of them. We actually didn't have a casting director on this, because I just decided to make direct phone calls to people the way they used to. So, I called everybody directly to tell them the reason why I wanted them to do the movie and explained what the movie was about, which was that I wanted to investigate the powerful idea of a family and show that it's complicated -- and it's not just a crazy family that you go home to around the holidays, it was actually a really real take on it.

I was lucky enough for each of them to just say "I'm in!" over the phone, and I think that's the special thing about having this cast: Everyone knew exactly what this movie was. Usually there's a period when you're casting actors where they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I like it, but I just don't like the ending" or "I don't like this one part about my character." For this film, it was clear-cut and people all jumped on at the beginning.