If you read a lot of film blogs, you might have noticed a virus going around called Dentler Takes the Stairs. It’s all the brainchild of Matt Dentler, who is like the P.T. Barnum of the SXSW Film Festival, and who, by being the first person to program movies like Kissing on the Mouth and Dance Party, USA, has played a huge role in legitimizing this wave of no-budget American indie filmmaking over the past few years. Dentler conducted interviews with the major players in Hannah Takes the Stairs (the Joe Swanberg drama starring Greta Gerwig and filmmakers Mark Duplass, Andrew Bujalski, Kent Osbourne, Ry Russo-Young and Todd Rohal), and asked a number of us film bloggers to each broadcast one of these interviews on our blogs.

Matt asked me to carry the interview with Mark Duplass, and of course, I complied. I reviewed The Duplass Brothers’ The Puffy Chair, which Mark starred in and co-wrote, in 2005 after seeing the film both at SXSW and the Chicago International Film Festival. At the time I said this:

It’s amazing how [The Puffy Chair] nails the mealy-mouthed way people my age have of saying what we mean by dressing the same words, over and over again, in different kinds of inflection. Between Rhett and Josh, the word “dude” has a thousand meanings; Emily isn’t satisfied being referred to by any of them. Fleshing out that tension, between what is being said and what it obviously means, is where The Puffy Chair really succeeds.

After the jump, I turn it over to Matt and Mark, who talk about Hannah’s Atari-fueled set, Andrew Bujalski’s boxers, and what Duplass did to get the film’s mythic stairs cut out of the picture.

Dentler: How did you first get connected to Hannah Takes the Stairs?

Duplass: I met Joe Swanberg at SXSW 2005 when we each had our first features showing at the festival. We hit it off pretty much immediately. We started a phone dialogue and he eventually asked me if I’d be willing to act in a movie about a girl and a bunch of different guys she ends up dating. The first permutation, as I remember, was a bit more high concept then the film ended up being.

Dentler: What do you remember most about the shoot in Chicago?

Duplass: One night we had a semi-religious experience rockin’ out to MAN IN MOTION by John Parr. That and waking up on the floor in my sleeping bag next to Andrew Bujalski’s sweet, sweet boxered legs every morning.

Dentler: How did the production process differ from your own other projects, or projects you’ve acted in before or since?

Duplass: No script. Pretty different for me. Joe is REALLY hands off and I was making up everything as I went along. Also, I would only get 1 or 2 takes tops and we worked very little. We would hang out for 14 hours and shoot for 2 hours in an average day. Lots of Atari and ice cream going on out there.

Dentler: What are your thoughts on the issues of sex and relationships that come to the forefront of the film?

Duplass: Huh… I don’t really think that way about movies… I’m not a real concept person… There are some very specific elements to this movie that really move me, but I can’t talk about them here ‘cos I don’t want to blow anything…

Dentler: Ever been in a love triangle?

Duplass: Not really… Tho my brother Jay (who directed “The Puffy Chair”) and I are unusually close and there have been times in the past when our respective girlfriends have had issues with that…

Dentler: Did you ever work with “the stairs?” Any thoughts on why they didn’t make the cut?

Duplass: I actually got naked on the stairs… I thought it was my best work… Joe had to cut it in the end, tho… Apparently my penis wasn’t “reading” on film or something like that… I don’t know… Maybe it’ll make the dvd extras…

Hannah Takes the Stairs premieres on August 22 as part of The New Talkies festival at the IFC Center in New York; the film will be available on IFC VOD the same day. The Puffy Chair also screens at IFC as part of The New Talkies, on August 26 & 27; it’s also available on DVD.