On the Verge: Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen

Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen have been planning their Hollywood takeover for a long time. Like, more than three decades, which is pretty long. After meeting at a Chicago summer camp in the late 1980s, the two ended up moving to Los Angeles together and trying to make it in the film business. Success came slowly, then quickly, as Barinholtz made a name for himself as a gifted comedic actor and improviser, and Stassen found work as a writer and director.

The two collaborated throughout, including on the hit show The Mindy Project, on which Barinholtz starred, and more recently, Hulu’s History of the World: Part II. Now, they’re the co-writers of the indie political satire Maximum Truth, in which Barinholtz stars and Stassen directs. The movie follows Barinholtz’s hapless political grifter and his even dumber partner (Dylan O’Brien) as they futilely try to dig up dirt on a rival candidate. Maximum Truth opened Friday, June 23, on VOD. The pair chatted with us via Zoom.

The movie is interesting in that it is incredibly abrasive, and yet it’s also very funny. Those two don’t always go together.

David Stassen: Thank you. We’re often called abrasive, less so successfully funny.

In this case, it works. How did you guys connect in the first place?

DS: Well, the two of us go back to summer camp.

Ike Barinholtz: I still remember the day in like 1989 on the camp school bus where Dave turned to me and said, ‘One day, you and I are going to make a film called Maximum Truth.’ And I said, ‘What?’ And then here we are. And it’s a testament to our commitment to each other and our commitment to this project that we are now finally presenting it.

But seriously, folks. You guys have worked together a lot. Where did the initial germ of the idea come from?

IB: Sometime last year, Dave and I were talking and I think we’ve always been very attracted to losers.

Ike, you have a unique talent for playing guys who have a level of, let’s say, self-confidence that they have not necessarily earned.

IB: (laughs) That’s a very nice way of saying I play losers.

Well…

IB: When losers get into the grifting business, we think that’s like a very interesting world that we’re just very intrigued by. Thanks to late-stage capitalism, it’s sort of a golden age of con artists, I think, and to us, the ones that are the most pathetic are the ones that kind of live in the political space. We looked at a lot of these kinds of characters that are out there in the world and started talking about like, oh, let’s just do a movie about these two complete dumbasses trying to destroy someone’s career.

Photo courtesy of Momentum Pictures.

What was the impetus behind making it a mockumentary style?

DS: I think it’s politics. You know, you would see a documentary following a political candidate or movement and part of it was you want it to be like a commentary on current times.

IB: I just gotta say, even similar political satires, like Bob Roberts or Tanner ’88, which is kind of a deep cut, just the feeling of being around a lot of these operatives, that mockumentary form lends itself to it. You just feel like you’re in the room with these people and you want to get out of that room.

Dylan O’Brien plays your partner, and you two look like you’re having a lot of fun.

IB: I was a fan of Dylan’s, and he just has a perfect look of one of these guys who’s like, I’m a good-looking guy. I’m gonna try to capitalize on that a little bit. But I’m also kind of dumb, you know what I mean? We met with him and he got it right away. And you’re right, it was some of the hardest I’ve ever laughed, making anything. I mean, some of these scenes are just so, so deeply troubling and stupid, and Dylan was perfect. When we were shooting some of those scenes, we just couldn’t hold it together.

The rest of the cast is pretty amazing. You have cameos from the likes of Seth Rogen, Max Minghella, Kelvin Yu and Kiernan Shipka, and strong supporting work from Beth Grant, Brianna Baker, Jena Friedman and Mark Proksch, among others. How did it all come together? Did you audition with anyone?

DS: We didn’t audition anyone, we just made a very targeted list of people that we wanted. It kind of hones in on how you have to write a movie like this, where you’re going to shoot in a small amount of time with [a] limited budget. Then, how are you gonna get your friends to come and play? We just got so lucky that everyone got what we were trying to do with this and wanted to come to set for a day or two and have fun.

It feels like there’s a lot of improv in this movie. Was that always the intention?

IB: We like to shoot what’s on the page and make sure we get that because we know on some level that works, but then my whole background is improv and I think people know they’re gonna get to come and have some fun and get to do some things that they might normally not get to do. And, this movie in particular, when we were creating it, we knew we’re dealing in a very despicable world. Everyone who’s within this infrastructure is pretty gross. Kiernan said, ‘I never get to play anything like this.’

Now this thing you’ve birthed is out in the world. What’s next?

IB: We reunited with our old friend Mindy Kaling. You might’ve heard of her. We were in the midst of doing a new TV series that’s all about the world of basketball and family business. We had to stop that due to the strike. Right now, we’re kind of focused on the strike. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and we can get a good deal and come back and finish that and keep telling other weird little stories.

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