How It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Prepped Charlie Day To Direct Fool's Paradise
Charlie Day is making his directorial debut with "Fool's Paradise," a scathing love letter to Hollywood that features one of Ray Liotta's final performances. The ambitious comedian also wrote and starred in the film. It might seem like a lot to take on for a first-time filmmaker, but Day has been taking on all of these roles for years on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," the longest-running live-action sitcom to date. The multi-hyphenate talent has had more than enough training for his first feature, and he has his successful FX series to thank.
The boundary-pushing comedy series was created by Day and his friends Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton, both of whom co-star in the series as well. All three have stayed incredibly hands-on throughout their nearly two decades on air and have each written about a third of the episodes. "When you don't like a 'Sunny' episode, it's entirely my fault and Rob's fault and Glenn's fault; it's no one else's fault," Day confessed to Backstage. "Those are the risks that are nice to take."
Although Day has also been credited as an executive producer for a large chunk of the series, he has never directed an episode — unlike his co-creators. This might be because, for a long time, Day saw the show solely as a vehicle for his acting.
"It was 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' that gave me the confidence to say, 'Okay, well, I don't always have to be making something just [to have a project] to act in," he explained. "I can make something for the thing itself to be unique and worthy of people's time."
Day never directed an episode, but he might as well have
Along with co-creating, writing, producing, and starring in "Sunny," Day also weighed in on other aspects of the show, like cinematography. After working under Guillermo del Toro in "Pacific Rim," Day brought some of his new-found artistic influence to the "Sunny" set.
"I remember we did an episode where we're in a police station and it's a flashback and we're talking about [the McPoyle wedding]," Day recalled on Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend. "And I was saying, okay, when we shoot it, we'll do the coverage that Richie Keane — great director — had sort of blocked out. But I said, 'Hey Richie, after we get that, can we do a few Guillermo takes and just circle the camera around the actors?' And just started using more, as I would call them, 'Guillermo takes' throughout the show."
Day dabbled in different niches of the film world during the early days of shooting 'It's Always Sunny' when the low production budget forced the creative team to take on extra responsibilities on set. "It's weird how [the process] is the same thing," he noted to Backstage. "What are the people doing in the scene? Where should the camera go? How can we make this more interesting?"
The troubleshooting that went into his directorial debut, a star-studded multi-million dollar feature, mirrored the problem-solving he and his collaborators did on the sets of early "Sunny" episodes, like, "Okay, a character is knocking on the door; we have a spyhole in the door. Can we get this little digital camera up there? Can we actually shoot a shot through it? Oh, turns out we can. That's aesthetically interesting; let's try that."
Switching between acting and directing is harder than it looks in the movies
Despite being well-prepared to take on multiple major roles on-set, Day still ran into some trouble. He found it difficult to take the directing hat off and slip into character.
"I could tell the difference in the editing room when I was in [the scene] as the character and when I was in it as the director," the comedian recalled. "I would kick myself: Oh, that's a great take from [co-star Ken Jeong], and I'm completely not looking at him the way Latte Pronto should be looking at him. I was looking at him the way Charlie Day the director would look at him to make sure I'm getting certain moments."
This might be why Day never stepped in to direct on "Sunny." He had always seen himself as an actor first, so to compromise his ability to perform with the burden of directing is a difficult balance to strike.
Along with his experience on both sides of the camera, Day also grabbed several "Sunny" alumni for his film, including Artemis Pebdani and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Ellis. "Fool's Paradise" won't just feel like a long episode of "Sunny" though. Although both are both comedies, they have vastly different looks and feel. While the sitcom is handheld and gritty, the film is much more manicured and composed — here we see del Toro's cinematically exploratory influence on Day's aesthetic sensibility really coming through.
Day is a self-professed "movie nerd," per his interview with Conan O'Brien, and his film is a testament to his extensive knowledge from the silent era to Scorsese. From his cinema studies to his experience on both sides of the camera, Day was well-prepared to make a film that is by and for movie nerds — and he has "Sunny" to thank.