Wilfred - Interview with Jason Gann

The new FX comedy Wilfred is equal parts crazy, hilarious, crude and brilliant. The half-hour, live-action series, adapted from the Australian series of the same name, follows Ryan (Elijah Wood), a young man struggling unsuccessfully to make his way in the world until he forms a unique friendship with Wilfred (Jason Gann), his neighbor’s canine pet. While everyone else, including his owner Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann), sees Wilfred as just a dog, Ryan sees a surly, yet irrepressibly brave and honest Australian bloke in a cheap dog suit. As Wilfred, the dog, shows Ryan, the man, how to overcome his fears and joyfully embrace the unpredictability and insanity of the world around him, the two develop an unlikely friendship that gives new meaning to “man’s best friend.”

During an interview Jason Gann, who co-created and starred in the Australian series, and who is also co-executive producer on the American version, talked about how the concept for Wilfred started as a conversation that turned into a short film and then become a television show, being convinced to put the Wilfred suit back on, getting the opportunity to expand the world by doing almost as many episodes in Season 1 as the Australian series had in its entirety, how much fun he’s had working with Elijah Wood, a rather funny run-in he had with two Australian teenagers while he was shooting in costume in Venice, and how he’d also like to branch out and do some drama work as well.

How did this concept originally come about?
JASON GANN: It started as a conversation. The original pitch for the short film was that it would be a conversation between two blokes, one of whom happens to be a dog. It was based on a story of a real dog that was threatening to his owner’s date. I just started improvising as this dog, and it was really, really funny. I was just articulating dog issues or dog-related angles, in a human voice. I’d actually had a strong theatrical background and I had done a lot of children’s theater and I had played a lot of animals in suits. I always found it really funny when actors would come offstage, smoking cigarettes and swearing at each other. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer would swear and go off at Santa. I’d always thought it was really funny, seeing people in suits swearing and doing that sort of stuff. That, in itself, isn’t totally original, but this character was original and the voice was original.

And then, it was like, “How do we do this? Is it animation?” I was like, “No, I think we should just get a really bad dog suit.” And, I don’t do any doggy acting. I won’t scratch behind my ears. The moment I do any puppy dog acting, I think the joke is dead. It’s in the truth of how I play it, and the real painful honesty that I approach my performance with. That fights against the traditional image of what you think of someone in a dog suit. When I used to be in those kid shows, the kids would just totally engage in the magic of it. They would totally believe that you were an Emu, even if you had a beak on the top of your head and you had eyes, a nose and a mouth underneath it. It was like, “How do these kids believe this?” I’m fascinated in the children within adults. I’m surprised by how it isn’t that massive a step for people to totally believe in Wilfred and feel for Wilfred. With the Australian version, the fans are just so loyal and they love Wilfred. To them, he’s a real dog. They don’t even question that it’s me, in a suit.

Was it a conscious choice to have everybody look you in the eye, instead of at the level a dog would be?
GANN: Yeah. Sometimes girls would come in and audition and they’d talk down, and it was like, “No, no, talk to the human eye level.” There’s a surreal-ness to the show. When Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann) asks if Ryan (Elijah Wood) can babysit her dog, she has a bag and she says, “Here’s some of his toys,” and one of those toys is a bong. When he pulls the bong out, it’s packed and he’s lighting it. She clearly probably hasn’t packed a bong for her dog, but that’s where we’re screwing with conventions and reality, and stuff like that. Humans will still look at Wilfred in the eye. They just accept it.

Full Interview @ Collider

Streaming Options

Powered byJustWatch

---