Exclusive: Michael Jacobs on Directing the Star-Studded Maybe I Do

Maybe I DoMichael Jacobs has been an icon on TV and in movies for years. He has directed many television shows and movies, including Boy Meets World and The Torkelsons, bringing many generations fond childhood memories.

Now he is back and better than ever with a brand-new movie called Maybe I Do, starring William H. Macy, Susan Sarandon, and Diane Keaton. It is a twist on the typical romantic comedy and has been something that has been years in the making. He began working on it as a play and eventually decided to make it into a movie.

“It’s been gestating a long time, because it ran as a play,” Jacobs told SciFi Vision. “I had started writing this idea when I was about nineteen years old. I think I was in a relationship, and I had said, ‘I love you,’ and they said, ‘How do you just say that?’ It seems so simple for ‘I love you’ to come out of your mouth when you're a kid, and you don't know what you're talking about. I sat down, and I started to write this. It was a relationship comedy that was based on this young woman who thought that the relationship was farther down the road and was surprised to find out that her partner was reticent and then finds out that the reticence comes from the fact that we are offshoots of our upbringing. I wrote the idea, and it ran on Broadway.”

Maybe I DoOnce he was done with his last TV project, he decided to give it another look, thanks to his wife’s encouragement. He made several changes to it, making it into something more modern and relatable.

Once that was done, it was time to cast everyone. He knew who he saw in the movie in his mind’s eye and got his wish when casting worked out. He also took on the suggestions of his colleagues for several of the roles. “I got a call from Chris Slager,” explained Jacobs. “He was at Endeavor Content, which is now Fifth Season, and Chris said, ‘We love this. What do you think of Diane Keaton?’ I couldn't absorb what was happening. I didn't know what he meant. The next thing I know, I'm sitting opposite Diane in her house, and she's responded to the script and wants to do it. She asked me who I felt could play Monica, because Monica was an extraordinarily difficult role, and I said, ‘I would like to get Susan Sarandon.’ And Diane said ‘You better, because I think she's the only one who can do it.’”

After that, everything fell into place, and he ended up with an unforgettable, iconic cast. For more, including working with Richard Gere, read the full transcript below. Maybe I Do is available to stream On Demand, starting tomorrow.


SCIFI VISION:  So, tell me about this movie of yours. You're a triple threat. You're directing? You wrote it, and you produced it, right?


MICHAEL JACOBS:   
It's been gestating a long time, because it ran as a play. I had started writing this idea when I was about nineteen years old. I think I was in a relationship, and I had said, “I love you,” and they said, “How do you just say that?” It seems so simple for “I love you” to come out of your mouth when you're a kid, and you don't know what you're talking about. And I sat down, and I started to write this. It was a relationship comedy that was based on this young woman who thought that the relationship was farther down the road and was surprised to find out that her partner was reticent and then finds out that the reticence comes from the fact that we are offshoots of our upbringing. I wrote the idea, and it ran on Broadway. It was a short run on Broadway; it was about a month, but it had a wonderful run nationally and internationally, stock and regional. Then, I had a forty-year television career. And after the last show we did, my wife asked me, “What are you doing next?” And I said, “I don't know. I'm going to look in the drawer and see what's in there.” And I found the old play, and I remembered how young I had been when I’d written it. I hadn't looked at it in so many years, and when I read it, I thought, “Boy, this is all wrong. Everything about it is wrong.” I realized it was the dichotomy of being, I guess, 64-65 years old, then. I rewrote it, and rather than it being from the point of a young person who had started having relationships, it was from the point of view of someone who is older and married a good long time and wanted to observe the trajectory of hope, and how hope floats like a feather through what you perceive to be I love you. So, the movie came out, and it's being, I think, marketed as a romantic comedy, but I really think that it's more an observation of what happens to relationships as gravity hits them.

That's incredible, and I can't believe it has been so many years in the making, because it is such an incredible movie. What I want to know is other than the fact that it took so long to write, what were some of the other challenges that you faced?

Well, you know, naturally, we're in the middle of a pandemic, or were when we were shooting the film. When you write anything, you write it – well, I do – for a perceived audience that will come and will resonate, and you just never know what's going to happen. But what happened was, I handed it in, and I got a call from Chris Slager. He was at Endeavor Content, which is now Fifth Season, and Chris said, “We love this. What do you think of Diane Keaton?” I couldn't absorb what was happening. I didn't know what he meant. The next thing I know, I'm sitting opposite Diane in her house, and she's responded to the script and wants to do it. She asked me who I felt could play Monica, because Monica was an extraordinarily difficult role, and I said, “I would like to get Susan Sarandon.” And Diane said, “You better, because I think she's the only one who can do it.” And what was interesting in speaking with Susan about it, you know, Susan is incredible, a force of nature, and I was always thoughtful in writing the role not to crash the line of unlikability. I think that Susan plays it as a woman who is unfulfilled and feels she deserves more, and I think that you can absolutely associate with everything she's thinking at this point in her life. She is absolutely cursed with having married the most decent man in the universe, played by Bill Macy, who the contretemps in that relationship is Bill's regret, is that the person he was truly in love with, he didn't marry, and we learn about that. Then, in the end, we went out to Richard, who said, “Nope, I'm not doing a romantic comedy,” and rightly so, having done one of the best romantic comedies ever filmed. And I wrote him a letter, and he read the letter, and he called me, and we spoke for about ninety minutes. What I thought would be a five-minute phone call and a rejection was a ninety minute phone call and acceptance. And I had realized that we had put together the most incredible possible cast for this. My producer partner, Vincent Newman, said “What do you think of Emma Roberts for Michelle?” And Emma is just brilliant at this. She read the script, and we had her answer about twelve hours later. She wanted to do it. The thing she loved about it was the thoughtfulness of the role, what was between the lines, what was unsaid, that we didn't do the obligatory scenes about their falling in love and why they loved each other. Where it came was, we start the movie with why he doesn't, and that being a jumping off point, which leads us to understand that it's not that Luke is not in love with her, of course he is. Just his line, “How can you marry somebody you love?” is born of his experience with his own parents, but we don't understand that until we're deeply into the movie. So, that's how everybody came together and how the movie came to be.

That's amazing, and I can't believe it all worked out so well, because I couldn't imagine a better cast for this movie. You have so many iconic actors and actresses in there. And what would you say was your favorite memory about filming?

My favorite memory was that - and I've, I've repeated this, because it is my clear favorite memory, and there were a lot of wonderful memories. But one day, Richard was sitting at the dining room table of one of the houses, the location we shot, and he was going over lines for the scene. He delivered one line three different ways. There were three distinctly different ways. He's being very thoughtful about how we wanted to approach this moment, because it was a crux moment. The thing that I wanted was an absolutely relaxed delivery of an important line, which he was going to do anyway. So, I think no matter how he delivered the line, I would have done the same thing, but we get to the moment on camera, he delivers the line, and I say, “That's how you're going to deliver that line?” And he knew I had been watching him at the table. So, he started laughing, and he got up and he chased me across the set in front of everybody. He caught me; he moved pretty fast, and he lifted me up into the air. And I realized in that moment that I was Debra Winger, and I started singing “Love lift us up where we belong,” and my memory is that how many times in a lifetime do you get lifted off the ground by Richard Gere? So, that that could happen, and that that was the reality it was a wonderful shoot and a great experience.

How do you feel knowing that people who watched your work from twenty, thirty years ago though like Boy Meets World and shows like that are watching your work now, particularly this movie, and they've been following your career for so long?

Oh, that’s so nice of you to say. I have always done it for the audience. I sit at the computer, and when I write a line, if I'm not laughing at the line, or if I'm not moved by what's happening, then I know the audience won't be. Some writers talk to me about it. You know, how do I know if what I'm writing is any good? And I say “You do know. You're about to put it out in the world, but were you moved by it?” It’s one thing to be the writer, but you also have to be the audience, and you have to understand who you are trying to communicate this idea to, and have you communicated it?

I keep telling this one story. There was an episode of Boy Meets World that Chad Hunter, who is Shawn Hunter (Rider Strong)’s father, and he's not a good father, and he wants to bond with his son, and he takes a job in high school as the school janitor. Shawn is humiliated by this. It's not an easy road to hoe, because all of the kids in school are making terrible fun of this situation and what his father is doing. And at the end of the episode, Shawn picks up a mop and helps his father mop up one of the school hallways. Years go by, and I'm walking down the street in Los Angeles, and I am tapped on the shoulder. I turn around, and there's a woman in her mid-thirties, and she says, “Thank you.” And I go, “For what?” She said, “I know who you are.” I said, “I'm not on camera much. How do you know?” She said, “I know who you are, and I want to say thank you.” And I go, “Okay, you're welcome. For what?” And she says, “My father was a high school janitor.” So, we do episode after episode after episode, and we tell these stories, not only in Boy Meets World, but in all these series, and you wonder, do we resonate, or we communicating these ideas effectively? Then that happens, and it's just these little signals from the universe that make you want to keep writing. So, when you ask me, “What's your feeling about a long career?” That's what sustains it.

Thanks. I love that. That's a beautiful story, and you did change so many lives with that show, and I thank you for that.

Thank you for saying that.

So, before I let you go, I want you to describe this movie in three words.

I guess if I was going to do it in three words, I would say it's a movie about hope and gravity. Those are the three words: it's “hope and gravity.”

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