Paul Downs Colaizzo

1 sketch, 10 claims, and 6 fun items attributed to them. What was said about them.

Personality, episode by episode

The Big Picture: The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture (guest)

A playwright who came late to movies and became a convert through love and vulnerability; he prizes character, theater structure and Mike Nichols-style tonal shifts. Is a sucker for the idea of the story of us rather than them, and for theatrical, subtext-rich filmmaking such as Carnal Knowledge. Dislikes flattened, broadly offensive treatments of his protagonist.

Stances

  • Writing and directing are separate jobs
  • A comedy can quietly turn into a drama
  • Wanted Amazon for The Big Sick-style theatrical and home life

Humor: Self-mocking and anecdotal, with jokes about extras tables, generators and icy mountains.

In their words

  • “I find that writing and directing are separate experiences, and you should treat each process differently and separately.” (1:05:42)
  • “So it was almost like firing myself as the writer and hiring myself to do the rewrite.” (1:06:31)

Their shows' recurring bits

Running bits, not opinions; a critic read aloud is cited, not present.

The Big Picture

Their claims

Showing 1–10 of 10 claims.

  1. lineage (influence): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Mike Nichols. Colaizzo studied theater-to-film directors Nichols, Kazan, May and Mamet.
    “Well, like Mike Nichols did that, Ellie? Kazan, um, Elaine May, you know, works as a director, as a writer, and, and, you know, I could feel that David Mammoth, same thing.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:01:08 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. people (producer): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Tobey Maguire. Tobey Maguire and Matt Plouffe's company bought the script off the log line and developed it for 2.5 years.
    “it was really Toby McGuire and Matt Pluffet material.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:03:09 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  3. unmapped (tonal subversion): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Brittany Runs a Marathon. The trailer promises a zippy comedy but the film slowly exposes deeper levels, taking a comedy seriously like a drama.
    “you take something you think you understand, which is, uh, which has promised to be fun and funny and engaging and enjoyable and unthreatening, and you slowly and and with detail and precision expose deeper levels as it goes on.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:07:21 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  4. theme (theme quote): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Thornton Wilder. He cites a Wilder line, film is the story of them and theater the story of us, and tries to do the story of us on film.
    “film is the story of them and theater is the story of us.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:09:42 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  5. people (casting origin): Brittany Runs a Marathon → 22 Jump Street. Walking out of 22 Jump Street he wondered if Jillian Bell might someday be Brittany.
    “I remember walking out of 22 Jump Street, just sort of like flippantly thinking, I wonder if that'll be Britney someday.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:10:17 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  6. people (performance): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Jillian Bell. Jillian Bell lost the exact weight the character loses, 29 pounds before and 11 during filming.
    “So she lost £29 while we were before we started filming in the last £11 while we were filming.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:12:07 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  7. people (performance): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Michaela Watkins. Watkins plays Catherine, the calm, motherly woman upstairs, a subtle performance.
    “Michaela Watkins plays Catherine, the woman upstairs, uh, who Britney thinks has everything going for her.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:15:27 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  8. unmapped (premiere): Brittany Runs a Marathon → John Cooper. Sundance head John Cooper introduced the premiere, where the room was laughing so loud audio had to be turned up.
    “I knew it was going well in the 1st 3 minutes because we had to turn up the audio because people were laughing so loudly they couldn't hear the lines.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:18:35 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  9. industry (distribution model): Brittany Runs a Marathon → The Big Sick. Colaizzo picked Amazon because The Big Sick had both a theatrical life and home accessibility.
    “I wanted to be an Amazon. The reason I wanted to be at Amazon was because the big sick, because the way the big sick was handled.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:21:29 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  10. industry (industry): Brittany Runs a Marathon → Amazon. Amazon won the Sundance bidding by bringing 14 people to the meeting, one for each million.
    “They brought 14 people into the meeting and one for each million.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:22:14 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)

Their fun items

Showing 1–6 of 6 fun items.

  1. fun, about Brittany Runs a Marathon: Colaizzo had the idea for the film around 2011 while living with his best friend, who went on her first run and inspired the outline; her life began to mimic the outline.
    “And then I told her some things that happened in the movie and her life started to mimic the outline.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 0:56:55 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. fun, about Brittany Runs a Marathon: Colaizzo and his roommate stole a couch from a Broadway show after it closed, where the film's pipe dream was written.
    “we stole a couch from a Broadway show after it closed and that was our couch.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 0:58:03 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  3. fun, about Brittany Runs a Marathon: Colaizzo wrote every element as character, with pages on the character of the lighting, camera movements and costume design.
    “I made pages on the character of the lighting, the character of the camera movements, uh, the costume design”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:01:52 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  4. fun, about Brittany Runs a Marathon: Colaizzo says on set he is sent to the extras table at craft services every time, so he goes and has those eggs.
    “they always say to me, extras eat over there.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:13:54 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  5. fun, about Brittany Runs a Marathon: At the Sundance premiere Colaizzo secretly opened doors to cool the theater because cold rooms make people laugh more.
    “I was just like secretly opening all of these doors to the outside to make sure that cold air would pour into this theater.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:17:44 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)
  6. fun, about Carnal Knowledge: Colaizzo's last great thing: a jet-lagged viewing of Carnal Knowledge, which he found subtext-filled and theatrically shot, eaten with pricey hotel cashews.
    “filled with subtext and the way that it was shot was so theatrical.”
    The Big Picture · The Future of ‘Star Wars,’ Marvel, Pixar, and Disney’s Movie Monopoly. Plus: Our Summer Movie Awards and Paul Downs Colaizzo on ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ | The Big Picture · 1:25:43 · Paul Downs Colaizzo (0.90 sure it was them)