How 'The Secret Art of Human Flight' Balanced Comedy and Grief

NFS: What your process portraying grief, both acting and directing, for harnessing and portraying such humanist grief?

H.P. Mendoza: I personally was going through grief of my own because we were in the middle of a pandemic, and when I got the script from Grant Rosen Meyer, I remember thinking, okay, so this is a quirky tick on grief, but it's also not too quirky.

A formative memory for me was watching Dying Young in the movie theater. If you know what that movie is, Julia Roberts. It's a big grief movie by Joel Schumacher, and I'll never forget it. I remember watching it with my mother in the theater as a teenager, and I remember thinking it was the first time I realized that people react to movies differently.

It's a really heavy movie where Julia Roberts starts to talk about death and dying young, and my mom was sobbing. And then I heard another voice in the theater that just said, "oh, for Christ's sake!" And people started laughing, and I remember just the thought I had as a teenager, that not everyone's ready for grief all the time.

That was one of many formative cinema going experiences for me where I realized not everyone takes everything the same way. So I was really grateful to have a script like this come my way. I think this is how I handle grief.

Paul Raci: My wife calls the experience of this movie is grief relief because you realize everybody grieves differently. This young man happens to have latched down to this guru that's got this idea, and you can judge people, but it's hard to be judgmental when somebody's going through a grieving process. So that's why it's so wonderful that it is a movie that you can laugh with. It's a comedy, and yet the very core of it is very serious.

Grant Rosenmeyer: And that is sort of the challenge of making this is, it's a pretty daunting task. At face value this is a a story about a guy whose wife died. He's going through a nightmare scenario, and then this guy, maybe suicidal, goes onto the dark web and drains his life savings to order a book that will basically call for him to jump off a high place and either fly or die.

There's a really heavy version of this film that is no fun at all to watch. And then you do sort of have to go, well, who's going to direct this thing and how are we going to keep this thing light on its feet? Who's going to play Mealworm (Paul Raci) that can imbue this character with the proper combination of menace and joy? Putting that part of the puzzle together, making sure that it's funny, injecting air where it needs it, and then taking people's breath away where it's also required is a real challenge and a tight rope walk.

Hopefully we've done that. We certainly tried.

NFS: Absolutely. I was definitely on the edge of my seat. What was the writing process like integrating those misdirections? Was that tricky?

Mendoza: This is the first script I directed that I didn't write.

I was able to do my director's pass, but this script was written by Jesse Orenshein. And I think what I love about it is that there's a simplicity to it that's freakishly sophisticated, right? Because I think what really, if you take a look at what's going on, you have this guy who's training a guy how to deal with death. But if you really think about it, he's training him on how to live, right?

I like what Grant said earlier, you're either going to fly or die. Well, that's the choice you have every day. You're already dying every day, but one morning you can decide to fly. And Mealworm as a guru is walking him through the process of living life. He even says in one very pertinent scene, "I chose life."

So for me, I was honoring what was given to me on the page. And as a writer, it was a really liberating exercise. I know that sounds like a clinical word, but it was a really liberating exercise to say, okay, how do I honor this while injecting my own personality?

NFS: Paul, you have so much pathos as Mealworm—which is such a great name. Was it tricky towing that line of being a con guy or good guy?

Raci: Well, yeah. For me, it was just living my own experience here in Los Angeles. I met a lot of these guys, these self-help coaches, ministers, spiritual ministers, and spiritual centers that I was going to look for the answer. I met a guy who dressed like Mealworm. His name was Nirvana, and he was an ex drug dealer. I didn't find that until out until way later when I already spent a lot of time with the guy.

So to me, these people are very real. Some of them are the real deal, and some of them are just like vampires or leeches. They're going to get 40, 50 bucks out of you to sit in a spiritual session with them. So this is a very real occupation here in Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, a lot of actors, I know their part-time job is being a life coach, so this is the way it goes. So I loved being able to put that together for this.

NFS: And then Grant, I want to ask you a similar question. Was it tough balancing being very depressed, while also maintaning humor and charm?

Rosenmeyer: Believe it or not, that was some of the easier stuff to do. I don't know about you, but depression is something that I deal with in my life. It's something a lot of people deal with, whether it's circumstantial or chemical.

It was a very depressing time [when we shot The Secret Art of Human Flight]. And to be given the platform, the stage, and really the space to go there and allow yourself to actually deal with it, to live in it, to sit in it while also being able to experience the joy and the humor [was rewarding]..

Very often as an actor, you're being called to do one thing. Like, hey, listen, in this scene, we really just need you to hit the mark. Don't keep your head down. Don't lift it up too much and say this, and don't blink while you do it. Thanks. Go to crafty. We'll call you when we're ready for you again.

It's very rare that you are given the opportunity to go on a ride with a character and run the gamut. So no, that was the easy stuff for the most part. It was the easy stuff. Not so easy week one, but then when you're really given the permission to go there, no, that's the easy stuff.

NFS: What is your advice for aspiring filmmakers?

Mendoza: Maybe this is just an anecdote, but I'd like to think that somebody could take this as advice.

Last year, we premiered Secret Art of Human Flight at Tribeca, and it was my first time at Tribeca. I've been trying for 20 years to get any of my films into Tribeca. Every time I got a rejection letter from Tribeca, you get that feeling of like, God, what's wrong with me? Why not? Right?

When I finally got in and I found myself on the red carpet with these two guys here and everybody in the cast, I just had this sense of calm that I didn't expect to have, because I remember thinking to myself, no, it had to happen. Now, if I had gotten into Tribeca any earlier, I don't know if I would've been ready. I don't know what kind of filmmaker it would've turned me into. And maybe a lot of that comes from the fact that I found a way to love myself the way I am right now, that I'm just like, you know what? If it happened any other way, I wouldn't be who I am. And I'm pretty happy where I am right now, and I'm really happy with the movie I made.

Rosenmeyer: Set a start date and just dig in your heels and get there. You're never going to be ready. Never going to be a hundred percent ready. It doesn't matter. Just start. Just get a camera there. Get everybody there, and if you've assembled the right group of people, it'll get done. You need each other anyway. It's team sport, so just put a date on the calendar and get, or you're never going to get, you're never going to do it. You'll never do anything.

Mendoza: I do want to tack on one thing. It's so true, but I think people love to run around town and say like, we got so-and-so attached and like blah, blah, blah. Got so-and-so's people.

The start date is so much more valuable and credible than who you have attached, especially right now in this landscape of independent filmmaking. If this person finds out that when you're starting, you've got all the credibility in the world.