Goodbye World is probably the film I’ve championed the most from the Los Angeles Film Festival (although I have Short Term 12 interviews in the works when that film does official press rounds). I singled it out for a full review and pursued two of the talent. First I spoke with Caroline Dhavernas who played my favorite character in the film, and when I spoke to director Denis Hennelly he picked right up on the previous interview. Hennelly cowrote the film with Sarah Adina Smith.
Six college friends meet up on James (Adrian Grenier)’s farm when a computer virus destroys society. Becky (Dhavernas) and Nick (Ben McKenzie) had a business with James that succeeded but broke up their friendship. Laura (Gaby Hoffman) is still recovering from a political scandal. Lev (Kid Cudi) was suicidal before he noticed the world ending. Rabble-rousing college professor Benji (Marc Webber) shows up with a student (Remy Nozik) and James and Lily (Kerry Bishe) have their daughter Hannah (McKenna Grace) to care for. The characters’ differing ideologies become dramatic conflicts when facing survival and outside groups. I don’t want to spoil anything before the film is released but I did delve into the characters and a few of the vague threats that face them with Hennelly.
Denis Hennelly: How’d it go with Caroline?
CraveOnline: She was lovely and I told her Becky was my favorite character.
Mine too.
Really?
We definitely have that in common.
I was going to ask which of the characters you related to the most. So you’re also a Becky?
[Laughs] I don’t know if I relate to her the most but she was my favorite. I think I relate to some other ones more, but in terms of the person I’d want to spend more time with, I think it’s her.
Why is that, and which of the other characters do you relate to more personally?
In terms of the characters, I do have a lot of affection for all of them. Sarah, my cowriter, and I, we spent most of our time writing the script working on the characters before we even started writing the story. We brought a lot of ourselves into each of them, so in some ways, there’s certainly an element of each of them that feels like part of me. I’m probably, in real life, most like Benji or maybe James.
A little revolutionary?
Yeah, I’m certainly interested in animal rights and human rights. I definitely am unhappy with the status quo of the planet, though I think Benji is struggling with he did something decisive and took action and has been kind of batted down by the system and hasn’t quite found his way to get back into a life of action, so I think he’s feeling stymied and repressed. He’s not able to go out and do what he believes needs to be done. So I don’t feel like that. I certainly feel empowered to try to do what I can but I don’t know. I like them all.
In my head, I’d like to think I’m like Laura. If I were to want to be like anybody, I think Laura is the most aspirational for me. It’s in large part due to her [Dhavernas’s] performance, I like Becky the most. She’s the most interesting to me. I guess ideologically I might even be more like her. I’m definitely very appreciative of the constitution of our country and I feel like you have to have open eyes to things that are bad but also try to retain your own integrity. Caroline is just such a great actor and brought so much to that part, I think on the page she was maybe a little bit two dimensional and Caroline really created a whole person there. I’m constantly thankful that we found her.
I was going to ask how you created seven different ideologies that would create the most drama when placed together. I think we’ve covered three or four of them already so I should just ask how the other two fit in.
Yeah, I think Sarah and I have some things in common but we also have some big differences ideologically. In some ways, I’m way more progressive than her and in some ways I’m more conservative. You’re looking at a spectrum and I think that’s what’s interesting. I think one of the strengths we have in America is that we have this diversity of ideologies and we have this diversity of ways of approaching community and the world. I think part of what the movie hopes to say is that when all those different things come together, they can form a really strong net. They can form a kind of unique tapestry of a community.
Right now it seems more like what we have is all these differing ideologies are constantly at odds and they’re fighting and they’re not coming together. Everybody has a little piece they can bring and I think that’s one of the reasons I really like Becky as a character. When the movie starts out, she is kind of a Tea Party-esque Libertarian, whatever words you would use to describe her. Then Benji is a revolutionary felon. He’s gone to jail for what he’s done. They are natural enemies in the world that we know now, but when you strip away the very superficial elements of our culture, you get the two people who believe somewhat the same thing: that we’re responsible for our own actions, that individuals can make a difference, that it’s important to care about people outside of yourself and to try to do good in the world. Those to me are like core principals and they share them and they’ve been kept from sharing those core principals by our superficial surface beliefs. I like that element of it.
I’m making it sound way more heavy-handed than it is. It’s primarily entertainment but I think we wanted to try to find seven characters that were very unique just as people but also represented different ideas of what you need in a community. You need somebody who is a leader and Laura is a leader but not in the way we think of leaders where they tell people what to do but somebody who leads by example, somebody who finds the right moments to lead and then you have people who just want to lighten the atmosphere and make everyone have a good time and that’s Lily. That’s important too. It’s just as important and she has a place in this community. That’s what we were going for with the different characters. Everyone has a place if they just accept who they are and everyone else accepts who they are.
I think I picked up on that about Becky before she reveals her worldview because she’s already going to this hostile environment to support her husband.
Yeah, totally. These are people that hated her in college, right? And she’s trying to [say,] “Let’s be friends, let’s do it for my husband, let’s bring a gift.” These characters, and some of us, might look at her as uptight but she’s got a good heart and I think that’s what she gets the chance to have come out at the end of the day.
It sounds like you and Sarah know each other better than just co-writers. Are you married or involved or just partners?
None of the above actually. I don’t know if we’ll ever write anything together again, not because we didn’t enjoy the experience, but she’s a writer and director. We met each other through Mary Pat [Bentel] our producer as friends. I shot part of my last movie in her apartment and we’ve been friends. When I came up with this idea, I kind of felt like it would be interesting to write it with somebody. I really liked Sarah’s writing and I thought it would be a good partnership so I just approached her and said, “Do you want to write this thing with me?” She said yeah and got invested in it and continued on to produce it with Mary Pat. She’s got a script I think she’s going to be directing this fall, so we came together for this but it’s not necessarily something we’ll do again. We’ll see.
The depth of your conflicts suggest that there might have been more, so thank you for clarifying.
[Laughs] Well, we did lock ourselves in a lot of rooms for many months.
