The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

10 Edgar Wright
And then the deadpan punch line, when the little kid goes up to his mom
and says, “A naked American man stole my balloons.” That’s the line. That’s
one for all time.
The line from Griffin Dunne that people quote back to him all the
time is . . .
Wright: “Have you ever talked to a corpse? It’s boring.”
Yes! For me, the delivery is the best part of that line. Because you
expect something else.
Wright: His performance in that scene is amazing. When Griffin first
comes into the hospital, his makeup is astonishing. And it’s so gory. He has
that little flap of skin that’s kind of like flapping away through the entire
scene, which always seems to draw everybody’s eye. When I showed it in
2007, I mentioned the flap of skin, and everybody really reacted to that. But
he has some funny lines in that scene.
He has the whole bit about his own funeral and talking about Debbie
Klein, the girl that he fancied, you know, and he says, “She’s so grief-stricken,
she runs to find solace in Mark Levine’s bed.” He starts talking about the reactions
to his death.
He does an amazing thing in that he really kind of walks the tightrope
between little wisecracks and being this impish figure who comes to warn
David: “Kill yourself, before you kill others.” It gets very serious and there
is something that really is bittersweet about it. It’s funny, but it’s also really
painful because you like that character. You don’t want to see him like that.
It’s upsetting. It’s as upsetting to us as it is to David.
Griffin Dunne went off to star in After Hours and then Who’s That
Girl. And David Naughton didn’t do much afterward, nothing as high
profile. For me, the film is in one of those weird categories where it’s a
classic but the people associated with it did not go on to great acclaim,
like the actors in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Wright: I totally agree. In both cases I’m kind of surprised. What’s interesting
is that in the UK An American Werewolf in London is probably a much
bigger film than it is in the States.