Yahoo Lifestyle Adam Elliot Talks Inclusion & Creative Risk-Taking In Oscar-Nominated ‘Memoir Of A Snail’: “It’s Really Important To Hear Voices From People Who Are Marginalized”
SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains details of the film Memoir of a Snail.
Adam Elliot never shies away from an opportunity to turn societal misfits into people worthy of love and acceptance on screen. Though his signature style places his characters through a series of unfortunate events, there is often a bit of levity and strength that his leads hold while they become self-sustaining. “I’m telling stories about perceived imperfections and the flaws we all think we have and how many of us try to fix our flaws,” Elliot says. “But really what we should be doing is embracing them and also other people. Empathy is a real key ingredient with my characters.”
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In his latest tragicomedy, Memoir of a Snail, set against the backdrop of 1970s Australia, the director centers his film around Grace Pudel (Sarah Snook), a melancholic recluse who finds comfort in the hoarding of snails and snail memorabilia after a life marred by emotional setbacks. Recounting her life to a pet garden snail, Grace confesses many hardships, which range from being born with a cleft palate, suffering a lack of companionship and going through adoption separation from her brother (Kodi Smit-McPhee).
Here, Deadline talks to Elliot about unique ideations across his filmography, making adult themes in animated projects and bringing the film to life.
DEADLINE: Where were you on Oscars nomination day? This is not your first Oscar nomination, you won for Harvie Krumpet, but I assume you were still so excited about Memoir of a Snail making the cut.
ADAM ELLIOT: Because of the time zone [in Australia], the announcements were at 1 a.m. here. But that was OK because I just got off a plane from England, so I had really bad jet lag anyway. Normally announcements make me nervous, but I had a really bad feeling about this one. I really didn’t think we were going to get nominated because we missed out on the BAFTAs and we missed out at the Critics Choice Awards. But I’d forgotten that really films aren’t made for the critics [laughs]. To my surprise, we slipped in right at the end and I was just at home holding my dog and my partner. It was this huge sense of relief because it had taken eight years to make the film. We took a lot of risks, not just with the story, but just how we made it. Ours is the only film of the five that’s not for children, so I was worried.
DEADLINE: It seems that every other year there’s a conversation about whether or not animation is just for children. Your films have this cutesy look to them, but they have adult themes. Do you still have people who aren’t aware of what you do?
ELLIOT: I fight it all the time, but it really depends on what country I’m in. It’s more of a problem here in Australia and America, less so with countries like France or more “sophisticated” countries [laugh]. But it’s certainly changing. I’m lucky that my followers and fan base, they’re quite au fait with adult animation and have been watching it for a long time. Guillermo del Toro said it beautifully a few years ago in his Oscar speech for Pinocchio, he reminded us all that animation isn’t a genre, and he hit the nail on the head. And so that’s what I say now. It’s just a medium and a great vehicle to tell challenging stories with challenging subject matter. I think you can get away with so much more in animation than you can in live action. I mean, I’ve got a gay therapy conversion sequence, and I burned down a church, which I was more concerned that I would get a lot of kickback about the church being burnt down, particularly in countries where religion is so strong like America. But not much.
DEADLINE: Right, then on top of that you have the religious family speaking in a garbled way. I thought it was funny.
ELLIOT: That’s the Pentecostal Church. We have a big group here in Australia who speak in tongues. And my comment on religion was really about organized religion and cults particularly. I was brought up in a very religious environment, although now I’d call myself agnostic, but it wasn’t a comment. It was not against religion. It’s really against people who exploit other people via religion.
DEADLINE: What is it about the claymation style that spoke to you so early in your career as a filmmaker?
ELLIOT: Right from the get go, when I was at film school back in ’96, computer animation really had just started. All the other students were really enthusiastic and keen to go down that pathway. But something in me said, “You know what, Adam? I don’t think you’re going to enjoy sitting behind a computer screen all day.” I’m a very hands-on, I like getting my hands dirty. I love clay. I’m always using it. It’s very primeval and cathartic medium. So I knew really early on that 2D animation and computer animation was not for me. I mean, I loved drawing. It was weird though because I was told that I was going to pursue a dying art form, and that stop-motion would be killed by CGI. And it hasn’t died. It’s alive and well. Wes Anderson and Guillermo del Toro are doing stop-motion. So it’s still around now even with the advent of AI. I think handcrafted art forms have never been more appreciated because we’re drowning in CGI stuff.
DEADLINE: Talk about the inspiration behind Memoir of a Snail. It was based on family members and friends?
ELLIOT: It all started about eight years ago. My father had just died, and he was a collector, and he left behind three garages full of stuff. He never threw anything out. Instead, he just built another garage and filled it up. I always say, my scripts start with a point of anger or frustration about something. I remember feeling very annoyed with him about leaving behind this big mess that we had to clean up. But that led to an interest and fascination with why as human beings do we fill our homes with things we don’t need? What makes that unique to the human species? So I just started to read a lot and research, and I spoke to psychologists and psychiatrists. The more I read and talked to these people about it, the more I discovered that severe hoarders or extreme hoarders have usually had a big traumatic event in their lives, and more often than not, the loss of a child or sibling or a twin.
That fascinated me, when I heard about [the fact that] losing a twin can lead to this sort of coping mechanism. It really stirred my imagination. So that’s where it all started. Also, a friend of mine was born with a severe cleft palate, and as a little girl, she had about 11 operations on her mouth and face, and she was quite disfigured and at school, was bullied and teased a lot and had a horrific childhood. Yet today, she’s a fashion designer. She’s very confident, she’s an extrovert. She’s actually a nudist [laughs]. At a party, she’s first to take her clothes off. I was like, how did this little traumatized girl grow up to be such a well-adjusted, confident adult? So that really stirred my imagination as well. So I just started writing. And then the two ideas merged together.
DEADLINE: Throughout your filmography, there is a lot of emphasis on characters with disabilities. I think it’s very unique. What’s the reasoning behind that?
ELLIOT: It’s just what triggers my interest. I have a lot of very eclectic, eccentric friends. Pinky’s based on some older, wonderful women in my life. One of my best friends has one leg. A lot of my friends are on the spectrum. So I never really set out to do that. I think it’s just because I tell stories about my family and friends and they all just seem to have something about them that marks them. That’s why I really love telling stories about people who are perceived as being misfits or feel like they’re misfits or misunderstood or seemingly afflicted in some way. But I think what I’ve learned over the years, it’s only when you look back at your films, you sort of realize what you’re doing and what it is you’re saying. I think that apart from the different [disabilities] is that I’m telling stories about perceived imperfections; the flaws we all think we have and [about] how many of us try to fix our flaws. But really what we should be doing is embracing them and also other people.
Empathy is a real key ingredient with my characters. I’m really trying to get you to put yourself in the shoes of my characters. What’s it like to be an 8-year-old girl born with a cleft palate? What’s it like to be a 44-year-old man living in New York with no friends who’s been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome? I think that’s what I’m trying to do now, because I’ve always felt like a misfit, and I still do, even here in Australia, people see what I do as odd. So I think that’s why [have] these characters.
DEADLINE: You really carved a cute niche out for yourself. Perhaps inspiring is a better word.
ELLIOT: I love cute. Grace was designed to be cute, but we put a lot of effort into making them look tragic. But I love cute, and I also love killing cute. It’s something’s getting too cute, I tend to kill it off.
DEADLINE: Which character in your filmography do you relate to the most?
ELLIOT: I would probably say Brother, because that film is about a perceived brother. It’s actually about myself. So really, that film should have been called Me because I was an asthmatic. I was considered unusual as a child. So that was probably the most personal one. But then Pinky (in Memoir of a Snail) is a character I want to be. Pinky’s what I aspire to be and who Grace aspires to be. I see there’s a lot of myself in Grace as well, but I think Pinky has no fear of embarrassment. She’s got free will. She’s that free spirit. She doesn’t care what people think. And I’d love to get to that point where you’re just like, I don’t care.
DEADLINE: What was something that you initially thought wasn’t going to work in the script that ended up resonating with you when you finished filming?
ELLIOT: Certainly the gay conversion sequence. A lot of people, a lot of the investors and government supporters here in Australia we’re very concerned about that. Not that I was delving into the subject matter, but would it be convincing or would it just suddenly get too melodramatic, too cartoonish? Also in trying to sell the film overseas, would it upset too many people? But I’ve always believed that you’ve got to take risks. You’ve got to push the boundaries. Particularly with my films, because they are adult and challenging. So I just had to trust my instincts. But sometimes you get it wrong. So my editor and I spent a lot of time getting that sequence as fine-tuned as possible, but also working with our composer, Elena Kats-Chernin. We wanted the music to be very powerful in that scene. We said, “You know what? Let’s make this as disturbing as possible. Let’s go for realism.” By the time we got to the end of the edit, I was like, “You know what? I think it’s going to work. I think it’s going to be quite visceral and palpable and disturbing.”
You know what else? We’ve had lots of wonderful letters and emails from people in the LGBTIQA+ community who have gone through gay conversion therapy and how scarring and traumatic and just ridiculous it is in this day and age. So we’ve had nothing but positive comments. So I can tell you that it was a big relief when those emails started coming in.
DEADLINE: Talk more about Gilbert’s character. I’m guessing the emphasis of the conversion therapy route was essential to his disappearance storyline. Were there any other ways you thought of enacting that or was it always built into your script that way?
ELLIOT: I knew that I wanted the family — the cult — to do something very cruel to Gilbert, very traumatic based on their religion. [I thought about] the jewelry box getting burnt, he gets baptized, but none of those were really something. So it had to be the next level up. A friend of mine had been through conversion therapy in France and told me his story, and that’s where that idea all started. But Gilbert too was never going to come back. In the first couple of drafts of the script, he was dead. And that was how the film was going to end. Because really, I wanted Grace to learn that she can stand on her own two feet. She doesn’t need Gilbert. She can survive. Grace is a survivor. So I wanted her to be a complete person, and she does that. So really, Gilbert coming back is the reward. He’s not the missing link anymore, she is actually quite strong now without him. But if he didn’t come back, the audience would hate me, I think [laugh].
DEADLINE: It was so devastating when we thought he had died. I’m so glad you brought him back.
ELLIOT: Well, it was tricky to write. We didn’t want the audience to suspect. And actually very few people have said to me, “Oh, actually I did see that he was going to come back.” Most people are surprised that he does resurrect from the ashes. I get a lot of emails about poor old Ben, his partner, what happened to Ben? [laughs].
DEADLINE: Exactly. What happened to Ben? I’m hoping he goes back to save him.
ELLIOT: I don’t really like Ben. I’ve never really liked him as a character. No, he can suffer [laughs].
DEADLINE: You also have another hyper-specific plot with Grace that isn’t often seen on screen, but more like in the news. You have her married to a feeding fetishist. Sometimes you do come across those in the plus-sized community. Why did you end up adding it here?
ELLIOT: This circles back to the comment about the Australian government’s investment in Australian cinema, is that when in the earlier drafts of the script, Ken (Grace’s husband) was just a bit vacuous, one-dimensional. And one of the government investors said, “I think Ken should be a feeder.” And I said, “What’s a feeder?” And he said, “Go Google.” And I did. Then I discovered how it can start off as an innocent sort of fetish where there’s consent on both parties, but then it can get quite disturbing and ugly. And it’s usually men feeding women, plus those women who enjoy this to begin with. But then the man is really about immobilizing the woman. And there’s been some terrible interventions that have had to happen with the police where actually the woman has been entrapped in her own home, and she’s gotten so large that she can’t actually walk, and the man is still feeding her.
So it can go in a really horrible direction. And I thought, well… I mean, poor old Ken, he’s damaged goods. He’s broken. I didn’t want to demonize him too much either because he knows that he has an issue. And when he’s thrown out, he looks at that little portrait of Grace in his hand, and it’s just her face. I wanted that to be ambiguous. Perhaps Ken really did love her, and now he’s full of absolute shame, regret, but he deserves everything he’s getting. But I didn’t want to just demonize him like I do with Ruth, who’s the leader of the cult in Perth.
We had to tread very carefully. And that scrapbook that Ken has too, there was a version of that, which was not as confronting. And when we filmed it, it just didn’t work. I said, “No, no, again, we have to take this to the next level. We really, again, have to take a big risk, and we have to make this scrapbook disturbing, really horrific.” So we spent $50,000 sculpting all these characters, photographing them and putting them in the scrapbook. I was the one who then wrote all those disturbing comments in the scrapbook. So it ended up like it was a scrapbook from a serial killer, which is what the effect we wanted it to be. But again, another big risk.
DEADLINE: How did you go about getting your voice cast of Sarah Snook, Jacki Weaver and Kodi Smit-McPhee?
ELLIOT: I was lucky that most of them live here. Sarah lives down the road. Kodi lives just in the country a little bit. Jacki’s the only one who lives in LA now. I’m very lucky here in Australia, we can access these big names pretty easily. Of course, our budget was the biggest problem, low budget. We couldn’t pay them what they would normally get. But the good thing about Australian actors, even though they radiate out to the rest of the world, they do come back here and support Australian cinema and help out. But Sarah was always my first choice. We have Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett and Margot Robbie, but Sarah has this beautiful shyness. I didn’t want her to put on a voice. I just wanted her natural speaking voice. And when she read the script, she said she really did relate to Grace, and that’s what you want to hear as a director.
Similarly, Jacki Weaver really related to Pinky, so it was actually very easy for them to become these characters. And Kodi too. Kodi’s a very philosophical, serious, young, brilliant actor, and he brought that broodiness I wanted. So I count my blessings that we got the cast we needed, and that is also about risk in animation too. You marry a voice with the animation, and sometimes it doesn’t work despite how good the performance is. And then the other one we were thrilled to get was Nick Cave, and he lives in London now, but he’s from Melbourne as well. He’s the cameo. He plays Pinky’s husband.
DEADLINE: With the nomination people are going to be watching this movie for the first time, or re-watching this movie. What do you want them to consider about the film or to get out of Grace’s story?
ELLIOT: My father, he was an acrobatic clown, an entertainer, and as an auteur, he used to say to me, “Look, this fancy word ‘auteur.’” He said, “You’re just like me. You’ve got to make the audience laugh and you’re going to make them cry.” So that’s always been my aspiration. What’s been really fulfilling with this film is when the lights go up in the cinema, you see that people have really been emotionally wrecked. And that’s my aim, is to really push every emotional button on the audience, but not depress them. I really get upset when people say my films are depressing. I want them to be uplifting, full of hope. I want them to be life-affirming. I want the audience to leave the cinema feeling that the film’s had an impact, but a positive one. And that seems to be happening.
People are re-watching the film too. I was a bit shocked that people would re-watch it. I thought it’d be like Schindler’s List and it would be too traumatic to watch again. So that’s been really gratifying. Again, I use that word relief a lot because we took a lot of risks with this film. I know you’ve got President Trump now in America, and here in Australia we’re about to get a conservative government, we think later on. So individual voices are getting quashed. It’s really important that films like mine get made to just hear voices from people who are marginalized. And that’s the other important thing I’ve tried to do with this film. So it’s great that the film’s been embraced.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
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