Are aliens real? Hollywood producer and director Marc Turtletaub, known for his work on Little Miss Sunshine, The Farewell, and Sorry For Your Loss, isn’t an expert on the matter, but absolutely believes they are. The filmmaker’s latest movie Jules explores the possibilities of alien life, which is presciently topical given the recent virality of the congressional hearing about UFOs held in late July.
The delightful indie comedy follows an older man named Milton (Ben Kingsley) who discovers that a UFO has crashed in the backyard of his home in western Pennsylvania. He goes to town meetings to complain about the issue, but nobody believes him as he has been showing signs of having dementia.
Two elderly women address him about his claims; one, Joyce (Jane Curtin), is angry at Milton for making the town think elders are untrustworthy; whereas the other, Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris), feels sympathetic for the lonely man.
They quickly discover that Milton is telling the truth and end up growing attached to the mute, gray alien (Jade Quon), whom they have named Jules. The trio takes it upon themselves to help the being return to its homeworld.
Over its 87-minute runtime, the movie delivers worthwhile messages on relationship-building and acceptance as the quirky group teaches the alien about their personal lives and goes on a series of misadventures to help it get home.
Jules has a lot of heart – but more importantly, it has a lot of alien. Written by Gavin Steckler, the movie owns its weirdness. Speaking about the comedy’s relevancy amid current conversations, Turtlebaub said the timing feels “fortuitous” and mentioned a real-life astronaut who recently saw the movie and offered praise online.
“Just yesterday, someone told me that an astronaut who was on the space station two times, her name is Catherine Coleman, she goes by Cady, saw Jules and has been on Instagram talking about her passion for this movie,” Turtlebaub told Decider over a Zoom chat. “Go figure! Who would have ever dreamed that that could occur, and then, of course, we had these congressional hearings. It’s in the zeitgeist now and we’re just fortunate that it is.”
Decider spoke to Turtletaub about whether aliens are real, his experience casting the actor who portrays the extraterrestrial, and what initially drew him to Steckler’s script.
DECIDER: Jules is such a sweet and entertaining movie. What drew you to Gavin Steckler’s script?
MARC TURTLETAUB: I look for the same thing in almost every screenplay and you find it so rarely. You want it to be about something, so that when the audience comes out, they have something to think about or talk about. But it’s got to be entertaining. If it’s not entertaining then no one’s going to talk about anything or even want to recommend it to someone. And then third, you want it to be unique and something that you haven’t seen before and are unlikely to see in the future. This checked all three of those boxes for me.
You mentioned that scripts can’t be one-note. This movie went into so many different directions and featured a variety of relationships. What excited you the most and what are you most excited for audiences to see?
You don’t usually have all of those different elements in one story. Like, you have science-fiction, you have a story about somebody aging, which is usually just melancholic, but this one has hopefulness, you have comedy, you have great inventiveness, you have a buddy movie about three people becoming buddies later in life – all those things don’t usually go together. That’s what excited me. I went and said, “Can I do this? Can I fit them all in one movie?” And the key to being able to do it is to have great actors and I was really fortunate to cast these incredible actors.
I hope people will take away those sort of things that we’ve already talked about. It’s important to live your life fully even as you get older. It’s important to talk about how important it is to have friends and community, and it’s all ages. It’s not just the elderly. It’s everyone. We saw that during COVID. It’s a movie about connection in that way. And yet, it’s ridiculously funny. Hopefully they’ll go out of the movie theater going, “Can you believe that?”
You pulled together an amazing cast with Ben Kingsley, Harriet Harris, and Jane Curtin. Which actor surprised you the most?
Nobody surprised me. I would say the person that I hadn’t seen do what she did is Jade Quon. Jade plays the Alien. She had never had an opportunity to really be the core of a movie. She’s always the stunt extra or a double, or someone that does stuff but we don’t really focus on her – we focus on her movement. And in this movie, we focus on her face, her eyes, her response to other actors. To me, that was a real part of the movie’s secret sauce.
That’s incredible. I didn’t know the actor had such an intensive stunt background. What drew you to casting her?
Somebody recommended her. I read eight women for the role. She auditioned first and she was a little bit taller than I pictured in my mind for the character. So, I read seven other women the same day. And then I got done and they went, “What are you doing? That first woman, Jade, was so good. Don’t worry whether she’s two inches too tall. She’s good.” So, I called her back and it was in L.A., of course, being L.A., she was already an hour and a half away. But she turned around and came back, and we agreed to make the film together. The rest is history.
We have to talk about how the stars aligned to make this the perfect time for Jules to come out, because there’s been a lot of talk about real-life aliens lately. If the recent information that’s come out about aliens was out before you made the movie, is there anything you would have wanted to change from a director’s perspective, or even suggest adding to the script?
No, I think it’s sort of fortuitous that all this is coming about now. It makes people aware of it. Just yesterday, someone told me that an astronaut who was on the space station two times, her name is Catherine Coleman, she goes by Cady, saw Jules and has been on Instagram talking about her passion for this movie. Go figure! Who would have ever dreamed that that could occur, and then, of course, we had these congressional hearings. It’s in the zeitgeist now and we’re just fortunate that it is.
What’s your personal take on aliens? Both in general and whether it has shifted since making this movie.
It hasn’t shifted. I’m not an expert, obviously. But my sense is, somebody said it the other day, all that space, all that trillions of stars, what a waste if there’s nothing else there. It’s a funny way of putting it, but I’m sure there’s some other life forms out there, all that vast space out there. I felt that way before I made the movie and I feel that way after.
One specific detail I really enjoyed in the movie was that the alien really liked eating apples. I thought that was so smart and funny. If an alien crashed in your backyard, which snack would you like to share with them?
Well, you know, from my personal experience with Jules, the first thing I’d whip out is an apple and slice it really small. That’s the way Jules seem to like it, so that’s where I’d go first.
I think I would go straight for the chocolate. I’d be like, “Come on, you’ll never believe this.” As a final question, the movie’s depiction of how aggressively the government would react to a real-life alien seemed spot-on, but you also focused on the potential that could come from alien life and these new relationships. Overall, what would you like people to walk away from the movie talking about?
It’s really about tolerance, right? I think that’s in the subtext, it’s not overt. But it’s baked into the story that the alien is “other” and we have lots of people that are “other,” if you will, in this country. We need to not only be tolerant, but also accepting. We need to open our arms. Beyond all else, I just hope people will have a dialogue about all the different themes in the movie, and have a good laugh.
Jules is now playing in theaters nationwide.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
