DN last spoke with Colby Day when we premiered his one-shot short Lead/Follow back in early 2023. Day’s movement-led film caught our eye with its brisk yet all-encompassing depiction of the different stages of a romantic relationship. It’s a really special film and it left us eagerly anticipating what Day would make next. Then earlier this year it was announced that Day’s next project, this time as a screenwriter, would be playing Berlinale before premiering on Netflix shortly after. The project in question was Spaceman, an Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan-starring science fiction drama directed by Johan Renck about an astronaut deep in the throes of space where he encounters a strange alien spider (voiced by Paul Dano) who helps him reflect on his failings as a husband. Similarly to Lead/Follow, Spaceman is an impressively expansive film that at its heart is about the trials and tribulations of love and relationships. DN invited Day to join us again to learn about the beginnings of his involvement in the film, his process for adapting Spaceman of Bohemia, the novel the feature is based on, and how his experience as a screenwriter ends up feeding back into his directorial output.
What’s the origin story of your involvement in Spaceman?
I met Michael Parets, the film’s producer, a few years prior and mentioned to him that he should send me whatever came across his desk that was particularly strange or challenging. He’d read the novel Spaceman of Bohemia, which the film is based on, and sent it to me with the question, “Could this be a movie?” I read the book and was floored. I wrote up a really simple pitch of what I would do if I were adapting the novel, which basically boiled down to me saying, “I’d try to do the book.” I compared my take on the film at the time to something in between the contained science fiction thriller of a film like Moon and the strange buddy comedy of something like Swiss Army Man.
How did you tackle adapting the novel? Do you have a specific screenwriting process?
After I was actually tasked with adapting the book I went back and re-read it, paying particular attention to what felt most important to me emotionally, and especially to things that felt like they already had a dynamic/visual component to them. I went through and highlighted everything I liked, and then started jotting those things down into a big scratchpad of a document in Highland: direct quotes from the book, my own ideas, how I’d want to start the movie and end the movie.
I usually like an outline that’s pretty loose because then I still feel like I can play.
I worked for a bit to rearrange those into a coherent structure for a film, something sort of between a document of notes to self and an outline and then started writing scenes really soon after that. I usually like an outline that’s pretty loose because then I still feel like I can play. I worked on the screenplay out of order, which was new for me at the time, and which I highly recommend. I wrote the first scene and then the last scene and sort of bopped back and forth throughout. Because time was fungible it felt like I was able to kind of pick up wherever I wanted which was really freeing, and kept me from getting stuck on hard scenes. I could always just skip to something I knew I wanted to do.
The novel is a memory play, and so is the movie, which made it very freeing, but with freedom comes the difficult reality that now anything is possible.
Whilst Jakub spends the majority of the film inside his ship, the story is told over multiple locations and even timelines, with flashbacks to his childhood and the early stages of his relationship with Lenka. Was it a challenge structuring the script with each of these sections?
The challenge of the script was its structure. Absolutely. Up to the very final draft I was turning in we were constantly rearranging when memories would come into play, when Jakub would have a certain experience, and in particular when and where Lenka would send the message that currently starts the film. The novel is a memory play, and so is the movie, which made it very freeing, but with freedom comes the difficult reality that now anything is possible. The structure was absolutely the most difficult thing about writing this. I remember between the first draft and the next draft spending weeks and weeks moving notecards around on the floor of my living room.
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How much did it affect your screenwriting process knowing that your central character was floating around in low gravity? As a writer, do you have to be mindful of the practicalities of the filmmaking to follow?
In the first draft of a screenplay I always try not to think too much about the practicalities of how to actually make something happen. “It’s free on the page”, as they say. So my first draft was very free in that I wrote exactly what I wanted to see happen, including a scene in which we went back to visit Hanuš’s home planet, and a sequence in which we go backwards in time through the history of the Czech Republic all the way back to the ice age and woolly mammoths roaming the frozen plains. Then when you get producers and directors and budgets and locations involved… you have to really start justifying why everything happens, and if it has to happen that way. We didn’t need the woolly mammoths.
Once the script was locked, were you involved in any other part of production or post-production?
I did visit the set but was only there really briefly, and got to see different cuts of the film as they continued in post and provide feedback on those, but really once the script gets turned in to the director the entire process becomes about what’s most useful to the director. Some people want a writer around the whole time, and others prefer, “Hey I’ve got this, leave me alone.”
I always try not to think too much about the practicalities of how to actually make something happen. “It’s free on the page”, as they say.
Looking back at your previous work, there’s a strong focus on the trials of relationships, what do you think it is about this subject matter that keeps you returning to it?
I love love! But I also think that there’s something really special in finding a way to tell a story about human emotions and connection even within the scope of a big genre story. Why make a movie at all if it isn’t going to also explore the human condition in some way?
Does working as a screenwriter inform your process as a director?
It’s been extremely useful, as both a writer and as a director myself, to get to see how other directors work, what their processes are like, and how they think about how to set a scene or tell a story. Filmmaking is a muscle. The more reps you can get in, the stronger you’re going to become, and I think getting to collaborate with a bunch of people is a really invaluable way to get the reps in. Directing is not a skill you get to practice very often unless you’re making a movie, and so there’s something nice about getting to see other people do it and learn from their successes, and mistakes!
Alongside future screenwriting projects, what else are you working on?
I produced a short documentary, directed by Emma D. Miller, called The School of Canine Massage which just premiered at SXSW, and will be on the festival circuit all year. And I have a couple features I’m currently noodling on as potential feature directorial debuts for myself. Stay tuned for those.
