Interview: Marc Provissiero for ‘Normal’

Producer Marc Provissiero talks emphasizing action on camera and working with Bob Odenkirk on the Nobody movies and the new Normal.

There’s something immediately off about the town of Normal: The lawns are too neat, the smiles too wide, and everyone’s friendliness just a little too eager. It feels less like a real place and more like an advertisement, or an old-school family sitcom, and that’s exactly the illusion director Ben Wheatley leans into. But pulling from the DNA of 1970s paranoid thrillers, the voyeuristic unease of Alfred Hitchcock, and the stylized excess of Brian De Palma, Normal becomes a genre chimera: part action, part western, part mystery, part comedy, all layered over a 1950s American façade. Beneath it all is a simple truth — the foundation of small towns is built on secrets, and those secrets can fracture everything faster than anyone expects.

At the center of bringing that vision to life is producer Marc Provissiero, whose work behind the scenes helped shape Normal into the haunting, deliberate experience now playing in theaters. From developing the film’s tone to navigating the challenges of production, Provissiero played a key role in translating an unsettling concept into something that feels both intimate and expansive on screen.

In our conversation, he opens up about the creative process behind Normal, the decisions that defined its final form, and the themes that make it linger. This interview contains spoilers for the film, so proceed with caution if you haven’t seen it yet.

Well, first of all, I just want to start off by saying thank you for speaking with me today. My dad is actually so excited about this film and I cannot wait to go see it in the theater with him. We’re going to have a little dad and daughter day, with me dragging him out to go see it because he doesn’t go to the movies a lot, but he wants to see this one so badly.

Kirsten, that means everything in the world. This movie was made independently, and it was made so that it could work in theaters. So, from the beginning and from the inception and every choice that we made in putting this movie together, we kept on answering the question: how can this be big enough and be worthy of people’s hard-earned money to go to the movie theaters? And when you’re doing a movie outside of the studio system, that’s a challenge and it’s a fun challenge, you know, because you don’t have the endless resources.

And although we were funded really well through the pre-foreign sales markets, and because people really like this concept, we feel confident that we’ve produced a movie that is big enough and that is so fun to see in a movie theater. The only way this movie works is if people actually go to the theater to see this movie, people who actually want to see the movie.

When this movie was first finished and we took it to the Toronto Film Festival this past September, and the US territory was available for sale, we played it in a theater of 1000 people, and it was so loud. People had so much fun in that theater, in the midnight screening at Toronto Film Festival, that you literally could not hear the best lines because people were laughing so much and doing a lot of, “oh my God, can you believe that just happened?”

It was, as a result, the most bid-on film at TIFF. We had eight offers, which for people who are in the film industry, they know just how insanely cool that is that happened. Most movies don’t get any offers. Maybe they get one or two, but we had eight. 

It kind of has a thriller horror aspect to it where it’s fun to be in a theater and share those moments together. So, I’m more than happy, I’m just thrilled, that you and your dad are having a daddy-daughter date.

One of my first questions was about how the film pulls from these 1970s paranoid thrillers like Hitchcock and De Palma, while also evoking 1950s Americana. How do you balance that nostalgia with making something that still feels modern and surprising with like the reactions that you got at TIFF?

Wow. Hitchcock and DePalma. I got to tell Ben Wheatley that. That’s awesome, Kirsten. He’ll love that. 

You know, for those who are familiar with Ben Wheatley’s filmography, he directed several really great movies. He’s a British director who has a true fandom around his films. One was called Kill List. I think that one really launched his career. 

Several of his other movies evoke different types of 70s Americana though. He is a true student of Americana. And so the way we evoked that for this movie and pulled off something that felt contemporary, even though it was evoking those feelings of those types of films and those moments in time, was something that required a lot of conversation and a lot of editing and a lot of rewriting and a lot of intricate moments that we were producing. 

Derek Kolstad is our writer and this movie was Derek’s idea. He wrote and created the John Wick franchise and the Nobody franchise, and now he’s doing this with us. And there’s a certain alchemy that happens between Bob [Odenkirk] and Derek. They just love working together. And Bob brings so much character nuance. Derek also brings character nuance, but he also understands the structure of action films. 

And then we added to that Ben Wheatley’s sophistication and his De Palma-esque approach to filmmaking and, ultimately, we kept just remembering and reminding everyone that we have to make this feel contemporary today somehow. We want people to realize that this is a moment in time today.

One thing that stood out when I was watching Normal was how much I did feel like I could relate to it nowadays. while still, again, evoking like those older time periods. And that was one thing you mentioned in one of your interviews that Derek’s first draft was one of the best that you’ve ever read. What specifically stood out to you in that draft that allowed it to be like this like, wow, this is going to be what it now has become?

So specific to the draft, that’s a great question because when we heard the premise, when Derek pitched it to us — and for anyone who saw Nobody, the first Nobody — Derek and I were on a bus. There’s a famous bus fight in Nobody and there’s a main bus that’s driving around… and then there’s a second bus that’s just following it, picking up some external shots. 

Anyway, Derek and I were sitting on that bus, just having some fun and he starts talking about this new idea he has. And this was back in 2019 when we were filming Nobody. And he’s talking about this movie, which was called something else. It was called The Interim. I loved the concept immediately and so did Bob when he heard it. 

You’re asking why did I feel that way about the first draft that he wrote? Look, I’ve been doing this for more than 25 years. I’ve read thousands of scripts. You begin to be able to predict a lot of what’s going to be on the next page, unfortunately. And so for something to feel fresh and unique is more and more of a challenge. I guess the reason I felt that way was you like a draft that’s clean, that just flows and never stalls. 

Number one, it just moved. And it was clean, meaning it wasn’t fettered with excess things that slowed it down. It just moved, had a clean pace to it. And the characters were just so relatable. You just love when you can get to characters that are so relatable and unique. We peppered the small town with small town characters that are odd and peculiar and silly and, you know, also other things. I won’t spoil the movie, but every one of us can relate to these small-town characters that are drawn very well.

I know you guys talked about it and it’s so clear in the film that you wanted to keep the action grounded and very in-camera. And I think in today’s landscape where there’s a lot of CGI, that kind of practicality is something that audiences are clamoring for in a lot of ways. So why was that important to you guys as well? And what challenges did that create in a world that is very CGI focused?

We didn’t have the money for a lot of CGI, first of all. And we were very intentional in wanting to make something that felt like a 70s thriller drama, De Palma-esque thing, where the action was caught and captured in-camera. 

When we interviewed Ben Wheatley, our esteemed director, he said to us, which is probably why we didn’t even need to interview anyone else, “I want everything to be in-camera. I want the action to be in-camera. I want the effects to be in-camera.”

So when the car blows up, that’s an actual car blowing up. He wanted the elements to be in-camera, which was an insane challenge when you’re trying to have real snow. That’s why we went to Winnipeg, Canada. And even there, you’re just praying and hoping that the weather’s going to agree with you. And it did, more than it didn’t. 

But always, Ben kept on saying repeatedly throughout the filming of the movie, we want to capture the film in-camera, the elements, the action, all of it, as much as possible. So, we have very, very little, very little effects in the movie.

To wrap us up: Normal is described as an action film, a Western, a comedy, and a mystery all at once. And so you have a lot of these different elements going in that could make it chaotic, but you guys have made it a very cohesive and wonderful story. How do you keep it from getting chaotic or disjointed?

Yeah. It’s all about the script. I mean, ultimately, it’s all about the script. 

We are, we were precious with the script, absolutely precious with it. We were always fixing it. We were always adjusting it. Once you start shooting them, once you start prepping the movie, the movie becomes a slightly different thing than what was on the script. 

Because we wanted a Ben Wheatley film, Ben started taking over the vision for it, so there were adjustments because of the tone. You know, tone A is set at the top is necessary for tone D later on. And when tone A changes, you have to adjust tone D later on. So we just were very aware.

You had Bob and Derek, then Ben Wheatley and myself, talking every single day and night, having these very conversations, thinking about how one scene was going to reflect and affect the other and how to make that adjustments. You know, Bob’s an Emmy Award-winning writer, so Bob would get involved. Derek was there. Derek would make adjustments, and Ben Wheatley’s a writer himself. So we were just hyper-focused on making sure that we were delivering on it. 

And I think that what you’re seeing is that we had four people up there making a movie, having the time of our lives. We felt so good about it. There’s nothing worse than being on a set of a movie that is tanking, that is not working. And that is the opposite of the experience of what we had. We had so much fun. We were laughing at each other, looking at each other and laughing when we’d see a take or we were pitching jokes to each other in between takes. And so I think what you’re seeing was reflective of that.

Yeah, it’s really incredible. And because of how incredible it is, you have mentioned that Normal is the start of a possible franchise. When you are developing something with that in mind, what has to be in place from the very beginning with film and something like that?

It’s a good question, Kirsten. And the truth is that we don’t think about that too much. It is so difficult to make one great movie. It is so difficult. When I hear people in my business, you know, we’re going to make three movies this year and I’m going to produce them all. And I’m like, how? Like, how is that possible? It takes such dedication to make one great movie. And so we just focused on making one great movie. That was our goal. Make this terrific. and let whatever comes from that come from that, was our approach.

Normal is now playing in theaters everywhere. Watch the trailer below and read our review for it here.

Images courtesy of Magnolia Films. Read more articles by Kirsten Saylor here.