‘Extract’ director finds humor in office space

MATTHEW PRICE, Features Editor Comments 1
Published: September 4, 2009

SAN DIEGO — "Beavis and Butt-Head” creator Mike Judge brought office humor to new heights in 1999’s "Office Space.” A decade later, he’s returning to workplace comedy in "Extract,” out today.

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In "Extract,” Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of an extract plant. He deals with difficulties with his wife and employees in this latest Judge film.

"I worked in cubicles, actually right here in San Diego, and so ‘Office Space’ was kind of based on that,” Judge said at Comic-Con International. "And then when ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ happened, for the first time I had people working for me. I went from always being the employee complaining about the bosses to suddenly having 30 to 90 people working for me and going, ‘Man, these people are hard to baby-sit.’”

Judge said that new role made him sympathetic toward his old bosses, which is where the idea for "Extract” began.

Bateman said Judge’s sense of humor is part of what drew him to the project.

"He doesn’t beg the audience to laugh,” Bateman said. "He doesn’t pander to the audience. He never hits anybody in the face with a pie. There’s no winking.”

An accident in which a sensitive part of a character’s anatomy is blown off gets the plot moving, as a grifter-type character, Cindy (Mila Kunis) finds out about the accident.

"She reads about this guy who’s going to get millions of dollars” and has suffered the unusual injury, "so she gets kind of excited about that,” Judge said.

Judge said "Extract” mostly was privately financed, after his difficulties getting his last film, "Idiocracy,” released.

"We wanted to make a movie like ‘Office Space’ without all the interference and all the people telling us what’s commercial and that kind of thing,” Judge said. "So, I definitely learned that lesson from doing ‘Idiocracy’ and the weird release of it.”

Judge also was pleased to return to comedy based in the working world.

"There were moments when I was making ‘Office Space’ where I felt like it was just like what I was born to do,” Judge said. "This is a return to that workplace, more character-driven stuff.”

Bateman said Judge’s comedy comes from the characters, and the drama is found in the situation.

"I won’t put you to sleep with a bunch of actor crap, but he doesn’t ask you to do a lot of performing; it’s a lot of acting,” Bateman said. "The humor comes from that. Good comedy feels very similar to doing good drama.”

Ben Affleck plays Joel’s slacker friend Dean. Judge said he particularly enjoys Affleck’s take on character roles.

"I know he’s this huge star and everything. But I love when he’s a character actor, which he hasn’t done in a while, like in ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and even ‘Good Will Hunting,’” Judge said. "He had this way of doing the character that was kind of based on a high school friend of his, and it was just a pleasure. We were all on the same page.”

Judge was asked whether a smart person beset on all sides by idiocy was a particular theme of his work, and if so, why.

"I don’t know why that is,” he said. "Maybe that’s how I feel in the world. But sometimes I’m the dumb guy, too.”