By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
June 9, 2002
Shortly after “Clockwatchers” was released in 1997, director Jill Sprecher was back to work … as a temp.
It’s no coincidence that the script–which focused on four temps unhappy with their jobs–was written by Sprecher and her younger sister, Karen.
But the siblings, who both have masters degrees, didn’t think of their temp jobs as a step backward.
“When you work as a temp, you have access to an office to use as your base,” Jill Sprecher says, laughing. “We felt just like the Parker Posey character. It wasn’t so bad. It gave us some stability while we worked on our next project.”
That next project is “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing,” which opens Friday at local theaters. The film connects the lives of five strangers, examining the impact they have on each other. As with “Clockwatchers,” the sisters wrote the end before fleshing out the beginning and middle.
“It may sound odd to some people, but it works for us,” Sprecher says. “It helps us see where the story is going to work that way.”
The script intrigued stars such as Matthew McConaughey, Amy Irving and John Turturro, who all agreed to make the film. With that kind of star power, it seemed that getting backing would be a cinch.
“Our financing fell through the day before shooting was scheduled to begin,” says Sprecher during an interview at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown. “We had all these actors who had committed to doing the picture and were on extremely tight schedules ’cause they were shooting other things simultaneously. We had juggled the schedule just right to accommodate everyone, but if you pulled just one piece out, everything would’ve collapsed. So here we are with no money and a start date that kept getting pushed further back. Finally we just made the decision to go ahead and do it. Once the train stops, it’s very hard to get it back on track.”
Having her sister to share the experience was comforting.
“The beauty of working with a sibling is we have common references–a sisterhood shorthand,” Sprecher says. “Also, when you’re related to someone, you can open up to them in a way that would be uncomfortable with another collaborator who’s not related. I know she’ll always be my sister no matter how much we argue. That’s not always the case with friends or colleagues.”
Though indie films are her passion, Sprecher’s not sure she’ll be able to afford it much longer.
“These films have taken a major financial toll on us,” she says. “I don’t think about the future that much, which is part of the problem. I’m about $150,000 in debt now. We had to give up our apartment. Our brother has a house in Los Angeles he’s letting us stay at until we can get back on our feet, but we hope to get back to New York one day and take all our stuff out of storage.
“Indie films are difficult to make. The market for them is small and they’re not very lucrative. We did write a couple more scripts. At this point, we’re trying to sell them to other people to make because we can’t afford to make another one for a while.”
Living off the money they made as temps and the $18,000 “Clockwatchers” won at a film festival, the sisters lived in a one-room Manhattan apartment with a caved-in ceiling. Their diet consisted of rice. So it’s not surprising when Sprecher encourages everyone in her hotel suite to take home the sodas and bottled water provided for her day of interviews. She appears genuinely disappointed when no one takes her up on the offer.
“It seems like such a waste,” she says.
