Carol Kane, Jason Schwartzman: 'Temples' characters at transitions in life

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Carol Kane and Jason Schwartzman said the characters they play in the movie Between the Temples, in theaters Friday, are at transitions in their lives.

Schwartzman, 44, plays Ben, a cantor grieving his wife's death. Kane, 72, plays Carla, a music teacher who asks Ben to prepare her for a bat mitzvah and admired her character's risk-taking.

"The easier thing to do would just be to stick to what came before, rather than take a risk of trying something new and possibly having a tremendous failure be the outcome of that," Kane told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

Schwartzman said Ben is less aware he is embarking on a new phase in life. He used a metaphor of taking his family to Disney World to illustrate how turning points creep up on people.

When the Schwartzmans arrived at an attraction, they were at the end of the line. Without even moving forward, they became the middle of the line when more guests stood behind them.

"You don't really know what a turning point is until it's happened," he said. "You're not aware of it until it's behind."

Kane has acted since the '70s in classics like Carnal Knowledge and The Last Detail. Though she has worked consistently her entire career, Kane said each role teaches her something new.

"In Scrooged, I got to learn how to dance on point, even though I did it pathetically, but I did my best," Kane said, adding that for Between the Temples, "suddenly, I'm having to learn Hebrew."

Like most English-speaking bat mitzvah students, Kane did not learn Hebrew fluently or even how to translate it. She learned how to read the Hebrew letters and vowels and make the correct sounds.

Producer Jesse Miller also served as the Jewish adviser on set with writer-director Nathan Silver, who said Between the Temples began with the character of Carla seeking a bat mitzvah.

Silver said he thought of a cantor when thinking about the character who could teach Carla.

"It always starts with two central characters for me," Silver said. "You have a backdrop of the Jewish community up there in this upstate New York town, and who would those people be?"

Through that thought process, Silver also imagined the characters of Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel) and the congregation.

Silver said Ben was inspired by David Berman, the late lead singer of the band Silver Jews. Schwartzman said Berman's music was informative to his portrayal of Ben's melancholy.

In Berman's last album with his follow-up band, Purple Mountains, Schwartzman said the musician combined sad lyrics with upbeat music in the song "All My Happiness Is Gone." This helped Schwartzman convey the sadness Ben's reassuring surface.

"If you took away the vocals, you would think this is a very happy song," Schwartzman said. "I don't think there's a minor chord in the song. Various strings are triumphant but the lyrics are 'All my happiness is gone.'"

Some of Ben's sadness is open. In the beginning of Between the Temples, Ben lies down in traffic, begging a truck to drive over him in a scene played comically, but Schwartzman said the film took Ben's depression seriously.

"To Nathan's credit, it's pretty interesting to meet a character that doesn't want to be there," Schwartzman said. "[He] doesn't even want you to basically watch him, doesn't think he's worth the time, let alone your time."

Teaching Carla gives Ben a new purpose, and the two learn from each other. Kane said she brought some music lessons to the film she learned from her mother, jazz singer and composer Joy Kane.

"I lay him down on the table and teach him what's called belly breathing," she said. "You stick your belly out. That's something that my mother teaches."

Another turning point occurred in Ben's family before the film began. Ben's father died and his mother (Caroline Aaron) now has a wife (Dolly De Leon).

Silver said he thought giving Ben two Jewish mothers would exacerbate stereotypical frustrations of Jewish children. The mothers do try to fix-up Ben with women, going so far as to create a profile on dating site JDate on his behalf.

By deciding that De Leon's character converted to Judaism for Aaron's, Silver said she is "really abiding by the rules" while her wife, born Jewish, was "much more laissez-faire" about tradition.

Silver said his Jewish mother was an asset to the production, crediting her with finding them the synagogue at which to film.

"It was my parents' synagogue," Silver said. "My mother is such a force of nature that I think she just said, 'My son's going to shoot a movie here' and made it happen."