A man finds an unusual kind of fame in Director Kristoffer Borgli’s comedic horror, Dream Scenario.
Borgli’s film tells the story of Paul Matthews, an ordinary family man who finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. When his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom.
On November 18, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Borgli discussed the making of Dream Scenario during a Q&A moderated by Director Antonio Campos (The Devil All the Time). He also spoke about the film during a Q&A moderated by Director Tim Heidecker (Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie) following the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles on November 25.
During the New York conversation, Borgli spoke about his process of working with his actors.
“I try to get two weeks of rehearsals before we go into production with every actor for all the main scenes. That feels important to just like pressure test. We just read through the script, say the lines that are written and then I tell them to go off the books and try to come up with new ways of saying something. ‘Try using less words, more words,’ whatever… I make sure that those rehearsals are a couple of weeks before we start shooting so I can find a couple of days to fine tune the script and put in whatever was good about the improvisation so that once we're on set we don't have to question it. But there's still a lot of things that just appeared on set like body language... things that you've never discussed like Nic shaking his head and his specific way of running.”
Borgli’s other directorial credits include the feature film, Sick of Myself and the movie for television, Drib. He has been a member of the DGA since 2019.