A New York writer finds her solitary life unsettled by the unexpected inheritance of her late friend’s dog in Directors Scott McGehee & David Siegel’s drama, The Friend.

McGehee & Siegel’s film follows the story of Iris, whose life is disrupted when her friend and mentor Walter dies and leaves her his Great Dane, Apollo.

On April 13, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, McGehee & Siegel discussed the making of The Friend during a Q&A moderated by Director Gail Mancuso (A Dog’s Journey). They also spoke about the film with Director Ira Sachs (Peter Hujar’s Day) following the New York screening on April 19.

During the Los Angeles conversation, they shared a funny story about the difficulty of directing dogs.

“So, the dachshunds had a very simple job to do,” said Siegel. “There were two of them because one was supposed to be calm, and one was supposed to be happy. Their job was to come in and sit on the sofa while we shot some long shots. And these dachshunds were so wound up by being on set that or so like whatever that they couldn’t sit on the sofa. As soon as the trainer would turn around and leave the set, the dachshunds would follow her.” McGehee continued, “And [dog trainer] Bill Berloni had arranged for these dachshunds, so he felt sort of responsible and had his head in his hands about this. And this went on — we could not get the dachshunds to just simply sit on the sofa. At one point, Bill Murray could see that we were just tearing our hair out. Bill stood up and said, ‘I refuse to allow you to euthanize these dogs!’ Because it was so, so frustrating. But we figured it out.” Siegel concluded, “We just decided they could stay on the chair. The chair we couldn’t see from our camera angle. That’s where the dog was.”

McGehee & Siegel’s other directorial credits include the feature films Montana Story, What Maisie Knew, Uncertainty, Bee Season, The Deep End and Suture.

McGehee & Siegel have been DGA members since 2002.