Reilly: 'Duplass brothers have commitment'

John C. Reilly has insisted that directors Mark and Jay Duplass have a "real commitment" to filmmaking.

The actor, who stars in the duo’s new comedy Cyrus, revealed that the pair often went against the studio’s orders to film in a more ‘mumblecore’ style.

Speaking to Movie Retriever, he said: "The truth is that all directors are different. The technique of making film, the overall structure, is pretty much the same but everyone is really different. That’s one of the fascinating things about being an actor - you’re sort of a double agent.

"Directors don’t spend a lot of time on other people’s sets so they don’t actually know... [Robert] Altman didn’t know how [Martin] Scorsese did it and Scorsese doesn’t know how the Duplass brothers do it... but I’m the person who’s been there in the trenches with all these people. I see how they’re different and how they’re the same."

Reilly continued: "These guys have a very low budget, do-it-yourself attitude, even though this movie has a much bigger budget than they’ve ever had. They really stuck to their guns about how they wanted the movie to look. They did almost the whole thing handheld despite the studio demanding that they not do that."

He added: "And then they would do things like film for a half hour straight and Jay and Mark would walk off and talk about what just happened... and that’s unusual in itself - to have another person to bounce stuff off of, a directing team. They’ve got a real commitment to the truth and emotional reality. They’ve seen a lot of movies and they know when something rings false and they’re just not going to do that."