Directors on Meeting Great Dane Bing

Near The Beginning of 2020, Filmmakers David Siegel and Scott McGehee Traveled to Newton, Iowa, to Meet a Great Dane Named Bing. The Pair Needed a Leading Canine For Their Next Movie The Friendan adaptation of Sigrid Nunez's Novel of the Same Name, and the Black-Spotted Boy Looked Like a Perfect Fit. The Only Problem? Bing was Just Two Years Old and Didn'T Quite Have The Maturity of the 150-Pound Five-Year-Old That Nunez Had Described in Her Book.

In Retrospect, Bing's TeenScence was a Blessing in misunderstanding. Two to the pandemic and strike-related delays, The long-gesting project didn'T start filming Until 2024, Giving Bing a Full Presidential Term to Grow Into Ankle Yet Adorable Movie Star.

Indeed, Under The Watchful Eye of Owner Ber Klinnsmith and Celebrated Trainer Bill Berloni, Bing Steals Plenty of Scenes as Apollo, a Harlequin Great Dane Who is begrudgingly Inherited by a poign aid New York Writer, Iris (Naomi Watts), When His Owner, Walter (Bill (Bill. Murray), A Litery Icon and Her Best Friend, Suddenly Dies. In The Midst of Writer's Block, Iris Learns to Navigate Work and Grief With in Monstrous (Also-Griering) New Roomme Side Her Sartice West Village Apartment. It's not Long Before a Special, Symariotic Relationship Forms Bethaeen Iris and Apollo – and by Extension, Beteween Watts and Bing.

To Capture it on Camera, Siegel and McGehee Leaned on Bing's Obedience and His Very Game Co-Star. In a recent joint interview with Rolling StoneThe Two Shared the Unique Logistics and Experiences of Filming with a Giant, Midwestern Great Dane in the Heart of New York City-and Revealed Bing's Special Movie-Star Secret.

You lead to Nationwide Search for Apollo. What does a dog interview look like?
David Siegel: It's Really Two Things. What is the countenance of the dog? What Does His Face Look like? Do you go into his interior life when you look at hem? Is he attractive? Does he drool too much? And we were always with our trainer Bill Berloni, Who was look for where the dog was responsive. Is the dog gentle? Does He Seem to like Other People?

Scott McGehee: And I would say a Third Element Is: What's the dog's Owner like? Is this Relationship Going to Be Something We Can Work With? Is this going to be a problem on set?

DS: We Wound Up with ber klinnsmith for bing. She Was Sort of the Special Sauce. Bing Loves Her So Much That We Were Able To Use Ber To Help Control Bing's Eyeline in A Really Precise Way, Which Was Kind of Amazing.

Sm: Bill Said That His Normal Strategy in A Situation Like This would be to keep the Owner Off Set Entirely, So that the Bond That would form form Between the dog and Naomi would be the mouss important bond on set. Once He Got to Know Be, He Changed His Mind and Invited Her Into the Process.

Were These Interviews Done in the Owner's Homes with room? Was This Like a Typical Audition Process?
DS: We Were Shooting a Lot With Our Phones. Sometimes it would be in People's Homes. Sometimes It would have happy in the parking lot Near The Airport. Bing was at a dog training facility.

Sm: One Dog Came To Our Office – We Were Pretty Serious That It Was Going To Be The Dog.

DS: But he at the Almost Bit My Face Off. That Ended the Interview. No Other Actor Has Ever Tries to Bite My Face.

What was it like pitching naomi a movie that features a dog that couus rip her ar arm off with a subden yank of the leash.
DS: She's Such A Game Actor and Game Person, but I Think The Notion She'd Be Working With Such An Unausual Dog was Just Immediately Attractive to Her. She Loves Dogs. She Had Recently Lost A Long-Lived, Important Dog to Her, and She Posted Her Grief and Memories of the Dog. So we kNew that that was an important aspect of her life.

Sm: She Has That Kind of Aussie Girl Canes. You Tell Her You Want Her To Do Something Really Improbable And She'll Figure Out A Way To Make It [happen].

I Read She Trained With Bing For Six Weeks. Did You Guys Have a Similar Program to Get On the Same Wavelength?
Sm: It was the opposite acturally. Bill Told Us That We Were Not to Touch The Dog.

DS: He didn't tell us that we couuldn't! He Wanted the Primary Relationship on Set to Be Naomi and the Dog. He didn't want people to be petting the dog all the time. Anyone Besides us Was Really Suppose to Stay Away. It Was Very Siloed That Way.

There's A Scene When Bing Hovers Over Naomi's Air Matretress On Their First Night. How long did some of the Intimate Scenes Take to Get Right?
DS: The Interior of the Apartment was a set we build for the movie, and that scene was shot on the penultimate day of the shoot. We Were Running Out of Time and We Had a Lot to do. We Had a Simple Way That We Thought We CouULD Pull It Off, But Everyone was in A Little Bit of a Panic Mode. And as we startd that scenes, it went so smoothly and so quickly – we shot that entitus scenes in about 45 minutes… he net let us down.

Sm: Naomi's skill to interact with a live situation and be game for dog breath and dog slobber and won't break character – That makes it happy.

Can dogs Get Camera Shy?
DS: I wouldn'T say that the EVER Noticed That. But Bing Could Become Distracted. That didn'T Happen Very Often, but that was an important THING that We Did Talk About. It's Just About Keeping Things Simple and Quiet.

I Heard that If Iris Ever Had To Scrold Apollo In The Movie, You Had To Move Bing Into Another Room SO His Feelings Weren't Hurt.
DS: Be knows bing so well. She Was Like, “If [Naomi] Says 'Bad Dog' Or Scards Him, I'm going to SPENDD Two Days Trying to Get Him to be responsive Again. “

Sm: It will Just Bum Him Out So Bad. He's a pleaser. He wants to make people happy. And If he feels he did the Wrong Thing, then he won't want to go back to set.

DS: “Get Bing Out of His Trailer …” [Laughs.]

Sm: The Hardest Behavors for Him Were the Misbehavors. Like When She's Pulling Him To Bring Him Out of the Cab and He Doesn'T Want To Go, or when's She's Trying to Get Him in the elevator. Those Were Really Tricky Things to Work Out with Him.

How Did You Adjust An Iowa Dog to the Big City with So Much Noise and So Many Other Dogs and People?
Sm: He's a pretty unflappable creatures. One of the Protocols is, Before We would Shoot Every day, he would get to know the set. We would be Bring Him in and He'd Sniff Around So He Felt Comfortable and Less Curious About the Setting that We'd Be Working.

DS: When they're walking in Midtown, Surrounded by Scores of People, or when we take them to Film Festivals Like Telluride and Toronto, he would be right by People. He's Just The Most Nonchalant Actor We've Ever World With.

Sm: The One Thing We Had to Accomodate with Him Was, We Kept Other Dogs Away. We Had a Team of Set Pas When We Were Outside With Bing. If they Saw a Dog Owner Walking a Dog in Bing's Direction, they would redirect or have them stop.

It's funny to Think More People on the Street Were Turning Their Heads at Bing Rather Than Naomi.
DS: It's Really True. I Mean, He's Just Magnetic.

Sm: I'Ve Been Telling BEV's Secret – She Use A Special Shampoo For Bing That Makes Him Extra, Extra Bright. It adds to his star quality. He has this special glow.

On the Last Day of Shooting, How Did You Get To Say Goodbye to Bing? Was There anyshing Special That You Guys Did?
DS: Well, ben can get him to sing and it sounds sort of like howling. I know, when weult wrap for an actor, she would get bing to sing for them. Naomi's Last Shot in This Movie was the Train Scene Going Out to Montauk. There Were a Lot of Transportation Logistics, But then Bing and Ber and Bill Were Going Off, and Naomi was Being Taken Home. Naomi Realized That She was Going to Be Separated – Bing and Ber Had Already Walked Away. She's Like, “Wait a Minute, Where's Bing?” So There is This Mad Dash Down 125th Street and They Met On The Sidewalk and Bing Sang. It was in very Beautiful Goodbye.