Alex Karpovsky: Homemade Success

Alex Karpovsky took this year’s Tribeca Film Festival by storm. Perhaps the most promising talent of those novice professionals roaming around the Manhattan-based festival, Karpovsky wrote, directed and starred in the psycho-sexual thrill ride Rubberneck. and, despite the film’s title, played the leading role in Daniel Schechter’s editing room dramedy, Supporting Characters . The multifaceted Boston native has continued to gain momentum in the independent film community since his 2005 debut as a filmmaker with The Whole Story and noted performance as Jed in Lena Dunham’s highly acclaimed Tiny Furniture. In Rubberneck, Karpovsky seamlessly departs from the quirky, dry witted, know-it-all type we often see him as and portrays Paul, a disturbed and reclusive scientist whose rage dangerously eats away at him. “This is a character I haven’t played before,” Karpovsky says, “and what gave me a little bit of confidence is that I grew up with scientists in my family. It’s a generalization, but scientists tend to be introverted and reflective as well as solitary in an emotional sense.”

Despite Rubberneck’s sizable feel, Karpovsky and co-writer, editor and producer, Garth Donovan, made the film on a minimal budget and gave true meaning to the phrase “Do It Yourself.” They literally pieced together funds by inventive means, including packing up a pickup truck with old aluminum windows and scraping them for a trade that made them, on average, $800-$1,000. “We wanted the film to feel large,” Donovan says. “This is a departure for Alex. He was conscious to say, ‘This is a different kind of film for me. I want to try something different. I’m interested in making a film with a larger appeal.’”

It is unusual to see a movie filmed in Boston without the heavy presence of shamrock tattoos or a Damon/Affleck dream team. Karpovsky and Donovan opted to film Rubberneck in their hometown in order to take advantage of inside connections and labor trade opportunities. “Because we grew up in Boston, there are just a ton of hook-ups that made this movie bigger than its budget would have normally allowed,” Karpovsky explains. “We had a really great deal with a rental house that gave us their trailer for a huge discount with lenses, gear and lights. So that was able to give a nice little polish on a low budget.”

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The use of “hook ups” in order to make the film feel grander worked. Without giving too much away, there’s an aerial shot in particular that depicts Karpovsky’s character running for a long period of time which, to filmmakers, may trigger visions of massive cranes and floating dollar signs. “There’s a helicopter rental place near us in Boston. We went in and a couple minutes later I said well we’ll paint your house but you have to bring us up for two hours,” Donovan explains. “So we got a small window of time to go up in the helicopter in exchange for some work.”

As an actor, Karpovsky’s other film at Tribeca, Supporting Characters made its debut to warm praise, adding another credit to his growing résumé. In it, Karpovsky portrays Nick, one part of a successful editing duo who obsessively moans and muses on current troubled relationships with his partner Daryl. Their working partnership and re-hashing of their personal lives leads to frequent disagreements between the two and a comical bromance that brings the film to life. Co-editing is a professional collaboration Karpovsky is all too familiar with, most recently with Donovan, his Rubberneck co-editor. Karpovsky laughs when asked if he and Donovan share a similar dynamic to that of Nick and Daryl’s. “Nick is much more lost in his own personal problems than I hope I am relative to Garth and my relationship,” Karpovsky chuckles. “Nick is consumed with his problems and doesn’t know where to share them, so he relies on his creative and professional collaborator. I don’t think I did that too much. I hope.”

Much of Karpovsky’s continuing success can be attributed to his rapport with Lena Dunham, who plays a small role in Supporting Characters. “Lena I met at SXSW. She was there with her first film, and I was there with a film I had made. We just got along. We talked very briefly, but we immediately felt comfortable with each other and felt that there was a potential overlap of stability,” Karpovsky reveals. “I loved her energy. She emailed me and said ‘I’m making a low-budget movie, my second movie, Tiny Furniture, and I’m writing a role for you. Do you want to do it?’ And I said yeah, of course.”

Tiny Furniture and its success instantly put Karpovsky onto people’s radar. He reprises his charisma in the Dunham community with a small recurring role in HBO’s Girls, the Apatow-produced coming-of-age comedy that continues to receive backlash. “My crystal ball is pretty muddy,” Karpovsky responds when asked for his prediction on Girls’ future. “It’s getting so much attention. It got an initial, very positive herald critically, but when you get something that’s so hyped and so well received from a media point of view, it’s kind of by default going to become some sort of bull’s eye.”

Life continues to prove hectic for this up and comer. Next, Karpovsky is set to premiere Red Flag at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. The film, which Karpovsky wrote, directed, produced and stars in, is a road comedy following a broken-hearted indie filmmaker. In addition, he will make his major motion picture debut in the Coen Brothers’ upcoming flick Inside Llewyn Davis , starring Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. “ Inside Llewyn Davis is the only thing in my life that I auditioned for and got,” Karpovsky says with a sense of lingering disbelief. “[The Coen Brothers] are probably my favorite directors. Seeing how they work, how they communicate to their crew, to their actors, and with each other, was incredibly illuminating. I never went to film school, and I didn’t know how the masters do it, so seeing it up close and personal was unbelievable.”

With this type of hot streak, who knows to what high point Alex Karpovsky will have risen a few years from now. With so much recent, deserved success, one may wonder if fellow actors who opt for the traditional route are jealous. “I hope not,” Karpovsk says. “But if they are, they don’t say it to my face.”