‘Biosphere’s Mark Duplass, Mel Eslyn, Sterling K. Brown & Zackary Drucker On Exploring “Masculinity” In A Buddy Comedy – Toronto Studio:

Biosphere originated from an idea Mark Duplass had while at a writing retreat with his co-writer Mel Eslyn. “I had this vision of these two men living in this sort of weird biosphere and that they were arguing about Super Mario Brothers,” says Duplass.

“Mark is somebody who’s constantly vomiting ideas at me 24/7,” says Eslyn, “and they’re always half formed, but the best half formed ideas ever.”

Directed by Mel Eslyn, Biosphere takes place in the near future where the last two men on earth, played by Duplass and Sterling K. Brown, must deal with the death of the last fish in their self-sustaining pond.

With the familiar “buddy comedy” trope, producer Zackary Drucker says it allowed them to examine how masculinity is perceived when only two men are left on Earth. “I think that masculinity is always perceived as this neutral position,” says Drucker, “and yet toxic masculinity is undone the structures of our society and our democracy, and for us to unpack that and interrogate it, in a buddy film which is such a familiar trope, and this buddy film goes where no buddy film has gone before.”

“If we start with familiar territory, we can take people to a whole new place,” says Eslyn.

While Duplass, Eslyn, and Drucker had been working on Biosphere together for some time, Brown was the last to join but he was thrilled with the welcoming atmosphere. “Jumping into something that these guys have been working on for years,” says Brown, “they made me feel welcome and appreciated and valued from the very beginning of my time with them and it felt very much like home, like the kind of collaborative people you want to work with – kind people who want to tell an important message about fish.”

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