There's a fascinating little comedy called The Promotion that's almost guaranteed to be buried under the weight of major movies like Sex and the City and Kung Fu Panda, unless you do something about it. Starring Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly, The Promotion is about two grocery store workers trying to get a management job. Featuring great turns by not just the leads, but a supporting cast that includes Lili Taylor, Jason Bateman, Fred Armison, Gil Bellows, and many more recognizable faces, The Promotion isn't your typical comedy. It comes from the mind of Steve Conrad, a Chicago native who was on the verge of having to work at a grocery store himself until he sold his scripts for The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness. That one-two punch allowed Conrad to get his own project off the ground and The Promotion marks his directorial debut. It's the kind of well-written movie that has the word "sleeper" all over it. Conrad sat down in a Starbucks inside a Dominick's grocery store - fitting for the setting of his movie - to talk to The Deadbolt about everything from his own history to Monty Python, Sydney Pollack and Blazing Saddles.

THE DEADBOLT: How has the response been so far at screenings?

STEVE CONRAD: So far, so good. It's a peculiar, little film. By and large, yeah. I don't really hear "that side" of it. People are too decent to [slam it] [laughs].

THE DEADBOLT: Are there moments that play differently than you expected? Any surprises, reaction-wise?

CONRAD: In every film I've ever made, in every scene, there's stuff that I wish had come off better. It's really all I see. There are way too many to mention. The reverse happens less often - where something is funnier than you hoped. The interview that John C. Reilly conducts with the board is such a peculiarly rendered scene. It has much more of a relationship to silent film than it does to contemporary film. I really thought it would play very subtly, but it plays a little larger than that. I think it's mostly due to John and his exaggerations as an actor and as a character. He just embodies a lot of really goodwill and comedy but humanity at the same time. He's a very funny, natural human being.

THE DEADBOLT: The goodwill is such a major part of the film. Reilly's character is essentially the villain but he's such a likable actor. The casting is huge.

CONRAD: Obviously, I considered that. I was way, way down the road with Jim Carrey on it and it just didn't work out because Jim had something else to do. It was before I even presumed that John would play a second, because he was starting to get into the world of principal leads or doing pieces with huge movie stars. I met John incidentally and realized that he might be interested. The Jim Carrey version... I don't know. John pulls of that wounded, lovable guy.

THE DEADBOLT: Just on a casting level, it's a much different movie with Jim Carrey. Was it a different movie structurally or story-wise?

CONRAD: No. It was the same thing. There's something I want to do with Jim next. I'd really like to make a movie with him. But the John thing that fell into my lap was a Godsend. You're right. He essentially has to be the foil, but in order for it to really work the way I hoped, he has to be deserving of the promotion, too. The world's not full of "one guy who deserves the one job". It's been my experience that people work very differently than is depicted in motion pictures, generally. In motion pictures, there's a lot of delight in depicting people who work as detached from their jobs or slackers or above it. But, in my experience, I think people wake up and generally work hard and want to do well. So, I didn't want one to want to do that and the other guy not. It felt really simple-minded in a way that would be uninteresting. So, I was hoping John could be a foil but it could also feel like it could just as easily be him and it might feel good [to the audience] if it were him. He's got his own very private wishes for the way this might go and they needed to be respected.

THE DEADBOLT: That's what keeps it interesting. It's not clear-cut. There could have easily been a resolution where we rooted for the other guy.

CONRAD: Yeah, definitely if I had done a few little things differently. In fact, we have two deleted scenes that were deleted because I thought the audience was starting to believe that John's character deserved it more. Given the chance to look it at, I wonder what you'd make of that, if it pulled people too far to one side.

THE DEADBOLT: You've had a lot of success with other people directing screenplays. Why take this one in your own hands?

CONRAD: I've wanted to do it ever since I started writing. It happened that, in my writing career, I just completely floundered and fell off the face of the Earth. I couldn't get anyone to read anything, much less read it and then hire me to shoot it.

THE DEADBOLT: When was this?

CONRAD: 1994 to 2004. It was a long time. So, as soon as I got my legs back under me, I started cultivating this piece to shoot. I wanted to for a while. Directing is, in my limited experience, a fuller experience than writing. You choose costumes and lights, in addition to words, but all of them are just being used to tell a story. I don't find it that different. I mean, you have to call on different skills, like social skills, in order to do it well, but the enterprise of it is the same job demand. So, I always felt up to it. It's so much more fun, where writing can be such a bear. It can be very deeply lonely and very challenging. Also, in my limited experience, it's the hardest thing to do. It's the hardest to pull out of the sky - a piece of writing.

The Promotion's Steve Conrad Promotes Himself Page 2