Ahead of the upcoming UK release of 'Listen Up Philip', the film's star, Jason Schwartzman, took some time to talk to contactmusic.com about the character of Philip in the film. From the start, Schwartzman knew that Philip was saying a lot of nasty things and treating people in a bad way, all the while making terrible life choices. Schwartzman found this extreme, but it certainly didn't impact his desire to appear in the role.

Jason Schwartzman stars in 'Listen Up Philip'Jason Schwartzman stars in 'Listen Up Philip'

"I moved to New York," explained Schwartzman, while discussing how he got into the character, before talking about how he and Alex Ross Perry approached the idea of making Philip likeable."We discussed and asked if we should just try for a second to imagine what this movie would be like with a little bit of sunshine here and there for this character." When looking into changing the character, however, they Schwartzman and writer/director Alex Ross Perry realised it wouldn't work.

Watch The Trailer For 'Listen Up Philip' Here:

According to Schwartzman, they soon discovered that the whole film was built around this extreme character, and trying to detract from that would affect the film in a strange way. "If you try to retroactively put things in that make him nice," he continued, "it actually makes him passive aggressive, and that undermines the whole thing and REALLY makes him unlikeable." Faced with the choice between an unlikeable character and a really unlikeable character, they did their best to ensure that he was at least compelling. 

More: Read The Full Interview Here

It wasn't all bad news, however, as Alex Ross Perry had a slightly different view on things. "Alex was doing an interview and said 'everyone's talking about his guy like he's a murderer - he didn't kill anybody, he's just an asshole!'"

'Listen Up Philip' is out in the UK on 5th June 2015.