“I haven’t woken up in a good mood in years,” someone in Frank V. Ross’ knowing and satirical drama-comedy about the young and (mostly) disaffected confesses. Facing an onslaught of routine at work (he’s a “purchaser”) and in his dating life, Ron (Anthony Baker) reacts with diffident testiness to just about everyone around him, except for Stacy (Alexi Wasser), a delivery person, who quietly manages to connect with him, despite the fact that he is dangerously close to becoming the “angry little fuckin’ elf dude” someone accuses him of being.

Ross keeps an almost documentary closeness to his characters, attentive to their foibles and their comforting attempts to carve out small redemptions for themselves. Don’t spend a lot of time while watching this movie trying to figure out Audrey or any trainwrecks – Ross admits the title is just an attempt to keep the film “as annoyingly cryptic as possible.”

The characters in Audrey the Trainwreck aren’t tortured artists; they’re workaday people whose lives are fascinating because of the attention Ross gives them, so just pay attention to what’s on the screen and you’ll get it. Ross, who screened Present Company at SXSW in 2008, recently answered a few questions about Audrey the Trainwreck and his work in general.

SXSW: It seems like you did almost all the work on this film, writing, editing, and directing it. Do you remember where the idea came from?

Ross: I got stuck talking to this dude at a get-together and we had nothing to say to each other and he was kind of the inspiration for Ron. It seemed interesting to make a movie about someone you have nothing in common with.

SXSW: Was your script a final document of what the actors would say, or did the actors improvise some?

Ross: The actors always ad-libbed. I don’t like calling it improv. Sometimes funny things happen and we worked really hard to make sure they matched. I hate when you can tell which scenes are improvised. I’ve been trying over the past few years to develop a knack to keep it all in the same movie, and I tell the actors that too – “If you fart, fart, and if you laugh, laugh and that’s going to be the scene.”

SXSW: The relationship between Ron and Stacy is really detailed and interesting. It feels true to life. What was it like directing those two actors?

Ross: They had never met before and the way we did it is, since they meet in the movie, that was the first thing we shot. I think they’re still nervous about it and I said, “You just have to be comfortable; don’t try to challenge each other. Just be cool around each other.” It just got more complicated as we went on because we shot pretty much in sequence.

SXSW: Do you think this movie falls in the mumblecore category? What do you think of that term?

Ross: No, because I think that that term usually relates more to the people making the movies. I’m more than happy to be associated with all of them because they’re making good movies, and I know them, so I’m not going to act like my movies don’t match. But the only thing that bothers me is that my characters are a lot different – typically blue collar and white collar with jobs that have a consequence within the picture. What people do in my movies is usually pretty important. So when you read about mumblecore and slackers, I’ve never really had a slacker in my movies. I remember one time I handed a big-name distribution person a postcard because I was bs’ing with him about Present Company and he saw Joe Swanberg’s name on the postcard and he said, “Oh, you’re part of the movement, huh?” What the fuck does that mean? He said it very shittily.

SXSW: Are you able to work in film full-time, or do you have a day job?

Ross: I’ve waited tables for ten years now. I’ve always had a job. I edited a movie called Harmony and Me for Bob Byington and I was able to not wait tables for almost a year and I sort of lost touch with the world, so I don’t mind having a job. I want to make films about people who can’t go to every birthday party.

SXSW: What’s next for you?

Ross: I wrote two scripts and working on another one now and I’m just trying to see which one gets made next, so I can focus on what’s next. I can’t keep a lot of irons in the fire. I focus on one thing, but we’ll see. I haven’t lost a foothold yet. … This time [with Audrey the Trainwreck], I had a budget. I’d never had that before.

SXSW: How did you get a budget for this movie?

Ross: I met the producer, Adam Donaghey, at SXSW and he had talked about finding some money and a year later, I said “I’m going to make this movie” to David Lowery and he said, “Why don’t you take up Adam on his offer?” and [Adam] rounded up money. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. It’s something I have no knowledge of, because I’ve never even tried before. It was always that I could do it, so I just did it. There’s been very little sacrifice because of the lack of money, I think.

Interview by Claiborne Smith