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Jason Segel is best known for his comedic work, from the cult favorite "Freaks and Geeks" to the family-friendly "Muppets" film. But in "The End of the Tour," he takes on a different, dramatic role, portraying writer David Foster Wallace.

Wallace's dark humor and cutting prose made him a modern giant, best known for his collection of essays and the monolithic "Infinite Jest," which clocks in at 1,079 pages. 

Wallace battled depression for more than 20 years. In 2008, at the age of 46, he committed suicide. 

Rather than attempt to capture Wallace's whole life story, "End of the Tour" takes on just five days. It's based on David Lipsky's book, "Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself," where Lipsky recounts the five days he spent tagging along with Wallace on the last leg of his 1996 book tour for "Infinite Jest." 

That last leg of the tour involved a reading at the now-closed Twin Cities bookstore Hungry Mind, a stop at Minnesota Public Radio and a trip to the Mall of America. The film crew stopped by the mall last year to shoot several scenes.

The End of the Tour

"End of the Tour" opens in Minneapolis this weekend, and Segel joined MPR News' Euan Kerr and Stephanie Curtis to talk about the experience and Wallace's legacy.

On why he chose this dramatic role, after a career of comedy

I think that especially as someone who's written a lot of their own material, I've learned that what I'm best at is stuff that's reflective of what I'm going through at the time. Arriving at 34 years old, I was just thinking about different stuff than I was thinking about in my 20's. 

When I got this script, it was really similar to the themes of "Infinite Jest," these themes of, "What are we going to do with our time that's going to make us feel satisfied?" It's what I was thinking about it, and it just felt like it arrived just when I needed it.

David Foster Wallace, in particular, is going through a really terrifying moment when ["Infinite Jest"] comes out. He's been writing it for years, laboring under the belief that people will like it ... It's a total leap of faith. As a writer, you don't even know if people are going to like what you're doing. To write a 1,000-page book is scary. 

So, the book comes out and it does as well as it could possibly do. It's a moment where things go exactly the way you hope they'll go, but you realize you still feel the same. We've all experienced that. Even a kid who gets the bike he wants, you enjoy it for a week and then you're thinking: What's next? I think that's a really universal experience.

One of the big challenges going into a movie like is to not approach it with too much gravitas, not to try to deify your idols. 

I think one of the things that really makes David Foster Wallace resonate with people, why they feel so close to him and even an ownership of him, is that when you read him you feel like it's you: It's you with the emotional vocabulary you always wish you had. 

For me, it was important to make sure not to treat it so preciously, but to think: This is a man, just like me, who is funny and complicated and deals with some really complicated feelings but has the bravery to talk about it. That was the big challenge. Getting over my own fear too, so by the time they said "action," I could do the part without feeling like I was a fraud. 

I used to think reading a book like "Infinite Jest" was so that you could talk about it at dinner parties. Then I actually read the book.

I had this experience where I'm like: "Oh my gosh, reading can be entertaining." I was thoroughly entertained at night, there wasn't a snobbery element to it, I was really enjoying reading this thing. Then when I finished I realized that I felt proud of myself. I've never felt proud of myself at the end of a "Real Housewives" marathon. 

It was a very different experience for me where all of a sudden I realized: Reading reminds you that you're smart, that you're capable, that you're maybe potentially meant for more than sitting on that couch for hours and watching something mindless and just numbing out.

On how the film deals with mental illness

The interesting thing to me are the scenes where [mental health issues] are 

 being dealt with explicitly, where they are underneath everything, because that's the reality of those issues. 

It's a little like having a twisted ankle, in that I might not be actively dealing with it right now because I'm sitting, but I'm acutely aware that at some point this interview will end and I will have to stand. 

I think that is the truth about people who deal with mental issues: Even when it's not at the front of your mind, even when it's not something you're actively dealing with, you know that one moment of not being diligent and you can get taken for a ride by this chemical cocktail — which is what that stuff is. 

I think trying to make sure it was there in every scene was a really important thing for me. He writes really beautifully about depression in "Infinite Jest" and some of his other works. I didn't have to do too much guessing about how he felt. 

In "Infinite Jest," there's a scene where this girl gets brought into the hospital after a failed suicide attempt. The doctor says: "Why did you want to hurt yourself?" She just smirks at him and says, "You'll never be able to help me. You think I was trying to hurt myself; I was trying to end the pain." I think that's a really succinct way of putting it.

On Wallace estate's vocal opposition to the film

I didn't find out about that until about halfway through shooting. My feeling about it, honestly, is that I would probably feel similarly. I think that having a movie made about someone you love in any capacity is a very vulnerable thing. To be honest, I really understand. 

Our movie was relatively low-budget. We didn't have a lot of time, and we didn't even know if we would be able to shoot at the Mall of America. It came together during shooting. ...

We were in Grand Rapids, Mich., we shot until four in the morning, then we caught a 6 a.m. flight to the Mall of America. ... There weren't even cordoned-off areas for us to shoot, so we were going through doing these scenes and people had their camera phones and were filming us — which they didn't have in 1996 — so it was a real exercise in creative framing. It was really fun though. ...

David Foster Wallace and David Lipsky really went to the Mall of America on this tour. And Mall of America really is sort of the epitome of the themes that David Foster Wallace is talking about: It's consumerism and entertainment at its mecca. It was really special to shoot there. We got lucky.

As part of the tour, Wallace stopped by the MPR studios for an interview with the station's 

former All Things Considered host John Rabe

. Euan Kerr played a clip of the archive audio for Segel.

From the archives: David Foster Wallace talks with John Rabe, 1996 by MPR News

So vulnerable, right? What an honest answer to that question. I think that's why people relate to him. I can only speak for myself, but when I was listening to him talk, I was thinking: Yes, I've never said that out loud but that's how I feel.

One: I hope that people read more David Foster Wallace. I think that would be an amazing effect of the movie. 

Two: I hope that it's the kind of movie where people walk away and want to have a discussion. There are a lot of different types of movies and they serve a lot of different important functions. One is the big tent pole movie, where you go and its escapism. I think that there's tremendous value to that. A big superhero movie is a really important thing in its own way.

I think the middle area of movies have moved to television now, and what I think is left is this other type of movie like "End of the Tour" where the intent is to go with a group of people, watch the movie and then go have dinner or drinks after and talk about what you just experienced. That's a really important function of art. 

And what I hope for is more opportunities to act. That's my dream every time I do a movie is that I'll get another at-bat.

MPR News Staff

Author

The film "The End of the Tour" captures the last leg of David Foster Wallace's 1996 book tour for "Infinite Jest." It includes stops throughout the Twin Cities, including the Mall of America.

Jason Segel takes on the role of David Foster Wallace in "The End of the Tour." The film captures the last leg of Wallace's 1996 book tour, when he came through the Twin Cities.

Jason Segel on playing David Foster Wallace

Keith Bedford | Getty Images

Courtesy of Back Bay Books

In 1996, MPR's John Rabe interviewed David Foster Wallace during his Twin Cities stop on the book tour for "Infinite Jest." The moment is reimagined in the new film about Wallace, "End of the Tour."

Jason Segel on playing David Foster Wallace and filming in Minnesota

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