Early on, Kentucker Audley’s generous although anxious laugher, a mix of both sincere amusement and awkward self-reflection, should have indicated that something was amiss. We’ve been talking about his debut feature Team Picture, specifically the quirks of its main character David, played by Audley, as Andrew Nenninger, himself.

Dissatisfied with the direction of his life, David’s a quiet, loner type, his actions somewhat defiant in subtle ways, his connections with others built on silences rather than conversations. Breaking ties with both his artist girlfriend and suburban job in favor of an unreliable drifter and a shot to make it as a musician, he slowly finds himself throughout the film claiming an adult independence and a break from the social restraints he feels, both facts nicely summed up in the film’s parting shot. He’s a somewhat ambiguous character, not especially likable but certainly not unlikable, the type of guy you see on the street and pass without any thought about it later. “Especially for people who don’t know me yet, I don’t think they realize how much of that is really me,” Audley says. “I feel like all of it is basically me, and so anytime someone critiques the character, it’s definitely a direct critique on me as a person.”

Rewind to a comment I made a few minutes earlier, “When it comes to power dynamics, David somehow is constantly giving women the upper hand. Or, he’s very glad to give them the upper hand, and he renders himself impotent.”

“Explain how you feel I’m giving them the upper hand, specifically with the relationship with the girl in Chicago,” he requests, referencing the aforementioned unreliable drifter.

“How long does it take him to kiss her? Now, granted she’s a bit of a cold fish, but it really takes him a long time to warm up to that point, which felt very diffident to me, almost too timid.”

“That’s fascinating. I feel like as a person and a personality, which I am basically exploring, especially in the Chicago scenes, I feel like that is my basic personality. I feel like what I’m doing as an actor and what I’m doing as a person is in my head allowing a certain level of comfort within both of the parties, not giving up my power but just allowing it to be absolutely mutual. I’m not in control; the other person’s not in control. It’s just really comfortable and loose,” he says.

By now I’ve realized my misstep about this impotence comment, although I still feel I’m unshakably in the right about the thematic assessment. In my head, I can almost calculate the next comment, and I’m bracing myself for it with the mixed emotions of amusement and embarrassment.

“When you say that, I inevitably think about me as a person, and as a person who experiences relationships,” he adds, pausing for a minute. “I’ve never heard that about the film or about myself.

“I think maybe I even fall into defending myself, not defending in terms of feeling offended but defending in terms of what I sort of understand myself and the character to be.

“I feel like every time I’m talking about my movie, I’m totally changing—or not changing—but that people are not responding to how I conceive it, which I really am excited by actually, that people have these interpretations.”

Programmed in August for a theatrical screening with IFC’s run of The New Talkies, Team Picture does share common concerns with the films of Andrew Bujalski, Joe Swanberg and other filmmakers classified, erroneously or not, into Mumblecore. Like those films, there’s a sense in Team Picture of almost hyper-naturalism, a dedication to every small emotional moment and an acute and penetrating observation of how life works.

“This tiny, personal film is such a new thing for me, and I feel like people are responding to it on some level,” Audley says. “I know that it’s certainly alienating a lot of people, but I feel like there’s some momentum at this point for me to stay small, and I’m absolutely interested in these sorts of tiny things.

“That’s what’s disinteresting about most films. You can tell that there’s no personal content. They are completely random portrayals of people that don’t exist and will never exist. It doesn’t hit as hard for me to experience a character like that, especially after LOL or Mutual Appreciation. I go back and see other films, and they seem so old-fashioned and anemic. It just doesn’t feel like it packs the same punch if you’re not coming to it with an absolute angle of understanding and portraying something absolutely real,” he finishes.

With its preoccupation with small moments, Team Picture creates narrative out of prolonged pauses, a great sense of uncertainty and moments of miscommunication. “All communication is miscommunication in some ways,” Audley explains. “I’m amazed by how little people actually seem to understand about what the other person is saying even in 30-something circles, 40-something circles, my parents’ age circles. It doesn’t feel specific to young people. It feels like people always miscommunicate, and really it’s impossible to communicate on any deep level unless you really, really, really are close with somebody.

“I’ve been in this relationship with a girl for three years, and we’re still at the point where we can’t communicate. That’s what our relationship is: trying to communicate, trying to get everything out there in time to see what we feel about things, but it seems like an impossible endeavor. At the heart of it, at the heart of communication, I just have extreme doubt. I have extreme doubt that true communication is something that people experience regularly, much less young people.

“I do feel that that scene where (David and his artist girlfriend) break-up at the beginning of Team Picture is very, very bad communication. That is certainly the providence of young people. I actually was very bothered by that scene as it is. I feel that is one scene where I am oblivious to where she’s coming from,” he admits. “In my first relationship I had a similar experience. I kind of forget that this character is supposed to be 20 or 21, which I feel like it is reasonable to be oblivious to your partner’s concerns, to be so in your head and so inexperienced with relationships that it’s a completely selfish thing. But, it’s naivete. It’s not being a bad person or an uncaring person. It’s just not understanding that that’s what your partner needs and not understanding what a relationship really is, how back-and-forth it needs to be.”

“She’s sort of an ass too though,” I say.

Audley waffles for a minute here, before responding: “This is the back story that never really got developed. We’d shot scenes where he was talking about her art and dismissing it very thoughtlessly. It’s always sort of been a rub point between them, that he doesn’t seem to give her any respect or feedback or encouragement about her art and in fact dismisses her art and what she’s doing, and what a lot of people around him are doing. Therefore, he’s like, “That’s not what I do. I make music, but I’m not an artist in that way.” He takes pleasure in saying he’s not an artist even though he basically considers himself an artist, or in a year from now he’ll consider himself an artist, once he realizes that all art isn’t what he hates about her art.”

Outside this artist girlfriend character, who enters and exits the film in early scenes, there’s a distinct lack of definition for the rest of the characters throughout Team Picture. Audley rarely delves into what they do or why they do it, and this he says is quite intentional: “A lot of the interpretations of the film come out of the characters not talking about what they’re interested in doing or what they’re trying to achieve. I definitely wanted to keep all of that out of the film. That feels like what other films have in them. There’s a really clear goal and arc to what they character’s trying to do, and I definitely wanted to avoid that. That was the first thing I wanted to avoid, so if you don’t have that, you’re left with this line of possible interpretation similar to what you would experience meeting somebody in real life or on the street and just not knowing their arc immediately, maybe never figuring it out, or maybe not knowing them anymore and being left with this question mark, this mysterious presence of this person. That’s the feeling of the film, which is, “I don’t know who that guy is or what he’s doing.”

“I think it will continue to be my intention to keep characters’ goals out of the film. I don’t want to make art films where you’re waiting for a character to accomplish a specific thing.”

In practice, Audley’s as vague about his goals as his characters are. “I certainly have expectations as to what I’m trying to do with art, and I guess those are goals. But as far as the idea of these rigid, unchanging ideas of what I want to accomplish, I don’t feel like I want to get hung up on that idea,” he says. “If you want to talk about goals, my goal is to live an interesting life.

“What am I to live for? Am I to live for going to heaven? Am I to live for being a pillar of society? Am I to live for becoming a rich and famous artist? Those don’t really mean much for me,” he says. “But something that does mean something to me is to lead a life in interesting places and around interesting people. That’s the only thing I can really grasp onto as far as a big meaning in my life. I think it is more and more important for me to understand a meaning behind my life, and that isn’t much of a meaning. But it is a direction.”

For more information visit www.myspace.com/teampicture.