He may play the best-dressed dean for 50 miles in any direction (starting from anywhere), but Jim Rash is also one of the co-writers behind Best Adapted Screenplay nominee The Descendants. In this interview he talks about the process of making the film and how he and his writing partner had to “de-funny in the sense of pulling back and not over-sentimentalizing moments.†God, it must have taken a lot of self-restraint not to title this movie The Deanscendants.