Filmmaking duo, actors Mark and Jay Duplass put together memoir ‘Like Brothers’

Mark and Jay Duplass had done a lot of things together in their journey from a childhood in New Orleans to careers as writers, directors, producers and actors on the indie side of the street in Hollywood. But when a publisher asked them if they might want to write a book, a memoir, about their life as brothers and constant collaborators, their answer was swift and clear.

“We said, ‘Hell no,’” says Mark Duplass, at 41 the younger brother by four years. “We’re only in our early 40s, and we weren’t sure exactly what we uniquely had to offer at that point.”

But then they thought about it a little bit longer, he says.

“And we had the conversation that we always have before really making any piece of art,” Duplass says. “Which is: ‘Everybody has 500 movies and TV shows on their Netflix queue, and at least 100 books on a list that they want to read. Why should we make something to add to that? It better be good.’”

Eventually, after the kind of back-and-forth conversations he and Jay, 45, have had all their lives, they found several paths into a book they believed had value. Recently, the book they titled “Like Brothers” arrived, kicking off a brief book tour in downtown Los Angeles.

Casual fans will know the brothers best from their work as actors on a pair of TV series. Mark Duplass starred in “The League,” a comedy set in a fantasy football league, that ran for seven years on FX and FXX. Jay Duplass stars as one of the adult children of the Pfefferman family on the Amazon series “Transparent.”

But those credits are anomalies on résumés mostly filled with film and TV projects they’ve created together, starting out as self-funding indie filmmakers in the early aughts, eventually making their way to Hollywood, and all the while working and living so closely that outsiders found it odd and the brothers themselves sometimes struggled to find space and a place for themselves as individuals.

The book is a collection of diverse pieces that fit together to reveal the puzzle of their lives. There’s part of it that’s very practical — chapters that trace how they carved out their prolific careers, from their early indie features such as “The Puffy Chair” and “Baghead” to their first studio movies like “Cyrus” and “Jeff, Who Lives At Home” or their HBO series, “Togetherness,” and much, much more.

“All false humility aside, we didn’t feel like we’re the smartest or the best-looking or most charismatic. We just out of sheer force of will pushed a boulder up an incredibly difficult mountain,” Duplass says of that aspect of the book. “And we thought that could be inspiring for someone who looks at us and says, ‘Well, those guys can do it, I sure as hell could do it.’ “

But another big piece of the book is the chapters that explore their unusually close relationship and their willingness to share their deepest, most honest feelings with each other in ways that many people don’t or won’t.

“I think the second unique aspect of it was that deep dive into our particular collaboration as two brothers, two North American males who are extremely intimate and, I guess, overly thoughtful about how we treat each other, and value our relationship and are very delicate with how we take care of it.

“People look at us and say, ‘How do you work so closely with your brother? I would kill my sibling if I had to do that,’” Duplass says. “That’s a question we’ve been trying to answer for years, through 15-minute interviews and hourlong Q-and-As, and I think we needed a 320-page book to really open up what are essentially the really amazing benefits and perils of being as co-dependent as we are.”

Both parts of “Like Brother” make for a fascinating read, as true to themselves the Duplasses don’t shy from the difficult parts of their story, whether that’s a failed first feature film or the feelings they share that are remarkably personal at times, such as their struggles to venture out on their own for a project without hurting each other.

The acting roles have helped that last dilemma. When Mark Duplass got cast in “The League” it was “the first affair one of us had on our partnership,” he says. “And then Jay, with ‘Transparent,’ really found a groove for himself that felt really good for him. And we do get threatened by that, but at the same time we want that for each other. It’s a very complex feeling.”

Earlier in their career, the brothers were most often dissecting their own lives through the fictions they created onscreen, Duplass says.

“This has been me and Jay working out our desire to be as close as we possibly can, but then running into each other and gasping for an individual breath,” he says.

Now, though — and this is one of the most moving parts of “Like Brothers” — they’ve worked to find ways to live healthier, less co-dependent lives.

“It’s healthy for us to individuate what we have, and to find more of our niches,” Duplass says. “And then there are times we come back together and it feels like we’re coming home again.”