Julia Stiles (Wish You Were Here / Hustlers / Mona Lisa Smile) • #342

Look at how it's only films to be buried with. Hello, and welcome to films to be buried with. My name is Brett Golstein. I'm a comedian and actor, a writer, a director, a bonnet, and I love films. As Yah Yassi once said, history is not written in a single stroke, but in layers of lived moments, you know, like in Forrest Gump and whatnot. Every week I invite a special guest over. I tell them they've died, then I get them to discuss their life through the films that want

Oh, thank you so much. What a fun introduction and such a pleasure to talk to you. Such a pleasure.

Nice to me you. Juli dar was a big fan. Sorry the intro was so short. We could have gone on a lot longer. That's all right.

I think it was your enthusiasm that made it all worth it even better. You get the award for a most Enthusiastic Intro.

Thank you very much, I take it. How are you? You have just released a film that you have written and directed? Is this correct?

That is correct? The movie is called Wish You Were Here? Did you have a chance to see it? No pressure if you didn't, I.

Just don't know if this is I'm afraid I did not have a chance to see it, and I only knew about it this morning. And I'm very excited that that's okay.

No, it's not a test. Not a test. Not a test. Yeah, yeah, I can talk about it fresh. That's yes. So it's called wh You Were Here? It's based on a book. It's been a career. I mean it's been a career long. No, something that I've wanted to do for at least the last ten years, and then five years ago an actress who's actually in the film sent me this book and said how about adapting this?

And I fell in love with it.

And now it's out in theaters and it's been such a it's very surreal.

Right now it's finally out in theaters.

And this is the first thing you directed, right, is that true?

Yeah? I directed a couple of shorts, but that was many years ago, made a lot of mistakes or you know, learned from that.

But it's been this is the first feature.

How was the actual making of it? How did you find being a director?

I loved it. I'm totally hooked. I absolutely loved it. I mean, it's a ton of work and it's exhausting, especially when you're in production, but I've never felt more energized.

There's something it's like going on along car trip.

You know, if you're in the passenger seat, you start to doze off, but if you're the driver, you're like in it.

Yes, Yeah, it was really really exhilarating.

Yeah, there's none of the boring bits when you're the director. There's no gaps. There's always something to do. There's always something to do.

You always have to be thinking ten steps ahead and planning your whole day and ready to pivot if things go wrong, which they inevitably do. But that's more like

That's true. Tell me this, because I'm always interested in the making of a film. How much changed from your initial vision of it, how much changed whilst filming? And then how much changed in the edit? Like how much of it did you change? The story? Did you change the order of things?

I did change a lot from the book.

I adapted the screenplay, and you know, I had the blessing of the novelist Renee Carlino. She read my first draft and then she gave me some notes, but she

But then yeah, there was so much that's different.

And actually, one of the without giving it a way, a big twist in the film, there's a change that I made to the script three weeks before we were going to start shooting. That's pretty significant change, and it was because we couldn't afford we didn't have time or money for a larger sequence that I had, and I needed to simplify it. And I came up with this idea that's not in the book, and I was like, now, to me, it makes the whole movie. It makes it's one of my favorite parts of the whole piece.

I love that.

That's just to say that I think I really loved I think I really loved the problem solving side of being a director. I found that my commute to work, driving to the studio was often like hugely inspirational.

I don't know if that means I.

Was like being a bad driver and not really paying when I was very much in my own head. I feel like or walking, like walking and listening to headphones is very inspirational to me.

Are you in the film?

I am not. There wasn't really a part for me.

I also think it's way too I don't know how people like Ben Affleck do it. I think it's too much. I don't have the bandwidth to be on both sides of the camera. I was really happy to not have to go into hair and makeup.

Every morning and worry about what I look like.

But there was a talk of me doing a cameo and I had written At one point I had written a scene that was like a half a page, just a little bit of me appearing in the film. But then I cut it. We never filmed it because I just thought it would be too distracting. It would take you out of the film if all of a sudden you saw a person that you recognize and you know is the director.

It's just too much.

That's fair. And how was it with working with the actors? I bet you were brilliantly directed, I think not.

I think with the technical stuff like where to point the camera and lenses and all that, I felt very comfortable because I've spent decades in those conversations in a blocking rehearsal where you're listening to the director and the cinematographer talk about where they're going to point the camera. My husband works in the camera department, so we always talk about I've learned a lot from him about lenses and and focus, depth.

Of field and all that.

But with the actors, I think I did everything that I swore I would never do as a director, Like all the things that you kind of grit your teeth are like annoyed when a director gives you a line reading or says like just do it, just do it faster, or you know, go again, Okay, let's do it again.

Let's do it again.

You know, I had all these lofty ideas about I'm going to go in and I'm just gonna, like, not gonna, I'm not gonna give them a note before the first take, just so they have the space to figure it out.

But you don't have time.

And so I would jump in and be like, just happier, just do happier, pace it up.

Pace it up.

You know which I mean? I think my you know, honestly, you need to do you need to do line reading. Sometimes.

Oh oh that was the other thing is that because I had I had the script in my head for so many years, I caught myself going, oh, wait, you're just giving them notes because you have an idea of how it's supposed to sound in your head. But why what's wrong with the way that they're doing it? So I did have to back off a little bit.

Interest Yeah, the whole line reading thing. Sometimes I'm like, so I've had directors where they're talking around, talking around, talking abound, and I know they want to just give the line reading, but they're trying to find it and then just say it, just say how you hear it, and then at least understand what it is you're guy in FORO interesting.

I will say now, now I do actually as an actress, I do appreciate a line reading, and I do appreciate just like this very direct, like just do it faster kind of thing, because sometimes that's more clear than some internal discussion.

Did you have I guess you probably can't say, but I'm curious if you had behavior from any access such as like, hey, I've got loads of thoughts on the character. I think I'd like to change a lot of this where you were like, just fucking do it. I've written this, I've spent a lot of time on this.

Well, let me say I will say that I think I was.

I mean, I think my actors were. I just absolutely adore them, and they certainly wowed me and surprised me a lot. I think I was very sensitive to not pushing them too hard, even though I kind of knew that sometimes I needed to. There's a scene where the male lead, Minha Masud, he has a kind of breakdown in the hospital, and it's one of the pivotal moments of the film that launches the whole third act where he says, like, I can't just sit here and wait to die. I have to do something. You have to

Yeah, well, congratulations, I'm excited to see it, and I'm sorry that I haven't seen it, but that is a very cool thing.

There were times.

Again, this is to say that I think All the actors were wonderful, and I was so grateful to have them in the film, and particularly the lead Isabelle Firman. I knew that I had worked with her in a film where I played her mother, actually, and I could see that she had this dimina to be in every scene every day, which I needed for Wish you were here.

Yeah. Most of the time. Most of the time, that's true. That's very true. Yeah, it's like a note in it. When they can't remember it, you're like, something's not yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about Save the Last Dance All Time Classic tend things out about you all time Classic. You are in an unusual position of I don't know how old you were when these films happened, but I imagine

As a human person, I mean, I'm still living through it.

I would what was it like to live through?

What was it like to live through? Then? What is it like to live through now? I suppose simple, just a simple question, what is your existence? What is tell me about existence?

I think I'm only now, you know, or recently, really really appreciating it and really focused on, like really taking it in the significance of being a performer that can continue working for many years and have people still talking about the work that you've done. At the time when it was happening, it was very surreal, and I think I had a kind I went through many different stages of how to. I don't want to say cope with it,

I don't know.

I have a really great therapist.

I was going to ask, what's your what's your tip for when it's overwhelming? But is it therapy? Get the therapist?

Well, no, I know, no, I think I mean, that's part of part of it, but I think more than that, it's Living in New York City is really helpful because you are forced to engage with the world and there's lots of stuff going on around you that has nothing to do with you, and so that's a good way to keep thinking anything that really can keep it in perspective.

There's a lot more going on around you, you know. And that's something.

That was That was the thing that made me nervous as a twenty something year old. But now I think I can I understand it. I navigate it more, I manage it more.

Listen, I don't actively look for these things. So I may be wrong about this, but you've seemed to me someone who has existed as a successful, famous, good actor who I don't know anything about your private life, you know what I mean, you seem to have stayed out of Unless I'm completely wrong, I don't feel I see you. You know what I mean? You exist as someone I know is a very it does very good work. But you seem to have maintained a private life. Is that true? Am I wrong about that?

No?

That thank you so much. That's wonderful.

I mean, that's I have always admired and wanted to emulate actors that you don't know that much about, because it's easier to believe them as somebody else in a story. But I but I mean, you know, but there's always there's always our personal lives and our hobbies or whatever. We you know, just little anecdotes about our lives go hand in hand with promoting whatever it is that is coming out. So inevitably we're gonna know more. You're going to have to open up a little bit.

Yeah, in that way.

But I'm glad to hear that. It's it's not too much.

Yeah, never. But like some people, you see an awful lot and they're photographs everywhere, and sometimes I'm like, I always wonder how much of it is a choice, how much of it is completely out of their control, and whether it's a thing that you decided very early on to stay out of or I don't know how you can't completely control it. But were you always this way? I suppose.

I think I've been pretty protective of it.

Yeah, yeah, great, I love it. I love it do these styles. I've forgotten to tell you something I should have told you up top, and it's fucking mad that I forgot to tell you.

Oh my god, shit, this is what you've died.

You're dead. You're dead. You are no longer with us, You're dead. Sorry, how did you die? Oh?

Yeah, god, you really went there? You really went there?

Yeah, I keep waiting for you to say like in the Jason Bourne movie, and now you're talking about like existential existential.

Yeah, you're dead and thanks for spoiling the Born movies. You're dead.

Oh my god.

These are the things that we always have we avoid, actively, actively avoid thinking about.

Yeah. And this is again why I'm very grateful you're doing the podcast. How did you die?

What?

I'm going to start crying Jesus, this is what I sort through and wish you were here?

What?

This is what has been brought up in Wish you Were Here endlessly for the last five years with me, and particularly in the last year when we were making the movie. This is not shameless self promotion. I'm going to answer your question. But this has been stirring in me. This has been stirring in me for years because and I've been I've been channeling it through Wish You Were Here.

This a constant thing that plays on your mind? And the ways has ord? Has this been recently in the last five years, this has been.

In the last seven years, I would say since I became a mother.

Right.

Interesting, the anxiety has it's always bubbling under the surface, and it's just a question of how to keep it tampered down and not let it rob you of the joy of everyday life. Oh my god, people, I must answer this in so many different ways. I don't want to think about it.

Think about it.

You could make we can make it fun. You could. You also couldn't diet three hundred years out.

I'm gonna die.

I'm gonna die, well, not too long because I don't want to outlive my kids.

I'm uh I.

I have a dance party, hug and kiss, almost like the reverse of a wedding, or like a buttontz foot or something like. You have a big party, dance my face off, drink, hug and kiss everybody.

But that's the point of not knowing what's going on.

Hug and kiss everyone that I love, in particular my family, and then we cozy up with blankets and go to sleep and cuddle and I go peacefully.

In the night. How old do you want to be when this happens?

Ninety?

Okay, it depends on my physical shape, but I think if I'm having a dance party, I'm pretty good.

One of my best friends her grandmother, I'll never forget.

We would go visit her country house, and her grandmother was like eighty five years old and would just sit in her chair, eating peanut m and ms in a glass bowl and drinking her vodka and just letting everybody talk and do their stuff around her and watching it.

And I was like, Oh, that's fun. I think that's a good way to go into old age.

That's nice.

Yeah, I'd say eighty five or ninety.

Can I ask and feel free to no answer. So you've started feeling this way since you had children. Do you think the anxiety is more like because you need to be around to protect your children, or because you don't to miss out on your children, or all of the above, all of the above.

And I think also you're just way more aware of life than the opposite and the preciousness of life, I mean, because I think I feel like in my twenties and thirty early thirties, I was like so care free, like that feeling of being invincible. I used to do the craziest things on film sets because I thought that there was this like invincibility when a camera's on you.

That's interesting.

I remember filming that film, It's like the little independent film with Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker in Iceland, and there was a stunt where the we're supposed to drive a car off of a cliff as like an insurance f odd thing, and of course they have divers and stuck people to do it. But I was like, but I want to jump off the cliff. You're gonna put the camera on me and I'm gonna jump off the cliff. And I had to really talk them into it because it's an insurance. I mean it's a hazard if the

But you were thinking.

I was thinking of if a camera's on me, nothing can happen. I mean other stunts in movies too, where I would never in a million years do it now. And I think it's because, yeah, you're just aware of the coming and going.

I've never thought of it like that. Tell me this, what do you think happens after you die? Do you think there's enough to life?

This is a.

Scene in the movie. This is a conversation that they have spoil it for you. I think, well, I will answer that myself. But you know a lot of my voices in this film too, And I although these were lines from the book, but you know there's a reason that.

I plucked them out.

The main characters say to each other, the guy's dying and the prognosis is not good, and she says to him, are you scared? And he goes no, and she goes, have you thought about what happens after? And he says he says, he thinks it's lights out, baby, and she says, no, that's not true. I think that the memories that we create. I think your artwork, the influence that you have over other people their memories of you, that's what keeps you alive anyway, So what.

Do I think it happens to our consciousness?

So obviously I was like exploring all these questions in the film, But I what do I think happens? There's a part of me that does think it's lights out, like we don't have a consciousness anymore. But I do believe that there's an energetic I am spiritual, like, I think there's an energetic resonance, and that the memories that people have of us do you keep us alive in some way? But I think in terms of our own consciousness,

Well, Julia, the answer you know what happens?

Tell me, ah, where have you been?

Yes, there's a heaven. You're going straight to heaven and while you're up there, you're going to have a lovely time. And then if you want to come back in a different form and try something else, you can do. But in the meantime, there's a heaven and you're going to it, and everyone is so excited to see you in heaven, and it is filled with your favorite thing. What's your favorite thing?

A thing? Not not people? Music. Music.

Oh, it's filled with music. Oh my god. Every room a different genre. There's live music, there's dance music. There's everything you want in all the rooms. But also everyone wants to talk to you about your life, but they want to talk about your life through film. And the first thing they ask you is what is the first film you remember seeing? Julia Styles at home? It was Adventures in Babysitting Nice.

No, you know I actually saw that, well, I had the VHS, but we also went to the It was the first PG thirteen movie I was allowed to see, and we saw it in the theater.

There must have been one earlier than that.

Oh, I feel like I remember only because I think I got my cousins in trouble. That my cousins came to sleep over and we went to the video store and I picked I was two years older Ernest Safe's Christmas, and they got they were not allowed to see a movie like that.

Likes it's so outrighteous.

So I was the bad. I was the bad I was the bad cousin. It was the bad influence.

Yeah, when you watched Adventures in Babysitting, do you remember thinking, fucking hew, this is brilliant. I want to do this. I do.

Actually, I like the opening dance scene that Elizabeth Shoe does.

I love that so much. Another movie that my mom.

Insist she took me to see in the theater, but I was like five years old when it came out, so I don't know how that worked out, but which was a huge reference for wish you were here desperately seeking Susan.

I remember.

Madonna made me want to be an actress or I just wanted to be like her, and I just I remember, on such a subconscious level as a little girl, thinking like I really tapped into this identity crisis that Rosanna Arquette was having, wanting to get out of the suburbs and kind of wanting to emulate Madonna's free spirited.

Life in the East village.

And then I watched the movie over and over and over and over again when I was prepping which You Were Here, and it really holds up. But I used it as references for like costume and production design and the color scheme. And it's a much lighter film than I think Wish You Were Here is.

But visually I was. I was really into it.

Did you grow up in You?

I did? And actually the theater that is in the movie.

I don't know if you remember, but at the very end they go to a movie theater and it's Bleaker Street Cinemas, which was on Bleaker Street and LaGuardia Place. And I grew up in Soho, kind of near the West Village. And I mean, maybe it's apocryphal, but I feel like I've talked about it with my mom that we went to go see it at that theater.

So meta.

That's cool. Yeah, what a great reference. And it hasn't come up on this podcast.

Look at my hair. Look at my hair. My hair is totally Madonna hair from that era.

What is the film that scared you the most? Do you like being scared?

I do not like being scared, and I don't like I mean, it's a certain kind of it's a certain kind of scared, like those deep fears that we have. I remember being very scared of Freddy. What were the Freddy Krueger movies Elm Street? Yeah, there was something super creepy about those, But then silence of the lambs. I mean, I'm not I'm kind of easily scared.

I think I think Freddy Krueger is fair to be scared by day. It is a Peter File that's been set on fire and has scissors for hands. Scared.

But there was a video game of it.

I had the little Nintendo, the Gray Nintendo, and there was a Nightmare on Elm Street video game, and that just even the freakin' theme music was.

Too much funny.

About crying? What is the film that made you cry the most? Do you like crying? Are you a crier?

I like, I enjoy a good cry. I made a movie about that tries to get you to have a good cry.

I cry a lot at the end.

I mean I cried for personal reasons a lot at the end of Wish you were here from just like the overwhelm of or not overwhelmed, just the joy and all the emotions of like WHOA I made this I made this, we made.

This, But oh, side question about your film then that I'm curious.

I'm also not just trying to promote my movie. This is a genuine answer.

No, yes, I'm in. But when you're editing a film, which sounds like frankly devastating from everything you've said, but when you're editing it, and there are the bits that if the film is working for an audience, they will cry at did you find yourself in the way that with a comedy sometimes you edit it for so long that you can't laugh anymore. You forget that it's funny. Maybe did you get to the point of, like, I don't find this movie anymore and I have to assume

There are moments that always worked for me, and then there were moments where I was able to be a little bit more objective, which I don't think is a bad thing either. But I'm trying to think other movies that other movies that make me cry, Like you know, it's silly things like the beginning of Dumbo, when when the elephant, when the elephant, when Dumbo puts his ear out and yeah, all that, you know.

All that Dumbo is a fucking killer.

Yeah.

What is the film that you love? Most people don't like it. It is not critically acclaimed, but you love it unconditionally.

Oh, I don't know if it's I don't know if it's not critically acclaimed. It's kind of a it's a cult classic.

I think.

Well, so I do think that people. There's definitely fans of this movie. The movie Clue is like literally one of my all time favorite comedies and I know it by heart. I mean I could we had two hours more, I could sit here recite the whole movie to you. I think it's one of the most tim Prey in his prime.

I think that's pretty It wasn't well received at the time, and I think now I think that's a good shot. I don't know why, because it was fucking brilliant always.

Yeah.

What about on the other end of the scale, a film that you used to love but you've watched it recently and you've gone, oh, I don't like this anymore, perhaps because you have changed, not the film.

I want to say, like, either no disrespect to putting Tarantino. Either, movies like Reservoir dogs or pulp fiction. We love pulp fiction when it came out, and I wanted.

To be cool, so I liked it too.

But that kind of violence to me, I can't really stomach anymore.

Yeah, absolutely, fair enough. What is the film that means the most to you? Not necessarily the film is good, but the experience you had around seeing the film will always make it important to you. Julius Styles, hmmm, so.

Distracting when you call me them phone name. Not distracting.

It just feels like lots of important emotional weight is put on this answer.

Yeah, it's a big one. This one a big one.

More recently, I think the Lobster. I remember seeing the Lobster Yogo Slanthromosis film in theaters and going like, whoa, this is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant. And it's the power of going to the theater and being forced to turn off your phone and just focus on being taken away in a story. Is what we what we I crave experiencing, and that was definitely one of those things one of those experiences for me. Silly enough, I think also straight out of Compton, do you remember.

That movie about Nwa.

Just I'm thinking just the experience of being in the theater because I went to go see it, and I was very nostalgic about that music as a dumb little white girl in middle school who again wanted to be cool and was kind of because everybody was into that music, or at least at my school they were.

I was too.

And there's a term fronting, and I feel like fronting meaning you're it's like, not like there's something anyway, there's something so silly about but it was a very but.

I was because it's not planet.

But I'm watching the movie and I'm really really enjoying it and feeling like really tough. And there was like a girl two people behind me who were talking the whole time, really loudly at the screen, and I, for whatever reason, decided to turn around and be like, you know, first I gave them the Seinfeld like half stare, and that didn't work. And then and somehow I became sort of belligerent and was like told them to please be quiet.

And fuck it, I fucking gave it to it.

She and she quickly put me in my place, and then you realized that I'm just I'm not as tough as I sound. My bark and so she she said something like like she was gonna cut me or.

I don't know if so.

It scared me so much I shut up and we just watched the movie and I was like, before the lights come up, I don't know.

Yeh, that's fucking really makes the rest of that film intense. And that they were behind you as well. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Oh this could be a totally this could be a totally inappropriate story to tell.

But it speaking of just remembering more or the experience of being in the theater than just the movie itself. This is so awkward. I don't know why I'm even bringing this up. I went to go see Blue is the warmest color in theaters and like, that movie is so graphic. To be sitting next to strangers, it's so explicit, to be sitting next to strangers is so uncomfortable. But the person next to me was eating Chinese food, Like what.

What like nudles? Yes, nudles with chopsteaks.

And like didn't pause in the full on.

Sex thirty five minutes sex scene. Yes, that's righteous. So are you aligned seeing this film? No?

I went with a friend, but was very.

I believe that's great. Didn't stop. Didn't stop for the sex scene out of respect to car Still.

Hungry, Still hungry, could wait, couldn't wait a couple more minutes.

What is the film you most relate Tom.

Desperately seeking Susan again, that storyline. I think that's why it still resonates with me many many years later. It just Roseanne arcad character creating the freedom that Madonna has.

Okay, Julia, what is the sexiest film you've ever seen? I didn't use your full name, so it didn't freak you out.

Okay, I mean obviously Jerdie Dancing comes to mind.

Yeah, holds up.

The Notebook is really sexy. Yeah, Notebook's really sexy. Oh, please be on the pines. I love that film. Yeah, underrated, Juliet.

If you've listened to the show, you'll know that there's a subcategory to this question, traveling boners worrying why duns film you found a rousing that you weren't sure you should say that again? Saying it? The sub category is traveling boners worrying why duns a film you found a rousing that you weren't sure you should? Please? Don't maybe say it again?

No, No, I heard it.

I heard it.

I get it.

Arousing. Oh man, Oh, I mean I want to say Romancing the Stone. I'm thinking or overboard.

Yeah, overboard, answer over it's a great answer. Yeah, complicated, complicated things going on there.

Yeah, I don't think that the tone is a comedy.

But I found it really hot. It's very sexy. But also she has been kidnapped, yes, and but it is hot. That is a great answer. Yeah, Okay, well done, thank you. We can move past that. Now. What is objectively, objectively the greatest film ever made? Might not be your favorite, but it is the best of cinema?

Cool hand, Luke. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm having a hard time.

Like when you think of the best of cinema, I want to think of like something visually very stunning, But I go back to the performances and the story and Paul Newman still captivating in that, and the chain gang and the human spirit trying to break out of this captivity.

It's pretty great, pretty great, great answer. You can have it. I'm going to give you ten points.

Thank you.

We're done. We're done. You're on the board.

We went out, we left, we left. Screening of a Q and A of whish you were here. And somebody on the street asked me who was in film school? And he asked me, like, tell me a movie that I have to see, or a director that I have to follow, or tell me the best movie of all time. And I said, because it was on my mind. I was like, you know what I think is really underrated. It is Desperately Seeking Susan and Susan Seidelman is an amazing director.

And my husband scolded me and he was like, you need to say something like Casablanca. I don't think so.

I don't think so. Yeah, tell me this. What is the film you could or have? What's the most over and over again?

Could or have?

It's Desperately Seeking Susan.

No, no, I would say, it's Clue Again. I know it by heart. Flames, keeping flames on the side of my face.

Breath breaths, keep going.

And you had a weapon, and you had a webinar. You had a weapon, and you have had a weapon. One plus two plus two plus one. Communism is just a red herring. That was the medley, That was a medic.

Do a one woman show where you do all of Clue. I'm telling you you would sell out for three years.

Done. Done.

That's a fucking great idea. What is the worst film you've ever seen? We don't like to be negative. Whether you want to navigate this question.

Mm oh man? I uh or oh man, I can't.

I feel like I'm going to insult people and get hate mail, because the worst is, you know, what is a bad film?

It's really you have to I think you have to.

You have to explain why I would say that gratuitousness is annoying to me, because then that you could hear you veer into when something's so bad you like, like it's funny, and then that's okay too, that's okay too. I mean, I don't want to pile on because I feel bad for the actress and it Elizabeth Berkeley. But everybody you know talks about strip tea strip tease. That was to me more the show Girls. Yeah you know that that now becomes a comedy. And again I don't

It's like creating by committee.

I'll say one of my own movies actually that I think was executed very poorly. There, I'll turn it back around, so I'm not hurting anybody's feelings. It was a movie called Down to You with Freddy Prince Junior. He's lovely, wonderful actor. Yes, but it was a time. It was a time when teen rom coms were really popular. And the script and the director wrote the script. He was a first time director and he was a very very

You know, I don't know if that actually made it in the film, but it.

Was annoying to It was annoying because I was like, well, this is this is so cheap and it's not adding to the story and this is not like.

It's not a creative it's not a creative reason. There's no cre activity behind it. Yeah, Julie s Das you navigated that so beautifully. You went through all the reasons why you shouldn't talk about things, and everyone works hard, and then you managed to bring up Harvey Weinstein. So therefore you're observed of everything. This is a really good way, really really good way.

And by the way I will do we'll say about strip to sure Girls.

Sorry again, I even hate that I said that because piling on to Let's not make fun of Elizabeth Berkeley. It's not her fault. And what annoys me about that movie is the exploitation of her. It's like putting her up there too. It's just yeah, it's just that's interesting. But anyway, yeah, down to you. You can rent it and see. Tell me if the dancing on the pool table scene is still there because it was stupid and we shouldn't have shot it.

What is the film that made you laugh the most?

Bridesmaids? Correct, and I will watch.

I will just flip on YouTube and watch that scene in the airplane when I feel like I need to get a little pick me up.

Still hasn't been topped Bridesmaids.

Nope.

Julius Styles, you have been wonderful. However, when you were ninety years old, you had a dance party. You had been sat there on your chair, eating peanut Eminem's and drinking vodka, and then all your family and friends gathered around and you said, is it time for the dance party? And they said yeah. You got up and you danced. You danced twelve hours straight. All your favorite songs, you had, everything was playing, all the different types of music that

Oh yeah, I'm got to pick a good music movie.

It was really wired. I was going to make you cry with your death.

No, because I know I have many coping mechanisms too that happen. Although that sounds like a beautiful thing. That sounds like a beautiful it's actually my favorite death that we've had so far on this.

I'm thinking of music documentaries, but that I don't want to play that in Heaven. Oh what if I.

Did like a whole panel for every all the musicians and having like you know, Simone documentary or most recently there's this Sly Slide and the family Stone documentary Sly Lives, and then maybe the band you like that concert that Scorsese did Woodstock.

So you're doing a sort of festival up in heaven. Yeah, it's a music festivor and a music duck festival with a Q and A with the actual musicians.

Yeah, and then and like, oh, how accurate was that depiction?

Was that a good interpretation?

Maybe some musicals thrown in there with the most recent West Side Story boz Lehman's West Side Story.

Oh, I can't believe.

I didn't mention in any of the questions, very specific questions, so I'll have to figure out what category this would fit into. But the boz Lehmon's Romeo and Juliet, well, that was revolutionary and that was I auditioned for that, But yeah I did, But I mean I was completely I was like in the general casting call, I was nowhere near the echelon that Claire Danes was at the time, and she was fantastic in it. So everything happens for a reason. That was such a beautiful movie, that was

Memorable?

I don't know. All right, you're going to listen. Normally it has to be one DVD. But because you're putting on an entire festival and it's really involving everyone, and it feels like what you've really done in Heaven is you've turned it into a community and I love that. So there's gonna be a music festival, but you're also taking Romeo plus Juliet Juts. Please tell us before you leave how where to watch your film and if there's anything else we should be looking out for in the coming months.

It's called Wish You Were Here.

It's available in the US, oh, digitally anywhere you rent or buy movies, Prime, Fandango, Apple, and then I think internationally it'll be coming out later.

In the year in May.

For just like ninety minutes, turn off the cynical part of your brain and hopefully you can enjoy a good laugh, a good cry.

Maybe you'll laugh while you cry.

I don't know. I worry I'm going to find your film absolutely devastating. Is that correct?

There's definitely moments of levity to suck you in the being. Yes, it is. Heart wrenching, but ultimately very hopeful. It's not going to leave you in a pile of despair. It's going to make you. My intent was to make you see the beauty in life and you know, appreciate the life's preciousness. But that's also that's also that's fary devastating.

Yeah, Julius Darts, thank you so much for doing this. You have been wonderful. I look forward to seeing your film and whatever you do in the future. I wish you a lovely death. Good day to you. Thank you so much, Thank you so much. I finished recording with Julia, and then that day she sent me a number of voice notes that she once included in the podcast. So here they are, Brett.

It was such a pleasure to talk to you. I'm laughing because the nerd in me is now sending you a PostScript or a post podcast voice memo. And I've recorded it now three times, and I realized that I'm speaking like you, that I was doing the same intonations and kind of pauses, lilt.

Anyway, put this in if you will.

But I thought of.

Two more movies that are extraordinary, and forgot to mention when we were talking doctor Strange Love, Doctor Strange Love, Peter Seller's Beautiful movie cinema, classic, hilarious, also deep and meaningful, whatever category you want to put that in. And then also El Norte was a movie that I watched many many years ago, I think in high school, and it really opened my mind to the story that the family is struggling with in that film. Postcards from the Edge,

That was an awesome movie. Okay, I'm done.

I'm done. So that was episode three hundred and forty two. Head over to the Patreon at patreon dot com forward last Brett Gold's team for the extra twenty minutes of chat, secrets and video with Julia go to have a podcast. Give us a five star rating. I'm write about the film that means the most to you and why it's a lovely thing to read and it helps numbers and he's really appreciated. Thank you so much. Thank you so much to Julia for giving me her time. Thanks to