This podcast is supported by Searchlight Pictures, presenting A Complete Unknown, now nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor Timothy Chalamet, Best Supporting Actor Edward Norton, Best Supporting Actress Monica Barber, Best Director, James Mangold, and Best Picture of the Year. A Complete Unknown enters the American cinematic songbook through the mind and music of Bob Dylan, played by Timothy Chalamet, whose embodiment of Dylan's superhuman...
Human genius brings electric life to an iconic enigma. Critics hail its breathtaking cinema at the highest level and one of the best films of the year for your consideration. Welcome to Screen Talk. I'm Anne Thompson in Los Angeles. And I'm Ryan Latanzio in New York. And we're trying every week to bring you the up-to-date news on what's going on and analysis in Hollywood. Right now, we're in the middle of the Oscar race, so that tends to dominate our discussion. And it's not going to be...
absent from the discussion today, although Ryan is heading for Berlin. So he's going to give us a little preview of what he might be able to see there. I am literally heading there. within mere hours for the first time, so I'm very excited about that. I'm a little tired, actually, because I ended up staying up very late watching
All of the screeners, which I'm very privileged to have, of the new season of The White Lotus. You had to write. You didn't have to watch the whole thing. No, but I just I wanted a little treat to myself and every. next i was like i'll watch another one just one more one more and now i basically i've ruined the whole thing for myself because that is something where it's very rare to have a show that's on every sunday that you can sort of
I know. And now I've blown it for myself. It's a cooler, a water cooler thing. I saw the first episode at the premiere and I really liked it. I thought it was very good and I can't wait. But I mean, Nora is going to come over every Sunday night and we're going to watch it like the HBO. series of the season, and we'll do it week by week. It's definitely in a darker register this time, and...
There is some implied sibling incest that I quite enjoyed. And that is sort of my only spoiler that I will give. I was thinking that, although they were throwing a little bit of a gay vibe at him. A little bit to titillate us. You know, it's a Mike White show. There's always going to be a little bit of a gay vibe. Patrick Schwarzenegger is the guy we love to hate, but he's easy on the eyes. And very cute. I mean, we saw him in The Staircase.
Did you watch that one a couple years ago? Yeah. He's a good actor. All right. At the after party, he was sort of the celebrity of the evening, I would say. Who else? Oh, yeah. I enjoyed watching Judd Apatow hanging out with the host of... survivor, Jeff Probst. What were they doing together? I have no idea. None.
So anyway, we're looking at a bunch of award shows that happened last weekend, and it started with the Critics' Choice Awards, where the surprise winner of the night, having not won anything else, was Anora. And everybody was sort of gobsmacked by that, followed on Saturday by the DGA, where the winner was. Anora and the PGA where the winner was Anora. And suddenly the whole universe sort of swiveled on its axis and Anora became the front runner for the Oscar.
I remember back at the Globes when it didn't win anything, which is sort of the significant thing in a way, in terms of why nobody has been giving it more attention. It's been getting nominations. Significant. nominations six of them for the oscars all the big categories that you would want including yura borisov who
It's a sign of strength for that movie that he got nominated for SAG and for the Oscars. What do you think is the reason this movie is playing so well for the awards people? Look, I don't really flatter myself as some kind of sage.
But dating back to Cannes, I have always said that I thought Inora was going to win Best Picture and Mikey Madison Best Actress. And I think a lot of predictors, once it didn't win anything at the Globe, sort of shifted their... you know their tides and they should be paying less attention to that because ultimately the people who vote in the globes
no longer the Hollywood Foreign Press, but now this other revised body. No, they're still in there. Well, they're in there. They're in there and they're in their sort of drag form. It's not necessarily overlapping with the Oscars. Not at all. And this movie really cleaned up last weekend. Critics' Choice, DGA, PGA. And so now it is the frontrunner, in fact, and I think deservedly so.
Now, there have been other movies in the same place, La La Land would be one example, that didn't necessarily end up winning. at the Oscars. They ended up winning a lot, but they didn't win the big prize. So it isn't in the bag for Anora, but what's good about it is that those groups... are relatively mainstream, and they're American. So that shows you where the support is. But Enora got a lot of BAFTA nominations also. So the BAFTAs will tell us a tale, maybe conclave.
could do well there. Maybe Marianne Jean-Baptiste could win there. That would be nice. The SAG Awards could go for Wicked. Now, when you go around to all of these events... The love for wicked is palpable and noisy. People love this movie. So it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that it could still emerge in that preferential ballot. But the thing is, Anora is the one that clearly has a mainstream. appeal.
across a lot of different demos. Yeah, well, I mean, why do you think people are going for Enora over, you know, once Emilia Perez kind of faded away as a best picture frontrunner, a lot of us were thinking maybe Conclave, maybe The Brutalist.
Maybe a complete unknown. But we didn't believe it. Possibly safer choices. We didn't believe it. No, we didn't believe it, but we said it nonetheless. I'm not saying you and me, but I'm saying a lot of people did sort of subscribe to that. No, the brutalist is still in there, by the way. And so would be. Enclave if it won the BAFTAs. The trick with the brutalist is that if you walk around and talk to people, many of them still haven't seen it.
Seriously, they're voting right now. People have filled out their ballots. A lot of people are bailing on it on the portal. You know, it shouldn't be seen that way, obviously. Is it because of the length or because of the sort of grandeur that it's presented?
of being this sort of great American movie that maybe to some people feels more like homework? I don't think it's that much homework to watch The Brutalist, especially the first half of it. No, it's not, especially once you get in there. And then, but the second half, maybe? Maybe that is harder for people. I love that movie. You know I do.
I still think Brady Corbet could get in there for best director at the Oscars, by the way. Actually, I do. I mean, what he achieved was very immense and on a low budget. And so I definitely can see in that category. People might want to recognize that. It's also more international. And so I think Onora is too. It's interesting. These are two American movies that actually have international appeal. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But it definitely makes things a little more...
interesting, shall we say, as we head into the final stretch. It's almost over. I've got emails with tickets to the Oscars and, you know, it's not, it's upon us. It's going to happen. So you'll be going to the Oscars. I'm not attending this year. I wish you were. Yeah. I mean, I prefer to let like younger, hungrier people that maybe still have hope in their hearts about certain things go and enjoy these kind of events. Wow.
Well, it was interesting. I was having a conversation with one of the editors at the LA Times and we were talking about, you know, we have to assign people to go to the Oscars, to go backstage, to go on the red carpet. You know, what do you actually...
get out of all of these things really he thinks and I'm not going to disagree with him entirely although I will say that going to the Oscars is still one of the great wonderful charged experience I mean there's nothing like it I get a huge kick out of it every single time i'm sure you did when you went well are you talking about sitting in the dolby or going into the backstage room
Very different experience. Yes, of course. But backstage is cool, too. That's another experience that I enjoy. The part about backstage, especially back in the day, I used to have to write that story. The story of the winners, the story of the night from backstage on deadline.
getting those quotes in from the people. This is when we had fewer people working for IndieWire. This was back in the day. We are still a mighty team, but we have a few more than we used to. Yeah, but the experience of walking the red carpeting. going into the Oscars and being there live in the room is not to be denied. It's wonderful.
The year that I went was the everything everywhere all at once year. So everything felt a bit preordained and less predictable. And it's like everything we thought was going to win did. So this would actually be a better year to go because there is some disruption and unpredictable.
predictability to it all. I was also predicting that Enora was going to win the spirits and they often do line up. And it probably still will. So tell us about Berlin. Yeah. So I'll be heading to Berlin for the first time.
today actually tonight and there are three movies playing in the festival that i've seen so far that i really liked so i will just highlight those the interesting thing about this year is that uh The new artistic director is Tricia Tuttle, who came from the BFI London Festival.
I think it's trying to bring the festival a little bit closer to Cannes in terms of its high-profile movies. And it has delivered on some of these in the competition. There's one that I really liked, which is the new Michel Franco film, Dream. I'm sort of the resident Michelle Franco fan on the staff. I don't know how you feel about him. I'm in there with you. I'm in there with you. No, he's a great director. And in this movie, Jessica Chastain, who he directed in memory a couple of years ago.
which was maybe a little bit sweeter. This movie finds him back in his sort of cruel, hopeless register that I think a lot of people understand him as doing. He gets a lot of comparisons to Michael Hanukkah, which I think filmmakers who make this kind of austere... sort of pained kind of film that's often about class wars. I think they get tired of that comparison, but it is sort of an apt entry point. It's fair. What was the name of the Mexican one with the upstairs, downstairs?
class warfare new order i loved that movie yeah me too and that one pissed a lot of people in mexico off because of the way it portrayed the disparity between classes and i think this one is angry in that way again where jessica chastain is playing a sort of moneyed San Francisco arts patron who's having an affair with a much younger Mexican illegal immigrant who she has lured to the United States.
also could potentially threaten her wealth and her reputation. I feel like she, in recent times, especially like Eyes of Tammy Faye, which won her the Best Actress Oscar, plays these kind of feminist, redeemable types that have a... redemptive angle but there's really nothing redeemable about this person so it's very interesting to watch and i think this movie could be as controversial as new order with the right distributor it's currently looking for one
I really like him. I ended up hanging out with him in Carlo Vivari last summer. That was really, he was a cool, cool guy. No, he's lovely. And when I've interviewed him, he said, like, people are always asking him, are you okay? And he's definitely fine. This is just the key that he likes to play in. The other one that I saw is called...
Continental 25, directed by the Romanian filmmaker Radu Giude, who, you know, he did Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, which won the Golden Bear in 2021. His film... last year do not expect too much from the end of the world won a locarno prize in 2023 and was also romania's international oscar submission he's one of those directors where
Like the straight nerdy guys in the room have to laugh as loud as possible to let their peers know in that room that they got the joke. He's often railing against. sort of unfounded nationalism and the falsities and hypocrisies of society. And this film really is no different. It's about a woman who is a bailiff from Hungary, who now lives in Romania, and she's trying to figure out how to deal with her implication in homelessness.
man's suicide. It's very, it's in a more plaintive register. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's a thing. Is it as long as the last one? No, it's only like 100 minutes. So that's the dream always. He's reformed. Yeah. Well, good. I can't wait to see them when they eventually return. I have a few Sundance movies that are going to be screening, which I'm excited to see. I might have to go to the theater this weekend to catch up with the new Marvel movie. No, I see them all.
all. I see them all. I don't see any of them. If you skip them, then you get lost on the timeline. You're screwed. Well, that's the thing. The train is sort of gone, and I feel like it's too late for me to get on board at this point. This one especially is somehow the 12th film in this particular cycle. It's really something that I... It's too late. It's not going to happen for me, but I guess this is...
is the big opening movie of the weekend that I suppose we have to acknowledge. Captain America, Brave New World. And then I never got a screening invite for Paddington in Peru, did you? No, I did not. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen that. But Armand... is opening we liked that film
Yeah, I liked Armin very much. And I didn't, you know, it was the Norwegian submission for the Oscar. It got shortlisted. I didn't think that one was going to make it on there. It's a bit obtuse in its arthouse-ness. But Renata Rensvog... a very good performance in that one a little bit too good she goes way over the top yeah and i talked to her afterward and she it did take a toll on her where she had to take a couple months of bed rest literally after she finished the role
Wow, wow, wow, wow. Okay. Have a good time in Berlin. Wear your warmest clothes because it's winter there and it's windy, you know? Yeah, it's also winter here. It's a little bit brutal. Yeah, I don't think it's that different than what's going on in New York right now, but I think there's less sunshine available.
Okay. This week we're welcoming two producers, Didi Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, who work for Plan B. And I think most of you probably have heard of Plan B. It's Brad Pitt's production company. So it's a treat. But we've got two of them. And they're going to talk a little bit about Nickel Boys, which is their extraordinary Oscar contender this year. But also about Plan B, which they do this hat trick of combining commercial movies like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
with really brave things that often end up at the Oscars, like 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight. And the list goes on. So let's talk. We're going to talk to them shortly and enjoy. Nickel Boys wouldn't exist without Plan B producers Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Plan B has an enviable track record of finding, backing, and promoting rising talent. They produced the Oscar winners Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave.
as well as Best Picture nominees The Tree of Life, The Big Short, Selma, Vice, and Women Talking. This year, Nickel Boys ascended to Best Picture nominee status, along with an adapted screenplay nomination for producer Jocelyn. Barnes and director Ramel Ross. Welcome. Welcome to Screen Talk. Thank you. Can you guys describe for me what it is?
that you're doing in terms of balancing at Plan B, talking about Plan B, how you balance the more commercial things you do with these extraordinary ambitious swings that always seem to end. end up at the Oscars. I think we view these things as ecosystemically connected in ways that we don't always control. You know, I think we've We've tried to balance a filmmaker-driven approach that sometimes is bigger and sometimes is smaller. And some of the things that were supposedly...
not commercial were much more commercial than people thought. And some of the things that, you know, people thought would be commercial were less commercial and that you don't, you know, you have to go into all of them believing that.
you can do something special and cool yeah i i don't think that um you know i think we know that some things are going to be a little harder than others but um i think i think There's something nice about doing a lot of different things or different kinds of things that nonetheless feel like they may have some kind of unity to them or that they belong in the same world or something. So I don't know. I think that's I would just add it's there is a there's a sort of call. There's sort of a.
a main vein of just advocacy and belief. Right. And that can cover a really wide spectrum. So the, the part of you that believes that Ramel Ross can just hit this out of the park and. and render this adaptation in a completely singular way and deserves the chance is not completely, it's not mutually exclusive from the belief of
You know what? I know it's 30 plus years since Beetlejuice was made, and I know he wants to do everything practically, basically, but this one's right. It's time for the Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, and he knows how to make these. the the shrinkers he knows how to make the puppets he knows how to build the sets you know like it's all belief in art in artists really and that part's super fun that that's a bigger pool than i think more people share it than maybe
people would think. I loved Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, actually. It's so good, right? It's really fun. But I'll go into that Tim Burton world any time. And you also have Mickey 17. coming out. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I cannot wait to see this movie. I can't believe I've had to wait so long for it. And now it's going to be in Berlin, right? Yeah, we're going Saturday.
very very but that's an example like what is bong is bong commercial is he not commercial is he i mean is you know parasites an extraordinarily profitable movie you know and very commercial yeah and so so both and you know we were we loved so much of his work and produced oak john When we came across this book, it felt like something that came out of his head. So we sent it to him and he wanted to do it. And that happens to be a larger canvas.
I don't know. I think we like to not define things or try not to. I don't know. We enjoy that or something. It's also a business maker and see what happens. You just have faith that it's I know. No, no, no. I know that you two work very hard day in, day out. You make notes. You look, you give comments, you you. steer these things very carefully, I think. Tell me I'm wrong. No, I think we help. But I think what Jeremy's saying is it does start with the belief, just beliefs, belief systems.
belief in artists, belief in belief in filmmakers, belief in narrative, belief in audience, frankly, like, you know. People are ready for Nickel Boys. People can watch this movie. It's going to work. And that if you can connect the right filmmaker or storyteller with the right material, that they might just have some intrinsic relationship to.
then something great can come out of it you know if you can somehow find something that i don't know it feels like it it's in that language or it approximates the language that the filmmaker already has Okay, so part of what, Didi, you and I talked about before, and I'd love to hear both of you expound on this, the idea that audiences are so tired of the same old, I think that is also what you guys do.
You figure out filmmakers and stories that are just going to be likely to be surprising. Well, I guess I I guess I believe that cinema is is not only about. narrative, but also about form. And frankly, I think more than ever, right, people are getting their entertainment from dozens of sources a day. It's coming quickly. It's coming in very short clips. And, you know, Coulson's book is a perfect example. That jujitsu just mind blowing twists that he does at the end.
I don't want to I want to I want to I want we wanted to figure out how can you do that cinematically? Because if you just do it like a linear rendering of that book, you will forfeit the thing. in the book that made you sort of fall down and gasp. So if you're going to take on most especially someone like Colson's latest text, your job, I think, is to honor. Honor the acrobatics and the courage and the bravery and the gymnastics and the physics of the book, you know, or of the underlying text.
So use those observations when you go to think about the filmmaker. And you thought Ramel Ross could do something. We did. We did, yeah. Quite different from what you'd ever seen before. You knew that it wasn't going to be a conventional movie. Right. I knew it couldn't be. or that the specific properties of this story would be maybe more powerful if they were rendered in a way that was unexpected.
So when you got wind or obviously figured out what they were doing, Jocelyn Barnes and Ramel Ross with this with the point of view, were you all in or were you a little? questioning how it could work. And also that whole question of how to pull off the ending must have been hugely anxiety provoking. Yeah, it was definitely a big question. Because it's not so much of the novel depends on that. Or I don't want to say that, actually. For me, I will never forget the feeling.
of this idea that like two become one, I just was like, this is such an incredible concept. And I think that, you know, I remember asking, but how are we going to get that? How is it going to be? how are we going to understand that um and we have to make sure that we understand that and i think i i think to your earlier question
Were we all in? We were all in that the book was in the right hands. Did we ask questions about how it would work, how to make sure that people would understand that particular thing?
yeah we totally did but if i think back on it it was always going to be all iterations of it were over that song which is remarkable That he understood that there was going to be a space in the film that was going to have that song playing and that that was going to be the vehicle by which the information would be delivered.
i'm trying to remember because there were like three or four cuts of the film that had different versions of exactly what that was and so i i don't know is is that That's somewhere between it's all in, in a way, but it's also like, you know, maybe interrogating the specific execution of it. You're all into like getting to the end. It's just how you get there. We're going to get there together and figure it out, you know, but you're totally.
And it ended up working. Tell me about Nina DaCosta's Hedda, the Henrik Ibsen Hedda Gabler adaptation. Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. It's coming out. I don't think we have it dated, but it'll be this fall. She was a joy. Tessa, we've known forever. And Nina Haas and Imogen Poots. I mean, really, it's fierce and super sexy.
it's a real reimagination of head of gabler it's it's not it isn't i mean this in the most complimentary way it kind of reimagines it and re-contextualizes it in a way that we think is very exciting and it and is also it's an extremely form formally it's an extremely exquisite film so this would be presumably a festival film, an art film, something that critics would embrace? I mean, you know, Anne? You never know. Never know. But we think it's we think it's excellent.
I hope everyone else does too. But I mean, it's really good. It's excellent. Now, this is what you do. You guys are always giving us good stuff. I wanted to ask you guys about your foray into documentaries. You're also, you had something at, you got involved. Petra Costa's Apocalypse in the Tropics. Yeah. When are we going to see that? We're figuring out the plan, but it's it's going to be with Netflix.
Yeah, we obviously played a bunch of festivals already, and we're excited that they're behind it again, obviously having done The Edge of Democracy. I love that film. Us too. Again, this film was a long time in the making. We joined it on the later side of its trajectory. But similarly, like... Finding, finding, you know, what was it going to be going through a lot of different cuts of the film, but it's an eerily relevant story about Brazil.
past, present, and future. You know, as you say, there have been a few documentaries that Brad and Deedee had participated in, you know, kind of as executive producers and stuff, but this is... This is a little bit more of a concerted effort to get more involved in them, even at like a seed stage.
They can be, you know, really important. I mean, and you also did Sam Rice Edwards and Kevin McDonald's one-to-one John and Yoko. There's going to be an exciting... way that that film is going to be released that I think is really innovative and yeah we have a little bit of a like a kind of a joint venture like label that we do with Kevin and this came
This was something he had been working on. I mean, again, it's so formally daring, this film. Yeah, the movie's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. And, you know... Being happen to be passionate fans of John and Yoko both separately and together. I think he I think just when you think like there can't be another right new thing like he.
he did it and and he did it in a way that's also extremely relevant you know what do you do when you're trying to uh figure out who you are and and and try and have idealism about being able to affect the world you know it doesn't always work out as you as you thought but um but boy is it it's such an impressive film and and and it's the sonic
the sonic landscape of the film is remarkable. It was, um, the fact that it's the one and only concert he played post Beatles ever, which I don't think most people understand or realize. It is April 11th via Magnolia with an IMAX component. Excellent. Which is very cool. And you also have... You did this movie, Wolves, which is an example of the current sort of tension.
between streaming and theatrical. How do you guys feel about that tension and how can you maneuver in this space? And do you try to leverage theatrical when you can? I think it really depends on the film. It depends on the participants. It depends on the filmmaker. It depends on the, I've seen it work in every which way, you know, I mean, I remember.
When we tried to make Normal Heart for 10 years and we're only going to get sort of, you know, five cents to make it. And Mike Lombardo at the time. was at HBO and said, okay, I'll let you make it. And I'll let you, I'll let you go down for six months so that Matt Bomer and everyone can lose weight. And, you know, the whole thing. Right. And I remember.
At the end of that, Ryan and I looking at each other and just realizing, and millions and millions of people saw it, and people just would not have seen that. And that movie, in its own way, I had an entire younger generation who weren't alive in the 80s sort of going, wait, what? So I don't have... I care deeply about the theater, like deeply. And it's where I'd like to see my movies. It's where I want to go, you know, and I don't want anyone to foreclose on the communal experience.
But I would I would be I think it would be short sighted to say that, like, there aren't just a million versions. And so each time we go into the discussion, it really is. with a whole room of people sort of thinking, what's the best thing for this movie? How does it reach the most people? Like Didi, I was going to mention Oakjaw.
right just goes on the subject of director bong with whom we've done one streaming movie and one now theatrical movie and okja you know simply put like that company at that time was the one that was willing to give the film its... mere existence yeah i knew you were going to say that word yeah that's true and and that was because there were conditions that they were willing to meet that allowed the vision to manifest itself and become real
And I believe that that film has had a long life on that service. What would have been the theatrical version of that experience at that time? It's almost like, I don't think it would have existed because I don't think we would. the budget that director bong needed and yes it stars a small girl and and it also involves a slaughterhouse like but ted never blinked like just didn't even so
I don't know. That's why I mean like every single time it's, there's a different calculus, you know? Do you think wolves would have worked in theaters? I do. I do. Yeah. But, but it was a decision that everyone made together and. I also know it worked where it went. So it kind of worked no matter what, you know. And you've still got F1 coming up, right? That's another big one. Jerry Bruckheimer. Hail to the chief.
We love Jerry. You like Jerry because he takes care of it, right? He is. We learned a lot from him. I mean, it's really amazing to be around someone who's been around that many movies and that many huge movies. And it's really, it's kind of a thrill. He loves what he does with such an incredible passion. He is there. He is watching inserts get shot. So why are you guys on that one?
I think the beginning they invited us in. I think, I mean, we've all done it together. We worked on the scripts together. We were all on the shoot together. We've all been working on like, I, I, I don't know. I'd like to think that. We're on it because they all thought we could be additive. And I think we have been. And it's also, it's a big endeavor. So why not, you know, have a strong bench, right?
You're really good at development. You're really good at script. You're really good at story and and making sure and casting and all those things. I was just thinking, you know, it used to be Scott Rudin. Right. Back in the day, who would be the additive quality producer that they would put on things. And that's interesting that that's what you are, too.
now in a way you develop your own stuff but it's interesting to me that they brought you in like that well thank you i mean we um we're having a lot of fun making it and we're really excited that it's coming out and and i think again to the to the question of like how do we balance i think we're We try and learn from different experiences. As Deedee said, we've learned a lot from Jerry Bruckheimer, who has seen every iteration of every problem, every solution, every incarnation of things.
i think it makes our company stronger that we're doing a lot of that the spectrum is wide of of and that it defies easy definition and that we can come on to some things earlier or later or make, you know, get, learn about how something like formula one is mounted and also be able to work on. a film that we're debuting at Berlin this coming weekend, which is called Olmo, which is the film of Fernando Aymke, the director of Duck Season, a film that we just love so much.
Good for you. Good for you. How do the two of you work together? I know that's a difficult question. How many years now have you been working together? We've started our 22nd. I think we just, we have developed a trust and a rhythm and a dispensing of politics and a, I don't know, some kind of yin-yang thing that... that just works for us. And I think that I would like to believe that the people that work with us think that there's something about it that also could work for them.
and that it stops us from getting too dogmatic or too fixed on things at times and that we help each other. I know I rely... very much on DD's judgment and experience, um, in key moments of a process and that asking questions of each other, isn't like weakness or, or, um, and having a kind of this. This is like little sacred space. It sounded such a corny phrase, but like having this environment in which we can, you know, ask questions of any given thing and that we can.
Talk through things is it's it's really quite a blessing because it's a it's a difficult business is very lonely sometimes And you take on things that are sometimes hard to to push up the hill. I mean, Nickel Boys, for example, it struck me that. Because you were involved with Nickel Boys, because you were on it, because Plan B and Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner were involved with Nickel Boys. That's how it got to Orion and Amazon and MGM.
How did you get the studio to back this very strange movie? Well, in the first place, it was a put picture. So we tried to be very... I think the commitment we made to each other is, all right, we've worked really long and really hard to have this ability to, at a certain budget level.
Tell them what movies we wish to make. Let's use that power and that privilege with great discernment and also with... with great passion and let's try and back artists and their passion projects um or you know a kind of um a pairing that that we come up with that wouldn't maybe ever happen anywhere else, you know, like why else have it? And so women talking was the same thing.
Again, a best picture screenplay combo that was unexpected. It really wasn't in the bag for women talking to be a best picture contender. Oh, I know, Anne. I know. As much as I think it deserved. Listen, Sarah is the best, so I want her to have the world. Of course. All right. Well, do you have anything to add to what Jeremy was saying about your collaboration? Listen, it... I get very emotional thinking about it because it's family, for sure. It's certainly the longest...
grown-up relationship I've had in my life. And I know that, you know, the idea that we're... sort of stronger and more full of care and love for one another, the three of us than ever before, is a real testament to effort, right? No adult relationship really.
We all know you have to work at it. We've been through a lot together. We've been through... all our children being born and we've been through divorces and we've been through losing parents and we've been through losing homes and we've been through successes and failures. And we've been through a lot of other stuff that is not necessarily public, but just like we've kind of gone through the fire together.
And you have to always keep growing. The idea that I, you know, my desire for these two men, Jeremy and Brad in like, and the, and the, like profound importance they have in my life is like, oh, I have to stay agile and keep listening to them. And I feel the same. I feel the same gesture coming from both of them. And that just feels, you know, we've worked very hard, of course, Anne, but also like, what?
How did we get so lucky? Cause we also like really love each other and we're also kind of nerds. Like we all would just, we just like read books and watch movies. So the idea that we all found each other. But you also get to work. I mean, you're in Hollywood, but you get to work on things that that are sometimes a little arcane. And it's good. It's it's rare. It's rare.
Yeah. And I would also say, I think longevity is, or continuity is an underrated value. Like I think there's so much change. There's so, the business is so dynamic, so volatile. In ways that are often very exciting, you know, so I think longstanding partnerships, you know, they don't happen very often. And I think that the fact that we've.
that we're in one is as dd said it's a very very beautiful thing we get to keep doing it and i i one thing i should just say before we jump we have new partners in media one um And, you know, one of the things that was exciting about their investment in us and their support of what we do is that I think they were really behind and excited by. The idea of having range, of doing a lot of different kinds of things, big, small, medium, film, television, unscripted, you know.
lower budget movies that we would take, you know, a greater degree of risk on. And, you know, that's another new thing that's exciting and dynamic. And we, you know, they've been great partners to us. where that's all going to lead us. How can we change and evolve but stay who we are is like... the challenge but one that we're excited by so that's good that's a good way to end it thank you so much thank you bye