Ep63 - Special Edition: Oscar Nominees

focused weekly podcast. We talked to movie stars, we talked directors, basically exclusive conversations with the talents behind many of today's hottest movies. That's what we do here. And the ninetieth Annual Academy Awards are right around the corner on Sunday, So first order of business. We've got a lot of good movies, a lot of good performances, but a weird

year overall. I thought it never quite found itself, so kind of going into the Oscars here, we have a lot of question marks and a number of key races, so it should be a pretty exciting night. We've talked to a number of this year's nominees here on the show over the last twelve months, so today we thought we'd pull together a few of those conversations and anecdotes

make for a little trip through two thousand seventeen. We've got chats with actors like Gary Oldman and Searsha Ronan, and filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and de Reese, just to name a few. So let's dive in the year started, as it always does, at the Sundance Film Festival. It was there that Universal Pictures decided to drop Jordan's Peel's get Out as a surprise screening. It was a very bold move, but it immediately set this genre film up

as more than a genre film. I mean, it became a critically acclaimed movie that clearly could be a prestige picture. And here we are a year later, the Proofs in the Pudding. The movie is competing for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. It's quite the whirlwind. And I spoke to Jordan just ahead of at least way back on February twenty three, just over a year ago. One of the things we talked about was the genre

bending quality of the film. It's a horror film, but it's also a social satire with comedy elements, and it was classified as a comedy of the Golden Globes, which caused quite a stir. But way before all that happened, Jordan and I talked about that nebulous quality of the film. So here's Jordan one that it felt like the comedy education that I got, I've gotten the last you know,

decade or so worked perfectly in this film. Um. You know, I feel that both horror and laughter are ways we we face our demons way ways that we deal with our fears of death in a way, Um, it's about tension, tension, tension, and then release with a certain pinpoint precision. And you know, in in in a way the tension, tension, tension and release is kind of a a metaphor for life and death in a way. You know, we spend our whole lives fearing the ultimate absurdity, which is that this is

a temporary That's right, that's right, that's true. Uh. I went to the You had the kind of premiere in l A the l A live screening your Head that last week, and you said beforehand that for you, growing up race was like a nightmare, That's how you put it, and you wanted to put this nightmare on the screen. What it got me thinking was what was the chicken and the egg? Like, did you want to make a movie with those themes in mind? And then you kind of gravitated into a horror film? Or did you want

to make a horror film? And these are the things that came up that you wanted to explore within that I wanted to make a horror film. Yeah, I just you know, I've I've I've I've had the this dream of being a director since I was since I was younger, being specifically a horror director, and um, you know, part of the process of figuring out what I could bring to the genre that would be of any worth or

anything I would be proud of. Um, you know, I I realized that I've sort of done enough thinking about race, enough work in the comedy space about you know, walking that line how to deal with race and art, that I was kind of uniquely equipped to deal with it. Um you know, I think, you know, yeah, not only is race a nightmare for me, you know, I think that the greater point is that, um, you know, race, this country is is a and in the world is

this human demon. It is a monster that we is in our d n A. And so I just felt like race was I realized it's if anyone was going to make a modern move horror movie about race, it should be me. Did you feel yourself like, were your self governing it all, like, oh that's too far, I need to pull back on that. Or did you just kind of let yourself go as far as you felt like you wanted to go. It's it's yeah, it's all

self governing. Really, you know, it's you ask yourself, you know a lot of questions, but ultimately, um, you know, you sort of realize you can't write a movie with the taking into too far into consideration, how how the people will react to it, whether or not you can sell this movie. Um, I really wrote this movie for myself. UM, to say, look, this is gonna be a fun project to write. It is. Um if I was right a movie, my favorite movie that doesn't exist yet? What is that movie?

And I just followed that um fun Um. You know it's kind of you know, it's how I imagine um Tarantino works. It was one of the great Like you know, you can just tell he's not making a movie for anyone else. He's making the movie he wishes. Um. Jordan joined an elite group of filmmakers with his nominations as producer, writer and director of get Out. By the Way, only Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks have managed that particular hat trick on their debut film, so that's pretty exclusive company.

Hats off to Jordan's. Nearly a year later, we spoke to the film's breakout star Daniel Kaluya, just after he received his life changing Oscar nomination and when he was in the midst of promoting Black Panther. He stars as Wakabi in that film, by the Way, which has been crushing it at the box office. I love this guy. He's so genuine, you don't feel like you're getting canned answers. He's very thoughtful and conversational, and I don't know, he's just a good dude. He's going to be doing this

for a long time. And what I was particularly interested in talking about with him was the quiet nature of his character, and get Out sort of calls on Daniel to be quite reserved in his performance. A lot going on behind the eyes, under the surface, and as it turns out, that's exactly the gear he prefers to work in.

So here's Daniel. I mean itsunds in the sense that I mean, I learned so much on Sicario and Welcome with that group of actors where the audacity to do nothing, you know, the confidence and and and seeing him doing it on set and not understanding it, but then seeing it on screen and go, well, but a Toro is

amazing in that film, Josh is amazing. He's amazing, and I kinda it's a and then you and I have often I kind of had to rethink how I saw storytelling, how I saw acting in a sense that like I don't want people to see him doing it, and I can kinda. So it's just kind of like if you're playing a real dude, he's a real dude, you mean, and it's like and he's going through this, and it's about like people may not it may not be the showy role, and you have to be okay with people

not noticing that you're doing what you're doing. But did they notice the story? They are they feeling the beats of the story that that's the priority for me. So it was me engaging with kind of like just kind of death of like the acting ego in me, like just kind of go, let me just do what I feel feels right and and and feels real and and with the internal is kind of like I find that. I just find a dynamics really interesting and stuff that I think I' probably doing life, and loads of people

do that in life. I find it interesting I watch, so I find it interesting when someone says a kind of like, especially in the professional environment, especially in this industry, people say a lot of lick stuff. Las weell absolutely

see a lot of slick ship. It's encouraged. Let's say we say a lot of slick ship and then like around that's kind of like but no one can say it directly because I'm from a quite direct tone, so it's I'm having to learn that, and I can see people react to it, but they can't really react to it. So there's there's what's being said on paper, what's being said is nothing like, it doesn't mean anything, but underneath, both parties know that there's something happening, and their faces

are given hints to something that's happening. So I just kind of was like, oh, I find that, really, I find that more interesting to see in cinema, So it's kind of like, let's try and do that like in But then I think I've with my intent. It's always been like I don't want to feel like I'm showing off what I can do. I don't. I don't want that.

Like even when I was doing plays and there was like a sequence where I had to show rage, I'll be like, even in Black Mirror, like what I was doing that monologue, I'll be like, is it too much? I mean, I don't want it. I don't want people to go because I probably find that quite over welming me is And that's just my personal taste. And so

we've get out. It was just kind of have this in mind, but also as well conversations with Jordan and Allison and just going how do we ground this amazing genre story, you know, like and and I just I just kind of felt and that Jordan was like minded about like you have to believe this character and believe this relationship and believe that this is real, which grounds all the kind of supernatural or other worldly like genre

elements to to the piece. If it's grounded, you know, and you're you're way more likely to believe a lot more stuff, the stuff that's real. But you don't even believe Jim. And it's like because of the gravity at the center of it Isn't It's rude Sunday. It was actually a powerhouse uh for Oscar contenders last year. In addition to Get Out, there was also Called Me By Your Name and mud Bound, as well as The Big Sick, which was written by and stars Kumon and Johnny one

of my favorite shows, HBO's Silicon Valley. Kumale was nominated for Original Screenplay along with his wife, Emily V. Gordon. And this was about as personal an experience as you can get. I mean, The Big Sick tells the story of Emily's sudden coma when Kumaloe was courting her, and

how the experience both strengthened and tested their families. And you know, when you're pouring your soul out like that and literally telling your story on screen, you have to feel somewhat exposed in a way I guess very few of us can identify with. So I wanted to talk to Kumale about that over the summer when the film finally released in theaters. So here's Kumale. Well, you know,

as a stand up. At some point I started taking personal stories and personal experiences and talking about them on stage, so I had a little bit of experience being personal and sort of giving of myself in little ways. This is sort of the deal. I was thinking about this earlier today or last night when I couldn't sleep. You know, there is a little bit of you lose a lot of people see your vulnerability, right, but a little bit. I think that's sort of the deal with the devil.

You have to make to do what I get to do, Like, what you get is you get to live your dreams and tell your stories and it's really exciting. But what the price of that a little bit is that you are giving a piece of yourself for everyone to analyze and judge. Um But I knew, like a few years

after these the events of the movie had happened. I knew that I wanted to like do something with it, like either do a show about it or something, because it felt like this very specific emotional thing that had happened. And I knew that nobody else had this story, and that only Emily and I were the ones who would be able to tell this story, like kind of if we didn't tell the story, the story would just not

get told. Nobody else has this so um and and I really think for me writing and I think the best writing is sort of you're trying to deal with your concerns and tackle stuff that's complicated and messy for you, And part of it's a little bit of like self therapy working on something like this. So I knew that this was a story I wanted to tell. Emily took a little bit more convincing. I knew this was a story I wanted to tell because thinking about it would

like paralyze me. And I knew that I had a lot of like stuff floating around inside this black box that I hadn't opened. And I knew that in in order to be able to move on from this kind of crazy event and have to write about it and really get into it and and and sort of figure out how I felt about it, you know. And it's very easy to be like, well that was a tough time when you actually opened the box and think about like what did I do this day? And then this happened?

And this happened is how that made me feel? Like going through all the events piece by piece is it's very difficult, but I think it's also allowed us to get a handle on this big, big part of our life, did you get swept up in any kind of emotion, like in the moment in a scene that would obviously remind you of this very emotional moment in your life.

There are some scenes that I cried when I wrote them, I cried when I rewrote them, I cried when I hurt them, and and then shooting them was the same thing. I was surprised at how much of it actually felt like going through the real thing. Part of it is, I mean more of the hospital stuff, because when you were in a hospital. This wasn't a set. We shot in a real hospital. The sense memory of being in a hospital, and I hadn't that it had been about

nine years since that stuff happened. Just the lighting, the smell of tape, the smell of addison, the sterility sound, the sounds, yeah, the weird beeps you hear, all that stuff, the sounds of wheels on um linoleum or whatever it is. All that stuff took me back immediately, Me and Emily, both of us like immediately. So it was actually more of a struggle to not uh go back into that

really sad space. It was actually more of a start of struggle to not do that than it was to like get into it, you know, like like waiting in the waiting room or all that stuff. I hadn't been in a hospital really since all that stuff happened to us. And going back into it and shooting it there, it was very very It was very intense, and it was very intense for Emily. It's about ten years ago, right, there was two thousand seven. Like I mentioned, mud Bound

was a big sundance player as well. This year it was acquired by Netflix for an astounding twelve point five million. I don't know if it's astounding, it was worth that certainly. Um It's an amazing film and the movie's co writer and director de Reese uh is one of the most headstrong and driven directors I've ever interviewed. She's already a masterful artist just three films in, and her cinematographer, Rachel Morrison, actually made history this year with her Oscar nomination for

Best Cinematography. She's the first woman to do so, which is obviously a long time coming. We'd like to dig in on the craft of filmmaking on this show, and something D and I talked about was settling on the look of this post World War two drama and plenty of talk about her work with Rachel, So here's d talking about that. Yeah, so we didn't look at other films.

So like, for me, like the visual art world so has been my inspiration and like you know, creating kind of images for the screen, and so for me inspirations where there's artis named Winfield Lavel who does let of tone on tone paintings to temporary artists, is a sculptor. I love Na Mary Frank who does a lot of things that united bidenes and landscapes. And then Rachel had like Dorothea Lang and all these w p A photos.

So we really kind of worked from there and wanted the film to feel very kind of candid, very kind of like like honest in a way. And another thing I love, I love um Less Blank that does these documentaries. He'd done this, like this documentary called The Truth of Corn and to Lightning Hopkins. So you know, we looked at that and like wanted the film to have a very kind of moving at the speed of life feel.

So it doesn't feel presentational, it doesn't feel stagy, which can be you know, the catch of a lot of period pieces. But we wanted to move with the speed of life and feel honest, you know, and yet it's I wouldn't call it like a verity thing. I think it's a it's aesthetically beautiful, uh, you know, working I don't know what your budget was, but like were there limitations that absolutely We shot this film in twenty nine

days for ten million dollars. So this is an indie film that no one realizes as an indie film, and you know, and that was because Rage was able to work so fast and use a lot of lighting, and you know, a big you know problem was basically we shot in actual sharecropper's cabin, so like a lot of the challenge was balancing like the inside versus the outside it and so she actually had to cut holes in the ceilings of these cabins to be able to put lights like in the roof of these things, so that

you know, the value difference wasn't so great between the X tears and interiors and just really you know, making these characters feel like they're of the world. And I really love to let actors move through the space and I don't like blocking that kind of inhibits kind of they're they're they're flowing and that's all depend on having a DP. This want to be flexible with lighting and being able to work with you so that the actors have maximum freedom, that the actors are able to kind

of do their best work. Moving out of Sundance and into the release calendar, James Mangold's Logan hit theaters on March three, which was less than a week after the

last year's Oscars were over. And the craziness of that envelope snaff who, which I think James and I even talked about maybe or that might have been off the air, I can't remember, but in any case, I spoke to James just before this film released, and I very much doubt at the time he expected that, you know, a year later he'd be sitting here sharing the first ever screenplay nomination for a superhero movie with his co writers. But here we are, uh, and I think it's well deserved.

This film stands out from the fray of superhero movies. I feel I'm a big fan of Westerns, as is James, and this movie has that genre and as DNA, which I thought was a brilliant flourish, so naturally we talked about that. So here's James talking about the Western qualities of Logan. It's central to the entire story of this character as well. UM. I mean for those who aren't

X men fans. UM. One thing has been essentially true about Logan through his comic book history and movie history, which is that he's carrying a ton of shame on his back about dark deeds he committed when he was younger and called weapon X in his incarnation as a kind of UM. When he was a gun slinger, he was well, he was a drug drug pumped killer. UM. But yes, but in the metaphor of the Western he was he was a gun slinger and UM and UM and a lot of people were hurt, and they weren't

all UM in it. They weren't all guilty in some way. It wasn't always the justified death, if you will. And the UM. I think that that's something that's been played with throughout UM as I said, comic book history with this character and in the movies. But the the idea for me of coming of this character, coming to terms um with his life UM in a final film seemed to me necessary to find some way to go deeper

into his own odd um relationship with violence. When did this kind of conceit because it is it does have the dna of a Western When did that Did you go into it with that conceit in mind, or did it develop as you developed the project like some of some of some of some of that comes along with just me meaning you know, my second film, Copland, which all outward appearances is a kind of Sydney Lamett esque New Jersey, kind of Peyton Place cop movie, uh, was

very much structured actually built on three tena Huma. The idea of this kind of weakened mail in the center of this town of gun slingers who has called upon to kind of find the reserves to stand up to this um gun slinging bunch of corruption around him. Um the that's all very much. Um was hugely Western influence, And in fact that movie ends in a giant gunfight,

um the um. But a gunfight not like you'd see in Heat, but one more like one you'd see in High New and the Western has had a powerful effect on me. Um. I couldn't completely explain why. But in I'm kind of uh a classes I mean I'm not I I am from the same generation, Um that a host of really talented kind of postmodern directors have come from. Probably the leader of all of them would be Quentin and I'm a huge fan of his work. But I couldn't do anything like that, Like, it's not the whole um. Uh.

There's something I'm always looking for, something very earnest. I miss I miss amid all the really wonderful films made along the lines I was just describing. I missed movies that mean it, that have something to say, that have a kind of gravity to them and are unashamed. It's in this kind of most sardonic of ages, it's almost gotten um uncool to actually represent a true feeling UM that without quotes around it or or a snicker, and that that's something the Western for me embodies UM. And

I was always offered kind of guidance on UM. If for listeners who are hearing me describe, you know, Logan's backstory, it's kind of very logical if you think about movies like Shane or Unforgiven, or Pale Rider or The Manner Shot, Liberty Valance. There's a lot of movies that in which the kind of bones lineage UM really lend themselves to considering UM, considering how you might be able to use

some of those structures in a modern superhero movie. As we moved through the spring, the industry geared up for the Can Film Festival in May. Can has kind of fallen off in terms of launching oscar players lately, but one of the year's best I thought stuck out at

last year's edition, Sean Baker's The Florida Project. Legendary actor Willem Dafoe has been widely recognized for his work on the film all season, and he landed his third Supporting Actor nomination this year after Platoon and Shadow of the Vampire. What's interesting years that he's sort of a central note in this film. He's like the recognizable star surrounded by all these non actors and green performers, and it just makes for an interesting quality and even a bit of

a family atmosphere on the set. So here's what I'm talking about. That it is true that it's a situation where, um, the company has made up of people that have been cast from the streets, people have been casted from Instagram. Uh, there's some professional actors, there's some new professional actors, there's some kids, and then you know there's also me. And I've been around for a little while. Um, but it's

always the same on some level. That even even in an industry movie, even in a studio film, sometimes you're working with people from very different backgrounds and very different trainings. I'm always struck that it's in in in the profession of acting, particularly for Americans. Uh, there isn't a uniform mony of training or a uniform methodology. And I don't

think that's necessarily a bad thing at all. In fact, I think mixing it up helps because, Um, then with each project you really have to to find what your processes and you also have to find out how to fit in with everybody and make the world so it doesn't become about you. It becomes about the thing that you're making and that frees you. Yeah, well let's talk about that. Uh, that environment with these other actors. This atmosphere, I mean, was it uh trying? Was it electric? Was it?

Did it take you back to your roots at all? Like had a little bit you know, it was like a family, you know, and all film sets are like that a little bit. But these were people that this wasn't saying old, same old. There was a cynical one in the lot because it was a new exciting experience for them. And then also it was conditioned by the fact that we were shooting in a real ice so as extras, Uh, you're having people that are really living this life, this life that the story that we're telling

is about. So they helped route the story as well in a reality. Um and for me playing the character, it was kind of wild because we're working in a functioning motel. It's still functioning. I mean sometimes we had to stop a scene because someone was checking into the motel. Didn't just take the whole building. We took the whole building over. I mean, you know for certain, but in terms of you didn't like shut it down like people.

It was still functioning. It was still functioning. And it would be literally like, oh, we gotta shoot that scene. So the real manager would have to leave the room. I'd slide in there and we'd play the scene. In the summer Blockbusters Fear, the first slam dunk across the board Oscar considered to actually open theatrically outside of the festival circuit was Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk in July. Uh. You know, not to play favorites, but I will. This is my

favorite of the Best Picture contenders. I think it's Nolan's best film culmination of his tradecraft, if you will. The film received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and that director nomination was somehow Nolan's first in the category. If you can believe that. This was a very technical

conversation which I wanted. I'm fascinated by Nolan's craft naturally, and uh IMAX was a significant topic here as we discussed his and cinematographer Hoita van Hoidema's efforts and pushing the medium as far as it can go. A lot of your choices about UM, who to work with a very instinctive. They're about getting in the room with somebody and seeing if there's a creative spalk between you. Um. You know, I've seen the work you've done on other films.

Let the right one in in particular my quite impression on me Um. But really it was about meeting the minds creatively, just in in talking about cinematography and his approach to it and what I what I wanted in in terms of the photography and Interstellar, because it's more than that. Relationship is about more than just lighting or

camera work. It's about storytelling, and you have to find somebody who will really be pulling in the same direction as you in terms of how to tell that story and what the role of the photography will be in it. And so one of the more interesting things I think about what Hoiter did in Dunkirk, which is deceptively simple, is he didn't ever want to discuss the look of the film. He didn't ever want to talk about it

as any kind of stylization. He had the confidence to let it emerge from the material and what we were actually going to stage and let that define the look, which I think for for myself as a director, I have a lot of experience with large scale films. Um.

You know. I for me that wasn't maybe such a leap, but for the for a cinematographer to sort of say, we're going to put thousands of people on the beach, We're going to get these airplanes, we're gonna get these boots, and then we're going to see how that informs the creative process of the photography. Um. So, all of our conversations in pre production, rather than being esthetic, they were technical. It was okay, this is the format was shooting, this is the type of lens we need. This is how

we're going to move the camera around. Um And I think that one of the things that I'm happiest about with Hoyt's work on the film is the sincerity and the naturalness of the way in which he achieved these remarkable images left from the heart. I mean, they're just somebody with a brilliant eye watching what's going on in front of us and finding a way to capture that.

So there's no imposed style on the photography in the film, and in the case of Imax photography is what hoy has done in the IMAX format in this film is really unique and groundbreaking in my opinion. Um. Yeah, I think it's the best use of the format you've had so far. I mean, certainly. I saw one of the early screenings at the Universal City Wall. I felt like

I was just falling into the screen from the opening frame. Well, we had had a bit of practice by this time, We've been doing it for ten years, and Hoyder on Interstellar finally broke that barrier that we hadn't been able to of how to hand hold the camera basically about

just picking it up and toughing it. But he was able then suddenly to give me access to the IMAX format as a spontaneous format, as an intimate format, and so coming to Dunkirk, where my aspiration for the film was an intimate epic, he is then able to put that lens right where a thirtyfive mill or a go pro would be, you know, and and really give you that that intimacy with the characters. But on this incredible format that is so it's transparent in a sense, it's

not stylized, it doesn't have its own look. It just lets the screen disappear and immerses the audience in the action. And so I think always really trusted the format and trusted his eye to just be there, follow the characters through and find them the look of the thing that way,

rather than imposing a style on it. And I think I think it's it's remarkable work that that answers my next question, which was I was curious if you guys pulled any references, if you looked at photography or any artwork, but obviously not, but in general, was that just for this movie or is that something that you're typically interested in coming into pre production. I think it depends on

the on the project. I've often done films where in the case of Inception, you know, working with Whalley, with different storylines that intersect or interact, you know, there is perhaps a temptation to, well, we could do you know, this one this particular color, or this process or put this look to it. I've always have come down on the side of naturalism, and that's why it works so well with Molly Fister, It's why I think it works

as well with Van Hoyt. They're naturalistic photographers. They sort of trust the material in front of them in a way, and so you trust that the reality of the physical differences of the different timelines will start to naturally achieve some kind of a look. And I've always tried to shoot on the highest quality format, the most transparent medium possible, so that you are really just giving the audience access to the look and feel of the world that you

want them to respond to. The tactile quality that you want people to watch Dunkerk in such a way that they know what everything would smell like. You know, that that kind of tacticality that that's very important. Now the Venice Film Festival has of folved into a significant Oscar season launchpad. It's kicked off the journeys of films like Gravity, Birdman, Spotlight, and La La Land in recent years. This year's opener was Garma del Toro's The Shape of Water, a gorgeous

fairy tale as only Garmo could conjure. I love talking to Garamo. I think everyone does. His passion is infectious and he really deserves all the love he's getting this year. Shape of Water was an idea that took root for Garmo when he was a child watching Creature from the Black Lagoon, and it was an idea that evolved to take on a sort of low key socio political bent, and that's something we discussed. So here's Garamo. It's great because it's full circle in many ways for many reasons.

You know. It started when I was six and I saw Julie Adams swimming and Creature from a like one in the Creatures swimming underneath contemplating her, you know, and I thought, what a beautiful image E went on eight six. I was enraptured by it, and I was enraptured by the love that it had, the romance it had, but of course they didn't end up together, you know, And and it was something I kept thinking about it. I thought, well,

you know, this was a very unfair movie. I thought, because they break into the home of the guy uh and they kill him, basically that there's a very tragic movie. For me, I've always seen monsters as very spiritual figures for me, very metaphorical, you know, sort of embodied concepts for me. And I stayed with that, and then in two thousand eleven, you know, the project started as such, and it took five or six years to get it

made and properly rendered and writing writing it. The scene that reunited is to go through the janitors, to go through the invisible people, the people without boys, because it's a movie about the other. It's a movie about embracing the other nest, finding the divine, the love of all the beautiful and the other as opposed to the fear and the rage and all these things that we are

living today. And and that's why I subtitle the movie it said, uh, the Ship of Water a fairy tale for troubled times, because I felt it was like that. For me. It was to talk about love without being corny, to talk about emotions, which is now much harder. I mean, I think we're in a very difficult age for emotions. You know, we we we can talk cynically, we can talk with iron irony, you know, and it really sounds smart. And when you talk about emotions normally you sound this ingenious.

And I thought it, let's take the riskless embrace a movie that's in love with love, in love with cinema, you know, make it a beautifully sort of classic Douglas cirque, uh technical or all the beauty that we can put in the screen and and go at it with emotion. What do you think that is that? It's to your point about sin is m today? I mean when you say that, when you say that, like, you know, people

speak with irony and it sounds smart. It seems like something that would be driven by the Internet age in a but it's driven by fear and isolation. Really, I mean the look, the fact is ideologies. Uh, you know, there's a different, major difference between ideas and ideologies. And when an ideology comes to play, is what separates you

from others. You know, then ideology is the only thing that allows a person to grab up a ton and beat another human being because you are reduced to a thing, You are reduced to your race, you're an immigrant, or you're reduced to your gender, and and it allows the person to be humanize you, you know. And uh, the key to that, the solution to that is love. Because I know this sounds silly, but it is. Is is

the one cosmic force. The Beetles, Buddha and Jesus agree, and and it's because love is understanding is empathy, you know. And when you empathize, when you walk in another person's shoes for a couple of minutes, you understand the entirety of their persona, not not just the identity that ideology gave them. So we are like the discourse socially is so exacerbated right now. It's so rife with anger and resentment.

And I think that partially, yes, you can talk about social media, but also politically, and we've come to the point and it's one of the oldest techniques. There are two possible explanations why your situation is bad socially A one percent of the people own about the world or be quote unquote them whatever you want to call them, immigration raise and the first one makes you take an active role. The second one absolves you. There's one to

tell you no no, no, you're right, You're fine. It's dam that are the problem, and and very easily you pour the hatred into them. But that's not the real problem. And I think that that is used politically more and more and more to deflect this tract, you know. So there are many factors, and the movie is at the same time very humane and very political, because look, the moment when you take a stance in any narrative is a political stance. If you tell the story of Waterloo

from Napoleon's point of view is one movie. If you tell it from the person iron in his trousers, that's another one. And that's what we did on Shape of Water. We we told you a story not through the agents and the scientists, but through the cleaning to the janitors in the place, you know, the cleaning women that had to wipe the toilets, empty the trashmans. And from that moment and taking the point of view of not the hero but the monster, you already are taking a political stance.

Was nominated for Best Picture as a producer, as well as Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. By the Way, another Venice debut was Martin McDonough's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which has become quite uh quite the lightning rod this season. But I'll get into that in a minute. Let's start with one of the film's stars and one of my favorite actors, Sam Rockwell. Sam plays a racist Missouri cop in the film, opposite Francis McDormand and Woody Harrelson, who

were also nominated. One of the things that Sam and I talked about was his research for the part and going down to Missouri and taking all that in. So here's Sam talking about that. I met a couple of cops. I met one um Deemer in l A. Who would he was with? I think Casey did a ride along with him. And then I met a couple of Missouri cops and Tay had them take my lines. My my dialect coach Lewis Hamilstein found these cops in southern Missouri.

We had we had to have some conversations, like I emailed with Francis and Martin, like where are we gonna where's this imaginary very Missouri town gonna be? Is it gonna be southern or northern because there's a big difference in the way they talk, And so we sort of agreed that it was generally would be southern Missouri. And then I then I knew what I had to find, and so it was cool to go down there to

southern Missouri. I did it right along um this beautiful guy, and he introduced me all these all these guys and you know, and so that was really cool. That was really influenced a lot about the characters. Do you feel a sort of pressure though? Whenever? I mean, this is this is a very complex character and obviously it's takes it takes place in a fictional Missouri town, and the unrest out of Ferguson that is obviously just playing on

the fringes of this film. Absolutely, yeah, you know, does that provide a sense of pressure to make sure that you're not painting a caricature? Absolutely? And that's why I went down there, you know. I mean, Martin wrote this before Ferguson, but um, I did. I did feel kind of obliged to find out the real story a little bit, and I asked those guys a lot of questions, you know, and uh, you know, the bottom line is I didn't

see racism down there. I mean I didn't. I I saw a lot of stuff, but I didn't, Um, but I obviously it exists, and and so you know my job. I didn't need to go to Missouri to play this part. I mean, it just helped me personally. I wanted I at the time, and I wanted to do it. But you know, um, the Dixon's Journey is important, I think to that topic, you know, and I think it does say something. I'm not sure what quite what it says.

But that's what's so an enigmatic about the script. I think it doesn't It doesn't even seem like it's actively trying to say something to you, like it's trying to dictake something. It's it just the way that the themes and the characters and all the interplay comes together. It just leaves you with this sense. Yeah. And I don't even know how you put a word to it, but yeah,

you could. You could put a bunch of labels. You could put you know, feminism and you know, um racism and anti rad you could put a lot of labels these days, um anti violence and you know. But it's just really at the end of the day, it's a really entertaining and potent, uh screenplay, you know, in movie I think, Yeah, now, the film's director Martin McDonough and he was the surprise omission this year in the Best Director category, but he was nominated for his original screenplay.

Three Billboards has attracted a lot of criticism for what some feel to be a blase or or tone deaf handling of racism in America. There were a lot of think pieces at the end of the year and after the Golden Globes where the film kind of swept uh. And that's around the time that Martin and I spoke. But I had not seen anyone really asking him about this, so I did. I asked McDonough about these criticisms and what he was aiming for with his work on the page.

So here's Martin. Well, I think some of it comes from the idea that there's a uh that Sam's character has redeemed at the end of the film. Um. I don't think he is. No. I think at the end he he's still the asshole that he was at the start of the film. Um. But I think there is hopefully by the end of it, he's he's seen that he has to change almost you know. But but the film isn't about simple heroes and villains, and he in no way I think does he ever become become a

hero in it? The whole the whole part of one of the ideas of the stories, like who are the villains and who are the heroes? And is anyone you know, is anyone really that heroic? But but certainly, you know, I did want to explore the idea of of Frances and a strong woman, you know, going against the police in the South, and I thought, I do believe that, you know, the racial angle is definitely one of the

weapons she would throw at them, um so um. But the idea, the idea that human beings, that there's hope in a story like this, even with characters as as despicable as as as Sam's is um. I thought that was an interesting thing to explore. Uh. Well, in any early drafts, did you ever have any thought towards using race, like instead of using race as a backdrop or as

a tool for her means? Was there any exploration of a black character and more in depth, or any depicting any of these kinds of events as opposed to just kind of using them as backdrop? There was, I mean, we we filmed a few scenes with with and um, certainly with Francis's friend and a gift shop had a couple of extrachines that didn't make it into the finish film. Um so, but but the story is pretty much you know,

based and focused on on Francis's character. So so it's her story, and you know, I'm sure the next film will be different, um just as this was like way different to the sort of male centric films I didn't the first two. Um but because it's factis a story. Um, I guess it's her that I was concentrating on, and no one else really comes as through as strong as

she does. Did you write with her in mind? Yeah? Yeah, that's the completely written for for frances I'm not sure who I would have gone to if she just said no, because she was just perfect for it. You know, she's she's probably the best actress of her generation, I think. But if she's also got that kind of off screen kind of edginess too. You know, she doesn't really play the Hollywood game, and and that's kind of what was

great to tap into. Like even that seeing her like breathe past the red carpets and not do interviews and not do the awards circuit. It's kind of it's almost Mildred. Like you know, she just doesn't give her a doubt about what you're supposed to do. And I think that's that's what's brilliant about her, much to mine in my colleagues, should keep trying. Would love to have you on the show. Friends, never moving out of us and into another late summer event.

They Tell Your Ride Film Festival, which comes every Labor Day weekend up in the mountains of Colorado, has become the pre eminent showcase for would be Oscar contenders. Eight of the last nine Best Picture winners have screened there. Uh, and it's a very small exclusive lineup, like thirty or forty films, so that's actually saying something. Many of those were world premiers. In fact, this year's Best Picture Tell

Your Ride debuts were Darkest Hour and Ladybird. For Lady Bird, I talked to writer director Greta Gerwig and Sarsha Ronan together and their energy together is just wonderful, which you'll see in this clip and certainly in the full interview. One focus of the chat was Search's excitement over playing a female character of complexity written by a woman, and uh, it was just different from from many of the roles she reads on a daily basis. So here's Sarsha and

Gretta talking about that and some other stuff. It's a female character who's complex, you know, it's a it's a young especially for to read a young girl who's in real life. When you're a chick and you're like seventeen years old, seventy, everything is changing, just like it is for a boy. Like you're at that stage in your life where you don't know who you are, you don't know where you're going. You're very driven, but you don't know what you're heading towards, like you're really you spend

those few years just figuring all this ship out. And when I remember when I was seventeen eighty and I had gotten so used to playing these really great, well written child roles, and then as soon as I became a teenage girl, they just weren't there. I couldn't find

them anywhere. And this is the first time, really, it was the first time that I had read a teenage girl that had all the complexities of a real teenager, you know, boy, or a girl who was who was a great friend and but was also drawn towards you know, the popular kids because she wanted to be liked, but had our principles, but sort of veered away from them when she felt a little unsure of herself. And like

it's it was. I mean, all the characters and are are so well rounded, and you just don't find that very often when a teenage girl is at the helm of it, you know. Yeah, And I saw a lot of myself in it, funnily enough, I mean I graduated high school, so some of the stuff was familiar to me. And like I keep joking, like the Timothy shallow make character, I'm like, I knew this guy was close and waxing, poetic, coffee shop dwelling, Like I knew this guy. I might

have tried to be that guy. Yeah, but well it's we can all be forgiven trying to be whoever we tried to be. I think even Lady Bird tries to be that guy. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's one of the things I love about Lady Bird is what a good student she is in terms of, like the next time you see her after she's met Kyle, she's got a copy of the People's History of It's because she pays attention. That's why he likes I will now go get that book and also like it. And there's

something very like a sponge driven about that. You know, there's there's it's so great, like the scene where she's just turned out eat saying she goes into the store and she's like, I'll have a packlet of cigarettes on a scratcher and a play girl. And I remember up until recently because I think I definitely had a sort

of delayed response to being like a young adult. And I remember when I moved to London, I had that I had like such anxiety when I would just like go to the supermarket because I was like, Okay, this is what normal grown ups do. And I remember I would walk around in this sort of floaty way and I'd be like, okay, I need the eggs. Where the eggs, where the eggs are eggs, And I'm like panicking in my head, but I'm looking around them like Okay, I

look normal. And I think you spend so much of your later teenage years in early twenties pretending to be an adult are like playing the role of an adult, and I think that's something that she does too, totally. I totally. It's also the first time you're at a supermarket. I think when you're out of your own home, there's this. Also, I had this anxiety of like I'd only ever seen my mom shop for a family of you know, five, and and so I had like completely incorrect proportions about

how much one person. And it was like, you do not need to buy the economy pack of cheerios that you will take you a year ago through that you can just buy the regular size cheers and move on from there. But I feel like I'm so interested in I don't know, And I've always liked I've always liked younger characters trying on adult morality because I feel like they're almost practicing for it. I put this in the script, no,

and I wrote Mistress America. We put this in and like some character saying about another character who's is also eighteen, like he was unfaithful to me. And it was just it's like this idea of like, who are you doing this exactly? What is this? What are these adult rules you're imposing on yourself at this moment? Yeah, but I think it's it's it's how you learn how to do it. Yeah, I mean, how else you imitate it? Greta's nomination for Best Director, made her just the fifth woman ever recognized

in the category ninety years. She was also nominated for Original Screenplay, while Sercha was nominated for Best Actress and her on screen mom, Laurie Metcalf, picked up a nomination for Supporting Actress. Laurie's won Emmy's and a Tony. But she's never found herself in the Oscar season until this role, so she's just soaking it up. She spoke about the unique environment Greta creates on set, So here's Laurie talking

about that. It's all about her energy, I think. And energy on the set was a one of collaboration, of support and feeling protected of watching her watch the monitor with his big grin on her face and knowing that she was in her element, she wouldn't want to be anywhere else and that she had our back, and that made everybody in the cast and crew feel very protected. Um and uh, there was a lightness about the set and maybe even a maternal quality because um, you felt

that she was watching out for everybody. Now, she had to have been going through stressful days because I think that's inevitable as a director. Um maybe, and also a first solo director. Um, nobody knew if that was the case. Um, she just has an ease. She's just a natural at it. You'd never know it was her first time. Yeah. Well, as I said just before the I first saw this movie at Tell Your Ride where it premiered. UM and I walked out and I tweeted something like I love

Ladybirds so much, I can't stand it. And four Is used it in their advertising, which, yeah, that's the truth. I mean. And what's interesting to me is that it's been such a universally beloved movie this year. I mean, all the talk of the critically acclaimed, the rotten Tomato score, all of that. Why do you think that it struck

such a universal core? You know, I saw it for the first time, I tell you right, Also, um And I was so I was right in the middle of a group of with you seeing it for the first time. And I was literally seeing most of the movie for the first time myself because all my scenes were with no I'm in like, I don't know it. And so I was having a blast seeing what all the high school scenes were about. Um And and when I walked out and where and I was hearing people saying I've

how to call my mother. I want to see this with my daughter, UM father's or men saying I have witnessed that mother daughter relationship and have also felt like I was the outsider, Like Tracy's character is like just just just wanting to be um, non confrontational about it and not really understanding it, not understanding how they can flip on a dime, like in the thrift store scene where they're looking for a dress together and arguing that

the classic passive aggressive banter going back and forth and then they find the perfect dress. Um. It's so it's a complex relationship as far as the mother daughter scenes go. That Greta was able to walk such a fine line and find the balance so that one is just not an ogre, you know, one is not doing all the button pushing. The mother doesn't exist, just to show what the daughter's homelike as home life is like and which he has to put up with with parents who don't

understand her. You know she really I guess that's what people are responding to that it's it seems very it's very detailed. Um, it's not our own individual details that are up there on the screen, but it's so close. Yes, As for Darkest Hour, I was privileged to speak to one of my favorite actors of all time, Gary Oldman. Gary has made a career of immersing himself in makeup to play iconic roles in films like bram Stoker's Dracula

and True Romance and The Fifth Element. But after Hannibal, which you might recall he was the guy that had his face showed off in that movie, he took some time off from that kind of thing. I can't imagine sitting in the makeup chair every day for hours on end, but he's certainly uh put in his time with that, and we spoke about that. So here's Gary. Well, I had a big, a big, big gap from it. I the last time I was in that kind of makeup I think was for Hannibal, the really Scott film, and

that was six hours. But then I would only I would only work a four our day in it um. And that was the whole thing with contact lenses and they had they rigged up a device that held my eyes open, so I had no eyelids, so I didn't link and and you could only you could only it was every fifteen minutes they had to give me eye drops and release the eyelids to rest the eye. So it was a sort of very um, a crazy process and I and I swore after that that I would

never do it again. UM. And that was my you know, that was my life. They're done with with with that kind of makeup. UM. When this came up with Darkest Hour came on the scene, it was it was a necessity. It was the only way to go. So I knew going in um and and and Hannibal was seven eight days, you know. UM, so you're looking at Winston um. You know, you're looking at fifty in that kind of makeup. UM.

And then we had test makeups. So I think it's sixty one times that I had that I had the makeup on UM And yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot. It's a lot to go through it. UM. But of course you're then working with Kazuhiro Suji who designed designed the makeup. It was it was Lucy and Dave that that painted it and applied it on a daily basis, But it was but it was Kazoo who came up with the with with the look. And when you're working with someone like that and that kind of material, I

mean it really is like a synthetic skin. It's not cumbersome restrictive in any way. What does it do for you psychologically? Like working in the space, putting you you know, being disappeared into a role like that essentially, like is it helpful for you? Does it feel like something you have to act act past? Does it feel ever feel like you know, just free you personally? Well, the whole

experience was very um immersive, um. Going back to the the sort of work, the homework on the role was a year um, and that was a year of all really all things Churchill. I mean, it was just it was constantly in my he was constantly in my head.

Then you had, um four weeks rehearsal, which is sort of unheard up for a film where you got to really physicalize and vocalize the character and the set that the Sarah Greenwood's designs were just that they were so immersive and so detailed, and then you're looking in the mirror and you're at least seeing an essence of a spirit of of of Winsden, so you are stepping in. It was a little bit like just really touching history and stepping back. You know, when you you stepped back

in time. You know, it's sort of so the whole um, A great deal of that is doing the work for you, and we've come to the end of the year. One of the year's final OSCAR releases, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, was Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut, Molly's Game. Though Aaron is very accomplished as a screenwriter, you know, he won the Oscar for The Social Network, and he's nominated for writing again this year for this film, this

was his first stab at directing. H We talked about some of those insecurities going into the gig, but I think he managed just fine. The Director's Guild certainly agreed. He received one of the guild's debut director nominations this year. So here's Aaron talking about saddling up as a director

for the first time. You know, it's funny. I did a Padel last night where someone asked that question, and as I told the person who asked a question, not only was that the first time I'd ever been asked that question, it was the first time I've ever thought about that question. Right in that moment when I had to answer. It was the first time I ever thought about it, and the answer is absolutely yes, I would have.

I am so grateful that I didn't know, uh that I was directing it when I was writing it, because I would have been too scared, uh to to write some of the scenes that I wrote. The whole opening sequence, the first eight minutes has more action in it than every movie I've written combined. Right, I like, I write people talking in rooms, and it's like, the director will

take care of this exactly right. The director is going to know how we do this ski crash if um the director is gonna know how to you know, do the getting beaten up scene? Um on. The director is going to make these pokers things look fantastic. Uh. You know Fincher came along and made computer hacking look like a bank robbery. Uh. That's what directors do. They take this thing that I write, which doesn't have a whole lot of visual interest, and uh and they give it

visual interest. I write the lyrics, they write the music. Um so. Uh So I am grateful that that I didn't know. Uh. It wouldn't have been as good a screenplay if I had known that I was directing him. Um So, what was the biggest learning curve just before we get into Jessica and everything. You know, you never even I don't think directly like a television anything. I'd never directed anything before. I I'm not a complete production novice. I've I've been on the set every day of every

movie that I've written. UH. And as the show runner in television, you're involved in every aspect of production from prep to post, and obviously I write the script to UH. Still, the biggest learning curve was going to be that, in the twenty five years I've been a professional writer, I had managed to absorb none of the science of filmmaking at all. I couldn't pick a long lens out of

a police lineup. UH. Enter Charlotta Christiansen, our cinematographer, Charlotta Uh flew over from Denmark, where she lives to meet with me. She had just gotten done shooting two movies. We talked about, UM, my vision for the look of the movie and two separate looks when we were in present day and when we were showing the story of

Molly going from skier to UH to poker Princess. UH. But I told her, you know, listen, I'm just scared that I don't have the vocabulary too that you that you need the director to have for you to be able to do your job. Uh. And she said, no, don't worry about it at all. Here, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna we're gonna talk about the scene. Um. We're going to create a shot list of everything that you want to get and I'm I'm going to be very opinionated.

I'm gonna tell you I also want to get this shot. Uh. And this shot I'm never gonna tell you. No, I'm not gonna do your shot, but I'm gonna add a couple of my own. But in terms of lenses and lighting, I got this. Have this handheld device. I'm gonna snap a lens on it, and you're gonna look through it, and you're gonna tell me if you like what you see, and if you do, I'm going to take the lens off the handheld device and put it on the camera. Um. Uh.

And that's how we do it. And UM, there was a lot less for me to be scared of than uh than I thought. The truth of the matter is that for every area of film production, there's an expert uh in that position. So UM, stand on their shoulders. It's exactly right. So that is by no means a

complete snapshot of the Oscar season. There's a few films and talent we didn't get to this year, movies like Call Me by Your Name and Titania, Phantom Thread in the Post, all of them competing for gold trophies this weekend. So check out the Oscars. It's on Sunday, March four. Tune in good Luck to your favorites, and check us out every Thursday for more episodes of Playback. We've got a lot of great guests coming up this year. A Duverne, David All, Yellow Woe, Jason Reitman. Then be talking to

Ethan Hawk. He's got a lot going on this year, so it's gonna be a good slate. We'll be here every week. I hope you can make it once again. You've been listening to Playback a variety. I heart Media podcast