Actor and Director Benny Safdie Does It All

Throughout his fifteen-year moviemaking career, director and actor Benny Safdie has been drawn to naturalism and first-time performers. Fittingly, his recent collaboration with comedian Nathan Fielder (“Nathan for You”) was a perfect match.

Benny joins us today to discuss their satirical black comedy series The Curse (9:10), the timely premise that inspired the show (13:35), and Safdie’s history of capturing real-life personalities on film (15:58). Then, he describes his early connection to the 1979 movie Kramer v Kramer (19:00), a New York encounter with photographer Robert Frank (23:18), and how directors Robert Bresson and Frederick Wiseman opened his eyes to the possibilities of street casting (26:05).

On the back-half, we dive into Benny’s co-directing work alongside his brother, Josh Safdie (29:55), a heartbreaking scene from their debut feature Daddy Longlegs (34:30), and the projects that followed: Good Time (40:00), Lenny Cooke (42:45), and Uncut Gems (55:00). To close, Safdie talks about why he worked as a boom operator while directing (48:15), his recent pivot to acting (52:35), and his full circle moment of playing an astrophysicist in Oppenheimer (1:00:40).

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