QLS Classic: Kathryn Bigelow

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme QLs Classic Edition. This episode is from August ninth, twenty seventeen, with Katherine Bigelow, director Academy Award winning director Katherine Victim. We go through our entire canon, especially her film Zerolay Dog thirty, The hurt Locker Detroit, and an unintentional comedy called Point Breaking.

Supreme, Sign Supreme, Supreme, Sun Sign Supreme, Supreme Sign Supremo, Roll Supreme Sun.

Supreme to the entire world. Yeah, I grieve you with Hello Yeah. Translation to Detroit.

Yeah, what up though, Supremo Supremo Role, Supremo Son Supremo Rod.

My name is Fante. Yeah, let's keep it dirty. Yeah. My skin complexion yeah zero dark dirty Supremo Rodd. Name is Sugar.

Yeah, I'm pretty big.

Yeah.

What's my point?

Yeah, Point.

Supremo Role, Sumo Son Supremo Role.

I'm on pay bill.

Yeah.

She y'all don't sue me. Yeah, I wanted to thank Catherine Bigelow for Gary Busey.

Supremo Roll Supreme Supreme Roll.

I'm like em yeah, and I'm the ship. Yeah, sitting next to an Oscar winner. Yeah, but I ain't gona trip. Roll Come.

Supremo, Roll Call Supremo, Supremo.

Roll Bill don't care, Yeah about how you feel?

Yeah, but Ron Silver Yeah it was Ellen Blue Steel Supremo, Roll Call Supreme, So Supreme, roll Come.

I'm Catherine yeah and peace.

Yeah yeah, roll Come, roll Call Supreme Supreme.

Roll call was.

Upre Rolland wow, that's a ball start, she said.

One word dropped it. You do what you want when you pop. You're also mad at you? He was?

He was?

He was, Yeah, he was. He was a motherfucking yeah.

Wow you did Blue Steel?

I just wow.

Yes. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course Love Supreme, only on Pandora. Uh. This is your host Quest Love, and we have Team Supreme. We have hy He Gordy as.

Organizer, and we have Bill DeBarge boss already light skin joke, it could be we We we have Fante Robinson over here, yes.

And uh over here. We have uh, Bill Ruffin would be not exactly and the smoothest the moment or the morrow we have Steve Gay.

On on it's so good.

You heard it here on back?

Are you?

Are you okay, Steve? Yeah, okay, yeah.

If anybody hears me, grown, it's not that you're boring.

No pain. I was gonna say, you're not trying out a new sexy voice. You're just no. No, this is it. This is all I got right, that's exactly. Thank you.

I'm going to turn the micuick. But I'm not talking because I'm growing.

Okay, So just just again, you're not having a sexy moment.

No, I'm Steve Gay but I'm not being sexy.

I'm just being.

Can anytime? Are you talking? I just put this on?

Can you make thing I've ever sounded with the.

List and gentlemen, our guest today is a groupping storyteller, very intense and stark as a writer, and a director is such a ashen I'm sorry director with such action classics as a point Break, Strangers Days K nineteen and Blue Steel. By the way, I too have never looked

I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm happy to be here, happy to talk about it.

So I have to ask, because of okay, your film, magarey, I'm so used to saying your discography or your cannon, Yes you can, you know you're probably. I mean, when when all is said and done and we look at your your canon, Uh, the intense level of your storytelling can't be denied. What what is your your goal? As far as when you make a film, like what's your

At it raw off?

Yeah.

I think.

I think up until hurt Locker, it was you know, kind of learning the craft. And then with hert Locker, I sort of discovered that you could kind of look at film like journalism. In other words, it could it

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, because I particularly those two movies. I always thought that they took a every journalistic approaching, that they're very kind of just the facts kind of way, versus, if you like, with The hurt Locker in particular, if you look at someone like a Spike Lee, who his movies are very overt, like

And how did you keep that bias out of the film?

It TWA's hard, but I sort of looked at it like kind of threading a needle of being pro soldier and anti war. You know, if you could somehow do that and also giving an audience the opportunity to have enough information to make their own decision. I don't think it's up to me to judge, you know, it's I feel like my role or responsibility is to present and then you know, enable you to come away with enough information.

Do you tackle I mean, especially with the hurt Locker one of one of the factor factors that are on full display sort of the the male toxic relationships that are that are in that movie, you know, even when they're not engaged in battle, just how they deal with each other. I mean, how do you like Well, I guess Fonte kind of asked, like, how do you even

Well, it's a good question. I mean, the writer was embedded with the EUD texts Mark boll And, so he came back with a tremendous amount of information and really brought it to life on the page. And so that helped inform me a lot, and then I went to Kuwait, I went to Camp Era Jam. I spent time in in you know, in stitute to the extent I can. I mean, I couldn't go. I couldn't go the five kilometers across the border to Iraq, but I could be.

Okay, Well that leads me to my next question. Okay, because because I always feel as though whatever camera number one is also a character in the film, how do you because a lot of the you do heart panning, You do a lot of heart panting instead of cuts, Whereas I really feel like, okay, I'm a character in this and you know I'm inside of this world. How

Of all, you've got this story, this narrative beginning, and that's somewhat linear. That's all that's linear. Everything else is in motion. The act that cast is in motion, the cameras are in motion. I light the entire area so everything is live. And then I try to I try to work in in situ as long as possible. In other words, like you could do eight pages if you want it to. In other words, it's very I try to keep it as continuous as possible, but but I

No practice, no nothing, no. So are you are you coordinating like a defensive coordinator? Because even then, like when there are certain scenes where they'll there'll be a certain shot and then suddenly on cue the camera will pan in, like and I'm always wondering, like, are you in someone's headphones?

Like Okay, I wish I did, Like.

So they just do it on instinct and just you trust them enough to know when to blur up a shot and then focused and.

I need that technology. But no, Barry Ackroyd is he's a genius. He's a cinematographer and both hurt Locker and Zerrator and her Locker and Detroit right, and and he's so uncanny, so intuitive, I mean he and so those are you know, he'll snap zoom, like he just knows what you want. He just knows. Yeah, we talk it through and then and then he feels it. In fact, he doesn't want to see a rehearsal. He wants to find it in that first take and and he talks

So you're like a jazz music.

I was just gonna say, it's like a jazz jazz because it can't be rehearsed or mechanical. Then it then it loses, it loses something.

Are you are you ever over the editor's shoulder or do you just turn your tapes and you just trust that they know what you want? Like, at what point do you let your baby go and trust that they will cut what was in your head at the time when you're thinking of the shot and a certain scene.

Well, I also have I have the just in my opinion, the world's greatest editor, Billy Goldenberg, who did Sero Dark in Detroit. And what's this style of shooting? There's no masters medium's close ups. It doesn't work like that. You're just everything is constantly in motion, like the actor may walk around the humby and then suddenly he is in a close up. For in other words, it's it's very fluid.

I've heard well, I mean not that I know that much about filmmaking, but I do know that like in the case of Martin and Filma, he says that the second he's done a film scores, just give Schoolmacher his films and it's like, it's on you. You know what I like, and I'll come back. Like there's always an issue of micromanaging of that sort of thing, like not

Well, I trust completely and I love him to, you know, find a certain autonomy. But I think he would agree. Hopefully I'm speaking for him, but I think it's a real collaboration with the crew, with the cast, with everybody. It's a real it's a real collaborative medium, and I think it's at its best when it's collaborative.

Can I ask you?

It seems like and I might be assuming, but it feels like hurt Locker was the beginning of one hundred percent passion project for you, like a toe chapter because hurt Locker, of course an Nzel Dark thirty Detroit. I wanted to know, is that the case or what does the different? What happened in between to number one to get to the point where you could do this? Are these are one hundred percent passion projects? And yeah, what

And then you did My Zone.

Well, I feel like the ore the films before them, and and of course you know you're kind of I don't know you can't have favorites, you know. But but I feel like they prepared me for those. And I couldn't have done hurt Locker or Zero Dark or Detroit if I hadn't done those. And one thing that was a real departure was working with emerging talent or you know, mainly unknown talent. And and I kind of made that, uh.

And so and this is the first time that you were able to do that in your whole career.

Yeah, how hard is it to find a producer that's not for lessons and verse? Is a pain in the ass because you know, I, at least in my experiences of witnessing. Usually the good cop is the director and the bad cop is the producer, you know, and they have to stay on the side. Let you know, the budget that's running over and this this sort of thing.

Ticket, it's a lottery ticket. Well, you know, just you have to be very tenacious and well, the first budget for hurt Lucker was thirty million, and I ended up making it for ten.

So that happened. So don't.

Budget from thirty to well, that's I don't act and didn't lose any set pieces either, so so that was a little tricky but or a little challenging. But the key there was and what I realized was that the budget and your creative control are in direct proportion to one another.

So that was for that.

So the lower the budget, more creative control you have to you were going to sacrifice and compromise creative control if you want more money. So that's just it's a very simple calculus. I kind of wrapped my head around that and went forward with it, and and obviously with

Well okay, because I know that Zero Dark is also intento on the drama and the dialogue that's just as rich as an action scene or that sort of thing. Now, I'm trying to imagine if you were given complete autonomy to do, you know, say, if you were given a seventy million dollar budget, or you know, some films of this nature get one hundred and fifty million dollar budget, Like what more could you done? Like is there a

I'll just blow up this town.

Now.

That's another thing I think, you know, I do when I can. I work in elephant conservation or some kind of philanthropy. And I think, you know, the bigger the budgets, I think, wow, I should be using this money for that, you know, saving these park rangers in Garamba and the d r C or something like that. But so, but but finding a producer that supports you and trusts you, I mean, that's it's a process. It's a I mean,

So you're you're proven, You're you're you're you're reaffirming what I've always thought about musicians, which is whenever they have limited resources and limited budgets, they turn out their most creative work. And whenever they're just given the entire world, that's usually the uh, that's the jumping the shark moment for a lot of our our musicians.

Well, there's a great quote by Entre Gate. I said, artist born of restraint and dies of freedom.

Yeah, that's very true, is it? And that's quest love suprevium, Thank you very much.

I have a question Steve, and then I really want to hear about Detroit after.

Well, we're going to get to Detroit. I kind of wanted I get.

My question is because you mentioned the journalistic nature of making these movies, So do you have any kind of background in journalism now?

But Mark, who wrote all three of them, comes from investigative journalism, and so that allowed me to kind of open up open up that idea of being a you know, putting the viewer in an active relationship with the screen as opposed to passive. You know that can't consequently again, the camera's very active, but in other words, sort of inviting the viewer to be a fly in the wall in what you're experiencing.

I'll change you, Lad, you could be Stubbs, Steve Stubbs.

So I was watching the CNN thing the nineties and I saw your name as a director on what was it a long time ago.

Point? It was a show.

It was.

Stet Yeah, Baltimore. Yeah, yeah, that.

Was somewhat journalistic type thing too.

Well, well, I started that was sort of where I began to get confident enough to move, you know, to be I don't know, create a very I suppose sort of active and fluid cinematic environment. And then I don't know, you just kind of get your chops. I mean, it's got to be like what all of you do? Wait, what was your first?

What was your first gig in the film industry? Because Catherine, you have like actors, producer, writer, director, all these things.

What was your first?

Yeah, I'm gonna add some more, you should do whatever. Well, I started out as a painter, and I was an artist and or thought of myself as an artist and moved to New York. I was given this I don't know this, I guess internship with a Whitney Independent study program. They gave you a studio. I was living in a bank vault and on the corner of Down and Read and Chambers and many many years ago, no no very

At it and.

No, no, it can't be a hobby. I wish it could. But anyway, so no, it's not relaxing. But but I realized there's something you know, kind of I don't know how to put it, but maybe kind of rarefied. You look at this white on white canvas, which is this Russian guy, Casmir Malevich, who I love. But but the point is it, it's, you know, requires or asks of you a little bit of information to kind of appreciate it and think this is extraordinary and breakthrough Ormonnai's to

William dug he must be special to work with. Oh, I mean, oh, he's fabulous.

In fact, he was doing you know, he used to be with the Booster Group, and that was back in the day when you can just go to a performance and then you go up afterward and you say, hey, do you want to be in a movie? I mean, I had just you know, five pennies to make this film and he's like sure. I said, can you ride a motorcycle? He said, yes, Well I learned. I learned.

There's what is your attraction to? I mean, I don't you know, I don't want to use violence, as you know as the four letter word, but there's definitely that's an element that's almost a common denominator in each film. Like I've became aware of you through Blue Steel, as we mentioned at the top of the show.

But what is.

What is it that you want to tell the world or show the world through all of your films that you you you direct or you write, like what is your Because you wrote Blue Steel? Correct, you wrote in directly, So what what is that? What is why is that you or way to grip our collars or to get our attention? Do you use it in a very unusual

Well, we could turn this into a therapy, right, I know. And I co wrote that with Eric red So and we co wrote Near Dark together too, But I think of well, I don't. I suppose it's it goes kind of go back, goes back to the art days, where the purpose of art is to agitate for change. And so I think a film is very kinetic. It's a very kinetic medium, and and I sort of enjoy the mechanics of that kind of visceral identification with a story on the screen. But it has to have content, It

I want to ask you about when you cast your films and the training that you put your actors through. Obviously for the hurt Locker there was you know, it had to be some kind of military training or what was the regimen for that? And also for Detroit, because the guys are playing a singing group, what did you have them do to so that it looks real camera?

Well?

Thank you?

Any story camp Ord? Uh?

Yeah, there was Motown camp. No we didn't, oh love no no no no. Well, in terms of hurt Locker, yeah, they had. They went through a lot of military training, I mean, and same with Sarah Dark. I had the benefit of in the case of hurt Locker, there was some Delta Delta Force individuals that were my tech advisors and se s and then with zero Dark Navy Steel Tech advisors and taught them how to you know, how to move and how you know. The most important thing

Have someone in mind, like when you looking at the story, do you have someone in mind saying, Hey, I think this actor or this actress would be good for this role or is that something that totally you let the casting.

No, Well, I had an amazing casting director, Vicky Thomas, but I really wanted actors who, in a way didn't have any provenance because that tele telegraphs to an audience, even if it's consciously or subconsciously, Oh that person, you know, you can't die, he's too famous, right, and so immediately the game is over. You know, there's no tension. So for that reason and many and and also just I

Well, you did a great job, because I didn't even recognize uh John Krasinski, Oh yeah, five minutes. I was like, oh him, and I was waiting for the office.

And then the young black actors that you picked are like right now, the up and coming you. I mean, just off a name you got like you got Ralph treads Van, you know.

Like in the characters.

But I mean that they play but and it's dope to I was. I was thinking, I said, you know, they're used to being in these dope ensemble class cast even John Boyega, I don't know if I say his name Rye perfect Star Wars ensemble cast. So it kind of worked dope for you because they are used to making it work for one grid mission, right.

Yeah, I mean they work. Yeah, they're well first at working as you know, as a group and as a kind of an organic body that you know. I mean, I was just so lucky in Altree Smith and Hayden and Malcolm and and little Butler.

I'm glad I never knew his name, but I've been watching him since he was a child actor.

He's amazing.

He's scary. He is even if I see him now like he's in he's he's on the Goldbergs, right.

Is he not on the I don't know if he's on their now. He was in the Revenant, he was in the Chronicles of Narnia.

Yeah right, okay, I know that, but yeah he's Jesus Christ.

Can get it's an eyebrow thing.

Even if you mentioned it now, I'm like, all right, change this ubject. I don't know how the feel when I see him come on my show and play. I want to know what is uh your personal creative process, uh, from going project to project now? I mean the time distance between zero Dark thirty and the hurt Locker was

Yeah, the research on Detroit was massive. What happened was Mark came to me with this story. And this was early twenty fifteen and right about the time of the Michael Brown acquittal, and I it was, you know, kind of obviously a politically emotionally charged time. And he told me this story and I said, you know, this is a story that needs to get out there. You know, it's very important in my opinion, and and you know, maybe in some small way it can contribute to a

And and.

It was very emotional piece. It was very emotionally charged shooting it as well.

Do you know, did you have any reservations about doing this?

Because I was reading the article that doctor Dyson wrote on you, and I remember the part where he one of the people in Detroit, because you guys are walking around Detroit, and he says, like, what is this is?

This?

Is this white woman gonna know about us and this story that we have? Like, did you personally have to have a moment and say, can I do this?

Should I do this?

Absolutely? I mean I thought, and I think I still think. You know, am I the perfect person to make this movie? Absolutely not. On the other hand, you know, I have this opportunity. I can get this. You know, I can't get this story out there, and and you know, take advantage of that in the hope that again it maybe leads to a dialogue or more stories like this coming out.

And so.

That was that was the impetus behind.

It, when you say you're not the perfect person and if not you, then who, like who would if you were producing Detroit?

Who would you get to direct it? Yeah?

I mean she'd be amazing exactly so, but you know, it kind of washed up on my beach and so sort of like, all right, do I I don't know? You know, that was that took a There was a moment there when I was trying to kind of grapple with that.

And it's weird because I even when I saw the screening of it, I did not know that the story even happened. And you know, I'd like to think that anything musically related, like I'm on top of I mean, I knew of Riots being in Detroit, and I knew I've heard several interviews of why Motown had left. You know, I simply thought it was because, Okay, well, Dinah Ross wanted to meet movies and so let's go out there.

But anyway, Yeah, and.

I kept thinking, like on the way home, I was like, wait a minute, man, I've been at least in the four or five times I've been in the presence of the Dramatics in my career, like, it's at least been accumulated three to four hours. I'm like, man, they didn't mentioned this once, like.

I maybe it wasn't the worst thing that happened to them.

Well, here's the funny thing. Yeah, here's the funny thing. Because I've talked about violent situations that they've been in in the Snoop's second source cover when his solo album comes out in nineteen ninety three, and Dreamhampton's sort of trailing them during the making of Doggie Style, there was maybe an exchange of gunfire between the van that the Dramatics were in and maybe the family of that Remember

Well?

Yeah, I mean the article came out twenty five years ago. But I remember the Dramatics being in that situation. And then when Slim Village told me a story uh sort of similar that, it was like a minor fender bender, Like they were with some members of the Dramatics and DJ Dees told me like, you know, like they were about to get into a violent situation. I was thinking, like, man, the Dramatics are the most unlucky group on earth.

And yeah, they're just like the Drama.

There. Yeah, but and talking to them about those situations, yeah, man, well it was intense that day. But like they never said.

To me, they just.

I just That's the first thing. I was like, why did they not tell me about nineteen sixty seven? Like why did I not know this even in the film. I kept asking Half the time. I was like I am dbing, like wait a minute, is this Dramatics Dramatics that? Yeah, yeah, the Dramatics. I know what she sees what you And then when they started singing it, then whoever is running the I don't know if you told them not to tell me or whatever, that you just wanted me to

Yeah, it's just a long story. They're probably so sick of talent. It's like, probably takes two hours to tell the story.

Yeah, of a movie rather, you know. And I don't want to get into spoilers, so I'm trying to figure out a way to talk about the film without getting into specifics so as to not ruin it for the listener. But I mean, I will say that in this film is like what two hours and twenty yeah, yeah, two hours and twenty minutes. I mean you spend a great deal in the center of the film, thirty five to forty minutes.

Oh, probably a little bit more maybe, yeah.

Yeah, fifty minutes, almost an hour on this one. It's it's almost like it turns into a play because you're literally in this room during the torture scene whatever you want to the interrogation, torture, death game scene for an hour with just one camera and.

And how many people in that room.

In the hallway, Yeah, in the hallway there were about.

Nine and and nine and four cops dependent on the army guys, and.

Exactly like three three Detroit police and one National Guard.

It's us. It's this almost the movie stops and then it goes into meta mood inside of itself and then starts all over again with this torture scene.

And uh, sounds like another oscar for Catherine.

I just and it's weird because even when you and I were talking, because I mean, it's no secret, like you know, the roots worked on the song at the end. I mean, there is two ways to go with the direction of that song because with films that intense, and when it's time for the credits, you need you need a moment to breathe the process what you just saw.

That's what Catherine was saying about the song earlier, right you were breaking down.

Is not just a song, yeah, I mean it also there's you know, it's so emotional that song. I think it's phenomenal, and it also shifts time periods, you know, takes you from the sixties to now back to the sixties, and I think it's a good release for the kind of anger that that one might feel.

We wrote the song it ain't fair, and I wanted to give the listener release at the end, but I also remembered that I was mad as fuck at just angry as shit, and I want it to convey all those things in that song, the.

Movie or just period, you know what I I felt.

I had a long conversation, uh with the and seeing the film twice. Uh, I kind of had a post viewing conversation, uh with the people I was with and kind of here on both sides because you know, it's with white and black people and it's weird. The white people that saw the film with me were like, Okay, you know, I have to admit that it took this film for me to really truly understand black lives matter.

Jesus, and this.

Person is a liberal Jesus but the worst. Sorry, but that's it's this person's a liberal. But it's it's sort of like, well, I hear what you're saying, but it's

And awakening.

I mean, it's it's it's real, and it's you know. I kind of explained to them that yeah, like none of us, none of us. And the thing that it hit home to me was that again and with with the dramatics and what they went through. Not trying to spoil it, but I was even like, wow, like how do you even go on continue as a group or function with your life after this?

What was the album they made after?

What?

Yeah? But it's like how do you go on?

And so it was.

You know, I mean, tears were shed and there were all sides of it, because even even on the black side of things, they were just like yo, man, that's no, they're they're there. I Mean I've had arguments of intense levels with you know, well you know why they stand up for themselves and be like yo, fuck y'all. And you know, and I'm just like, dude, when you're I

Yeah, no, for real, do not turn your head to look back.

You're you're programmed. I mean you can even be like, all right, fuck it, I'm down for the cars and Queen Latifa, your way out that car. But then it'll just be like in Supreme, I set it off, was set off? I got it? Or it's like, you know, the second they see, wait a minute, I gotta stop by ic ic e, I gotta stop by ice ice. Yeah, this summer in California, what is that immigration?

Why they stop?

I was? I was, we were, we were driving hudriving. I was being driven from my gig in uh San Diego, which has a lot of activity of fence jump and whatnot, Like they have the little signs of families like running the border, like be whare the you know, like you see deer warning. Well they have signs of like up like a shadow. It's like a shadow, a shadow of four family members running. And the baby got a little teddy bear. I'm like, why they have a blanket and teddy bear?

Like they think you're stashing the family Mexicans in your black suburban.

Well they stopped. They stopped my driver, and you know, I was asleep, but she told me like, you know, well they stopped us, and I said, what happened. She's like, well, you know, I'm driving my client from his concert. And they said, well who's your client? So a question with love from the roots. And they were kind of like like okay, likely story, female driver, blonde, and so they made her roll down. Now you sleep. You know, yeah I was, but no, I'm saying that when he saw

It's like that, James Boldencourt, is a thin line between what is it a witness and a participant?

Yes, you know, it's very thin. It's like I almost have more hate for the witness that knows and won't at least acknowledge it at least and that's what we're going through now. It's like, oh God, please acknowledge it. And so uh In getting BELOWD to sing the song, yes you know that already because I played it for you, and getting BLOWD to sing the song, blows really the only singer that I could think of today that just encompasses everything that this ending was supposed to be. Gentle

Yeah, what did you feel?

The friend?

Phenomenal? Phenomenal And you.

Know, it was kind of weird at the time because usually when you get quote the credits song, that usually means that there might be a chance that you could get an oscar, usually for films of this nature glory. Yes, if this song is in the credits, then that means it's different Oscar. Yeah, And usually it's like, man, okay, let's get that big name and let's you know, let's let's go for it. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's like I had to go with my conviction and go with be right.

Sorry but not really.

Yeah, you just you. I had to go with what I felt was the right person that would really grasp your attention.

He would do it, and uh, this was that.

And I'm realizing that I've just spoken for the last.

I just wanted to ask Catherine.

So in the process of figuring out this song, this has to be huge, just has to emote, has to do this.

Why a mirror or the roots are how was that called?

Well?

I just I love everything that he does, so and I just thought it had to it had the right I I don't know, the right emotional grabby toss and for this piece. I mean, and when he saw the movie and then we talked, it was just like I was perfect.

Before though You've done that, like you did that with in Strange Days, with skunkan Nazi, with the last Like so you I've seen you do it. You know, you take like a kind of an unusual band or an unlikely choice and you know do it. At the end, I thought that was dope.

Too, oh good. I just yeah, it just seemed like a perfect a perfect fit.

Strange Days was my movie, Juliette.

Oh my god, yeah, you're the good for that reference. I forgot about skunking all right, Well it just hit me before I went on that fifteen minute. I remember what My initial question was, why did you want to do the joy? Now I'm like, but you're you're you're operation level. The way you shot the film, did you use stock film? Like I don't know how to describe it. It almost feels like she that king died it. Oh yeah, she made it look vintage, like shooting get down.

They did it first.

Everybody, you just thing to bring up here.

Even I know that.

Okay, so when the breaks, I don't know, to.

Get that Detroit in fact, just get that in Detroit. Yeah it was I mean, what was I guess my correcting that you use like certain we.

Use lenses from the period and and yet digital cameras and it was like maybe two weeks before we were going to start shooting. They made it. They made it possible to adapt those lenses to these new digital cameras, which are actually a pretty small and fairly light, which gives you that sort of more nimble approach. But the vintage just gives the patina of of it gives a

Now I want to ask you about Will Poulter. Yeah, I'll go out there right now. I'll say that he'll I'll be shocked if he doesn't get nominated for Best I don't know if he's supporting. Would he be supporting or would he is he Maine? Wouldn't you submit those names or does the company submit those names?

Oh well, we haven't even talked about it.

I feel like if you submit him for Best Supporting Actor, he will win. But his level of evil is and the thing is, I know he's the opposite of that because I had to the person that I saw the movie with the first time. She was all disheveled because you know of what he represented in his other films, and he's such a gentle voice those things. So when you are portraying something that intense, when you yelled cut.

Well, I mean when when I would say cut, First of all, he never lost his accent. He was in that accent for the movie twenty four to seven during the shoot, and in fact I prove off and on yes. And but when I would say cut, I would sometimes look whereas Will and I'd see him out on the porch and his head would be in his hands. I mean, it was really really hard for him, and as it was for everybody, but I mean it was extremely difficult for him.

Like were they able to interact with each other?

Oh yeah, camera, Oh yeah, yeah, because even like Tarantino said for Jango that like he had to do some special things with the cast, you know, in between and make sure everybody was cool because it was soultent.

Yeah, you know, yeah, you have to. I mean I just and I had a conversation with everybody going into this film. I said, you know, trying to give them, you know, a sense of what the lay of the land might be and how you know how at the end of the day, they're going to be asked to talk about this movie and are they comfortable talking about this? Are you comfortable performing this? You know, yes, this really happened,

Did you have to do anything in terms of making sure you talk about things that do to make them comfortable? Did you have to do things to make them uncomfortable?

At times? I was. It reminded me of Spike Lee in the school days. Yeah, Spike Lee school days. He would say in private Ryan where he would.

Yeah, Stephen. He made all the guys that were going to get private Ryan, they all had to do like pt and all this crazy physical stuff. But Matt Damon didn't do any of it. So like they they really had that contempt for him, right we risk and I ask or say, this, motherfucker, you know what I mean?

Like they've really had that. So did you have to do anything stuff like that?

Early early in the shoot, they kind of kept each group kept to themselves just for that reason because if they were too friendly, it might be too difficult. And then when they became more comfortable and more relaxed with it, and I felt, I think felt more confident that they were in their character and they really understood their character than they were very close with each other. But it's a full on commitment. I mean something like this.

Obviously, who's the technical advisor for the nuances of like the time how you know this is Detroit? Were talking about black folks, the slang, just the just make it making it authentic.

Did you shoot it on location or yeah?

Or that too?

Well, we shot some of it in Detroit. Unfortunately, about a year before we started we went there where we wanted to shoot, they had disbanded their incentives program, so I needed to go to Boston to save money. Okay, because they give they have a rebate of you know, twenty five percent above and below the line. And Detroit, or rather Michigan used to but in their infinite wisdom, they disbanded it.

Detroit Detroit, Yeah, us, they did that too. North Carolina did that too. Like we shot iron Man three and then was like nah, we ain't doing that no more.

Yeah, and and you know it's crazy because if there was ever a city that could use this tremendous amount of revenue anyway that Yeah, So no, but we shot so we shot a lot of it in Boston.

How many because there are a lot of exterior scenes. Yeah, how many blocks would you have to you know, transform to just to get it to look like that at least? How many?

Actually not as much as you would think. I mean, it's fairly contained. I had an amazing production designer, Jeremy Hindle, who also did Sarah Dark and and yeah, I mean keeping it somewhat contained. And that's another benefit of a sort of documentary style. It's it you know, there isn't these big wide crane shots. I don't use cranes, you know, so you don't you know, you're just right here, you're in the car, or you're you know, over the back

So is that so did the same thing go for the costume and wardrobe?

Is it? The say?

Is it the same people from the other movies or did you have a little special for that.

No, I used this wonderful woman fran scene for wardrobe, and she was just really I don't know, she's just extraordinary with I mean she got fabric from the period. She would like travel all over the country for fabric and then create these and then build these suits, and I mean everything was just meticulous, just meticulous, And so that was you We're really lucky to find those kind of artisans who who did that. But yeah, we were a lot of research and try the language. I mean

Dang, we we know. Well in the book in history is shown what the end result of the court case was. Uh, nobody in the various of course, in the various in the various lawsuits that that have occurred throughout the years of it, or the attempts to reopen the case. But always wondered if those two characters, in particular, the two white women that were caught up, did they ever have their own lawsuit or their own civil suit?

And you know, not that I'm aware of, not that I'm aware of, But no, I don't think so.

Yeah, because I looked all over the internet to see could they at least get justice and.

Not they were they in the hotel with the guys?

Yes, yeah, the real crime, The real crime was that they were in Yeah.

Yeah, but that's the test, like even if white women can't get it's like yeah lost calls, bro, yeah if yeah, isn't.

There a display about this in the New Smithsonian. I don't know if you if you heard about the Detroit riots or did you guys you have to go no.

No, no other one in d C. Yeah, yeah, there there's uh, you know there there's a riot section every decade. It's a very it's a very lovely and beautiful display of all the riots that America that is so sad, it's so hilarious. Yeah, god, I mean it goes from uh, Black Wall Street in Oklahoma and right, here's you know, in Memphis, and here's Detroit and here's Los Angeles. Yeah, it's like they have extra room for the future one that.

I don't know.

But it's funny because it brings a question.

It brings a question about riots and what do you think made the Detroit riots stand out from what else?

What had happened?

Why could they recover? Like what do you in your research? I feel as though this riot currently has Detroit where they are now? Like when I think of Detroit, I think of a CPS owned black and write desolate. Yeah, it's the American London. Yeah, and it's why do you think that they have yet to recover? And the importance of you releasing this film on the fiftieth anniversary of those riots on August fourth, twenty seventeen.

Well, I think that's you know, that's a that's a really good question. I mean, I I don't know. I mean I think of the city as both equal parts resilient, and certainly the people I see I meet, they're really resilient. But at the same time, it's still a city that's that's been a war zone and it hasn't really recovered from the war zone, and that's you know, so it's kind of this weird dichotomy. And and I don't know.

Yeah, I guess sometimes.

I wish, I know, not.

To put you on the spot, but I just I'm curious.

I got to ask, do you feel like, because of this movie and the subject matter and everything else, that there should be is there a relationship with Detroit? I mean, I know you said you didn't you didn't shoot there, but a relationship in a way of like, you know that since they have the water issue, they have so many issues.

Like it's not meant like, is there like a charitable relationship? Do you ever think about it?

I think so, yes, they have seen it. We did a few screens and now we're going there for a premiere and we did shoot therefore, you know, maybe five six days, so we did shoot something there.

So they got a little bit of the money from the.

Absolutely absolutely, and I think you know, I mean, I mean, this is definitely a part of their past and and and so you know, but I think, I don't know. It speaks both to a kind of strength in that I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of there's a huge art artist community there now and then that's kind of exciting and thriving. And yet at the same time, I mean, this tragedy is is imprinted, you know,

I mean, this was right because it wasn't one bit off the riot just like Instice and people were fed up, exactly.

And so you know, justice is the the conversation, you know, Jacob, Yeah, exactly. And you know, you can't heal until this you're hurt, you know, So maybe there's a a dialogue that can start in Detroit.

And how many screens have you done in Detroit?

And what's the general how many screenings we did well, we did a screening for the chief of police there.

Oh wow, oh boy, how did that go?

He wants it to be required viewing for every member of law enforcement. Seriously, yes, yes, yes.

I got a response.

That's great time.

That's crazy to me. That was the last thing I was going to expect. Detroit is about to be the police eyes on the price. It's like required.

It's like the video to make you watch exactly pizza or something your train and enjoy it.

Wow, just clean the water, I know, right, just clean.

So I think it's you know, is there is there a way forward? I mean certainly, And we've screened it for some faith based groups, and you know, we're trying to get it out there, and of course it comes out nationwide, so you know, maybe maybe you know it can be of some help open dialogue, dialogue exactly.

So once this is like when you put your baby away and you go to the premiere and you do the last press junket and I'm sure that movie season is over after February Oscar time, At what point do you start researching your next project? Like do you overlap or are you going to swim in Hawaii for two weeks and just like you know, do you watch friends on TBS.

Like watches Fred the TBS.

Change the channel, dude, It's like I've fallen down many a friend's rabbit hole, Like.

My rabbit hole is American Ninja Warrior's supposed to be family guy.

So for you, like, are you thinking about the next project?

No?

I can't.

Yeah, but we're not acting like you. I mean, you've done you Your average is a year and a half to two years between films, So it's like I imagine that you least have to research six to seven months before you're like, all right, let's green like this.

But just got to be exhausted though right now. But even had the energy.

But this is also your production company, correct, Like is this?

Oh?

I worked with them with Anna Perna, who are fabulous on zero Dark thirty and so so that was a good kind of you know, continuity there. But yeah, I don't know, this was a few years actually, kind of five years from release to release, so it's been.

A little while.

So you're saying that maybe twenty twenty two. Can you go that long? Because again, if you're not popcorn budget, you know, yeah, two hundred and fifty million, I mean I can imagine that the light bill has to be paid and stuff like that, So it would be whoviy you at least know what the plan is for twenty nineteen.

It would if you have any story, I'm open.

Would you would you go out of wait? Let me just ask, would you ever go off type and just do romantic? Yeah? Like a Froffy Yeah you've got mail part two?

Wow, John.

Version of a romantic A man and his dog?

How do you you know when you're between projects? Like financially? I mean, how do you make that work?

In terms of I do commercials?

Wait?

Are y'all saying that Catherine go broke in between projects?

Because I'm real.

Artists, Real artists have to keep jobs. I have nineteen Yes, this is I have nineteen jobs. Yeah, I got one job. One job does not pay me to pay you. One of the job does not baby enough to pay you, guys. I got it. I gotta paid this fascinating. So commercials, that's like you do you do those kind of in your I do? And are you uh?

Do you uh a different name?

Alan Smith?

No?

No, but so you don't do like the hinds kept up? Catchup commercial Japanese commercials like.

I haven't done those, but it's I don't know, it's interesting because that's where I can kind of maybe check out of content a little bit and just look at it from an equipment and tech technical standpoint, you know, just the mechanics of film.

I figured that's harder though, because you have to tell a story in thirty seconds, which you specifically I don't know if it's like the level of your commercials, are you know, Mercedes or classy Curl like would you says I'm sorry. I was watching the Soul Train episode before I got here, so in my head, I'm sorry. I Uh.

I like the.

I kind of like the challenge of you know, like thirty seconds or a minute. You know you're just I mean, it's a it's it's a deep dive.

You give an example of a commercial that you've done that we've all seen, but it's a different part of your brain, right.

It's a different part of your brain.

I look at them.

When I do commercials, it's like one thing, and when you do creative things, totally different things.

Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, but it's hard. He is who it's it's but it's it's hard. It's not my version of the commercial the sandwiches. Yeah, when they ask to do seven second stingers. So if there's a new bit, you know, sidewalk movies, and they need usually like Mark Elliott.

Yeah, but that's not because that's where you come from. You do come from long form, but people come from.

The song I submitted to her film is seven minutes like three minutes, because I knew he has to simmer and cook. He's not microwave, you know, but at fallon, you got to have a catchy ass jingle in seven seconds.

In radio, you're supposed to talk for thirty seconds, sometimes in a minute, and.

But sometimes you have a script and you know, you get into a rhythm of how's your day or fifty and this is Yeah.

The guy who did it was similar what Catherine was saying. The guy that did the I was in an interview.

With the guy that did the Windows startup music.

Right, and he was saying how that was like once he got into that, like he had to do God, have a many revisions until they finally got it. But he said, like once he was so used to working in like that little five or six seconds. Once he sat down to write a song that felt like that universe.

That's my life.

Like I can't write a three and a half minute song anymore. I can write, I can write, I can crush a minute. But yeah, that's right because this street your songs are like ninety seconds.

Yeah, at the most.

Street, I'm the firse chorus.

Cat like, I don't do bridges anymore.

Electric company, get.

Right to the point.

I see, I see.

Anyway, that's not what we're talking about, Cat biglow.

Question.

Interesting since I'm talking uh.

My fifteen year old we would be super pissed if you didn't bring up Point Break conversation. Uh part of me once like remember when you made a point break because it's awesome, but like like did you have any concept of the impact that movie would have? And like that we were talking about, like uh think like TBS friends, like if comes on the television, I can't sat like wait, I'm done for the next hour and a half.

Can I add on to that?

Yes? Please, you're the boss?

Are you even Catherine? Are you even aware of this new uh embracing of point break from millennials? Like for some reason, usually on weekends I will go to a movie theater and see a throwback film, like there'll some art house film, will you know? So like, and what's weird is that there's a new culture of this generation that looks at intense drama films as comedies. And when I saw a point Break at the Nighthawk, like three months ago, any line that Keanu Reeves said.

Reeves, I mean, there's so many, like the whole thing is amazing.

But I realized he was this most Keanu in point where he could be.

He was free. It was like I could be mean.

So what was it like in your head? Did you have any idea that twenty five years from now? Like, dude, that voice like it's the best I'd like, whoa, Like how do you? How do you direct that film?

Where?

But he's Californian because I know a lot of dudes that talk like that in California. So it's almost like, like what's going on in your head as he's acting, Like you're just like that's Ted from Excellent. Well that was you know that you could be honest? No, no, it was because I see you trying to the words.

It was actually a real challenge to get the movie made with with somebody who had hadn't didn't have that kind.

Of you know, action spirit, no actions.

Well wrong word.

And coming from Phil and Ted's you know, you're like, okay, well now how can he You know, I was just trying to process that and I I don't know, I just I thought.

He was was it salt? No?

No?

No?

Did you say I want that guy?

I want that guy?

And what did they?

What did Hollywood say? What did the producers say? Well?

No, because because I know, it's just it's just the way that how can I say it? I mean, I was just convinced that he'd be perfect for this part. He was Johnny Utah, that was the name of the piece originally. And and and then I finally found a producer who, again just like hurt Locker, I was like okay, like, well we'll take a flyer and I said yes. So I was really lucky.

We are you surprised that the sus of it?

Yeah, and when you saw the remake I did see it, Okayan, But.

Did you see Point Break Live? Any of you?

There's a live break.

Oh, it's been for years. It's a performance. I don't have anything to do with it. All I know it's called point Break Live. It's probably here somewhere, certainly it's It was in Los Angeles and I went with Edgar Wright one because he wanted to see it and he wanted.

To Yeah, I know, yeah, and different one.

The other one, yeah, the one that didn't do show right right, that one. And anyway, there's a character in it that plays me. It's very funny and she's like got a megaphone and you know half the time. Oh, it's really I mean, you have you buy your ticket and they give you like a clear poncho because for the wave sequences they throw water all off.

I want to I want to go there.

And they picked somebody from the audience for Keanu each night with and they give them a card that you know, yeah, so it could be still it's going on for years.

You or did you just show ambushing one night?

No, we just ambushed. But then they realized it was that I was there, and then you know, when they robbed the banks, they came and robbed both Edgar and everything. Everything that we had they took and it was it was fabulous. I don't know.

I'm looking on Google right now, Catherine.

Have you ever had an issue with someone taking direction from you because they've never worked with the female director?

Well, I don't, unless you'd like to.

I think I don't know. I've I think either I've been lucky or you know, I kind of I steer clear of assholes. Assholes exactly, you know, but I mean, you know, you can you can sense a sort of attitude and I move away, I move I'm moving the opposite direction. But no, I've been really lucky, you know, Crewe and cast.

One thing I was always curious about, for the time that you were with James Cameron, what was it like to be, you know, for two creative people in one household.

What was that like?

Well, yeah, seconism and now who you used to be married? Let's that was that was?

I mean, we're actually great friends, so I mean it was it was kind of fabulous for the time that it was fabulous, until it was no longer fabulous. But I mean we talk a lot about film, as you can imagine, you know, like like, you know.

Just did you steer each other away from projects?

Like two film nerds in the same household a lot of that, Like, you know, why are you using so many close ups?

Why are you using so many what are you using white angle? Why are you using it twenty four when you could use this three hundred? You know, it's that kind of conversation.

So over you.

Let your petty flag.

I completely was I was surprised. I mean I thought one hundred percent it was Avatar.

It was not in any way, so not any endpoint. Did you give him a side eye as you walked up to the podio?

No, no, no, definitely.

Looking at the oscar.

Well, we're silly like that. We're just trying to be very respectful and use the good China.

In China.

Yeah, exactly know, we had a paper plays out we bring well. No, you know, I figure at some point you might get tired of of having to represent what's it like to be at the mountaintop and the boys club, and I know it gets tired of something that you would want to just be a director, not the first female or history making.

So isn't there is there a female director collective?

Like, well, there's there's a kind of a kind of like that DTA Director Skilled of America is the steering committee, And I mean, you you know, I suppose my feeling is I've always resisted a conversation about your woman doing. You know, I think that kind of ghettoizes women, you know, in other words, that actually prevents a perceptual in other words, it it siloizes them. And so you know, I think of myself as a filmmaker. I don't think of myself as a woman director.

So there's no Sundays with Sophia and.

I just I just don't think of that only because I think it, well, I don't think like that because I think it perpetuates that inequity.

But what about from a mentorship standpoint, because it is and I'm guessing that there is an inequity in the numbers of the female directors.

And seven percent you mean that that kind of inequity.

I mean, I don't know, it's that like sixty cents to a dollar to me, but the facts facts. But yeah, so what about on that note, because there is a economy of Okay, I don't want to be the female director, but hey, it's not.

A lot of us.

So how do I is the game where you become moreau like do you run? Do you imagine like maybe fifteen years from now you will have your own paramount where you.

Wow.

Make sure that again like again, you said that, you already said that you don't want to focus on the sex of it, but at least from what you know. And I know that you've had a lot of mansplanning done in your life and a bunch of no's told to you, and you've saw injustice where your male counterparts would have gotten that and sure petty shit like, well, I think it should be done this way and that whatever.

Well, I'm well, I'm working with I do you know, I'm producing a couple of things, and I try to you know, I try to give back in that way. And I suppose also in the world of philanthropy, as I said, elephant conservation or any wildlife trafficking conservation, So you try to give back in a way that's meaningful. But I also am a creative advisor at Sundance, and that's where I sort of spend most of my energy of trying.

To even at the score.

Well, yeah, to a certain extent. On the other hand, I sort of always walk away from that feeling like I get way more than anybody else. You know, It's just I don't know. Do you know the kind of I don't presume to be able to. I mean, I never want to tell somebody what to do. I just want to do what I do and hope that inspires others to carry on. I always tell them, don't take no for an answer. No, it doesn't exist in your world, in your universe. No doesn't exist.

Well said, I know that. I know this much. Thank you very much, Kavin Bigelo for coming on Quest Love Supreme.

I appreciate, thank you, thank you, thank you, all of you.

All of you and on behalf of Boss Bill, Unpaid Bill Sugar, Steve Fon Ticcolo and Laiya aka Margaret. We thank you Kavin Bigelow for coming on the show, reminding all VPU out there because you enjoyed to have a conversation about what's going on. Get involved. Just don't be a couch critic and criticize. You're telling me you'll do something about it. This Quest Love Supreme. Thank you very much. I will see you the next go round. I wish