♪♪
Welcome to "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
I'm Yvonne Orji, and we are here again at the beautiful Georgian,
a historic hotel in Santa Monica, California.
And for years, "The Hollywood Reporter"
has been bringing industry icons together
for insightful conversations about their lives and work.
And when it comes to iconic Hollywood films,
guys, you know the stars,
you know the directors, even the stunt doubles.
But do you really know who makes movie magic happen, hmm?
No, not the Ozempic doctors. It's the producers.
Guys, you're about to meet the talented producers
behind six of this year's award-contending films.
They are Tom Ackerley of "Barbie,"
Christine Vachon of "Past Lives,"
Natalie Portman of "May December,"
Ed Guiney of "Poor Things,"
Scott Sanders of "The Color Purple,"
and George C. Wolfe of "Rustin."
They are technically on the record,
but maybe just a little off script
with "The Hollywood Reporter."
They're all yours, Mia.
Thanks, Yvonne.
And welcome to "The Hollywood Reporter" producers Roundtable.
I wanted to open up a question for all of you.
When you all were getting started, what was it --
What was the film that made you say,
"I want to be a filmmaker"?
Sanders: "The Wizard of Oz."
What was it about it?
Everything. Everything.
It was bigger than anything I'd ever seen.
I'd never seen the black and white going to color.
We had a -- We had a black and white television at home,
so I didn't know it was in color
until we went to the next-door neighbor's house
to watch it.
And -- and the music, the -- the magic,
the -- the -- the crazy,
like, you know, flying monkeys.
I mean, there were -- There's so many things in that movie
that I fell in love with and, um, so, yeah.
Yeah. George, what about for you?
There were some Disney stuff that I was obsessed with
when I was little, but it was really "Nashville."
That -- that a film could be ridiculous and political
and emotionally fragile and -- and performance
that it was a collision of all these things
and that the storytelling was so ambitious.
And if you surrendered, it was effortless.
And so "Nashville" was really, really significant.
And at one point, Altman asked me to write a movie for him.
Wow. Wow.
Galuppo: How was that? That must have been incredible.
It was -- He wanted me to --
He was interested
in doing something about Amos and Andy, and I went,
"I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it.
I'd love to, I'd love to, I'd love to, but..."
He'd seen a show -- a Broadway show that I did
called "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk."
And he wanted me to create something
with comedy and something.
And it was extraordinary conversations, but, no.
But "Nashville."
Yeah. Humble. Humble. Honored. Honored. But "Nashville."
Yeah. Natalie.
"Bring in 'Da Noise" was so important to me.
I saw it, like --
I would stand in line at tickets
when I was, like, 8 with my parents,
and I went, like, three or four times.
So good. So good. Yeah.
I think the -- "Safe" was a really,
really important movie for me.
I think it was, I mean, as a film and as a performance,
I think I was just so blown away by how much I could...
recognize of experience that I didn't have words for,
and I didn't have words for after either.
It was just a feeling.
It was a tone of -- of life that was --
It just made me understand things in a --
in a new, different in mind- and soul-expanding way.
And what about for you?
I think the thing that actually made me think
this is possible was "My Left Foot."
Jim Sheridan's movie My Left Foot."
And it was like --
That was like Ireland winning the World Cup.
It was like -- It was -- It was so exciting,
you know, because there wasn't a big history
of filmmaking in Ireland.
And the idea that, you know, that this movie,
which was intensely Irish, an Irish story,
and, you know, Irish filmmaker, Irish producer,
the whole thing could kind of go the distance
and could become the thing that it became
was really exciting.
And I remember vividly, vividly, you know,
staying up all night to watch the Oscars.
It's obviously on a different timeline to Ireland,
and there was so much kind of excitement
and pride around that.
And I don't know, I think that sort of unlocked something
for me where I was like,
"Okay, maybe that's possible, too.
Maybe that slipstream that Jim and Neil, I guess,
you know, that slipstream, we could fall into that."
Yeah. Tom, what about for you?
I knew I wanted to work in the film and movies,
and I got on to a Harry Potter set,
and I got to see -- in my early teens --
and I got to see Alfonso Cuarón at work,
and I got to see the scale of it
and the cameras and the machine behind it.
And that's when I went, "That's what I'm gonna do."
And I was 12 or 13, and it was --
And I still get that feeling when I walk on a set
that it's enlightenment. It's incredible.
Galuppo: And Christine...
Vachon: Well, I think I will talk more about --
and I'll be brief -- about the movie
that made me decide I wanted to be a producer,
which was the other Barbie movie --
"Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story,"
which was Todd's first short film.
And I saw that film
and I was -- I didn't produce it.
I helped -- I helped him finish it.
So I got to see it in the edit room,
and I just had an epiphany
because it was so provocative.
It was so original, but it was entertaining.
And I realized, like, that's the --
that's the nexus. That's where I want to be.
And then I just turned to Todd
and said, "What are you doing next?"
And 30 years later, here you are.
Scott, I wanted to ask
specifically about casting for "The Color Purple,"
because you could draw on multiple casts
that have performed on the Broadway musical,
not to mention, you know, casting a newcomer or someone,
you know, outside of that Broadway community.
What was it that made you decide
to bring Fantasia back to the role?
Sanders: Well, obviously it's a team sport
and Blitz Bazawule, our director,
we had a very early conversation about the why
we were making this movie, and we were very clear
that we were not remaking Steven's classic film.
We were reimagining with a --
with a new point of view and we were --
And the conceit that our screenwriter,
Marcus Gardley, gifted all of us was,
"We're gonna go inside Celie's imagination
for the first time.
We're gonna see what a protagonist
that is struggling,
particularly in the first two acts of the movie,
what is going on with her.
And so that by the time we get to act three,
we really understand what her process has been."
And so we have magical realism built into the screenplay.
And so with all of that, we started to think
about literally a casting philosophy,
who -- we've got these multi generations.
We wanted OGs like Lou Gossett Jr to play Mister.
We wanted a younger, new-generation audience,
Halle Bailey to play young Nettie.
We did look very much at the Broadway alumni
and Danielle Brooks did audition.
It was not a gift.
She -- she did everything everybody else had to do
and won the day as Sofia.
And then Fantasia was, you know,
that's one of the hardest roles to cast.
And there were a lot of options
and a lot of conversations around it.
And Celie's someone you want to root for
and Fantasia Barrino
is someone you want to root for.
And she really has the DNA of Celie inside her
and her own personal story.
Orji: More "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter'"
right after this.
Orji: Welcome back
to "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
Tom and Ed, I loved watching "Barbie" and "Poor Things,"
almost as in conversation with one another.
Uh, they are similar in certain ways,
but for producing specifically,
they're incredibly intricate in terms of set pieces,
costume sequences, characters.
When you all read that script for the first time,
is there anything particularly outrageous
that you thought to yourself like,
"Oh, man, there's no way we can get this one done"?
A thousand things. Yes. Yeah.
And how ultimately did you get it done?
I mean, it started with a Mattel executive being shot
so that -- that went well
and fascism and gynecology and -- and all sorts.
And, no, I remember well.
Margot and I got the script, and we were sitting on the couch
and I'll never forget
and we were reading it and laughing and crying
and every six pages turning around going,
"That's never gonna happen.
Oh, my God, how are we gonna do this?"
And it was a long process with Mattel
and Warner Brothers to get the movie made,
but it was ultimately, they trusted in the process
and they trusted in Greta's vision.
And I think, as a producer, the main thing we can do
is trust our filmmaker and trust wholeheartedly
what Greta was gonna do with that movie.
And -- and we managed to, you know,
convince our larger partners of that and move forward.
Yeah. Was there any one set piece
that you were so excited to see on screen
that you were able to get?
I mean, the whole movie. I think the best --
One of, like, the cool memories was walking in
to the cul-de-sac on the --
We shot there for the first day,
and seeing the scale of those sets
and the dream houses were four stories high
and the whole cul-de-sac was built,
and the palm trees and the painted sites,
it was all painted. There was no green screen,
and you could see from corner to corner
on this huge soundstage,
because the dream houses didn't have walls.
And seeing all the Barbies
and the Kens and the costumes,
just having that moment of,
"Wow, we made it" was such like a --
a moment of relief as well as a moment of relaxation.
It was great. Yeah. And, Ed, what about for you?
Guiney: We'd done "The Lobster" with Yorgos,
and I think he read the book almost 10 years ago,
and soon afterward we were just talking about things,
and he said, "You know, you should read this book."
And I did. And I was like, "Okay.
Yeah, right. Challenging."
And, you know, it was -- it was something
that we kind of said we'd do,
but we knew that it would take a while
to kind of build it, to kind of make the case for it.
And it was, you know, two movies later,
we did "Sacred Deer" and then "The Favourite."
And it was really the fact
that "The Favourite" sort of was a hit
and that Emma Stone joined "Poor Things"
after working with Yorgos on "The Favourite."
That was the thing that kind of unlocked it.
And of course, Tony wrote this amazing --
Tony McNamara wrote this amazing script.
George, you and your film
were re-creating the March on Washington,
which is just one of the most iconic moments
of 20th-century American history.
How do you even go about -- about doing that?
Well, you try to do it three times.
Yeah.
Someone came up with this brilliant idea
that we should film it first.
The very beginning of the shoot?
At the very beginning, before we filmed anything else.
And 25 to 30 trucks took off from Pittsburgh.
COVID set in. We had to cancel.
Oh, no.
Then we start the permit process all over again.
April. So after we finished the rest of the film,
25, 30 trucks again. COVID again.
Oh.Man.
The next time that is available...
is August. Oh, my God.
By that time, I had edited the whole film together,
so I knew exactly what I needed.
But also when we went there, it was in August.
The march was in August, in 1963,
it was 83 degrees.
For us, it was 117 degrees.
No. And at the Lincoln Memorial,
when the sun would bounce off the marble,
there was nowhere for it to go
other than into the actors' bodies.
And there was this logistics of 500 extras
and the tent where they were stored,
and the heat and the wool suits,
because that's what they would have been in,
all of these incredible details.
But it turned out to be
when it should have been filmed.
It was complicated and a mess,
but an incredible blessing in the long run
because we were just now this flawless, perfect team
who were ready to take on the monster,
as opposed to using the monster
to train us how to be a team.
It was third time we figured it out,
and it was glorious and it was wonderful.
And it was horrifying because of the heat.
But it was glorious.
Christine, one thing I hear in my reporting
when it comes to filmmakers
is a desire for tested filmmakers from studios
who may be risk averse.
You have such a history of producing films
from first-time directors like Celine Song with "Past Lives."
How do you convince studios, financiers, fellow producers
to take that chance on a first-time filmmaker?
And do those filmmakers need a different type
of producing from you?
It's not easy because especially as our world
becomes more risk averse,
which it is, betting on a first-time director
becomes trickier and trickier to get people to do.
For me, the reason why Killer keeps doing it,
um, first of all, it's like --
it's like the anti cynicism.
And I feel like cynicism is, like,
the creativity killer.
It's just, it's the thing
that it destroys everything, I think.
And when you work with a first-time director,
you can't be cynical
because they're usually telling the story
that they've waited their whole lives to tell
and specifically to somebody like Celine.
You know, she is such an extraordinary storyteller.
And I couldn't teach her that.
I could teach her how to read a call sheet,
which we did, you know, but that's easy.
That's like, "Look at the top. Look at your name.
That's when you got to be there."
You know, "Now you know how to read a call sheet."
But she knew the story she wanted to tell
and all we had to do, uh,
you know, our company and David Hinojosa's company
was really just fill in around her
with the people that were the best possible partners
and really just support her, because, as I said,
she knew the story she wanted to tell.
And that's the one thing
I wouldn't really have been able to step in and do.
Orji: More with our producers roundtable right after this.
Orji: Welcome back
to "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
So much of producing is about tenacity
and staying power and just sticking with it.
And, Scott, you've been with "The Color Purple"
for so long, for a number of years. 25 years.
Yes. What was the biggest challenge
in bringing the book to stage as a musical,
and then bringing the musical to the movie screen?
You know, were there some jumps that had to happen?
Did some people need convincing?
Oh, my God, a lot of people needed convincing.
I mean, "The Color Purple" doesn't, on its surface,
seem like a story
you'd want to sing and dance to on Broadway.
And when you think about the cost of a Broadway ticket,
that becomes even more challenging.
And so the year
that "The Color Purple" opened on Broadway,
the African-American audience attendance
was 3.8% of all audiences combined.
So I had lots of people -- George knows this.
There were a lot of people that said,
"This show will never sell.
There's no audience for it. Who's coming to see it?"
And I just believed in Celie. I mean, to me,
she was the most remarkable triumph-over-adversity story
I had ever read, ever in fiction or nonfiction.
And just have your dream, have your vision,
have your own instinct, trust your gut.
Keep going. Don't listen to no's.
I mean, every once in a while, a no is helpful,
but very often, but very often,
it's based on fear or lack of knowledge,
or they don't understand what you're going for
and you have to just, you know --
Sometimes it's very lonely.
I mean, you can be -- It can be a very lonely profession.
But don't you think in some ways
the worst thing is a soft no?
Oh, yeah.
Galuppo: You'd rather have a hard no?
[ Laughter ]
A fast yes, a slow yes, a fast no.
Yeah. In that order.
Yes. Exactly, exactly.
Was Alice Walker -- when you approached her
about doing the possibility of a musical,
was she -- was she a fast yes?
She was a fast no. Got it. Oh, wow.
Yeah. I went to Berkeley to see her
and asked her and she said,
"You seem like a very nice, smart guy, but no."
And then I --
And then whoever said tenacity a minute ago,
I went home and waited a couple of months
and called her, and I said, "Could I fly you to New York
and let's spend a week and talk about
why I think it's right to do it?" Yeah.
And she said yes to that,
which was -- that was the crack in the window.
And then by the end of that week, she said,
"Okay, you can do it, I trust you."
Um, and -- and that began the journey, really.
Yeah. You just need that one little yes to something.
But it's, you know, it's...Yeah.
It's a journey. Long journey.
Natalie, ahead of Cannes, I was interviewing Todd Haynes,
and he told me that you and your producing team
were the ones that reached out to him
with the script for "May December"
to possibly direct the movie in the beginning.
Why was Todd the right filmmaker for you?
And with a script as idiosyncratic as "May December,"
what were you looking for in a director?
Jessica Elbaum sent me the script and I read it,
and I've been wanting to work with Todd for a long time,
and Christine knows I've been sending you
both scripts for years, and they've said no to me,
and I guess I'm a glutton for rejection.
[ Laughter ] Were they fast?
They were fast and kind, but fast.
Um, and when I read the script, I saw that it dealt
with so many of the questions about performance and identity
that I think Todd has explored in so many
of the movies I love
that he and Christine have made together,
"Safe" and "Far from Heaven"
and, um, "I'm Not There."
Like, very much these questions
of how we construct ourselves
from various aspects of performance
and, um, and I thought he might take to it, and he did.
And it was the best luck of my life.
Yeah, it was -- it was that yes that you've been waiting for.
It was that yes, yes.
Ed, you actually mentioned something
that I wanted to circle back to, which is, you know,
Yorgos had been wanting to make "Poor Things" for a while.
What were the factors that, in your mind,
had to finally come together to get this over the finish line?
And do you think it could have been made in Hollywood
5 or even 10 years ago?
It's a hard question to answer.
I think the times did move to kind of --
to create maybe an interest in the film
that maybe might not have been there in the past.
You know, we also really benefited from COVID
because we knew that we had the building blocks
in terms of Tony's script and Film4 in the UK,
who were developing the film with us,
and interest from Searchlight.
So Yorgos and Emma had a lot of time
to refine their thinking around how Bella would be created,
how the film would evolve,
and she was a producer on the film at that point.
So there was a kind of producorial element
to that conversation as well, around casting,
around imagining it.
And also we had a lot of time to kind of do the due diligence
as to how we would build these sets,
because 90% of the film
is shot on soundstages in Hungary,
in Budapest, and actually probably turns out
that we couldn't have done it anywhere other than Budapest,
you know, in terms of just the economics of it
and the tax credit and all that kind of stuff.
And we had the -- I was just reminded
of what Tom was saying earlier
when he was talking about being on the "Barbie" sets.
We had -- We built the set for Lisbon
in the Alexander Korda studio outside Budapest,
and it's the biggest soundstage in continental Europe.
It was the first time also that Yorgos
had ever worked on stages,
like, never shot on a set before
and really had never used lighting before.
And Robbie Ryan, who shot it, had, you know,
the favorite was all mainly natural light.
So it was a kind of complete sort of opposite to that.
But I remember when we first went on the Lisbon set
and I was -- It was kind of breathtaking.
And I remember Yorgos going around
kind of scratching his head and he was going --
And it was big. This was a big set.
He was like, "I don't know
how I'm gonna shoot all of Lisbon on this set.
It's like -- it's like --
How am I gonna chase, you know, Bella around this set?"
And it was kind of like, "Oh, my God."
I mean, it couldn't have been bigger, actually.
Orji: Coming right back
with our producers roundtable after the break.
Orji: And we're back
with more "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
Galuppo: I feel like we've been talking so much
about the tenacity
and the difficulty that comes with producing,
and there's been a lot of ink spilled lately
about work-life balances.
When you are on set and you're in the middle of it,
is there any way that you all decompress?
Is that something that is important in order
to maintain your creative spirit?
My husband and I got a house in Provincetown in Cape Cod,
and it was during COVID.
So we were able to do that and work remotely.
But being around nature --
I mean, I worked with our team and we cast the movie.
I mean, I was -- I was looking at seagulls
dropping clams on the beach while on the phone
with an agent arguing over a deal.
So it was -- It was the ability
to balance those two things.
You don't get to do that all the time.
Christine, what about for you?
You're a stalwart in independent film,
which isn't necessarily known
for a big breadth of time on set,
but is there a way to find a moment for yourself?
Well, I speak at a lot of colleges and institutions,
and about three or four years ago,
that question kind of started to come.
You know, people would say,
"How do you handle work-life balance?"
And the first time somebody asked me,
I was like, "What do you even mean?"
What is balance?
I -- I do feel like this new generation of --
of people coming up through the business
are restructuring it
in ways that sometimes I think some of --
Well, I count myself. Not everyone is my age here.
But some of us are a little like, "Back in my day..."
But, um, but I also really kind of appreciate
this sense of like,
"We understand we have to work hard.
We understand that these things don't just like, you know,
happen, you know, overnight or whatever.
But we also do need to figure out a way
to balance it in some ways
that aren't quite so detrimental
to our ability to have a life."
Ackerley: When you start a project,
you become 100% consumed with it.
But that's the joy of it.
Exactly. You go so deep into it
and, you know, on "Barbie" in particular,
the pressure of doing that film
and standing up to a 64-year-legacy with Barbie
and the, you know, the financial investment from the studio
and everyone's careers, you know,
and there were a million ways
we could have gotten the film wrong, but...
being so consumed and the joy of making the film,
it was -- it was a dance party every day, and it was so fun.
And even, you know, on the days off,
we would -- Greta had so many filmic references for "Barbie"
and we would put on, uh, on Sunday mornings,
we'd call Movie Church, and every Sunday
through prep and through the shoot,
we would get the crew together,
and we'd watch something at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
And that was a great way to --
You're still involved in the film
and you're still creating the family of the film,
but managing to look at it through a different lens.
You all have had collaborators
that you've worked with time and again.
When you find a creative collaborator
that could be lifelong, how do you know?
Is it, like, a "love at first sight" type of thing,
lightning from the heavens?
Or is it a gradual process where you realize
"This is someone I'm gonna be working with
for the rest of my life"?
I often think that I'm more interested in people
than ideas, if that makes sense.
You know, so that if you kind of connect
with somebody's brain, that you kind of --
And you have that kind of relationship
that's based on that,
then you're with them for the long haul.
But of course, it all just starts
with the first thing you do.
And the filmmakers I've worked with --
Yorgos or Lenny Abrahamson or Joanna Hogg
or any of those people --
I don't take it for granted at any point.
I know that, you know, the next time
I need to do the job and do it really well,
and you have to kind of keep on sort of tweaking it
and trying to improve and all that kind of stuff.
But, of course, there is great, you know,
there's great community and friendship
and it's a very important part of my life,
those relationships and those friendships.
Yeah. Tom, what about for you?
Ackerley: I think for us,
we had a really clear vision from the start.
And that was, you know, female films and female storytellers.
And no matter how big the films get or small or whatever,
we have a very clear idea
of what we want to do and what we want to achieve.
And that won't change and hasn't changed.
And it's given us that ability to keep working.
And we have such, over time, created such a shorthand.
And we all -- I mean, Margot jokes
that Josey is my second husband, so it goes --
And then I think the same with the filmmakers.
You know, we're lucky to have repeat business
with certain filmmakers, Emerald Fennell being one.
And we did "Promising Young Women,"
and we did a good enough job
to do her second film, "Saltburn."
But we're lucky each time she asks us to come back
and hopefully she asks us again. Completely.
Christine, what about for you?
I've been with Todd for 30 years,
and I've been with my business partner,
Pam Koffler, for, um,
probably also 30 years.
Actually, Todd, probably a few years longer.
Having the partnership with Pam
allows me in many ways to have the partnership with Todd
because it provides such an extraordinary amount
of stability.
And one of the things I'd say about those partnerships,
I think it's better if you don't
have the same taste, you know?
I mean, if you both have taste, you have to have taste,
but there's different kinds of taste,
and I find that it invigorates me
and wakes me up when Pam likes something
and it makes me have to look at it again
and say, "Oh, okay, I see why you do. I get it."
And it allows us to sort of cross-pollinate, you know?
I mean, look, the relationships with directors,
that's a whole other -- almost a whole other panel.
And the relationship between a producer and a director
is built out of so many things, you know --
trust, creative complicity and the ability, I think,
for a producer to sort of snow-plow to a certain degree
and help a director find the place
that they can do their best work. Yeah.
Well, going off of that, George,
I'm actually gonna throw that to you
because Christine brought up such an interesting point
and you pulled double duty on your project
as a director and producer.
For you --
I was thrilled to work with myself.
Yeah. [ Laughter ]
Best relationship you ever had.
I am wondering, though, as a director with that mindset,
what do you -- what do you hope
or what do you look for in a producorial partner?
A sense of safety
as you're venturing off the cliff.
Yeah.
That you know what you're doing.
And then there's an aspect where you don't know
what you're doing, and you're also looking to try
to create this incredible safe place for the actors,
and therefore, so that they can freely and joyfully, uh,
walk off the cliff and discover something that's startling
and amazing and wonderful.
So a sense of safety is very important
and a sense of feeling protected.
And, Natalie, like George,
you're -- you're pulling double duty on your movie.
You're acting as producer and star.
So I am wondering when it comes to holding those two positions,
are there times where they are in conflict with each other,
and are there times where one makes one easier?
Well, it's very empowering.
After, I mean, 30 years of being an actress
to now start producing because I think there's a level
where when you're just acting, you're being protected,
and you can just focus on your art
and not be aware of all the craziness that's going on.
But then once you get behind the curtain,
you're like, "Oh, my God,
I can't believe all this stuff has been happening."
And you realize you can help make the environment
that you want to work in and it's helpful to be like,
"Oh, there's a problem, I can help fix it."
And I think it's similar to what all of you
have been saying about kind of de-dramatizing.
I think that's where the conflict can come in
because like, you know, a lot of shit,
and like the rest of the actors don't need to know,
you go back to the set and you know that --
And you both worked with actresses
who were producing also.
So you're aware of all this stuff
and you really can't share that,
like, you really need to go back
and make everyone feel like everything
is just smooth and fine.
Orji: Don't go anywhere.
More "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter'"
returns right after the break.
Orji: Welcome back
to "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
Galuppo: Christine, you've -- you've worked so heavily
in independent film for so long,
and I feel like the headlines heralding the, you know,
the death of independent film kind of pop up
every, you know, once every five years.
Now we're still digging our way out of the pandemic
and the industry is in a different place.
But I'm wondering, what do you say to people
who decry the end of independent film?
Vachon: But is that what they're decrying,
or are they decrying the end of the theatrical experience?
Because, to me, I mean, independent film really,
you know...
I think what's really gotten murky
is what is an independent film.
I mean, I'd say all of us here have made movies with studios
that have also had an independent element.
So in some ways, your question to me
is about the theatrical experience,
which I think we are all grappling with.
I would say, you know, not to speak for all of you,
but I know I'm grappling with it
and trying to figure out what makes something theatrical.
How important is it to sustain that experience,
and what do we have to do as producers
to keep it relevant?
What do you have to do as producers to keep it relevant?
You know, when I first started out,
it was all, you know, theatrical was all there
was available to us,
so we didn't have to think about it that much.
It's like you made a movie. That's what happened to it.
And then over the years, it's gotten sort of parsed.
Ed, I know you do TV as well, Mm-hmm.
so we find ourselves really like,
"What makes it theatrical? What makes it television?
How do you figure out that, like,
precise storytelling path?"
And that's been a lot more --
for the lack of a better word -- work.
But it's not really work. It's more about training
a different instinct for me, you know,
that I didn't maybe have at the beginning of my career.
Interesting. Speaking of the theatrical experience,
I feel like this year theatricality
is synonymous with "Barbie." Like, I think that --
Yeah, you can't -- You can't get away from it.
I'm wondering, Tom, at what point did you --
did you and the team realize, like, "Oh, this --
this could be bigger than maybe even we anticipated?"
I don't think you ever know until you see it.
You know, I think -- And even then.
Even then, we're still trying to work it out.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, you can't --
You can never re-create something in it.
You are catching lightning in a bottle.
It became a cultural event and...
You know, that first weekend it opened,
we were in London, Margot and myself
and David and Greta and Noah were in New York,
and we were going cinema to cinema.
And you saw the lines and I remember, like,
I always remember that Spielberg-Scorsese story
when "Jaws" came out. Oh, yeah.
They'd go drive around the block and they saw the lines
and I didn't think that could exist anymore.
And we saw it and we saw the lines of pink,
and we saw how people of different socio backgrounds
and shapes and sizes and colors and religions
came together and shared that experience.
And it was just, like, mind opening.
It was incredible.
And it shows, you know, how ever hard a movie is,
or however long a movie takes, to bring people together
for that two hours is something that you can --
It gives you goosebumps. It's incredible.
I'm sort of hopeful that the kind of tectonic plates
are shifting a little bit when you see "Barbie,"
which is its own new thing,
and "Oppenheimer" and, you know,
the movies that we're all talking about here today,
that there's a kind of boldness in the storytelling and even,
you know, you think of Celine's film,
which is delightful but absolutely theatrical,
like, that is a film you want to fall into,
like, it's delicate and it's character-driven,
but it's absolutely theatrical.
And I sort of hope that kind of as peak TV wanes
and people are moving
maybe a bit more to the mainstream in television,
that actually movies are gonna get bolder
and, you know, maybe not so reliant
on the kind of old IP that's been around
for the last 5 or 10 years,
and that maybe things that are more creator-driven,
more filmmaker-driven are --
are gonna be more appealing because the old way was,
you know, you go to the cinema every Friday
and then you go, "What movie am I gonna see?"
-Yeah. -Now you go,
"What movie am I gonna see?" And then you decide
whether you're going to go to the theater or not,
or do you watch it on the streamers?
I hope we're gonna move into a phase of kind of
bigger storytelling for the cinema.
More spectacular, bigger swings,
edgier stuff. You know, I hope.
Yeah, we had so many people say
that was the first time they'd been back since COVID.
"It was the first time I'd been to cinema with my mom"
was a big one. And to your point,
the amount of cinema owners that would reach out and say,
"You saved our business. Like, we -- we had --
We were on shutting down and it saved the business."
It was amazing.
Well, George and I started our careers in the theater,
and we've known that magic of a communal experience.
There's nothing like it. There's just nothing like it.
And the same thing happens in cinema.
I mean, watching your movie
with all those people in costume and all ages,
and it was -- it's a remarkable thing
when -- when that happens
and you get that shared experience.
And the potency of the scale.
Yes, yes, yes.
My analogy is that when you're in the theater
and a play is working, you lean forward.
-Mm. -Mm-hmm.
When you're watching a movie and the film is working,
you lean backwards because of the scale,
because of the scale of the event.
And it's both of those dynamics
that are very different but extraordinary.
Yeah. You're taking it all in in both ways.
Yeah. Because, you see, in theater,
they're the same size as you. Yeah.
So you go, "Oh, I recognize what that is."
And then in film, you're going,
"They're bigger than me.
And can I find my way inside of their story?"
Yeah. And so it's that dynamic
that I think is really thrilling to --
to have -- have that shift happen.
Orji: More "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter'"
right after this.
Orji: Welcome back
to "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
Galuppo: What's the best piece of advice
you received from a fellow filmmaker
about starting out or enduring in this industry as a producer?
You know, trusting your gut,
trust your instincts about something,
whether it's a piece of material or a person or a filmmaker.
And I know that when I haven't and when I've done things
that I think might make sense for kind of market reasons
or because they feel smart
and I'm not that connected to them,
it's always ended in tears.
So that's -- that's the bit of advice that I try
and remember all the time.
Wolfe: The best piece of advice
was when you get involved in the project,
make sure there's a piece inside of you that deeply,
deeply loves it
because at one point, it will become hell.
And that's what you grab on to to push you through
when it becomes difficult or challenging.
This deep love for a project.
Galuppo: When you're living with it for so long.
Exactly, exactly.
Tom, what about you?
We've been so lucky. We've been mentored by so many
of our kind of idols in the producing space.
And I remember Dede Gardner said to me really early on,
"Taste is the only currency you can trade in,"
and it really helped us focus of not making --
It's kind of the same, you know, not making a decision
for strategy or a financial reason.
It's just make the movie because you think that movie
is gonna be the best movie it can be,
and it really helped focus us.
Christine, what about...
I didn't know many producers when I --
I don't think I knew any when I started out.
So this is kind of advice
I have given myself over the years,
which is really at the end of the day,
a crisis is only when somebody gets hurt.
Everything else is just, like, you know,
a pain in the ass, a challenge,
a problem, but a crisis --
That's the only reason to ever use that word.
Totally agree. It's a marathon.
It's not a sprint.
And what George said I so relate to,
which is you have to care about the story.
You have to care about the characters
and the protagonists and their journey,
quite frankly, because it's a long slog.
And so you need to be in it every day
and you're putting out little fires every day.
There's not a day, I think, that goes by that your day
goes exactly as it was planned when you woke up that morning.
Even if it's 3:00 a.m. when someone calls you and says,
such and such just happened.
So be prepared, be nimble, and know it's not --
know it's not a sprint.
Yeah. Natalie, what about for you?
Um, I think just working with people you love and --
and staying a team, like, that when shit goes down,
which it does, inevitably, that you stay together.
Problem solving together.
Yeah.
Well, my final question for you all is
what do you think you all would be doing
if you weren't producers and filmmakers?
What does the producorial capacity lend to,
uh, other professions? Yeah.
I'd be a historian.
I'd be a short-order cook.
I was gonna say restaurateur, 'cause it's got a lot...
You see, you have bigger visions than me.
That's why you have the house in Provincetown, and I don't.
No, but it's -- it's -- it's putting
all these things together
and -- and then trying to please an audience.
Galuppo: Yeah. I want to hear what Natalie would do.
Oh. Well, I feel like --
I mean, I feel like the thing that comes to my head
is just being, like, full-time parent,
because I feel like it's very similar skills
of just, like, taking care of everything
and making sure everyone is supported in the way
they can become their best selves, you know?
Ed, what about for you?
Well, uh, my mom and my dad were doctors,
and I think I -- very early on I decided
I wanted to get involved in film,
like, when I was very young and wanted to produce.
Weirdly, I had this instinct around wanting to produce
when I was in my teens, even, my late teens.
Um, I think it was also partly a reaction
against what my parents were doing or what they did,
and partly that.
But -- but then when I was a little older,
when I was in my mid-20s,
I was like, "God, should I have done medicine?
Should I have been a doctor?" So there's part of me that still
has a kind of curiosity around that,
but I don't know if I would have made
a very good doctor, but... Tom, what about for...
Ackerley: I was an assistant director,
so I went into film really young.
Similar. My parents were in a different field,
and I knew I wanted to make movies
from such a young age.
I grew up in the UK and the UK film environment is so strong.
So I went that route and then went into producing,
so if I wasn't producing, I'd -- I'd probably still be,
you know, assistant director, but if not, what I thought --
I'd probably be in events of some kind, sport events
or music events or something like that.
I think of the show formula one put on,
and, like, orchestrating that on a global level is incredible.
-It's not too late, Tom. -Yeah.
Side job.
Well, you all, I can't thank you enough
for this conversation.
It's been enlightening and fun and incredible.
So to finish things off here, a quick toast to you all.
I drank -- I drank all mine.
Good. That's what we should be doing right now. Thank you.
Cheers.
Oh.
I don't know about you,
but I feel like we learned so much today
from the people who make movie magic happen.
And now that you know what a producer
actually does, I don't know.
It seems pretty easy to make $1 billion at the box office.
I mean, am I right? Am I right? I'm probably wrong.
But until next time, guys, I'm Yvonne Orji
and this is "Off Script with 'The Hollywood Reporter.'"
♪♪