♪♪
Welcome to "Off Script with The Hollywood Reporter."
I'm your host, Yvonne Orji,
here at the gorgeous Georgian Hotel
in Santa Monica, California.
For years, "The Hollywood Reporter"
has brought the film industry's top creatives
together for inspiring and surprising conversations,
and today is no different.
When it comes to filmmaking,
from the very first "Action" to the final "That's a cut,"
It's all about bringing the director's vision to life.
And today, you're about to hear from six visionary directors
who made some of this year's most talked about films.
That's right. Today we have Blitz Bazawule
of "The Color Purple,"
Bradley Cooper of "Maestro,"
Ava DuVernay of "Origin,"
Greta Gerwig of "Barbie,"
Todd Haynes of "May December,"
and Michael Mann of "Ferrari."
♪♪
Normally they're behind the camera,
but today, they're on the record
and just a little off script with "The Hollywood Reporter."
Hey, Rebecca, they're all yours.
Thanks, Yvonne.
We're here with "The Hollywood Reporter"
directors roundtable.
How do you guys like to start? Do you actually call action?
Greta, what's your preferred way of diving
into a scene?
I guess I say "When you're ready."
I usually use, "The sun's going down."
[Laughter]
I don't even yell it on set.
Like, the first AD does that. Like, I just whisper.
And like, often I'm also, like, so nervous
that I don't want to, like, transfer that energy into --
So I just go, somebody's job is to just be the confident one.
Like, I'm just going to be here, looking at this monitor,
going, "Please work."
I call action, or I have action called.
It took me a long time in my filmmaking to feel confident
not to be the one calling action
because, you know, I thought, I need to be doing it.
And now I'll just tap my AD, and he or she will do it.
But I find it important to do
because there's more than the actor
who is working in that moment
and that you need to call attention
to everyone on the crew that we are now focused.
Stop, and now we're going to we're going to look here.
And so I like to do it. What about you?
I do it because I feel like the actors
appreciate a moment of just collective, "Okay."
The energies can align
and we can all be in sync with each other, you know?
But it should be gentle, of course.
Do you -- What do you do, Bradley?
Well, I think because I'm in the movie,
I have a leg up in that way that I --
I have more sort of tools to create an environment.
So actually, I have hand signals with the sound mixer
and the camera operator, and I don't call action.
And I'll sort of, after everything's set up,
I'll just sort of start talking and bring the actors.
And often they don't -- they don't know we're rolling.
And then they're like, "The scene's over."
And they're like, "Huh?"
Yeah, that sort of try to do that so it's --
And also, I'm Lenny,
so it's not like -- I'm not breaking in
and out of character. So I really --
it's really kind of -- I can --
I have much more ability to, like, create this illusion,
you know, so it's -- it's easier.
Ava: So you stayed in character in between takes.
Yeah. So Leonard Bernstein
was directing everybody. Leonard. Yeah.
I mean, I would go -- I would show up with Kazu here
or the makeup artists at, like, 1:00 a.m.
And then Lenny would be done before crew call,
and then I would -- Yeah, Lenny all day.
And then he was different ages.
So the crew was like, oh, we got young, Lenny.
This is gonna be a quick day.
Old Lenny, it's like, oh, here we go.
He's gonna walk from there to there.
You know, it was -- It was crazy. Yeah.
How important is it choosing
what your first scene that you're going to shoot is?
How does that sort of set a tone?
What goes into the thinking?
Ava, what was your -- what did you start with?
On "Origin" -- Gosh, I remember
about an hour into the first day,
I thought, "Why? Why did I choose this?"
It was a matter of location availability
and just I couldn't dictate.
It was purely a logistics decision.
But it was the day that I woke up that morning.
First morning, Monday, 4:00 a.m. call,
for a thousand background actors to heil Hitler.
And I thought, you know what? Let's just start it off.
Let's just do this. And so it was the morning,
and it just -- so much, so many background actors,
that action, that intention was the first thing we did.
And in some ways, the film is what it wants to be.
And it set a tone for the seriousness
of the subject matter, the intention with which
we were going to work throughout the production.
And that, oh, this is really about something
that we need to keep our eyes on for the whole crew.
I'm not that concerned with the first day.
What I'm concerned with is when in the schedule
I want to have the most pivotal and important scenes.
And so for me, that's usually around week 4 or 5,
because, regardless of how much we've all prepped,
you learn about making the film organically and emotionally.
Sure. Intuitively as you go.
And so you know more about making this for everybody.
Man: What were those scenes in "Ferrari?"
The scene when Enzo and Lara have their big blow up.
And then, of course, the last scene in the film,
which is key.
So I wanted those scenes to be in about week four.
I wanted to do all the car work in the beginning
and get it out of the way so we could shrink wrap down
into a smaller unit that's very organic
and shoot the dramatic scenes.
And of course, it did not work out that way at all.
So we wound up doing all the dramatic scenes first --
I was going to say, I thought you did the cars last, right?
That's why we wanted to do the cars last.
And then they were done quickly.
Like everything in the mountains was shot in one day.
Wow wow. One day?
Really.Oh, wow.
Which is crazy.
Man: That's crazy.
Greta, what's the day that you were sort of moving toward?
Was it -- Was there a particular scene that you had in your head?
I tend to like to shoot the beginning
of the movie at the end,
because you're not so tense about it.
I mean, you know, you have some ease with it.
But on this one, we actually shot
the whole beginning of it in the beginning,
and it was like a -- it was like a silent film that was unfolding
because the whole wake up sequence
and everyone was in their own strange houses.
And it was -- And so it was like a week of,
like a silent movie, which was great
because then there were lots of words after that.
But everyone became very in sync.
And everyone on the crew, everyone was like a dancer.
Sound and camera and everyone was...
Which makes total sense because the opening is fantastic.
The camera just moves around.
You understand the entire culture of Barbie's world
and, you know, in just one whole set of moves.
There are so many moments where I'm amazed
what you got away with, in a wonderful way.
And I was wondering if there are moments
that you're amazed that you got away with.
Yes, there are many moments I'm amazed that I got away with.
There's just some very obscure jokes which I can't believe
are in the movie, like a Proust Barbie joke.
That's a real -- That was, I don't know --
I heard one woman in New York laugh at that joke,
so I thought, "Oh, that's for you."
There's a Stephen Malkmus Pavement joke,
which I was like, that's a deep cut
even, you know, and things like that.
There's a dream ballet of Kens, the things like that.
[Stammers] There's a ton of stuff in it -- you know,
when you make strong stylistic choices,
which is true of everyone at this table,
it's like you kind of have to get behind it 100%
because you're like, well, I guess I'm doing it this way.
I don't have another way.
And then you think, well, maybe I should have covered myself.
Too late now. It's this.
And I think that that's, like, a -- but there's sort of freedom
in realizing there's no way --
there's no way, you're just going to do, like --
you're going to do it in one shot,
or this is going to go into this dream sequence --
Like there's these kind of moments where you're like,
I guess I've committed, you know?
♪♪
Todd, there's a scene early in "May December"
that feels to me like it really defines the tone
for the movie, and I'm sure people
have asked you about it.
It's when Julianne Moore opens the fridge
and says, "There's not enough hot dogs,"
and you have this dramatic zoom and the score changes.
I just want to know what were you thinking
in terms of setting the tone and particularly about that scene?
Well, that scene sets up this whole barbecue sequence,
when Natalie Portman is coming for the first time
to introduce herself
to the woman she's going to study to play in a film.
But the thing that I was thinking about
whenever I was talking about their first days
is the music that we used in the film was inspired
by a Michel Legrand score
from a Joseph Losey film "The Go-Between," from 1971,
and I knew "May December" needed a very strong tonal frame
to sort of create this sense that you're really questioning
what you're watching all the way through,
and it entices the viewer into that discomfort
of feeling the ground shift beneath you,
which is really what happens throughout the film.
And so I thought, okay, this music is --
we also had 23 days to shoot the movie in Savannah, Georgia,
so everything had to be so meticulously planned.
And it meant though, that it was like what you were saying.
You bring everybody in to this adventure,
these risks that you're taking as a director,
these choices that you're taking as a director.
But it doesn't work unless you're all...
That's right. ...sharing that concept.
So that music, this score from that film became my example
of what I wanted to do with the score -- very bold,
very in-your-face score that sits right in front
from the very beginning.
And so the very first setup we did was just Natalie Portman
driving up to the community center,
where she does a flower arrangement scene with Julianne.
And right away I was like, "Hit it, Ben," my assistant.
And all of a sudden we go, ♪ da dum da dum ♪
This music, and the whole crew is like,
"What the fuck?"
Like, what movie are we making?
And we played the cues to this other score
through the entire shooting of the movie,
but it put us all in the same tonal space, you know?
And then it was ultimately something
I had to have my composer adapt.
But that scene with that --
with just a sting from that score,
it marks that moment with the refrigerator,
sets up a tonal, you know, freedom, I think --
a relaxation that there's going to be humor
against this very dark story.
Well, I try to have the music ahead of time.
And because it becomes, as you're talking about,
kind of a poetic modular. So what is this scene about?
Again, it was a certain emotional quotient
that I can't put into words.
And if you have one piece of music for a pivotal scene
or for the whole thing, for me that's kind of a --
kind of a poetic modular for something.
And so I try to have it ahead of time.
Rebecca: Blitz, I heard you say that when there was
first discussion of making "The Color Purple"
as a movie, your thought was, "Why?"
But obviously, you ultimately became persuaded.
What was it that persuaded you?
Well, it was actually going back to Alice Walker's words --
you know, her brilliant, Pulitzer-Prize-winning book.
And those first words, "Dear God," you know,
for me were, like, the anchor.
Because immediately I understood
that whoever writes letters to God
has an imagination, period.
And then I kind of started to break through that
and go, well, if they have an imagination,
how wide can we push this idea of this imagination?
And throughout, the challenge was how do you not be redundant,
you know, for a piece of material
that's been this explored
and we all know all its machinations.
What are you actually going to contribute?
So that was my biggest challenge.
And so once I found this idea of this imaginative space,
then it became about what are the elements
that are going to help us explore better.
And some of them were visual, some of them were sonic.
But also, I also could think about myself and go,
you know, when I think about people
who are -- have dealt with trauma and abuse,
you know, they're often miscategorized as,
you know, being docile or waiting to be saved.
I think nothing could be further from the truth.
It's really people who are in their heads,
trying to figure out how to work their way out.
Right? And so I knew very quickly that,
you know, that pathway was going to open up so much opportunity
for us to actually contribute to the canon.
And I'm so thankful that I was allowed to push forth.
I remember our very first day
with our two girls, Nettie and Celie,
and I wanted to begin there
because I wanted to begin in a space of innocence
and a place of beauty for the whole cast,
you know, just to go and the crew to go
whatever happens here,
whatever darkness we're going to kind of go through,
we're going to find light at the end.
Ava, the book that "Origin" is based on is this incredible,
sort of scholastic book, Casteby Isabel Wilkerson.
It is not in any way an obvious cinematic adaptation to me.
When I read it, I maybe would have seen a docuseries.
You went a whole other way with it.
Where did you get the idea to to frame it the way that you did?
Well, I read the book the first time.
I didn't understand it, and that frustrated me.
I read it again, and I started to kind of get a feel for it.
And by the third time I read it,
I thought, people need to know this information.
And I had done "13th" before
and had considered doing it as a docuseries,
but I know that
the characters, they started to call to me --
because they're characters within this nonfiction book,
embedded in the historical tales that the author shares.
One I talked about my first day
was all of these background actors heiling Hitler.
The way -- The reason we staged that scene
is because there was one man, August Landmesser,
who refused to heil.
And I thought, well, I want to know more about his life.
And so there's nothing else about him.
So I had to research that, shoot that put, it on its feet,
and bring actors in to flesh out his life
and the life of his spouse.
And so those characters throughout history
that the author references,
I wanted to animate them with real life,
with flesh and bone on them.
But also, when you're thinking about the structure,
I said, well, is this crash?
Is this like a bunch of stories kind of together
that touch a bit this tangentially?
Or could I find a character that delivered it to us?
And, when you read the book really closely,
you see Isabel, the author. She's speaking in her voice.
She is discovering. She is the delivery system.
And when I researched her even further,
she lost people in her life within a 16-month span
while she was writing the book.
Now that's a character, and that is someone
that I want to get to know, someone that I feel empathy for,
someone that I want to deliver this information for us.
And so, it's an unadaptable book.
And that's always the kind of books you want to adapt.
Lights, camera, and lots more action
with our directors right after the break.
♪♪
There's a quality with Isabel's character
where she's often having to persuade skeptical people
about her book,
and I wondered if there was any of you in that,
in having to persuade skeptical people about your idea.
Yes. Yeah.
Did I say I made it independently?
Yes.
Yes, it really was.
I mean, this isn't the kind of film that you take to a studio
and say, "Can you give me millions of dollars
to make a story about a woman who's going through a trauma,
and through that trauma, writes a book
about very dense subject matter
that she believes will save humanity?
There's no actual enemy or antagonist.
The antagonist is all of us."
Like, that pitch meeting doesn't go well at the studios.
And so we just didn't do it.
We just decided to take that off the table and not ask,
can I populate this with the actors that I love?
We only have 37 days. I know that,
but I'm going to do three countries in 37 days.
And so sometimes you just don't ask.
So there wasn't a lot of no's.
And also, I tried to surround myself
with people who saw me reaching for something
and who supported that.
You know, there was one friend of mine
who I leaned on so heavily in this.
His name is Guillermo del Toro. He got me through this.
I get emotional. He got me through this.
You know what I mean? He got me through this.
From the script, when people were saying,
"I don't get it." He was like, "Mi amiga,
keep going, keep going. You must."
Just with the fervor, the Guillermo fervor.
It's like, okay, I'm going to keep going.
And every step of the way, he'd call me during the week,
check on me, casting. I heard about this,
came into the editing room, just pop up, and I'd be like,
"What are you doing here, GDT?"
"Just coming to hang out.
Let's see what's going on." You know?
And just really that friend who said this is untraditional.
This is a little different.
But you deserve space to do that.
You can do it, too. Keep trying. Keep pushing.
So I think the answer to the question is, yes,
there were a lot of people saying no,
but I surrounded myself with the people who said,
try it, try it.
Yeah. And that kept me going.
Does that resonate for anybody?
Uh, yeah.
[Laughter]
Everybody said no to "Maestro." Yeah. Every studio passed.
A studio I had made so many movies with
that were also big risks that worked out.
And luckily, Scott Stuber, man, one guy,
he said, look, I trust you. It's crazy.
A movie about a fluid male character
who's a classical musician,
and half it's in black and white,
and you're going to shoot it on 35 millimeter
black and white stock?
So I can't change it?
And he said, yeah. And that was --
And then it was just surrounding myself with people --
Luckily Guillermo also, always there.
What a beautiful man. Woman: Beautiful man.
Can I do a segue real quick?
Because I wanted to get it in here.
Because -- I'm going to try not to get emotional,
but, you know, I've been an actor
for so many years, still an actor,
and one thing I learned from this man
was I put myself on tape for "Public Enemies"
years and years ago, and I didn't get it.
And he wrote me a letter.
I got a letter from Michael Mann saying,
"Thank you for auditioning.
And, you know, I see something in you."
And I kept that on my bookshelf for so many years.
And, you know, you never know the impact you have.
And I learned from that. Thank you.
And anybody that auditions, I always write them.
And that's because of you. It's so hard.
I can't imagine putting myself in the position
of actors who come in. Hard films --
I know, but you're Michael Mann, you know?
So it's, like, beautiful lessons.
Is this the Michael Mann tribute section?
Because I just have a quick -- Yeah, do it.
A have a quick... We all have.
I have a quick story, if I may.
So Michael and I have a special relationship
because Michael is the reason that I thought
that I could become a filmmaker.
Michael Mann.
I was a publicist on his film, "Collateral,"
and I was one of the group of unit publicists
and had always been on sets and seen things happen,
but I had never seen
anyone shooting in communities of color
in Los Angeles, where I was from.
"Collateral" also had a cast of people who looked like me.
I know everyone thinks Tom Cruise,
but Jada Pinkett and Jamie Foxx and Javier Bardem,
as well as Mark Ruffalo were also in that film.
And Michael was shooting in East L.A.
he was shooting in South Central.
He was shooting in the communities that I grew up in,
and he was shooting with these newfangled cameras
called digital cameras.
I said, God, these are fast. What is he doing?
And he's moving around and he's doing his thing.
And just watching him being on that set
as a young publicist made me think,
"Wait, he's shooting with black and brown people
in black and brown communities with cameras that are fast?"
Like, I'm going to look into this.
And just seeing the way that he controlled the set
and really was so visionary in what he wanted.
And so all throughout my, you know, Sundance --
all my journey, people say, how did you get into this?
I always speak his name. I always say, Michael Mann.
Your films were so absolutely distinctive
from the very beginning.
They established themselves stylistically
and tonally with such force and such confidence.
But they were your lowest budget films, obviously.
But you built on that. That's sort of how I feel.
Somewhat how I've been able to build a career.
Well, what is it like for you to know about the impact
that these choices that you've made in your career have had?
It's a surprise.
Is it? Yeah, absolutely.
Because, you know, to me, I just pretty much occupy a present,
looking to the next thing I want to do.
That is, you know, go forward.
But the -- as I was saying, I just -- the -- when actors --
actors come in, they put their, you know --
their heart and soul out there into something
and it's such a difficult position.
And that's what motivated me to, you know.
But this was a small role, very small role.
It wasn't like, you know. Michael: Yeah.
Thank you. [Laughter]
Anyway.
I think it's important because I think you have
a reputation in this business as a hard-nosed guy.
And to me, you're just a teddy bear.
She's ruining your rep.
Don't tell anybody.
[Laughter]
♪♪
I didn't realize until yesterday
that ARRAY, Ava's company,
had released Blitz's movie about five years ago.
So there's a lot of connections here.
I mean, I say thank you to you all the time,
but, you know, I'll take this opportunity to say --
since it's we're giving flowers, you know, it's --
I went to Ghana with $40,000
because nobody would even look or think
that I had the ability or it was even worth exploring --
an African filmmaker making a movie in his country.
Went to Ghana with a community
who had never made a feature film before.
We all learned. I remember we were on YouTube going like,
"What does a -- What does the first AD do?"
Like, no one knew anything about anything.
And Ava's amazing company, ARRAY, were like,
"I see something here."
It became Ghana's first film to be on Netflix.
Because that's what Beyoncé saw and called me to do
"Black is King" with her. Man: Wow.
And fast forward, you know, making "The Color Purple" --
You know how you go -- [Laughs]
You don't know how you arrive at these places,
and you have no idea how each decision,
big or small, affects your trajectory.
And so we find ourselves in these, you know,
pioneering positions that you can only get here
based on goodwill, kindness of heart.
You know what I mean? Of people.
So I'm a deep beneficiary of your grace,
and your -- and I'm deeply thankful.
And I mean, the journey just keeps going.
I'm amazed to be sitting at this table, too, with the likes.
I mean, this is like, you know,
an incredible table of brilliant, brilliant artists.
And so, yeah, I'm -- you know, I could cry.
I know. I feel that.
Blitz: Don't cry, don't cry.
Greta: You know, directing is
you're with this crew that you're doing it together,
but in a certain way, it can -- it's lonely
it's individual. It can be very lonely.
And to be able to talk and to be together
and I've, you know, had the privilege of, you know,
running into you, and you'd already directed something,
and you tell me something, and then we talk at a luncheon.
And it's just, like, you see people.
And then you came to a dinner and it was --
And everybody's trading stories.
And there's something about it where it's not -- it's not --
it's a -- it's a craft in that it's passed person to person.
I really believe that, that there's a way in which
you learn it from people and with people.
And I was actually feeling lucky
because I felt like we were on parallel tracks.
We were also pitching during COVID.
Yes, I know. Like, we were the --
I was technically one of the first to pitch during COVID.
Yes. And so my COVID pitch
became, like -- we started sharing it,
you know what I mean? And --
I saw your COVID pitch. You saw my COVID pitch?
I saw your COVID pitch. She saw my COVID pitch.
Because I was like, I'd never seen it pitched that way.
And I was like, what do people do?
And they were like -- And then I was like,
okay, that's how we do it.
And you talked about magical realism
and you had all these examples, and I was like, okay.
You get a gift from somebody and you pass it on.
That's really what it is.
I mean, I learned things from Kubrick and from George Cukor.
I mean, these are things you just pass on.
It's very gratifying, what you said. Thank you.
When Blitz was talking about working with the studio,
I thought about something I've heard you say on "Barbie,"
which is that your motto was "drive it like you stole it."
Can you explain that, what that means?
Well... Man: I'm stealing that.
It was -- Yeah. Well, it was actually --
I mean, Margot, who I had as a producer,
she'll always, you know, say, like,
"Does anybody have anything else they want to say?"
And I was like, they gave us the yes, Margot.
Just leave the room.
We don't need to look for another thing. Let's just go.
But for me, it's been lucky within the studio in terms
of people have taken these big risks
and gotten behind it and said yes.
And even if it's a yes?
Then you're just like, it's all I need.
For me, like, I really believe in showing, don't tell.
Just go, this is a glass and this is water
and you can see it. That's it.
And they'll go, yeah, it's a glass of water, I see it.
And so going into that pitch, I was like, I can go in
and I can talk about all these things I'm going to do.
I'm never going to get greenlit. But I can go in and show him.
And guys, we went in, I found music,
I found -- I mean, that thing was alive in the pitch deck.
Because here's my other thing. If you greenlight this,
well, that's what you greenlit.
You can't go back and go, "Blitz, you --
You're doing all this" -- No, no, no.
Guys, I told you what I was going to do.
And trust me, there were phone calls about,
"You know, maybe we should." And I go, no.
[Laughter] I mean, it was --
And I also got to say, my first AD sent me the schedule,
and I looked at that stuff and I said, guys,
if I commit to this schedule
and I shoot these first five days, I'll be out of here.
And it's not that I can't direct,
it's just that it's ordinary people talking
and someone is going --
You have to show a little razzle dazzle.
-So true. -Yes.
I literally had to call Fatima and go,
I know I'm about to put everybody in a crazy position.
I know you've got 100 dancers to get ready. That's so smart.
But we're going in.
And we're going in -- These first three days,
we're going to do three of our biggest --
We shot the huge, massive dance number, like, day two.
I think that's an important conversation,
the management of the people
who have given you the millions of dollars to do the thing.
It's a big part of the directing
that we don't talk about. Talk about.
Because -- Go ahead.
I had one -- I've only had one movie in which I walked in
and said, "You know, Michael, what do you want to do?"
I want to do "Last of the Mohicans."
"Great idea. Let's do it." Once.
-Yeah. -Right. Right.
Greta: And they just let you do your thing?
"How about Daniel Day Lewis?" "Great idea. Let's go."
[Laughter]
You're like really? Wait. Is this --
Is this happening? Am I gonna get shot right now?
So did you have to hard pitch "Heat?"
Michael: No. "Heat" was different.
"Heat," I owned, I wrote the screenplay.
I had the screenplay. Got Bob, got Al.
What else?
Yeah, there was no development.
And the studio hated the fact that they liked it a lot
and they had no control over it.
Which is -- This is exactly what you want.
That's what we like.
Lights, camera and lots more action with our directors
right after the break.
♪♪
Who here had final cut on their film?
I didn't. I didn't.
I've never had final cut. No, me neither.
Well, independent. You did yours independent?
No. Independent or not independent...
[Indistinct conversation]
Bradley: But I did have an ace. I did have an ace
because I was like, well, I mean,
you could fire me or anything,
but, like, you got to recast Lenny.
Good luck, dude.
[Laughter]
I have always had tiebreaker or whatever the language is.
But I always figure,
the movies I've gotten to release
were the movies I wanted to release in every way,
but, so I don't feel like
it's, you know, been something where I'm like,
"I would have done it differently."
But what you said also about,
like, what the studio looks at the first week --
I remember with "Little Women," I started doing it,
and I was shooting all these, like, dark, candlelit scenes,
and someone was like,
"Do not send them a bunch of underlit scenes."
And I was like, "That's right. We got to change the schedule
and do like girls at Christmas."
[Laughter]
Because they're like, "That looks like what I thought
it was gonna be."
No one told me on "Selma" not to shoot first week
David Oyelowo and Colman Domingo
in a jail cell in Selma, Alabama,
lit by one street light through the window.
It's in the film. It's Bradford Young,
Shute Stark, my beautiful cinematographer, on that.
Sit and shot it, and we were like, "We're going to make it
feel like the hull of a slave ship."
Here you go, here you go.
Here, you guys. Here's the dailies.
And literally, they freaked out.
They made us reshoot the scene.
No, no one told me this, Greta,
to do the dancing girls first and then do the dank -- yeah.
So depending on how you made your movie,
you have this sort of commerce issue in the back of your mind.
I mean, Todd, how do you -- when you really need to be there
for your actresses in this film...
Todd: I mean I have to just --
I have to just thank my unbelievable good fortune
of having Christine Vachon at my side
as my producer from my first feature film, "Poison,"
which was made sort of like an art project,
through arts grants,
through the National Endowment for the Arts
and New York State Council for the Arts.
And we did it like -- it wasn't like making a movie
with anybody looking over your shoulder.
And that was the orientation
that I came out of as a filmmaker,
and the examples that inspired me to to take risks
and not think about a commercial outcome.
And I've been lucky enough
to just take those little steps toward like, yeah,
you get -- we got a distributor for "Poison" --
the New Queer Cinema.
The whole AIDS crisis was happening
at the same time as my first feature film,
and it fueled why we were making the film to begin with.
But it also provided an audience for new and innovative whatever,
you know, kinds of filmmaking and other filmmakers
who would became part of that whole company.
And so I've just -- I feel so lucky and protected
that I've been able to keep working kind of
in that artistic vacuum, I think.
I think final cut is an attitude.
It's a state of mind.
I mean, I wasn't going to be making films --
I was only making films I felt passionate about.
If I felt passionately about it,
then it's going to have to be...
Man: Yeah, this way. This way.
If you don't want to make this film, don't make the movie.
Exactly. But this is the movie I'm making.
If you do want to make it, let's go. You know?
Final cut is a state of mind.
Bradley: That's the gem. That is the T-shirt.
I love that.
Greta: It is also just you can't fake it.
But, like, when you're actually --
can say from within yourself,
I don't need to make aBarbie movie.
I'd like to make this one.
If you don't want to make it, I don't need to make it.
I didn't actually have final cut,
but I could have the T-shirt. [Laughter]
They knew.
-They knew. -I interrupted them.
I was just thinking that, like, I actually -- it forces you
to double down on your point of view, I found.
There's a part of it that I like.
I like the challenge.
I always found myself -- I had to keep saying, like,
"No, I told you, it's a movie about marriage,
and it's going to be one musical element."
That was the thing I said six years ago.
I've never been in an experience
where I have felt so a part of and so alone,
and depending on where I was in the filmmaking process.
But it really -- you know, for example,
there's one scene where we shot it was always going to be
this big fight scene, and it was always that.
You know, and I understand if you're in the studio,
you're like, "No coverage?"
You know, I was like, that's it. Yeah.
Isn't it wonderful? No coverage. I was like, yeah.
And it forced me to actually even have to articulate why --
And I don't mind that. I don't mind being challenged
if I've done the work. I actually think that --
And sometimes you learn something.
You know, but I actually don't mind not having final cut.
I didn't pay for the movie. They did.
You know, that's very clear to me.
It's like, I didn't have that money.
They did. And I respect that. It is there for them.
But I have the power to say, I'm walking away,
you know, so I -- Yeah.
So it's like it is a state of mind because of course,
why would I spend this amount of time --
Why would we all spend this much energy,
realize that we have a story to tell,
as you so articulate --
I love how you articulate why you made that movie.
Then it's, like, that's your anchor.
Yeah.That's your, you know --
That's a huge pillar that you could just wrap yourself around.
I was going to say,
you you made the original "Barbie" movie.
This is the Karen Carpenter -- Karen Carpenter.
"Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story."
Did you see that, Michael? Did you ever see it?
No. Oh, my God.
Greta: But it's a wonderful thing
that we're sitting at the table right now,
because I think that -- I think it was genuinely --
You made them nervous about the possibilities
about what it could be.
But I felt like it was -- Anyway, it's very special.
Are you kidding?
I mean, my -- my use of Barbies was as a subtext.
Yes. You know, to a story about
how women's bodies are commodified and --
and the story of this -- incredibly heartbreaking story
of a young woman studying suffering from anorexia nervosa.
But you took on the cultural meaning of Barbie
and you exploded it and you --
but also made it a confection that everybody could share.
But I would say your movie and your response
to it, the way you used it, was part of the cultural history
of Barbie, and it's in there.
And even if it's not forward, it's part of it.
It's the way I think of it.
And so anyway, it's -- but yes, I think they were like,
"Are you going to do that thing that he did?"
[Laughter]
We were like, "Well." [Laughs]
Now, I know you are anxious to run out
and see these great movies
or just log into your streaming account,
but give it a beat.
The final moments with our directors roundtable
right after this.
♪♪
Does anybody have a ritual that sets them up for the day?
Yeah, I've got -- I've got to work out.
I've got to run. I've got to do something.
I zone in the night before,
and then I have to refresh the prop
and just be totally focused. And that usually comes for me,
for whatever reason, is I got to get my,
you know, heartbeat up to 120 for 20 minutes.
And while it's in that state,
that's when I zone into what I'm going to do.
As an actor, I used to always go to set
before -- at crew call, even before my call time,
just because I just would love to --
I just loved the filmmaking process.
So in this one,
and I always felt like a little goofy doing it,
and I was like, what are you doing?
But I just wanted to do it. And in this one,
I got to go to work, like, six hours before crew call
because I would become Lenny before.
And I actually found that as a filmmaker was just invaluable.
That I was actually actively in a chair with Kazu,
and I would just go through the whole day all the time.
You know, and it was really -- I have to say,
it made the shooting just that much easier.
And I wouldn't have thought of that,
but on this particular film, it was a huge, I think,
asset just for my clarity once I was there.
I love that. That's got to be mesmerizing.
It really was. It really was.
You imagine all of us as directors, like, being forced
to sit for 2 or 3 hours before a shooting day?
And have that time given to you in that space,
like, every day.
I have a guitar. And so, like,
I have to sit and I have to play
and I have to imagine, and I do a very similar thing,
before anyone gets on my set, even grips.
I'm like, no, you're not getting on my set before me.
That's right. And I show up
and I walk it, and I walk it,
and I walk it quietly, before the noise.
Yes. Because, boy, when that noise starts,
oh, boy, it doesn't stop. That's right.
So I like to just kind of sit on the set, just being there early
and having my guitar and playing... Beautiful.
...and just like quietly, peacefully.
Before again the explosion happens, you know?
What do you do?
I don't have a ritual. [Laughs]
I try to stay present in whatever the day
is going to bring, and that's always different.
You know, the night before, whatever has been done on set,
whatever interactions I've had affect the next day.
And it's a -- it's a continuum from one day to the other.
So I try not to -- I just personally don't --
I don't have one.
How about you? Do you play the guitar?
What are you doing? You swimming?
What's happening? No, I wish man.
What's going on? [Laughter]
No, I just come as prepared as possible.
You know, I do all my -- all my prep really in advance.
And then what was amazing about "May December"
is that we had such a short amount of time to make it.
It happened very quickly.
The financing came together quickly,
and when it ended, I was like,
I don't know how it's going to come out well
if I had this much fun making it.
[Laughter]
Your ritual?
My ritual is -- I was -- I'm, like, a --
I'm like a major league baseball player
who has to do the same things all the time.
Like I'm -- And then, like, if a day went well,
then I'm, like, well, I got to do that again.
And so I have lots of things. On "Barbie,"
the week before we started, Rodrigo Prieto,
who shot my film, his wife, Monica,
gave me a special stone that she said was magic.
And I was like, but then I need it with me
all the time!
And then I saw Rodrigo the other week and I was like,
Tell Monica I still have the stone.
And she was like, you know, she can put that down.
And so -- And it's with me.
I have, like -- I have to wear the same thing every day.
I learned how to do transcendental meditation
because of David Lynch.
I've never gotten a vision like he has, but I'm waiting.
Meditate, hold my stone. Have my outfit.
Like, I'm just like -- It's all -- It's like --
And in some ways, like --
If I could grow facial hair, I'd like never --
I would just have a giant beard. I feel like I'm --
It's, like, I don't know. It's all ritualistic.
Michael: The irrational objects are really interesting.
I've got an old aluminum clipboard
that I've had for 40 years, and I can't --
I don't know what would happen if I lost this.
It's been run over by trucks, everything.
Just gotta have that. Greta: Gotta have that one thing.
Do you hold the clipboard throughout the day?
Absolutely. Everything will break down.
Bradley: Everything's there. Everything's right there.
Got to have it. Blitz: Amazing.
The dressing the same every day, though, like,
that also became my thing.
First of all, it was just super practical.
It was, like, I went to,
like, H&M, bought the same black shirts, went to Uniqlo,
got the same black pants, like 20 of them.
It makes people comfortable when you show up every day,
like, because they just go,
all right, that guy seems to be a steady guy.
Like whether you are or not, it feels like he's consistent.
In London, I interviewed Stanley Kubrick
a couple of times -- three times.
Man: Wow. And every time I interviewed him,
he wore the same pants, the same jacket.
And I said -- The third time I said,
you know, Mr. Kubrick, I have to ask you,
why are you wearing the same clothes?
He says, "No, I've got 30 of these pants
and 30 of these jackets,
because I don't want to have to spend any mental energy
thinking about what I'm going to wear tomorrow."
-Wow. -Get up and go.
Rebecca: I could listen to you guys talk all day.
Thank you guys so much for being here.
-Pleasure. -Thank you so much.
I got to say, that did not feel like an hour.
-No, not at all. -Good. Good.
-Wow. -Good. Good.
-Yeah. -Cheers.
All: Cheers.
Bradley: What a blessing. What a blessing.
That was so beautiful.
Great job. Thank you.
And that's a wrap. Yeah!
On a very beautiful and emotional conversation
with six directors who apparently also had
less than six degrees of separation.
Y'all, did you see all the full circle moments
happening around the table? Ugh, amazing.
Well, until next time. I am Yvonne Orji
and this has been "Off Script with The Hollywood Reporter."
♪♪