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00:00just very comfortable with with clooney he's such a nice man he really the guy anything you say to
00:07him you you know get a text the next day with you know ways to fix something that you said you know
00:14my foot hurts when i walk and then you got 10 10 doctors who can fix your foot you know he is just
00:20quite a guy george clooney stars as jay a movie star who finds himself firmly established with
00:33status and fame but no real meaningful relationships in his life except for that of his manager played
00:41by adam sandler and his publicist played by laura dern one day jay decides on a whim to follow his
00:48daughter on holiday to italy taking his entourage with him with very mixed results jay kelly takes
00:56us on a deeply personal journey about identity aging and the elusive search for real connection
01:02and meaning so now please welcome to the stage writer director and producer noah barmbach
01:10and starring as ron adam sandler
01:19and producer david hayman
01:28and casting director nina gold
01:36so noah you always bring us these really beautifully nuanced stories about interpersonal
01:46relationships when did this story of a movie star that finds himself kind of isolated disconnected
01:53first come to you a few years ago i i had this i had this sort of notion and i didn't really know
02:02what to do with it then so i kind of let it just sort of sit while i made a couple other movies and
02:07i started to collect ideas for it and but i still kind of felt like i didn't quite know where
02:13it all sat and so i was talking to emily mortimer who's a friend and and uh and someone i've always
02:25admired but um and i was i was telling her the story and then suddenly as i was telling her the
02:30story and she was asking me questions we were talking i felt like actually i think maybe i do
02:34know what this is now and uh but there was something about the way she was responding to it that was
02:41giving me inspiration so i called her the next day and said do you want to write this together and
02:46you know if it's a bust we can quit after a couple weeks but let's i don't know this i i really was
02:52just instinctual and so and then it was an amazing collaboration how did you and emily really kind of
02:59set on the specifics of the character of jay who obviously is played by george what were the kind
03:05of dynamics that you wanted to get in there and how did you build this man because he's a very sort
03:11of the whole point is he's sort of stuck in this surface existence um but we have to kind of know
03:18that underneath he really wants for so much more yeah well i think there was something
03:26yeah there was something in in that in an actor and somebody who you know plays roles for a living
03:36and is always sort of not themselves and then also a movie star on top of that who is essentially also
03:41has to sort of represent an iconography and then thinking well and that's also what we all when we go
03:48to the movies i mean what we why movie stars are so impactful for us in movies is that we they're so
03:55watchable we want to see them represent us so then there was this sort of notion of well if a movie
04:01star kind of represented us in all our failings and humanity what's that exactly and so i i think
04:11yeah i mean you have this man who's very defended and protected and has i mean as sort of this notion
04:19too of i think when you become famous that you you sort of lose your name in some way like your name
04:25becomes something different than what it was when you were just started and again that was sort of
04:30a way to sort of talk about identity and and you know that's really partly why the movie is called
04:36j kelly is this person that has this whole sort of almost industry that is revolves around i mean adam
04:44is managers you know these people who devote themselves but all these people have their own lives and
04:49their own identities and responsibilities and and so as this man is kind of going on this journey
04:56and it's a journey both out into the world and as he goes he becomes less defended i mean literally as
05:04people start to sort of peel away from his his group and he's uh and less protected uh but he's also
05:12going on a journey inside himself and he goes into these memories and and uh and he's sort of
05:19in some ways remeeting the person that he was and i think that's something we all do as we go through
05:25our lives and sort of is wrestle with this gap between who we present as and who we might actually
05:33be and is there somebody else i is there someone else in here that i could you know that that i could
05:39introduce to the world in some way that i haven't met you know and and i think you know different
05:44things in our different moments in our life provoke sometimes in more dramatic ways we're faced with
05:49this and sometimes in just very uh ordinary ways i think in the beginning of the movie jay goes through
05:54there's a certain kind of crises that sort of sent him on this journey but so i think it was you know i
06:01was interested in the whole milieu of course of an actor and and that world but also i was really
06:06interested in sort of telling sort of our story adam you really seem to be relating to what noah was
06:15saying then um can you talk about why why this the whole concept of this project really appealed to
06:22you i love the character of ron he's like the soft heart of the film and it's so interesting to see up
06:29close the dynamic between a manager and a star there's a there's a certain codependence there
06:36there's a there's a transactional factor but for ron it's not really transactional entirely so can you
06:43talk about how you warmed to the character and working with noah on that character sure thank you and uh
06:49yes no no wrote every word that you say as an actor i did the mayowicz stories with noah
06:57i i finished that script and called him up and said no i can't i can't ever thank you enough for
07:03letting me be in your movie and and getting to say what you you wrote um then a few years later you
07:11know we've been very close and a few years later noah said he's writing you know kind of gave me a
07:18an idea of what he was what the movie would be about jay kelly and then mentioned me playing his um
07:25agent or manager or whatever we were talking about at the time and um i just was like well i can't
07:32wait to see this and then i read it and then i i just was so excited to be this this guy and get to
07:39say these words that noah gives you and um i just loved having the the the the love for jay kelly and
07:53and believing in somebody so much and caring about somebody so much and not it was it's just nice to
07:59be selfless and only think of someone else uh and which you know in real life that that's not that
08:07much i i i i'm i'm no i i but i did i did did enjoy like my my um my people who have worked with me
08:20over the years i i have people who work with me for a long time and they they do get that up with you
08:28when you have a moment and they do get that that you know pain with you when things are not going
08:34right and and uh you feel the the same moody uh ups and downs with these guys uh and and the women in
08:42my life and um anyways it was it was nice to to just give myself to somebody like like jay can you talk
08:50about creating that incredible chemistry with george because the two of you obviously have this kind of
08:56real symbiosis that you've developed over many years and we have to feel that and it really comes
09:00across can you talk about building the dynamic yes uh just very comfortable with with clooney he's such
09:07a nice man uh we we knew each other over the years but we got to really all of us you know we'd have
09:14has rehearsal time you know uh we had while you're shooting and downtime we had weekends together
09:22he's really got to be close and um he's such a nice person he really the guy anything you say to him
09:32you you you know get a text the next day with you know ways to to to fix something that you said you
09:40just in passing you know my foot hurts when i walk and then you got 10 10 doctors who can fix your foot
09:47you know he's just quite quite a guy quite a giving human being and includes you and everything
09:53and he included my family with everything and noah and david and nina every everybody knows he's just
09:59just you can't talk about him too long george any compliment you give me just just shoes it away
10:07and makes it brings it back to you he's quite a nice man i love to hear that um thank you david
10:14tell us about working with noah and that experience what it meant to you to connect with noah's work in
10:21this way very quick i just want to say one more thing about adam because he says you know um he is
10:27probably both as an actor but also as a person one of the most generous people i know i mean he says
10:33that about george you know in many ways he he has a you know jay kelly he's a huge movie star he's all
10:39that but he is really one of the most generous people um i've ever met and actor um noah this is
10:47the third film i've worked with noah on um it's a privilege i think he is one of the great writers
10:53one of the great directors working today very much in the in in you know sort of in the you know if
10:58you look at the tradition there's preston sturgis you think about uh um mike nichols and i know as in
11:05in in in that pantheon and so when noah asks me to become involved in a project i leap at the
11:12opportunity he is a direct you know his words we all know they're really beautiful and as a director
11:19he he is every single decision every single frame is managed and curated he's a wonderful collaborator
11:29um uh i feel like i learn and grow and i think everybody who works with him uh feels the same
11:36he's inclusive but he really he really um you know and this story as he said you know it it made me laugh
11:45it made me cry because it's about all of us you know yes it's about a movie store it's but and it's
11:52about hit the world around him but it's around it's about all of us it's about the human condition it's
11:57about um regret and it's about acceptance and it's about life and i think it's um you know when
12:07you work with noah you know you're going to be part of something that is extraordinary and i feel that
12:11this really is a writer direct to working at the peak of his powers and so when i read it or when it
12:17was i first um noah read it to me he and emily read every part emily was a great j kelly um um you know
12:27i it was i it was just incredible experience and i feel lucky to be a part of it i do feel like
12:35this film really would resonate with absolutely everyone who sees it because again as you say
12:40david it's about the human experience you certainly don't have to work in the industry by any means to
12:46understand the dynamics and the experience that we're talking about nina you are one of the most
12:52accomplished prolific casting directors working today i'm so happy you're here
12:57thanks i would love to hear how you built this incredible ensemble cast you've got you know this
13:05triumvirate of adam george laura dern and how did you build this balanced cast around them
13:12well noah and i sat in a in a small room for about six months talking about actors looking at their
13:21work looking you know putting people's faces next to each other and there are a lot of you know the
13:27journey of of j kelly and ron through the film goes through lots and lots of people and they all
13:36had to really even though some of them are really small moments they had we really had to make them
13:42each one mean a lot in that in their small tiny detail in each one and we tried to also make them
13:50change as you work go through each part of the world and it we it was a lot of detail and really
13:58fun and also just trying to find the most incredible actors which we really did i believe
14:05you really did well i was gonna say also because as jay goes out into the world
14:10in his world he essentially everyone revolves around him but of course
14:15that becomes increasingly harder for him to maintain and and and so as we meet all these
14:23different characters throughout the movie and all you know as we introduce the people around him
14:27it was so important that they suggest so much life outside of jay that you feel even if it's somebody
14:33he's meeting for a short period there's a whole section on the train that that all of those
14:38actors just sparkle with with you know their own individuality in their own life and and you know
14:45that you know for a moment they're like oh my god i'm standing in front of this movie star but then
14:48they're going to go on and and they have their own you know things that they need to you know you know
14:53you know get the kids to bed or you know whatever you know get to work on time you know so i i think
14:59it was something that nina and i you know and nina is just so as just such an amazing sort of sense of
15:06of you know both material and fitting the right people to material and and um uh so that it was it
15:13was really i mean it's so many speaking parts in this movie too so it was a kind of you know just
15:19just uh you know going and and international people too so it was um lots of actors that nina
15:27introduced me to that i you know had not you know known before and it was it was you know i i learned
15:33a lot too just sort of like learned i mean there's so many good actors that we couldn't even fit in we
15:37kept trying to squeeze more people in because there's so many remarkable people that train sequence
15:44i have to say absolutely brilliant and full of quirky british tourists and we know what they're
15:50like so um i urge you to watch this film it is just moving entertaining funny tragic it's all the
15:58things please watch j kelly congratulations everyone thanks for being here thank you so much
16:02thank you so much thank you thank you very much
16:08you
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