- 1 hour ago
Noah Baumbach joins GQ as he revisits some of the most iconic films from his career so far: from Marriage Story starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, to the comedy-drama Jay Kelly starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler.Credits:Director: Nick CollettDirector of Photography: Shirley ChanEditor: Gerard ZarraTalent: Noah BaumbachProducer: Camille RamosCreative Producer: Jeremy ClowneyLine Producer: Jen SantosProduction Manager: James Pipitone; Elizabeth HymesTalent Booker: Ernesto MaciasCamera Operator: Miguel ZamoraGaffer: David DjacoSound Mixer: Sean PaulsenProduction Assistant: Quinton JohnsonGroomer: Rheanne WhitePost Production Supervisor: Jess DunnPost Production Coordinator: Stella ShortinoSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAdditional Editor: Matt BraunsdorfAssistant Editor: Fynn Lithgow
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I wrote, don't hit the third rail, because that would be how I would feel.
00:03The third rail, I feel like growing up in New York, was like quicksand.
00:07Don't hit the third rail.
00:14Kicking and screaming.
00:17I don't know, I've always thought that my parents were part of the trickle-down method of parenting.
00:23You know, like, reflection on the Reagan years.
00:25It looked good to a lot of people, but basically, I'm paying for all that neglect now.
00:30Kicking and screaming came really as I graduated Vassar College,
00:37and I was, I sort of came up with the idea that, like, if I hadn't left school, what have I just stayed?
00:45Because I certainly understood the impulse of wanting to stay at where I was comfortable
00:50and not go out to the unknown.
00:52But another part of me makes that impossible.
00:56So that was sort of the concept for the movie.
00:59And I ended up making it, I guess I was 24 turning 25 when we made the movie.
01:04And which, at the time, I thought, oh, I've been grinding away trying to get this done.
01:11Everything is taking forever.
01:14You know, will I ever get this movie made?
01:15And of course, when I look back at it, I think how incredibly fast and incredibly young I was.
01:20And in a way, nobody that young should be trusted with the first film.
01:26I don't really believe that.
01:27But it was very much me inside that space, and really a lot of the people who made the movie with me,
01:35being, you know, essentially the age of the people, a little bit older of the people that the movie was about.
01:42And so I was very close to, I mean, probably the first and only time I'll make a movie where I was essentially right there in the mindset of the characters in the movie.
01:55Weirdly, it didn't really occur to me until the first day of shooting that I had never been on a movie set before.
02:02And I didn't know any of the protocol.
02:05And that was both positive, but I think there were also negatives to it,
02:08because then I would sort of accept what I was told one was supposed to do.
02:13Later, I realized, actually, I can do this more to my own comfort level, you know, or how I might work best.
02:20I remember, like, the first day, like, going to the catering truck, which already just seemed like an amazing thing to be happening,
02:29and the PA talking and saying they had eyes on me and thing, and I, like, laughed at it.
02:36It was, like, so ridiculous.
02:37But then I really had to kind of accept the fact that I was the boss of this movie and try to behave like one.
02:44But I really learned on the job, and I would say I've learned on the job, essentially, every subsequent movie, I learned something new.
02:53But that one was a—I remember looking at the dailies for the first time, and just the fact that they were in color and mostly in focus.
03:03I was—I couldn't believe it.
03:05I couldn't believe, like, oh, that's an actual—looks like an actual movie up there,
03:09because that's when you project dailies also all the time in the—you know, on film, and—and I cut the movie on film also.
03:16I kind of couldn't believe it was happening while it was happening.
03:19The paralysis is just going to wait for you when you get—what are you writing?
03:23Some notes.
03:24Will you stop writing what I'm saying?
03:25Can we have one spontaneous conversation where my dialogue doesn't end up in your next story?
03:29I did that, actually, this morning at breakfast.
03:31Somebody said something, and I said, I hope it's okay if I just write down what you just said,
03:36because I—I—I used to be better at remembering it.
03:39Now I'm getting—I really now, if I don't write it down, sometimes I'll excuse myself and go to the bathroom and speak it into my phone or something.
03:47There was a Norman Mailer short story called The Notebook, which I—it was in a collection advertisements.
03:56Is it advertisements of myself?
03:57And in it, it's a couple, and they're having an argument, and the guy is writing everything down, and she's getting more and more frustrated.
04:07And I related to the story when I read it, and I thought it was such a great kind of dramatization of something like that.
04:14So I gave it to Jane in the movie.
04:17I also thought the idea that he's learning from her, that she's already got the confidence to do that and—and sort of think of herself more seriously as an artist, I guess, and—and—and he's—not yet—at that place yet.
04:32Stupidity can be a good thing when you're young, and when you're first, because you just don't know—you just don't know better, you—you're sort of—yeah, you're, like, too naive to fail, in a way.
04:54I think part of me felt like, I don't know, is this really a movie? Is this going to be a—is this, like—like—is this a movie, like, the kind of movie I—
05:02that I go see in theaters? Will this be like that? Or is this some other movie that I'm making in some, you know, alternate universe? I don't know.
05:10Yeah, it was, like, disbelief and also a—a—a—a real, you know, strong ambition.
05:19The Squid and the Whale.
05:23Mom, don't ruin the whole thing for me.
05:25You'll win. And if you don't win, something's wrong with him, which is probably the case, actually. People can be very stupid.
05:31There was a gap in my—I made Kicking, Screaming, and then I made Mr. Jealousy as my second film, and then I was having trouble getting a film make—made.
05:39But I think what really was also happening is that I was—I hadn't quite found myself the way that I could more strongly communicate my ideas and my feelings and my—in a movie. I hadn't—I wasn't there yet.
06:00It was a line we put in Frances Ha where I—I, um, Josh Hamilton's character says, you know, what do you do? And she says, you know, it's kind of hard to answer. And he says, why? And she said—
06:13Because I don't really do it.
06:15That's how I felt like I'd made two movies, but was I a filmmaker?
06:20Was I a filmmaker? But what happened in a positive way in that period is that I—well, I went to start going to therapy, and I think I—I, uh, and I lived some life, and I had some disappointment.
06:32And it led me to writing The Squid and the Whale. So by the time I made The Squid and the Whale, it was like the beginning of my career again.
06:41But now I was older, and I felt prepared. I could execute what—what I—and communicate, I think, in a more clear way what was really sort of inside me.
06:54I'm going to play lead guitar and do vocals on a song I wrote.
06:59Hey, you, out there in the cold, getting lonely, getting old, can you feel me?
07:07I use autobiography in my work a lot, and I draw from my life and things that have happened to me, but the movies are not autobiographical themselves.
07:19I mean, for instance, in The Squid and the Whale, he says that he wrote this Pink Floyd song, and that was actually something that a friend of mine in college told me about that happened to him.
07:27And he grew up, you know, in the Upper West Side. His parents were academics.
07:32We sort of had sort of similar sort of shadow childhoods in a way, but we met in college.
07:39And when he told me that story—it wasn't a Pink Floyd song—but he told me the story of how he told them, and he didn't perform it for the school.
07:45But he lied to his parents, and he sort of—in a sense, I was like, well, that did happen to me, even though it didn't happen to me.
07:53I knew—I recognized—it was so familiar to me.
07:56In a way, it all feels like it happened to me and didn't happen to me at all.
08:00So that the fact and the fiction is all just a—you know, it stops—it only has meaning in that it makes this narrative of the movie feel true.
08:11And that's—you know, I do find from it, in the beginning stages of things, I like using real names of people I know.
08:18Because when I first start writing, because I feel like, okay, I believe this person.
08:22Even though I never would write the actual person and use their name, but just, this is a real name in the world.
08:28I believe this person exists. I'm gonna use this name.
08:32And, I don't know, there's so many examples of that and versions of that, I think, in what I do.
08:38Dad's got you on Saturdays.
08:41You like his girlfriend?
08:43Is she his girlfriend?
08:45I love working with kids. I—I—but it's—it—it's a challenge, no matter how good and mature and—and easy a child is.
08:57It's—it's—it just takes a lot of focus. And it's—and also there are, you know, there are restrictions on time.
09:04And so there's a lot of doing things where you're—you have to shoot the kid out and then turn around and all the poor adults have to then act to nothing, you know, to me reading off camera or, you know.
09:16But what I love—but one of the things I love about it is what you're getting is something that, like, is—it's existing in this time and space right there.
09:24This—this person at this age, you know, because particularly—I mean, it's true of all of us, but, you know, kids age so quickly.
09:31You know, it's always, like, by the premiere, they're always, like, taller than I am.
09:34And, and, you know, and certainly, like, five years goes by, which, for me, feels like, oh, we just made that movie.
09:40And then they're suddenly grown-ups and—yeah, like, in The Squid and the Whale, like, Jesse and Owen both now have directed movies, and Hallie Pfeiffer is a playwright, and I think she's directed things.
09:53And it's—that's really exciting. It's great.
09:56I mean, I actually learned when—by working with kids, I often wouldn't tell them when the camera was rolling, because sometimes I would notice, like, if you said action, they would stiffen—you know, like, they would sort of get into performance mode.
10:12So what I would do is not say action and just say, like, when you're ready and talk to them and just—and have the camera roll so that there wasn't really any separation between talking on and off camera, you know.
10:26And I actually then just started to do that with everybody, and the adult actors, too, on my movies.
10:32As I stopped calling action, I mean, they'd obviously know the camera was rolling, but the—and the kids would always get wise to it, too.
10:38They'd be like, I see the lights on, and you'd be like, well—but it's just to sort of—to really try to—for there not to be any barrier, really, between on and off camera and what's in the movie and what's out of the movie,
10:52and that you and I could be just talking right now, and then I could go right into a scripted sequence, and that it would be all part of, you know, the same energy and the same kind of dynamic.
11:06Francis Ha.
11:08You're gonna be a single guy with two cats.
11:12Why would I be single?
11:14With two cats.
11:16No, I know. I mean, why would I be single?
11:19I don't know.
11:21With Francis Ha, Greta and I had worked together.
11:25She had acted in Greenberg, and I wanted to work with her again as an actor, but for some reason, I hadn't read anything that she had written.
11:35I found out later that she was a writer in college and wanted to be a writer and everything, but I didn't actually know that specifically, but I just felt like it'd be great to write something with her for her to do.
11:53And the only times I've really collaborated, which were with Greta and I wrote with Wes Anderson and I wrote with Emily Mortimer on Jay Kelly and is that there's something, it is an extension of a friendship and of a relationship, but I find that something, it's like I like me when I'm with these people.
12:13And so I, not only are they bringing all their brilliance to it, but I'm more inspired. I'm, I find myself, yeah, I find, I just, that's the best way to say it, I guess, is that I like me.
12:28And, and there's people you meet where you're like, I like this person. I have no chemistry with them. I can't find myself into this conversation, you know, and then other people, you just very easily, every time you see them, you don't even know them that well.
12:41And then you just start to have these, and I remember being, you know, I, I, and I felt that with Greta immediately that we had a, like we recognize something in each other.
12:51And, and, and I think Frances Ha has a particular magic about it that, that really came from some third thing between her and me.
13:03And, you know, it was my love for her and shooting the movie, I think is probably clear in the directing of the movie and, and her, you know, and she's so special in the movie as an, as an actor.
13:14But I think the sort of, the, the invention of it was this third energy, which has been true, I think, on all the things we've done together.
13:22I have to shadow this woman.
13:26She's my ward.
13:28The joy in Frances Ha emanates from Greta.
13:31The light that she emits in that movie.
13:34I remember Sam Levy, the cinematographer who shot it with me, said something like, she, she is a light.
13:42Like, we don't even have to light her.
13:44She's like, she lights herself.
13:46And, and it was true.
13:47And I think, and it was a joyful experience making the movie.
13:51And that doesn't always translate to inside the movie.
13:54But I think in that case, it did.
13:57There was something where we all really liked being there.
14:03And Greta and I in particular never wanted to stop.
14:06I mean, there was one point where somebody was, said to us, because of the way we shot the movie, we shot it sort of off the radar.
14:12And, and, and so, but I remember someone very politely pointed out, they said, we've shot for 18 straight days.
14:22And, and Greta and I were like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.
14:26Like, like I had no idea.
14:27I just loved being there.
14:29And so we were like, yeah, please let's take a weekend and everybody can go do their laundry.
14:33And, but that's how it felt making that movie.
14:36I could have moved in with Dan.
14:38Not if you broke up.
14:39That's why we broke up.
14:41Really?
14:42No.
14:43That was the whole thing with that movie.
14:44It was sort of, if we don't tell anyone we're doing this, then we don't need permission to do anything.
14:48It was all like, we'll ask for forgiveness.
14:50I mean, we shot whole scenes on the subway over several different days and, and I reshot scenes on the subway.
14:57Like I kept restaging things too, because I thought, oh, maybe that was the wrong, maybe it should be on the platform.
15:02No, maybe it should be on, in the car.
15:04And again, that was a kind of energy that the movie has that those things don't feel staged.
15:11That, that these, they're, this, this, this fiction is taking place in very much a kind of uncontrollable real New York City.
15:19If you can capture that in a movie, I think it, it, it always gives it a kind of great energy.
15:25Whose idea was it that she'd pee on the subway tracks?
15:28That was, I think her idea.
15:29I think something she maybe, or a friend maybe had done.
15:33I don't know.
15:34Don't hit the third rail.
15:36I wrote, don't hit the third rail, because that would be how I would feel.
15:39Like, don't electrocute.
15:41I was always, you know, I grew up, the third rail, I feel like growing up in New York was like, like quicksand.
15:47It was like one of those things like, don't go into quicksand.
15:51Don't touch the third rail.
15:53You know, like you, you grew up knowing about that.
15:58Marriage Story.
16:02Can I say something?
16:03It was good.
16:03It was edgy.
16:04Directed by her husband.
16:06Supposedly very controlling.
16:07You know, we're lucky to have her.
16:09I'm surprised she said yes.
16:10We can thank her divorce.
16:11I went through divorce, and it was an incredibly hard time in my life.
16:17I think one of the things that's interesting about something like divorce or breakup in a way is that, I mean, on one hand, it's essentially aspirational, and that you're choosing to change your life.
16:31You know, essentially getting together is aspirational, and in a different way, and you go into something, hope, you know, it's sort of what a beautiful thing.
16:44These two people thought that this was going to be their whole life, and how can we blame them that it didn't go that way?
16:52But then going through this process where it's all about blame, and, you know, you've done a terrible thing, and you're going to lose your, you know, you're not going to be able to see your child in the same way, or you're going to, you know, this is going to cost money.
17:06It's going to be, you know, all these things that enter into it just seems like, in some ways, such a kind of preposterous, horrific thing.
17:13And yet, it's so ordinary, and, you know, 50% of people are married couples or whatever the statistic is.
17:20And so, that struck me in a way.
17:23I mean, I went through it, but I also thought, well, is a marriage a failure just because it doesn't work out?
17:29And I don't think it is.
17:31And I think, you know, or certainly it doesn't have to be.
17:34And in the movie, I don't think it is.
17:36And yet, they're made to feel like the system essentially makes them feel like that.
17:43So, I thought, well, I mean, it's such a loaded thing.
17:45But I did feel like there could be a really great movie in that.
17:49And essentially to tell a love story, but sort of in its absence, you know, or in its disintegration.
18:00Do you understand why I want to stay in L.A.?
18:03No.
18:04Well, that's not, Charlie, that's not a useful way for us to start.
18:08I don't understand it.
18:11You don't remember promising that we could do time here.
18:13We discussed things.
18:15It's a long scene, and we shot it over two days.
18:19So, it really was broken down almost into its, it had its sort of own story or narrative in a way.
18:27So, like, you know, here they are, where it starts, where they go, where it goes here, then it goes over here, then it goes back over to where they started.
18:35And that came from rehearsing with Adam and Scarlett and first on just, you know, taping out in a thing.
18:42And then we rehearsed on the location before we started shooting.
18:45And then, of course, when we were shooting, it developed its own things.
18:49The challenge of it was, is that it needed to be broken up somewhat, because also it was over two days.
18:56But I also wanted to shoot it as continuously as I could, because they needed the momentum and the space to keep going.
19:05As a result, we kind of had to do most of the scene almost every take, which was exhausting for them.
19:13It was a real location, because we didn't have money to build a set.
19:16Otherwise, it would have been a great candidate to build a set there.
19:21And I had a very specific idea of how I wanted it to look, because I wanted it to have, which we ultimately found,
19:26but I wanted it to have a sort of half-open kitchen to the living room, but that had a divider partway,
19:34so that I could shoot in a kind of split-screen way, two people having conversations on either side of this sort of divider.
19:40Where, yeah, I mean, it's something, if we were able to build it, we would have had more freedom to kind of move around
19:45and take out walls and probably get a crane head in and stuff.
19:48But then the location always gives you something, something else.
19:54Like, because the hallway to the back room, his bedroom, is quite narrow,
20:00there was no way we could follow anybody really through there.
20:03So, at a certain point, Adam's character just sort of goes and disappears and leaves camera for a while, you know,
20:09and then she says something and he comes running back in, and, you know, and that blocking was really strong.
20:14And, again, if you can, if you have all the freedom you want, maybe we wouldn't have chosen to do it that way.
20:20It was a lot for them.
20:30I mean, it was a lot for them.
20:31It was a lot for me.
20:32At the same time, as a director, you're both feeling sort of overwhelmed by it,
20:39but also there's another part of thinking, like, good, good.
20:42You know, you're, you're, you're, this is what this has to be.
20:45It has to be this way.
20:46There was definitely takes at the end where we had to stop and give people a break because it was, you know,
20:54it's, as a director, you also feel a certain responsibility because you're asking people to go to places that are very vulnerable.
21:00And, and I have so much love for actors that they do that and can do that.
21:06And we'll do that in front of cameras and crew and, and, and do it while also getting the lines exactly right and the blocking exactly right.
21:16I mean, it's like they're, they're doing things on so many different levels.
21:19It's, it's, I really, it's also a pleasure of the job is, is to getting to work with people who, who can do that.
21:26While we're young.
21:33Yeah, I know what traditional arthritis is, but.
21:36I'm not sure what you mean by traditional, but this is arthritis.
21:40Arthritis, arthritis.
21:42Yes.
21:43I usually just say it once.
21:45Probably the first movie I made, which is, it starts to be about realizing you're not the youngest person in the room anymore.
21:52I would say that's one of the more of like lines from my movies that people will maybe bring back to me when he says, he says arthritis, arthritis, you know, but like, but that thing, I remember having that feeling of like, you know, like why I put this thing on my knuckle and, you know, like, and, and, and you think, oh, this is, this is something we thought a lot about with Jay Kelly too.
22:16But that kind of startling realization that the human experience is also your own experience.
22:24It's weird aging, right?
22:26It's like, what the fuck is going on?
22:28I don't know.
22:29Youth is wasted on the young.
22:30I'd go further.
22:31I'd go.
22:32Life is wasted on people.
22:36Greenberg is the first time where he has a whole rant about young people.
22:39So that's, that's true.
22:40While we're young is kind of a companion to that, I guess.
22:44I think about losing my edge and is less about, would be less about feeling about how I actually feel about young people.
22:52I've, I mean, or people in general, I have great affection for it.
22:56It's, it's, it's more about feeling yourself, like realizing your references aren't their references anymore.
23:05You're, and this thing of, you know, they don't make them like they used to, or, you know, you know, back in my day, or, you know, I mean, you know, all the crap that you heard said when, and, and, and, and, and of course, once you reach a certain age, you start to think like, but I'm right.
23:23You know, like, you know, like actually it was better when I was, you know, my parents' generation, I don't know, but I, you know, and I suppose this is just that we, the ways, things we tell ourselves, but I, I, but I do think I'm right.
23:37I, I mean, I do think the world of record stores and bookstores was, was a better world than the internet.
23:48Jay Kelly.
23:49You know, I'm having a tribute in Tuscany on Saturday, and you all should come.
24:00Yes, yes, yes, yes.
24:01Talk to my publicist, Liz, right there.
24:03What time, Judge?
24:04I'll see you all in Tuscany.
24:10If an actor is good in a way, they're, they're, they are revealing themselves in some ways.
24:19If an actor is something that's not them.
24:21Yes, of course, then the question is, well, then what are the, who are they when they're not playing somebody else, which is sort of, you know, we, we, we've heard that question about actors before.
24:29But I was also interested in terms of Jay Kelly, in terms of the notion of like a movie star, because a movie star is an actor.
24:35So, of course, they're playing parts, but they're also a character in the culture.
24:41Part of what we love about movie stars is, is that we, we, we like going to see them, we find that we, we, we like watching them so much.
24:50And so that they're a great vessel for all these stories, you know, comedies, dramas, you know, action, whatever, whatever the, the, the thing is, it's like, oh, I love seeing this person do that.
25:04So then I thought, well, what, you know, in a sense, like, what if then the movie star is essentially revealing a humanity that is our own?
25:12And what's that hole of mirrors?
25:15And, and, and that, that, that the movie in a sense was about somebody who begins as a movie star and then ends up as a human being in some way.
25:24Uh, and, or, or starts as another character and then ends up as themself.
25:29That was sort of, I, I suppose I've never quite said it that way, but I think that's maybe a good way to describe, describe Jay Kelly.
25:35How can I play people when I don't see people, touch people?
25:39Don't touch people.
25:41I felt like George would be great for it because, I mean, there weren't many people who could do it because I think it did need to be a movie star playing Jay Kelly.
25:50This is a character on one hand who is deflecting, he's so good at performance.
25:56So he's, and he's very good at sort of outrunning the problem and he's very charming at doing it.
26:03It's part of the thing about the movie is that I wanted it to feel like a pleasure in so many ways, because it is a pleasure watching a movie star be, be winning and be themselves.
26:13But at the same time, are there all these sort of headwinds that are coming, these memories, this sort of, you know, that, that as we know, you, you can't outrun yourself, you know, and, and at some point you're going to have to meet yourself on the other side of whatever this adventure is.
26:28These cracks are starting to show and that's, it's actually a very vulnerable performance because he starts to reveal himself in this character as the movie continues to go.
26:40And until all the way towards the end, where essentially I feel like he's kind of stripped of everything.
26:45I put together the clip reel with Mark Wollin, who's also brilliant trailer, uh, maker, and I wanted to use movies, George's movies, George and I never really discussed it, but he knew it was going to happen.
27:01And so on the day, you know, he came and he sat down and I said, okay, I'm going to play the reel for you and we're going to film you.
27:07Um, and, and his reaction is the real reaction that's in the movie and all the way down to the last line of the movie.
27:14Like that is from that first take of George seeing his life actually flash before his eyes.
27:22I said, I'm suddenly remembering things.
27:25What is that?
27:26Memory?
27:26Well, yes.
27:28Maybe your memory is trying to tell you something about your present.
27:33Wait, what?
27:34I don't know.
27:34I'm tired.
27:35I've known Adam quite well since he was in Meyerowitz stories and I love him.
27:39And I, and he is such, he's, he's, he's, there's a such warmth and generosity and loyalty.
27:46And so when I was, we were writing Ron, I felt like, I felt like this was a character actually that could be quite close to Adam, even though Adam in real life is Jay Kelly.
27:56Uh, but that, that, that, that sort of caretaking side of Adam could be something that I thought would be very touching.
28:05Uh, and also, I mean, it's, it's also, I think a funny character.
28:09He's like pulled in all these different directions and it's like, you know, like trying to be many things to many different people.
28:15And I just felt like Adam and George just felt like an interesting combination.
28:20And, and, and because I felt this way about the two men, I thought, well, probably they'll feel the same way about each other.
28:25And they really did.
28:26I mean, they really, it was very sweet watching them together because they were very bonded throughout the movie.
28:31And I mean, they would play basketball and things together, but they would, they were just between takes would just be sitting and laughing and hanging out with each other.
28:40George Clooney is the one who brought the Sharpie.
28:42I, that's one thing I did not have in the script.
28:44I had in the script that he would have the black eye covered up and that he would sort of put himself back into his sort of, you know, Jay Kelly outfit, you know, in some ways to like, like repurpose himself after he's had a sort of maybe more comes after a sort of more vulnerable memory.
29:01And time in his life, you know, it's like, you know, all right, let's put the mask back on.
29:05And George was the one who said, you know, what you might be interested in is that I actually color my eyebrows with a, just a Sharpie.
29:14That might be something interesting.
29:15He's like, use it or don't.
29:16I was like, I'm definitely using that.
29:18So I would watch him do it in life.
29:20And then we would do it again on camera.
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