Oren Moverman and Thom Zimny Of 'Willie Nelson & Family' On Meeting Willie For The First Time, Recruiting His Family and Friends to Tell His Story  & More | Sundance 2023 - video Dailymotion

Oren Moverman and Thom Zimny discussed their film 'Willie Nelson & Family' at Sundance 2023.

Transcript

00:00Everyone is Willy's friend. Everyone's Willy's family.

00:04Just talking about it here, we are now, you are now in his family.

00:08I mean, that's really his attitude about everything and so nothing bad ever came out.

00:12I mean, there's so much love for this man and it's all earned.

00:18I was making a movie with Woody Harrelson and we were looking for somebody to do Home

00:23on the Range for the movie. And Woody said, what about Willy? And gave me his phone number.

00:29I called Willy, asked, and he said, sure. And that's when I met him and I've seen him over the

00:35years. But I never imagined we'd be doing a documentary about him because he never really

00:40wanted a documentary made about it. As you see in the film, Willy is really a one day at a time kind

00:45of guy. There's not a lot of planning ahead. And I think he's a super humble guy and he just never

00:52really imagined that, you know, his life should be put on, you know, into a story.

00:57We literally heard from Keith Wortmann and Mark Rothbaum, people who work with him,

01:04that he's requesting a documentary, that he's actually ready to say, I would like to see a

01:08documentary about my life. And so we basically responded with a very loud yes.

01:14And his wife, Annie, too, was really helpful. I mean, we were put in this space of trust,

01:20but also they shared with us, you know, an archive of footage or a list of friends that could really

01:27help us tell the story. So we ended up with over 80 interviews and on scene images and stills and

01:33things like that. So they really gave us the number one thing you hope to stumble upon

01:38in a film, which is trust.

01:40He's had time to reflect over over the pandemic. You know, he's been very careful. He's almost 90

01:45years old. He lost his sister who's 91 recently. She's in the movie and she's a huge part of his

01:52life. So he believes in a lot of inspiring things and he is a big reincarnation guy. But he's seeing

01:59something right now that makes sense to him. And I think he's very open to the biopic now.

02:03The connection he has with his family and the music was so authentic. And he was so excited to

02:10share demos with us. For me, I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't have any experience being in the

02:14room with him. And, you know, I think that comes across on the film. I'm not chasing anything salacious.

02:21So in some ways, it always comes back to the music and the journey. I think they just worked on an

02:27energy and the vibe. And that trust was there. And also the level of questions and the level of

02:33research that we did demonstrated that there was really not a need to discuss parameters because,

02:41you know, we weren't going to go down one road and make the film one POV of something salacious.

02:47But we weren't going to sidestep or step away from the realities of his life, which is the rich,

02:54full life. Because in some ways, by the end of making this film, you realize how inspiring it is

03:01that he survived so many different chapters. There was one thing that was different is that every

03:07person who sat down for an interview with Willie Nelson said the same phrase, which is,

03:12I'm here as long as you need me. I have to do this. This man helped me with X. Everybody said that.