- 32 minutes ago
Ejiofor joined Nisha Ganatra, Dan Gilroy, Gavin Hood, Stephen Merchant and Lulu Wang for the panel at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
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00:00Rebecca Ford
00:05Guys, thanks so much for joining us. I'm Rebecca Ford.
00:08I have six extremely talented filmmakers here.
00:11I don't even know how we have this much talent under one roof.
00:14But I'm going to start right here with Tiwetel Ejiofor.
00:17You probably know him from his very wonderful acting career,
00:21but he made his directorial debut at Sundance this year
00:24with the boy who harnessed the wind.
00:30Up next, Nisha Ganatra,
00:34whose wonderful comedy starring Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson
00:38premiered here called Late Night.
00:45And Dan Gilroy,
00:47who everyone knows is a wonderful writer-director
00:50and he's here with Velvet Buzzsaw,
00:52starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo.
00:55Lou Lou Wang, whose beautiful drama starring Awkwafina
01:03called The Farewell premiered at Sundance this year.
01:06Thank you so much.
01:10Steven Merchant, who's here with his film Fighting With My Family,
01:15which stars a small actor known as The Rock, you may have heard of,
01:20and Florence Pugh in a wonderful leading role.
01:28And finally, Gavin Hood, who you probably know from many of his films,
01:32but he's here with a new film called Official Secrets,
01:34which stars Keira Knightley.
01:40So guys, I have lots of questions for everyone,
01:42and then we'll have about ten minutes of audience questions at the end,
01:45so if you've got something to ask them,
01:47we'll have a little time right at the end for that.
01:49Nisha, I do want to start with the most recent news.
01:52Your film was bought in a very exciting deal to Amazon.
01:56Yes.
01:57Overnight after its premiere.
01:59What was that experience like for you?
02:01I mean, it was incredible,
02:03because you always hope that when you make a movie,
02:05as many people as possible will see it.
02:07But you also read about these Sundance midnight deals
02:09and the overnight bidding wars,
02:11and so they actually would be like,
02:12oh, this is happening.
02:13This is a real thing that goes on.
02:15And then at five in the morning,
02:16it was like Amazon's doing it,
02:18and it was just like your text messages
02:21and your phone just started blowing up,
02:22and everything was so exciting,
02:24just to know that this movie's going to be seen by everybody
02:27that Amazon reaches is incredible.
02:29Well, congrats.
02:30Awesome.
02:36So guys, I'd like to start sort of
02:37with the beginning of the process for you.
02:39How do you know when you have to make a movie,
02:42when this is a story you have to tell
02:44and you've got to do it no matter what?
02:47Who's going to answer?
02:49Well, if I have mortgage payments,
02:52then I'll just take whatever's on offer.
02:56No, in this instance, this was a very unusual film
02:59because it began life as a documentary
03:01that was on British TV about this real-life family
03:04of British wrestlers.
03:05I'm not a fan of wrestling.
03:07I've never followed wrestling.
03:09And it was watched, not by me,
03:11but by Dwayne The Rock Johnson,
03:13who was in a hotel room in England and saw it.
03:15And coming from a wrestling family,
03:17sort of saw this obscure little documentary
03:19and thought we could make this into a film.
03:21And so it's a very unusual kind of origin story
03:24because although it has Dwayne,
03:25who sort of, you know, is this giant movie star,
03:28it's this small kind of Film 4 film developed
03:31from a documentary about this family of wrestlers from Norwich.
03:33And I sat down expecting to sort of laugh and sneer at these people.
03:38And I was just utterly charmed and kind of moved by their story
03:41and their dreams and the fact that they talk about wrestling
03:44as something which has kind of changed their lives
03:47in the same way that alcoholics can talk about God.
03:50You know, they talk about wrestling.
03:51And these two kids who go off and try and make it
03:54in the wide world of WWE,
03:56which for wrestlers is the, you know, the Hollywood of wrestling.
03:59And only one of them got signed, the sister,
04:01and the brother got left behind.
04:03And so it had a lot of pathos and drama and sadness,
04:06but humor as well,
04:07because it's a sort of odd little subject.
04:09And it just, somewhere on the line,
04:11it just really got into my DNA.
04:13And that was why I felt like it was worth pursuing.
04:16Shewetal, how about you?
04:17Why was this, why did you have to make this movie?
04:19Yeah, I think there was, you know,
04:21the film Boy Harness the Wind is, you know,
04:24William Kamkwamba's incredible story
04:26of building a wind turbine to help his community get out of a famine.
04:29And I was, you know, moved and inspired by the book.
04:35And as I was reading the book, I was just trying to think,
04:38actually, as you were talking and asking the question,
04:41if I could pinpoint the exact moment in the book, really,
04:44where I sort of moved beyond the kind of wider idea of thinking
04:49that this was a great and inspirational story
04:51to feeling that I really had to make it.
04:53And I think it's that moment of personal connection,
04:56that if you have that moment of really deep personal connection
04:59or where you start to really reevaluate your own life
05:02and your own experience through the experiences of somebody else.
05:06And for me, that was, I think, in the book,
05:08when William describes at 13 having been thrown out of school
05:13because his family couldn't afford the fees
05:16and there's no free education in Malawi
05:19above sort of seven or eight years old,
05:22and him trying to figure out how he could sneak into class.
05:27And so wondering, you know, and actually then doing,
05:30actuating this kind of if he could get in by recess
05:33and then maybe the teachers that would be looking out for a kid
05:37whose parents hadn't paid would be doing something else
05:40and he could sneak into the science class and so on.
05:42And I sort of thought about what I was like at 13
05:46and what my relationship to sneaking into school,
05:49sneaking into a science class was like
05:52and how completely inconceivable that concept was for me.
05:56And I really started to consider the nature of that privilege
05:59and the nature of that understanding in a fuller sense.
06:02And I guess that's what inspired me.
06:04And I just thought, well, I really actually want to bring that story,
06:07this story, this kid's ideas of the world to a larger audience if I can.
06:13And Dan, you write scripts that you then don't direct.
06:17How did you decide you wanted to direct and write Velvet Buzzsaw?
06:22As a writer, you're looking for an idea that's like a documentary or something you see.
06:27For me as a writer, I'm looking for something that I know my voice was something that I will respond to.
06:35Right now when I direct something that I've written,
06:38I'm doing it to entertain people certainly,
06:40but I'm also looking for thematic relevance and ideas that are important to me.
06:44So this idea came into my world and I fell in love with it
06:50and I thought this is a great entertaining film
06:52and it's also something that I'll be able to use as a vehicle to transmit ideas.
06:56So the biggest thing now for me is I'm not going to really write or direct anything
06:59unless it's transmitting an idea or an ethos or a theme that I feel is relevant.
07:03Because this media is so powerful for change.
07:07And not just change, but to share your point of view.
07:10And it's just such an opportunity to share your point of view with the world
07:13that ideas now, I define them when I want to work on them as,
07:15oh, I can say something.
07:17And actually the hard thing for me, the editing process on this movie
07:20was cutting out all these great lines of dialogue that had all these ideas in them.
07:23They're like ornaments on it and it's like you watch the movie and you go like,
07:26you don't need that message, you don't need that message.
07:28Just like it's getting through.
07:30I just want so many ideas to come through and just share people with what you're thinking.
07:36That's really, so the idea is to find them by a potential vehicle to transmit an idea.
07:41Lulu, how about for you? This is a very personal movie for you.
07:44What made you say, I have to tell this story?
07:47Yeah, I mean, even as I was going through the process when I got the news
07:51that my grandmother was ill and I had to go back and say goodbye,
07:54but it was a wedding and I'm not allowed to tell her that it's,
07:58why we're actually there.
08:00You know, in the process, I was actually in post on my first film,
08:04so I wasn't necessarily thinking, okay, this is a film right away.
08:07But even in just trying to grapple with the ethics of it and am I crazy? Are they crazy?
08:16You know, I was calling up American friends.
08:19I was talking to my family and just trying to make sense of it all.
08:24So through that process, I was like, wait, I think I have something to say here.
08:28Like maybe it's all of it.
08:30Like maybe everybody's crazy and everybody's not crazy.
08:33And, you know, I actually discovered that like because I had to not express my emotions
08:40when I went back to China for this wedding, I didn't know how to,
08:45I was going to be able to do this without just breaking into tears
08:48as soon as I saw my grandma.
08:50So I went to this like media store and bought a little camcorder.
08:54And I thought, actually, you know, I'll hide behind my work.
08:56This is what I've always done is turn situations and things into stories.
09:01And so if I do this, then maybe it'll help me control my feelings
09:04if I like am hiding behind a camera through this lens.
09:07And so even through that process of like dealing with the actual situation,
09:12I already started to get a sense that there was a story here.
09:16It sounds amazing.
09:18I'm so excited to see this movie.
09:20I'm excited to see all these movies.
09:21It's like I know what I'm doing when I leave here.
09:24Nisha, tell me about coming on board.
09:28Mindy Kaling obviously wrote this script.
09:30Yeah.
09:31How did you find your, how did you make the decision
09:34that I want to be the one that tells the story?
09:36I mean, once the words Emma Thompson were mentioned,
09:40then you're just sort of in, I think, no matter what.
09:43But I think with this script, it was beautiful because I think a lot of people
09:47forgot or didn't know that Emma started in comedy
09:50and that she started as a stand-up comedian.
09:52She was in an improv troupe in college.
09:54And she's just come along and such a brilliant actress
09:57that she's played all these period piece dramas
10:00and all these dramatic roles.
10:01But the chance to sort of direct Emma Thompson in a comedy
10:06was just something I could not say no to.
10:09And Mindy captured, we have so many, as Indian American women working in comedy,
10:14we have so many similar experiences.
10:16And she just poignantly captured them in a really funny script that is my favorite kind of movie,
10:21where if you just want to go to a movie and laugh and be entertained
10:25and listen to a good story that kind of leaves you feeling uplifted,
10:31then that's what this movie is.
10:32But also if you want to look a little deeper, it does have something to say
10:35and is quite political and interesting too.
10:38So movies that work on both levels like that really are the joy for me.
10:42And this script really captured that beautifully.
10:44So I wanted to absolutely direct it.
10:47And Gavin, your film is based on a true story.
10:49Yeah.
10:50It feels very timely.
10:51Why did you feel like you wanted to make this movie?
10:53Well, I'm glad I'm going last because I'm picking up on what everybody said.
10:56It is, to Dan and everybody, to tell all you guys,
11:00it's about looking at a world in a way that you haven't before.
11:05The beauty of cinema and what we're lucky enough to do is,
11:08you know, we all live our particular life,
11:11but the beauty of cinema is seeing life through someone else's eyes
11:15and looking for themes and ideas and ways of being that challenge us.
11:19So in this particular case, this is based on a true story
11:23that took place right before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
11:27It's the story of a British spy, a very junior British spy,
11:31working at GCHQ, which is the Government Communications Headquarters,
11:35which is a very uncool word for the British version of the NSA.
11:39Somehow NSA, National Security Agency, just feels punchier
11:43than Government Communications Headquarters.
11:45Hey, look, we're very classy people, all right?
11:47We're not going for these show-off terms.
11:50Exactly.
11:51And, you know, very innocuous.
11:53What would Government Communications Headquarters do?
11:56Write notes to one another.
11:57Well, actually, they spy and they do what the NSA does.
12:00They eavesdrop on your private conversations,
12:02they gather up information on your cell phones and your computers,
12:05and they hack you if they need to.
12:09But what was interesting about this was that Catherine Gunn,
12:13whose story we're telling, was this young spy,
12:16and there's been so much information out there about how we got into the Iraq war
12:20from a kind of macro level.
12:22And what really fascinated me about this story was going into that story
12:26through the eyes of a very almost ordinary person like us.
12:30Not quite, because she was a spy.
12:32But she was 28, and she found herself in this situation
12:36where she came across a particular memo that was sent to GCHQ by the NSA,
12:42and it basically asked the GCHQ to help spy on the private communications
12:49of UN Security Council delegates, particularly the non-permanent members
12:53on the UN Security Council whose vote would be critical in swaying the Council
12:59to voting for a legal UN-sanctioned invasion of Iraq.
13:03And had Blair and Bush got that resolution, all of the WMD issues,
13:09for those of you, a lot of young people here,
13:11maybe they're too young to even remember the Iraq war.
13:13You remember the Iraq war, somehow, yes.
13:15Anyway, so the whole premise of going to the Iraq was Saddam Hussein
13:18has weapons of mass destruction, and...
13:21But if you could have got...
13:23There are two ways you can go to war, and I won't be too long on this,
13:26but there are two ways you can go to war legally.
13:28One, the United Nations Security Council votes collectively
13:34that we have to go in and we have to solve this problem,
13:37which is what happened in Kosovo, right?
13:39If you get that, you don't really have to prove anything else,
13:41because we as the United Nations agree that something needs to be done.
13:45The other way that you go to war legally is self-defense.
13:48Well, if you can't get a UN resolution to go to war,
13:51which Bush and Blair couldn't, you need to say,
13:53hey, we're under attack.
13:55There are weapons of mass destruction that threaten us directly.
13:57If we don't stop it, the world's going to get a hell in a handbasket.
14:00So they really wanted this resolution, and I shouldn't go on too long.
14:04This is a story about a young woman who felt that spying
14:07and trying to essentially blackmail smaller nations into voting for this war
14:12was just a bridge too far for her, even though she worked as a spy.
14:16And so she leaked this memo.
14:18And to be honest, why did I want to do it?
14:20At first I didn't.
14:21I thought, oh, my God, this is so complicated.
14:23There's so much research.
14:24And my wonderful producer, Jed Doherty, who may or may not be out here today,
14:28just kept going at me and saying, Gavin, you can do this.
14:31I'm an ex-lawyer by background, and it's a long way,
14:34and I thought I'd left it behind, and, you know, it comes back.
14:37So eventually I started reading and reading and reading,
14:40and the more I read, the more fascinated I became.
14:42And eventually, like everyone else, you just feel, I need to tell the story,
14:47and now you're in.
14:48And then you struggle to get the money.
14:49Yeah.
14:51Well, let's talk about getting the money,
14:53because we're talking about mostly independent film here.
14:56How hard do you feel like, as a director, you are in charge of that fight?
15:03Or do you lean on producers to help you?
15:06Have you had a frustrating experience where you just couldn't get the movie off the ground
15:10or it took a lot longer than you thought?
15:12Who's ever been frustrated getting much money?
15:14Does that happen?
15:16Let's take a vote.
15:18Maybe not when you're Dan Gilroy.
15:19No, I'm kidding.
15:20I've had my troubles getting money.
15:22I have a formula, which I'll share.
15:25My formula is you get a script.
15:27In my case, I write it.
15:29Then you get somebody to do a budget.
15:31And you get the budget as low as possible.
15:34And then if you're lucky enough, you get the agencies and you find out what elements,
15:39like Chiwetel, of what they're worth, because everybody has a number.
15:43There's like a hidden number somewhere.
15:45And if you can get that element or elements, and they're more valuable than your budget,
15:51there are a lot of people who are going to be interested in making your film.
15:54There's a lot of money sloshing around out there in the independent world.
15:58And Netflix obviously has joined the fray.
16:01But if you can get a script that you like, get the commitment of someone like Chiwetel,
16:06and you have a director, and your budget is a number that's credible,
16:10and the actor is worth more than the budget, people will want,
16:14people are going to be very, because it's a piece of business for them.
16:16For us it's like, all right, we're talking about the themes,
16:18and they're like, there's people who make a living,
16:20this is assembly, okay, check that off.
16:23Because they'll take the worst-case scenario.
16:25They'll take the scenario, if it completely fails,
16:28we know we've pre-sold it in 80 territories,
16:31and we'll have a thin margin of profit of $800,000.
16:34So for them, they're covered.
16:36But that's sort of, that's how I've approached the three movies that I've made.
16:39That sort of process.
16:41Did everyone write down the formula?
16:43But I can't do all the movies.
16:46I'm crying.
16:49Oh, come on.
16:51For us, we were definitely, the thing about the sale too,
16:53was that we were seen as a risky movie,
16:55because the lead was, you know, God forbid, a woman over 50,
16:58and then a woman of color.
17:00And it, female-driven story, female-centric movie,
17:02it was very, it was a risk.
17:06And so that, I think, for it to be the record-breaking sale at Sundance,
17:10was just a big validation that there are females.
17:13Yeah, and I think, like, I love that formula.
17:23Wish I could do it.
17:24You can't do that formula.
17:25You know?
17:26Yeah, like, on my film, I was like, okay, so this is a story.
17:30It's going to be 100% Asian cast, whether it's Asian or Asian American.
17:34I want it all authentic to the language and the accent,
17:37so 60, 70% Mandarin.
17:40Yeah, let's find a star who's worth the, you know what I mean?
17:45Your formula falls apart.
17:46Yeah, this was before we knew we were going to cast Awkwafina.
17:50It was actually before she had done Crazy Rich Asians.
17:52Right.
17:53It was before Crazy Rich Asians.
17:54Yeah.
17:55So, my formula is...
17:57Do you have one film for your formula?
17:58So, what is your formula?
17:59My formula is come up with an idea, go to This American Life,
18:06write and narrate it, have it air on This American Life,
18:11and then all the producers will start calling two days later.
18:14So simple.
18:15So easy.
18:16So easy.
18:17This film business is so simple.
18:18What?
18:19No, but in all seriousness, I think you do what you can.
18:21I mean, for other indie filmmakers, women, people of color,
18:24like, whatever your stories are, I think what I discovered
18:27through this process is that there's not just one way to do it.
18:30Right.
18:31Like, if you have a story that you're passionate about, find any kind of medium,
18:35find a way to get your voice out there, and then if it resonates, it'll spread.
18:40Yeah.
18:41But that's what we have to do.
18:42That typical formula for us, when you're put in, our X's and Y's will add up to $2,
18:47because they'll say, oh, that woman's not worth anything.
18:49That person of color has no record.
18:50Exactly.
18:51It just doesn't work for the kinds of movies.
18:54It doesn't work for everything.
18:55Yeah.
18:56But I'll tell you, on Nightcrawler, I was ready to make, we made it ultimately for around
18:59$7,000 or $8,000.
19:00I was ready to make it for, like, one or two.
19:01Yeah.
19:02There is a budget number that if you're willing to drop to that budget number,
19:06other options start opening up exponentially the lower you go.
19:09And then the question is, how do I make the damn movie for $750,000?
19:11And sometimes you can totally pull it off.
19:14Four movies.
19:15That's the first movie Whiplash.
19:16He made it for 3-1 off a short film.
19:18Yeah.
19:19I mean, you can do it.
19:20It's a man, but you just think the economics get smaller.
19:23Yeah.
19:24Sorry.
19:25Well, I was just to say, but, you know, our movie was originated by Dwayne,
19:28who, you know, by some metric is regarded as one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
19:31Yes.
19:32Literally.
19:33He was going to feature, although...
19:36He is formula.
19:37Well, you say that, but he's six foot five, I'm six foot seven.
19:40I'm sure.
19:41So...
19:43Let's be honest, he's very intimidated by me.
19:44It's embarrassing.
19:45I tend to sit a lot when I'm around him.
19:48But you'd assume that you'd go along and you'd say, well, okay, Dwayne's not going to be the lead of this movie,
19:53you know, although he was in real life involved with this girl, Paige's real-life wrestling story.
19:58But he's going to feature and he's going to have his fingerprints on it.
20:01And that was still...
20:02It still didn't solve everything.
20:03And we went to film four and we had to...
20:05You know, they had a sort of amount that they felt they could give and we had to get money elsewhere.
20:09And so I don't think, you know, it still seems to me that it's a combination of someone like Dwayne in the right kind of running, jumping, shooting film.
20:18But, you know, you put him in something else and suddenly people are a little nervous.
20:21Or how are we going to sell this?
20:22So I don't know if it's ever...
20:24And getting good collaborators with that as well.
20:27That's also part of the process of having a good producing team.
20:31Because that's the thing.
20:32It's just accumulating those yeses, isn't it?
20:34Right.
20:35And that sort of starts to snowball and that kind of moves.
20:38I think I was very...
20:39And part of the process with Boy of Harness the Wind was definitely...
20:41Even though I had me.
20:43Yeah.
20:44The numbers were working very well.
20:50The...
20:51Were you tough to get?
20:53Were there some availability issues?
20:56And when they come to you, she told you they said...
20:58You wouldn't read it.
20:59You just sat there for a long time.
21:00You're here.
21:01You know.
21:02What is this?
21:03But the...
21:04But you know, it's still...
21:05It's such...
21:06It's still a process.
21:07And finding people who share your vision and who are going to go to bat for you and who
21:12are going to try and join you in that search for the financing is vital.
21:19I think there really is no one way to do it.
21:22And I've done...
21:23I mean, this film was political in nature.
21:26You know, God forbid you should examine anything political in Hollywood unless you've
21:32somehow landed every major star that you can.
21:35So we had to do it that way around.
21:36We...
21:37We had a budget and then we...
21:38Well, okay.
21:39Just forget your budget.
21:40Nobody's going to do this unless, you know, you get the yeses that Chewy tells...
21:43Well, when Keira Knightley signed on, that was a really good yes.
21:46You'd think that would do it, right?
21:47You'd think that would do it.
21:48Oh, no, no, no.
21:49Well, that's great.
21:50That's great.
21:51Who else?
21:52So we ended up...
21:53Then we got Matt Smith who's fantastic from the...
21:54Absolutely wonderful actor.
21:55Amazing.
21:56We thought we were done.
21:57No, no, no, no, no.
21:58Get us one more.
21:59Get us one more.
22:00We had, like, this third act, amazing cameo part of this lawyer called Ben Emerson.
22:06Who are we going to go to?
22:07Let's try Ralph Fiennes.
22:08He's never going to say yes, you know.
22:10It's a...
22:11He said yes.
22:12So I think it really is for actors, and there's someone who can answer this better than me,
22:17but in my experience with actors, it's about the material.
22:20So if you're not winning on the elements that are...
22:23Now you've got to say this script has really got to be good, because what does an actor want?
22:29Something good.
22:30And, you know, and maybe a paycheck.
22:32But I've done it the other way around as well.
22:35My film Totsi many years ago was done in a foreign language with subtitles with not a movie star in sight.
22:41The lead had never been in a film before.
22:44But we had to make it for the right price.
22:46We had to make it for under $3 million.
22:48And we had to find people who just loved the story and, again, the script, and said,
22:53we believe in this and we'll do it.
22:55But there's no way we would have got, you know, even $6 million for that movie.
22:59So I think you've also got to be realistic about what your project is and go in as dancers at the right price.
23:05But if you try, if you can find a great actor that also has name value, of course that's hugely helpful.
23:12Or Chiwetel.
23:13Or Chiwetel.
23:14He's booked up.
23:15He's not reading anything.
23:16He's booked up.
23:17So let's talk about the actors.
23:20Do you enjoy the casting process?
23:23Do you stand right for an actor like Jake?
23:27Or how do you know that you have found the right actor for a role?
23:31In Velvet Buzzsaw I wrote the part for Jake and I wrote the part for Renee.
23:36I didn't know the other parts.
23:38I'm married to an actress for 25 years.
23:40I love working with actors.
23:42I think this is a highly collaborative medium.
23:44One of the things I enjoy most is sitting down with somebody when you cast them.
23:48And, like, I've got to be honest, however good a writer I am or not, when you sit down to a good actor,
23:53if they're a good actor within a few days or a week, they know more about the character than you do.
23:57Maybe not more than the story, but they certainly know more about the character.
24:00And I am all ears when an actor starts talking about what they think is going on.
24:04And I love actors that challenge and question.
24:07Because it's only going to get better.
24:09If they're good actors and hopefully you've cast them, it's only going to get better.
24:12And some directors don't like working with actors.
24:17They're scared of actors.
24:18Actors are scary.
24:19They ask really brutal questions.
24:21Why am I doing this?
24:23And sometimes they wait until the day you're shooting.
24:26Because it says so here on this page.
24:28You've never done that.
24:29But you should.
24:31I'm sure you have.
24:32But, no, embrace actors.
24:35They have, if they're good actors, embrace them.
24:37They're invaluable.
24:39And I've got a great cast.
24:41I mean, Malkovich and Toni Collette and all these great, and Saoie Ashton, it's incredible.
24:46I love actors, man.
24:47Good actors.
24:48But I want to tell, Steven, as actors, how did that sort of influence your style as a director?
24:55Well, I think it's actually the same thing Dan saying.
24:58It's just that sense of really, I think that embracing the process and embracing the collaborative spirit is a crucial part of, I think, being a director, and being an actor as well.
25:10well you know that that that understanding that individuals bring so much to the table you know
25:16and that actors can actually really influence from the inside the nature of a story with dynamics
25:22that are just kind of inconceivable you know to somebody you know somebody outside of that
25:26experience you know so and exactly in that way actors are sort of forced to be sort of you know
25:32script editors sometimes and really work through all the things that they have done before and what
25:38has worked for them and then bringing that to your project and so sort of negotiating that you
25:43know the hardest experiences to go through as an actor with directors who want to block that dynamic
25:49because they're kind of absolutely focused on whatever they believe is the is the correct way
25:56correct you know way to uh to approach something and um and that can be very challenging and very
26:01difficult and very rarely is it successful you know so as a director you know what i wanted to do was
26:07absolutely open it up to the actors to bring all of their thoughts feelings expressions to have
26:13takes that i didn't you know absolutely didn't say anything about it you know what what do you feel
26:18how do you feel it goes and if there was something specific to try and move or change or uh then sort
26:24of discuss that and think about it and negotiate it but uh but give people the absolute space to to
26:30create you know that seems we we we had a very tricky central role to cast because as i said it's
26:36based on this real life woman who's a working class woman uh who at the time that she went off to america
26:42to train as a as a wrestler for the wwe coming from this this norwich family you know she was uh 18 or 19 at
26:47the time she uh ultimately became a big star there so you needed someone who could both be this working
26:53class girl but who had the charisma not only to carry the movie but also that you would believe
27:00could become a star in this world that she's in and she needed to wrestle on top and so it was a
27:06really tough thing to cast and i must have seen sort of 60 plus you know young british actresses in
27:12either in person or on tape and it was just hard to find that combination and uh we ended up with this
27:17wonderful actress called florence pew who has been here i believe with with lady macbeth and lady macbeth
27:22was a terrific film but it didn't tell me that she could do this part and it's no no there's no
27:27question about her talent it's just you know but is she right for this one and so you know i worked
27:31with her a lot and some of the other actors and until they could convince me that that this was the
27:35right deal but like you were saying you know when it's weird when you are an actor you know you
27:40hear those stories about well what's my motivation why should i cross the room and and you sort of
27:44think oh it's just actors being you know idiots but actually weirdly what sometimes when you are in
27:50the scene it's only then that something occurs to you that doesn't feel right or it feels weird or
27:54you don't understand it and you can't move forward because you're stuck in that and so like you say
27:58you you need to trust that the actor is not doing this because they're being a diva or because of ego
28:02it's it's just something's not ringing true for them and if you don't listen to that you i don't know
28:07you know i don't know where you are yeah i agree yeah i'm i want to go back on something i was saying
28:13about about kira and matt and rafe and and and um especially when you've written yourself dan i
28:20don't know if you'll agree with this but there's some there is a fear that you're going to get you're
28:24going to get rejected actors often come to auditions and think they're auditioning for you
28:28the truth is you also feel like your stuff's being auditioned by them is my stuff working does it work
28:34and and you want to hear that i actually love the audition casting process because i get to test my
28:40stuff before i'm actually shooting on multiple people don't tell them that you tell you but it's
28:45great when actors come in the room and you're casting because you're going is this scene going
28:49to work the way i've written it don't be afraid of that process because the other thing about being
28:55challenged the flip side of having your producers your financiers say to you no get me get me someone
29:01better for this role and your instincts please can i i don't want to go through that trial or that
29:05rejection anymore i have kira can we just shoot this we'll get no we want more now in a way
29:10then you go oh what you realize is is my stuff good enough you know is it good enough to attract
29:18really good actors and if my stuff when i'm sending it out is being rejected oh so and so passed so and
29:24so passed you know there's a tendency well fuck them you know um but actually that's not very wise
29:30because maybe it's getting rejected because it's not good enough and uh and so as a writer and a director
29:36you want to go back and look at that material because the competition is massive what's the
29:43number 700 films made last year did 13.4 billion dollars it's a record except that half of that 13
29:52billion or at least a third of it was 10 marvel movies so that leaves 690 movies competing for the
29:59other balance of which most don't get a release this is not a gentle sport this is the olympics man
30:06and um maybe i'm overstating it but getting tested in pre-production and during casting and going back
30:13is is exhausting but actually worth it i think yeah i want to hear about aquafina and how you cast her
30:19yeah i was gonna say it's i mean that's it's it's it's terrifying because you don't know how it's
30:25all gonna work out until like you're actually there we had an ensemble cast so we have aquafina
30:30who's known for comedy and when we cast her she hadn't even done crazy rich or uh uh oceans eight yet
30:36and so when um you know the producer said you know have you heard of aquafina and i was like my vag
30:43they were like i know it's unconventional what do you think like she loves the script she'd love to meet
30:48with you and i was like oh okay just didn't think okay yeah all right my badge yeah okay uh so i mean
30:56my brother introduced her music to me that's how i knew of her was like through youtube and stuff like
31:00that and then of course she's like playing a version of me and so it made me i was like uh uh danny my
31:06producer was like how do you think do you am i okay like you know this is the person that you're choosing
31:12to represent me so then uh aquafina i met up and she told me about how personal um the story was
31:19for her because she was raised by her chinese grandmother and then she sent in her audition
31:23tape and i just knew that the raw connection she had to the story was going to bring so much depth
31:29and we couldn't green light the film even without having uh the main character you know but then you
31:34go to china and you're cat we're casting people from like local chinese actors to play the grandma
31:39uh we cast this soap opera star from china we you know for the uncle we we cast this like dramatic
31:46actor uh if tai ma who's you know been in arrival meditation everything rush hour uh as the father
31:53we have an australian chinese woman to play the mother uh and then i cast my real great aunt to play
32:00herself in the movie non-actor she actually went through the experience herself and i always thought you
32:07know if she was just around on set she would bring like a grounding to all of this and hopefully tie
32:12all of it in and initially i thought maybe she'll play grandma and that wasn't good because yeah that
32:17wasn't good because she was like what does my sister do and you know it was very like an imitation and
32:24then i just said what if she plays herself and we had a long conversation i said put yourself back in
32:29the moment when you found out the news and you have to lie to your you have to decide do i lie to my sister
32:34do i not i felt bad like all the producers were there and we were like we're putting her through
32:39this really traumatic revisiting of this moment of and but she she was like it's like therapy you know
32:46and she did it and it was so raw and uh it was like done so but then you know you don't see all of
32:52these people together until you're actually on set and we didn't want to start with these big ensemble
32:58pieces because we had very limited shooting schedule as you know with indie films and then you have 13
33:03people in a tiny apartment sitting around a round table how do you do this do you cover it you don't
33:09have time and um and then and then also how is everyone what's the chemistry between the group
33:15between grandma billy between you know and then as an ensemble because the ensemble themselves is a
33:20character the family is a main character in the movie so it's it's magic i think so much of it is is
33:28faith and you just kind of up until two weeks before we started shooting we didn't have grandma
33:33or little nai nai uh the sister or the great aunt cast and so you're just like this this this this
33:39all right let's go boom and you have no idea what you end up with and yeah so were you nervous about
33:46the fact that what if your arm couldn't do it you got to fire her or something because i put my dad in
33:50something once and we gave him lines and on the day he was hopeless and i had to i ended up taking them
33:54away from him and because it was such a no budget thing my agent ended up doing the scene instead
34:02did he charge you 10 percent he did she kept saying that she was like you know if i'm terrible
34:08just tell me just fire me i was like we've like been through the parks of the entire city every
34:13morning scouting cute old like chinese ladies uh no like you're the cutest
34:19and we gotta make it work and she was like no i'm gonna ruin your movie and she's acting her you
34:26know her sister in the movie is a really famous chinese actress that she's like watched for years
34:33and so she was like i can't my fat face is gonna ruin your movie that's what she would always say and
34:38we were like no you were adorable even when we told her we were at sundance she was like i'm just
34:42relieved i didn't ruin the movie um yeah she's she's amazing but a little bit afraid but i knew she
34:48she could do it so uh guys i do want to ask sort of a broader industry question obviously we've seen
34:54this business changing pretty rapidly the last couple years with things like netflix and amazon
35:00and hulu and now apple kind of coming into the business a couple of these films are being released
35:05through netflix what's sort of your view on how a movie is released how you would want your movie
35:11to reach audiences these days are you open to everything are there still preferred ways you'd want
35:16your movie to go well i think for for the boy who honest the wind which is with netflix which has been
35:23very exciting and a great process for us you know the um uh what it's made me think about is this
35:30opportunity to slightly curate the ideas of how you uh distribute films and uh and that there's not a sort
35:37of there's a kind of there are options on the table and there's not a sort of one size fits all kind of
35:43um model and so um so it seems exciting to me you know i i wanted to make a film that was very specific
35:50and very authentic and about malawi uh and a lot of the film is in chichua which is the language of
35:56malawi and um you know and it's all you know set there and it's very you know a lot of people to see it
36:05you know and and in the early parts of the process you know when i was starting to write that it didn't
36:11seem it felt like that was a difficult thing to achieve you know i started writing in 2009 and you
36:17kind of um you know and just working through the time doing other things coming back to it and
36:21seeing the landscape slightly change and getting to this point whereby there is an opportunity to
36:26have it you know to some people to see it in a limited way in cinemas but also to actually get the
36:32kind of reach and the eyeballs on it that uh that would just was completely impossible um a few years
36:38ago and would have been extremely difficult within the model and the established theatrical models of
36:43distribution uh recently so that's been exciting to me i think that that idea of how we can curate
36:50that experience for the audiences and how we can then push sort of different kinds of material out there
36:56and uh and have different kinds of conversation is something that i personally am very excited about
37:00and looking forward to working with and seeing how these conversations can be productively handled
37:06you know so it's not a sort of us and them sort of paradigm but you know i think that these things
37:10work together very well i love the idea for example that was something like roma that people were going
37:15to see it in the cinema because they were more used to the idea of subtitles because they had been
37:20watching things like narcos on netflix you know recently so that sort of way that actually can
37:25these things can sort of evolve and inform each other i think is a kind of useful
37:29way of moving forward yeah i think we're as lucky with netflix because it's of course old school
37:35and i'm a bit old school you know want to see my film on a big screen and i do there's nothing more
37:39beautiful than sitting collectively with an audience and seeing a big there's something about the
37:44intelligence of an audience that goes up when they're all together which is a bit more nerve-wracking
37:48but they really focus but having said that it's a bit like sort of whinging about film versus digital
37:55you've got to stop i mean the truth is digital now is amazing digital cameras and it's democratizing
38:01film in a way that it was never possible when when we had film and i think netflix and what
38:05you're saying is doing the same thing i mean you know 12 years ago when i made this tiny little indie
38:11film also all subtitled in sorts ital um we were just hoping we'd get a release in south africa which
38:17is where i grew up hopefully and we were very lucky that it traveled the world because of festivals like
38:21this um that but the festivals like this were really the way the only way that you could get your film
38:27out in the world now with netflix and amazon and these sort of companies a smaller film can find a
38:32huge audience whereas even when salty was released in america it was released on two screens in new
38:38york and one in la well that's not really my target audience um and i'm very glad that it then picked up
38:43and went on to many more screens and and got a life and showed all over the country but it it still
38:48doesn't reach the audience that a netflix can and then the other thing of course is we're all buying
38:52these big tv screens so it's not so bad the sounds better you know when i was growing up it was tv and
38:58who wants your stuff on four by three so i think don't don't be afraid of it look for the place
39:03where you can best get your film out and um and of course it's wonderfully satisfying to have it on
39:08the big screen but it's certainly not the only place i think we we get the best of both worlds with
39:12amazon because they guaranteed a theater release so we get to oh wow you know that's the dream is you
39:17want to see it in a theater with an audience especially comedies i grew up watching comedies in movie
39:22theaters with audiences there's nothing like laughing all together and so we get to do that
39:26and then we also get to reach the whole world with amazon streaming so i think that's just the best of
39:31both worlds yeah and i think above like more than just the theatrical digital like all of that like
39:36yes you want as many people to see it as possible it's more than just platform it's about you know
39:41who can handle the film who understands the film who's able to present it to the world because so much
39:47of it is about optics right like the farewell you know you have an all-asian cast there's subtitles
39:52people are speaking chinese but then you have aquafina who's this very big american star so you
39:57know when you're in this like strange territory and they call you specialty like how do you present
40:02it so that you bridge that gap people aren't seeing it as a foreign film that they're able to see it as
40:07an american film because it is an american film even though there's all of this other language because
40:12it's from the perspective of an american and it may not be the type of american people immediately
40:18think of you know like as a lead or as a cast in general but it is an american perspective and in
40:25fact you know when people were talking about this film for the chinese market like i can't speak to
40:30that because i'm not chinese and you know when we took we were talking to people about the film in china
40:34we're like so then they keep the secret and they don't tell grandma and they're like uh-huh so where's the
40:40drama we're like no but they don't tell her and she's dying and they're like and you don't do that
40:45america like you guys are crazy you would just tell her you know and so for them they're like this
40:51isn't dramatic enough this is what everybody does um so it's like when my family in india thought monsoon
40:56wedding was a documentary yeah yeah my dad told the story my dad was like this is so every day why is
41:04this interesting yeah um i'm curious while we've been here there's been a movement happening um with
41:11a lot of actors uh agreeing to participate in something called the four percent challenge which
41:15is they'll agree to work with a female filmmaker in the next 18 months um you know as we know female
41:21filmmakers still make up only four percent of the top films in the u.s um i'm curious what you all think
41:29about that initiative and sort of what can be done to really you know make give more opportunities for
41:35female filmmakers i mean i think it's essential that they make these initiatives and promises and
41:41just shine a light on it because if they don't it's true it doesn't really draw attention and the
41:46statistics every year people seem to start to talk about female filmmakers and then every year
41:51the statistics actually go down about the number of working directors that are women behind the camera and
41:56we all know now that who's behind the camera matters and it matters what perspective you're
42:00being given it matters how the stories are being portrayed how women's stories particularly if if
42:06they are objectified or not it absolutely changes by whether a woman is behind the camera or not
42:10and so i think those initiatives can only help yeah i think it's so urgent and i also hope that there's
42:17one day where people aren't having to agree to work you know where it's like hell yeah we are so freaking
42:25excited and you know it isn't pushed on you by an initiative but at this moment in time we need
42:31it because it's not happening i was uh just thinking about um you know sort of women in the lead roles
42:38as well because i uh was always aware that there was a disparity between you know how many uh protagonists
42:44are our leading protagonists in the movie are our women and i always knew there was a disparity between
42:49men and women but i didn't realize how pronounced it was and i read a few articles where it was you
42:53know they were dramatically stating you know how low it was you know as low as kind of 30 percent in
42:57some in some hollywood you know in like 2016. and i bizarrely i'd made a list of my favorite 500 films
43:04because i got time on my hands and uh and i thought surely you know this is a list which is not
43:09controversial if you were to look at it you'd see many of the kind of standard canonized movie
43:13classics in there across and it dates back the earliest in the list is about 1920 and it covers it's a huge
43:19film nerd uh list and and i and i sort of thought to myself i bet there's at least 50 percent that
43:25are female roles and i totted it up and to talk if you were thinking of it singly as a female
43:29protagonist it was um 50 in the 500 films it's 10 and i was really shocked by my own list and again
43:36it's not a list where you look at that and think it's it's entirely jean-claude van dame films it's
43:40it's a very broad spectrum but and i was shocked by myself and i and i talked to my girlfriend about it
43:44and she was saying well yeah you never noticed the absent because you see a white middle-class male
43:49on screen all the time you just the absence of something doesn't occur to you because
43:53there's nothing absent for you exactly i mean even for me though like i took a film class in college
43:59and it wasn't until i got in the industry and i started thinking back on it in this film class
44:04uh you know of like an entire semester not one female director uh was presented as somebody to to
44:12watch whose work i should watch and and i just didn't think about it i was like oh yeah tarantino
44:18yeah what do you have thought about it that was like why is there not one woman on this list because
44:23when you present to me a list and you say these are the directors you should study in film school
44:26these are the directors who are worth watching i was like so what you're telling me is there's not
44:30one woman who's worth studying and that's the message you're giving and i was the annoying student
44:34that was i wish i thought more i think i was just so like enamored i never thought of even
44:38filmmaking i just discovered filmmaking for myself that i there was a pressure of being like oh my
44:44god i gotta catch up you know i didn't i were my family immigrated here when i was six and so i
44:49wasn't exposed to all these art films i just felt like i had to catch up and learn all the things that
44:53these like my film teacher and all these brilliant huh watch blow up yeah we are showing blow up one more
45:00time i was like why is this okay exactly guys i want to thank you
45:08thank you so much for joining us thank you everyone for coming
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