Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Teyana Taylor, and Steven Yeun get together to break down the making of their new crime movie, ‘The Rip.’ The co-stars discuss working with director Joe Carnahan, how Teyana’s training for ‘One Battle After Another’ with Paul Thomas Anderson helped prepare her for the film’s action sequences, and how Steven approached his character. Watch as Ben reflects on advice Gus Van Sant gave him during ‘Good Will Hunting,’ Matt shares a tip Steven Spielberg once offered about staging action scenes, and the conversation touches on their group chats, upcoming projects, and why hard work on set can still be fun.
Watch 'The Rip' on Netflix.
#BenAffleck #MattDamon #TeyanaTaylor #StevenYeun #TheRip #TableRead #Esquire
Watch 'The Rip' on Netflix.
#BenAffleck #MattDamon #TeyanaTaylor #StevenYeun #TheRip #TableRead #Esquire
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm like so lucky that I get to have a group chat with y'all.
00:03I'm like, yeah, those are my boys.
00:06Yeah, my boy got a movie coming out.
00:08Lil Ben?
00:09Lil Ben as my mom.
00:10Lil Matt Matt.
00:11Lil Matt Matt.
00:12Lil Matt Matt.
00:13Lil Steve.
00:19Who would like to describe The Rip to someone who hasn't seen it yet?
00:23To Teyana.
00:24Right, to me.
00:25Because I still haven't seen it.
00:27A bitch ain't even getting a link.
00:28This is crazy.
00:29Yeah, I am the people who haven't seen it.
00:31You're like, what is the movie?
00:32So tell me about Rip.
00:33You're really fucking good at this movie.
00:34I gotta tell you.
00:35Right.
00:36You're gonna love it.
00:37You really like it.
00:38This is a movie about a bunch of cops in Miami who work on a division where there's some
00:43questions about the integrity of some of the people because somebody's been killed and
00:47a lot of money moves through this unit.
00:49And what they do is basically go seize illegal cash, you know, that's from drugs or weapons
00:54or whatever it might be.
00:55They get this call that's supposed to be a, you know, relatively for them insignificant
00:58amount of money.
00:59They get there and there's $20 million.
01:02They kind of aren't all entirely trusting of each other.
01:07They're not sure about this woman who's at the house.
01:10And then there's a question of like the people whose money it is may come back to get it
01:14from them.
01:15So it's like a pretty simple contained kind of modern throwback crime movie.
01:20It's about like, you know, trying to figure out who you can trust and who's nobody's exactly
01:24saying truth.
01:26And there you go.
01:27I don't want to give any more away.
01:28You're going to like it.
01:29This is great to know.
01:30Yeah.
01:31This is great information.
01:32We should have done this before the movie.
01:33I'm so excited to see this.
01:34Also, it's a musical now.
01:35You should know that.
01:36Yeah.
01:37And your dancing is good.
01:38Yeah.
01:39Anything you want to tell me?
01:41We count the seizures on site.
01:43Yeah.
01:44Yeah.
01:45I know we count the seizure on site.
01:46I'm talking about not contacting command.
01:48Radioing in.
01:49Feels kind of funky.
01:50Hey, what's LT's called, baby?
01:51What you tripping for?
01:52We literally do this all the time.
01:54All right, Taylor.
01:55What was your experience on the movie?
01:56It seemed like you were having fun.
01:58But Steven said maybe sometimes that Matt was irritating you.
02:01Was that true?
02:02Oh, my God.
02:03Who said that?
02:04I'm just serious.
02:05I had the best time.
02:07It was so much fun.
02:08And I want to give some flowers to Joe.
02:10Because it takes a good director to have some good fun on set.
02:14And the way he pour into us and like, hell yeah, let's fucking do it.
02:17You know what I'm saying?
02:18It just amped you up to want to do it.
02:20You know what I'm saying?
02:21Yeah, he had the high level of energy to like drive the whole thing.
02:24No, he did.
02:25And he was like in it with us even though he wasn't in it.
02:27Yeah.
02:28You know what I'm saying?
02:29Kind of felt like he was another cop in the house.
02:30Exactly.
02:31I'm like, yo, you want a part?
02:32You want a little part in here?
02:33We need to write you a few lines, you know?
02:34Because he was just so good.
02:35And play in movie scores of other movies, you know, to kind of like try to build the vibe
02:37and everything.
02:38To get you up there.
02:39It's actually helpful to sort of get a sense of what the tone is going to be.
02:42Exactly.
02:43Like on stage or whatever.
02:44What interested me about getting into this was that this was like a story that was true,
02:49but also the way that they were building it kind of a little bit dramatized in fantasy.
02:54A guy like Mike wouldn't normally be in that group.
02:58Building the backstory of this character was really fun and at times like really strange
03:02because you're like, oh, I'm touching something kind of live, kind of real.
03:06You're serving predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods when you're in an arc unit.
03:10And I was like, what would an Asian guy be doing there?
03:13How would he service this situation?
03:15And we made sense of that.
03:16How did he get there?
03:17And so I think having space by everyone to explore kind of the newness of that guy being
03:24there added this layer of like, oh, what are we exploring?
03:27And I think that was what's really fun about the project.
03:29Let's not start undermining our trust.
03:31Don't tell me what I can and can't do right now.
03:33I'm fucking reacting.
03:34All right.
03:35I'm not worried about fucking offending the team.
03:37All right.
03:38We got to be smart right now.
03:39This is about trust.
03:40Yes.
03:41Yes.
03:42Dude.
03:43Dude.
03:44It's me and you.
03:45Okay?
03:46How did it feel spending a block?
03:47Mmm.
03:48Well, we dated a long time ago.
03:49And we're getting back together.
03:50It was a messy breakup.
03:51Yeah.
03:52It was a lot of bitterness.
03:53A lot of hurt feelings.
03:54Y'all spent the block on each other.
03:55We did.
03:56After a very toxic breakup.
03:57We did.
03:58You know, the truth is like the nice thing about this movie is like the better actors you
04:03attract, the more professional they are, the more comfortable you are with them.
04:07I think the better everyone's going to be.
04:09Like for me, the enemy of doing something well is like anxiety or nervousness or self-consciousness.
04:15Like when you meet people and you like them and you got ease with them, that helps you
04:19a lot.
04:20And it's obviously a lot.
04:21It's not like we reunited because I actually.
04:23We see each other.
04:24Yeah.
04:25Quite often.
04:26But it's very helpful to have somebody that you know, you also respect to have a long history
04:29with.
04:30I think it's more a thing for the audience where it's like the audience will project because
04:34if they know who Matt or I are, they know probably, oh, these guys are friends, right?
04:38You don't have to do a lot of exposition, you know, with scenes about showing how friendly
04:43we are and saying, remember the time you saved me, you know, and the audience just kind of
04:47grants that to you.
04:48And so you can get right into the story.
04:49Joe's smart about thinking about ways to use what do people know about these actors
04:54in to help the movie, you know?
04:56Yeah.
04:57And it wasn't a thing like when we first started a hundred years ago.
05:00There, that wasn't as much of an issue.
05:02Nobody ever talked about like the baggage you had or what do people know about you or anything.
05:06People's off-screen lives were, lives were much more mysterious back then when we started.
05:10Goddamn.
05:11There's $1.4 million in this bucket.
05:14That can't be.
05:15Is this, is that real?
05:16Shit.
05:17Damn.
05:18I have about 14 more of those things at least.
05:21Oh.
05:22That's, they haven't seen them all right there.
05:24That's a $20 million rip.
05:26Who of us would, would steal the money?
05:28I think they got enough.
05:30It'd be us.
05:31It'd be us, right?
05:32Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:33They got enough.
05:34Complaining for you.
05:35I don't know.
05:36That's the thing that happens.
05:37You get really successful and nobody wants to hear your bullshit much more.
05:42The thing about the money is like, I think it's kind of bullshit the idea that like,
05:46oh, there's good people, there's bad, but who would do it?
05:48Truth is, everybody's susceptible to certain temptations, right?
05:52Like, I don't believe there are good people and bad people.
05:55Maybe you have a better upbringing, maybe you have better models.
05:58All of us are subject to like competing tensions.
06:00All of us feel like, I gotta take care of the things that are important in my family,
06:03for example.
06:04There's a lot we'll do for that.
06:05There's a lot we'll do for that.
06:06Yeah.
06:07You got these characters who are talking openly about, as a lot of these, the people that
06:10we met do, about the fact that they're doing this incredibly dangerous thing and they're
06:14not really getting paid enough money.
06:16And, you know, Catalina's referencing, you know, her kids and her ex and her, you know,
06:20and all of these outside pressures.
06:22And then suddenly they're sitting in a room with all this money.
06:24So hopefully the audience can identify with all of them.
06:27I got to talk with Chris Cassiano, who led the group that this film is based on.
06:32It was really interesting to hear him say, I was like, what did you learn after your time on the force?
06:37And he was like that the distinction between what I do and who I'm after, the criminals, is a blurry, thin line.
06:46And it's a matter of circumstance.
06:48And sometimes you're just looking at a mirror, but there's still these rules and you still have to pay.
06:54And who's going to skirt that? And who's going to accept that?
06:58Who's going to, you know, deceive that?
07:00There's just so many things.
07:01I felt like this movie was really touching something really interesting.
07:04But we did a lot of shooting. I enjoy that, you know, like, I think, yeah, one battle has a state.
07:16I saw one battle. I was like, she did all the training on that movie.
07:19Yes, I did. I did back to back training. Yeah. I did back to back firearm training.
07:23So when it was time to do firearm for the rip, it was like, I was like, yeah, no, we got to go like this.
07:29I was just like so happy to be able to have gun talk with the pros.
07:33The pros that was there, you know, like, okay, you know what you're doing a little bit.
07:36Exactly. But I love that we were able to actually, like, move with the guns.
07:41Like, remember the shootout scene? That was so much fun. Like, it was dope.
07:45We were running through the neighborhood just keeping that entire neighborhood awake.
07:48I felt terrible. Oh, I felt so bad. Full loads.
07:51I think it's so fun when you can, like, find moments.
07:54I mean, every, any scene can give this, but like, sometimes when you're just in an action sequence where you're like,
07:58just trying to get multiple people coordinate the same thing, you're like so in it that you're like finally out of yourself.
08:05You're like not aware and you're just doing this action sequence.
08:08Yeah. So fun.
08:09And Joe really wants to use a full load, which is basically as much gunpowder as in a real bullet, just in a blank.
08:15Cause typically you don't have to do that. And it's really loud. The concussive powers.
08:19Joe, he, and he had me fire the automatic weapon and then he goes, fire that, empty that.
08:24And then, and then just go for your sidearm. And I'm like, and then fire a couple shots at the retreating truck.
08:28He was like, slide lock.
08:30And I was like, all right, here comes 16 more shots at the, at the departing pickup truck.
08:36You have to like know the geography, right? Like, so the rules about action is, you know, I think you have to,
08:41I think you have to, the audience has got to understand basically what's happening. Otherwise it's not tense, not stressful, it's not anything.
08:46It's just chaos. But if it's, if there's too much information, everything's really clear.
08:50You lose the sense of the unknown and the confusion. There's a kind of panic and unknown.
08:55And I thought they did a good job keeping that element and not having it feel really constructed and, and artificial.
09:02It definitely feels chaotic. Spielberg said that to me. I'll never forget 30 years ago.
09:06I asked him about the most important thing in a war film or one of, you know, give me something that's really important.
09:10He said, he said, know where the enemy is. And like, and, and I think once you know that, okay,
09:15they're over in that general direction, you can deal with whatever chaos you have going on here.
09:19Wow. Also like just cinematically, the audience got to know, well, this goes this way and blows up.
09:24That's the good guys or the bad guys, you know?
09:26At one point, I literally had to pull Ben off of the cop that he was whooping his behind.
09:41But I remember when they yelled cut, he was like, damn, you strong as shit.
09:45I was like, those are the things you get really good into the fight and you're going and the other guy's big.
09:49And I'm, I feel this thing on me, like, arm and I really got pulled. What the fuck is this?
09:53Like, this is a movie. I turned around and I was like, oh.
09:56This is him turning around and looking down. Yes.
09:58I was like, hauled me the fuck off him.
10:00And it was our first day together. I was like, okay, good to meet you.
10:03And this one might kick my ass. I was like scared to jump in, but I'm like, fuck it. He got action.
10:09We got, we got things to do. You know what I'm saying? We got things to do.
10:12Ben, Ben was trying to break that glass window and he didn't realize it was like a bulletproof window and you were just throwing.
10:18I mean, it was just like, and yeah, it was like one of these things where the window is supposed to be breakaway and the wrong window got used.
10:25So I was embarrassed. I was like, you gotta be, it's like candy glass. You can, and I'm like, no, I'll get it this time.
10:30Wham! And I'm not, I'm gonna give myself a game. I hit that thing hard. And then I get my ass kicked by town.
10:37Yeah. So it was a humbling beginning to the movie.
10:40Then we had the fight with Matt. By that time I was like, we can use the stunt guys.
10:43You saw my, my veteran like experience. Right when the fight started, I was like, went to the bullpen.
10:48I was like, bring in the stunt guy. No, that's not me.
10:51I'll talk about one battle after another. That was phenomenal. And you were phenomenal in it.
10:55And everybody was phenomenal. And I thought the cast top to bottom was just so good.
10:59I couldn't get enough of that movie. I wish it was longer. I was like sitting there.
11:03I saw it obviously in IMAX. I got the full experience. I actually went with two of my daughters, two of my nephews.
11:09Like we, we made a day of it. We watched it. We went out to lunch. We talked about it. We kept talking about it.
11:14It was just great. Great movie.
11:17In fact, I remember when seeing you like, this was on FaceTime with Paul. We were shooting it, our movie before that came out.
11:23So I saw the look on his face when he was talking to you. And it was so, I thought, oh, she's probably really good in his movie.
11:31That is a grateful director who was really, and I remember thinking, oh, she did in that movie. I want to see it. And yeah, sure enough, it was, it was spectacular.
11:41Coming from Paul Thomas Anderson and then just get done working with y'all, y'all have to understand, I've been in a life of cheat sheets. You know what I'm saying? And master classes.
11:51It's like that magazine where the pop quiz pop up, but the answer is at the bottom of the page. All you got to do is turn it upside down.
11:57You can't do better than Paul. He's as good as anybody there is.
11:59I mean, I stepped right into Rick.
12:02Yeah.
12:03So all of these things was really like preparing me for, you know, my leadership, stepping into leadership and knowing how to handle that and knowing how to get a great movie and understanding that being a part of these movies really made me see clearly that 80% of directing is casting, you know?
12:18And when you cast right, you get to play ball, you get to coach your team, and then you get to play ball because you have Allen Iverson.
12:25Yeah, I'm going to do what you put on here, but I'm going to also go, my, my, my, my.
12:28Yeah, like you can't tell Allen, you feel me? Give him the ball, but no coach can tell him, all right, do this cross, break his ankles, boom, boom, boom, boom.
12:36You get what I'm saying? So casting is very, very important. I look at everything like a sport.
12:40That's what I did when I learned how to direct just from studying every director I had a chance to work with, good and bad example.
12:46Like, and I just straight, you just like copy, steal from people who are great and better and you can learn from.
12:52Like with Paul, is there something that you took away from that movie where you're like, oh, I'm going to do that when I-
12:56Everything. I was SpongeBob SquarePants. Like I literally, I was soaking everything up. Also while balancing culinary school.
13:02So I'm already used to having a head chef and you know, now Paul, I call him Paul, let him cook Thomas Anderson.
13:09Just seeing him in the kitchen and seeing him cooking. Like I said, seeing him take us to the court and letting us play ball with Paul.
13:15I watch him pour so much into everybody. You get what I'm saying? And it would be to a point where he'd have us watching dailies.
13:21So we were watching dailies. A bad take never even made it into the final edit. So you feel safe.
13:27You feel like he's choosing the right take. Cause we'll sit there and be like, nah, that wasn't it. Get that shit out of here.
13:33You know what I'm saying? Get that out of here. That wasn't it. You know what I'm saying?
13:35So it's a comfort and a safety that you feel knowing that he got you. And we going to keep doing it until you get it right.
13:41You know, it's just, it's amazing to see his gentle leadership is amazing to see. He don't even got to say much.
13:47You know, he's like, yo, just, just, just do it. Just get out of your fucking head. Just do it.
13:51You know, it's just, that's, that's, that's his voice all the time.
13:55I did this movie called burning with one of the greatest directors in my opinion, but in Korea and beyond Lee Chang-dong.
14:03He spoiled me about time. That's real shit.
14:05What do you mean specifically? Like he, he can wait for a butterfly to land on your nose.
14:10He had the luxury of some semblance of time. Like he's not as compressed.
14:15We shot a movie in like four or five months. So that's a long time.
14:18But he also like creates this padding in space to be like, it's all good. Just wait.
14:25So he's like holding a stopwatch, but also waiting for the butterfly to land on your nose, like out of nowhere.
14:30And he literally said to me, he's like a movie makes itself. And I was like, what? What are you talking about?
14:37And then I watched him fucking do it. Like I watched him just hold the stopwatch, but let go and just let the thing reveal itself.
14:45And like ride it. It kind of like fucked me up a little bit. Cause I was just like, oh, can you just keep your hands totally off?
14:52And it's not that because there's so many people touching it. And part of it is that tension with the control.
15:00And so it was just, it was incredible to watch it.
15:03That reminds me of like, I remember like when, with Gus Van Sant on Google hunting and I was like, I would say things like, so what, how, what, what should I need to know about directing?
15:11Like what? And one of the things I still remember is that he said, like, the movie will talk back to you.
15:16Yeah. You know, listen to the, and I took me a long time to understand really what he meant.
15:21Yes. You have to have a vision and an idea, but also the movie will start to tell you, oh, it's sort of over here, you know, and don't fight that either.
15:29Like, listen to that. It's a high level of, of mastery and confidence and ease to do it.
15:35Cause like you say, with the stopwatch, so much, much of it is just like the pressures of when we get done and the day and the location and all those, you know, regular bullshit kind of constraints.
15:46It takes a lot to, to have that confidence. And I've seen it with the better directors who they listen more, like they're more collaborative.
15:54For sure.
15:55That's probably the one common thread with all of the great directors I've worked with is that they're, they're not threatened by other people's ideas.
16:01Exactly.
16:02They're really solicitous of them. And they also, they know they're going to be the ones who decide anyway.
16:06Yeah.
16:07Give me everything you've got. And, and ultimately they're, they're the arbiter of, you know, it's, it's going to be their movie.
16:12Totally.
16:13It's a director's medium. That's the way it has to be. A couple experience where I've worked with less experienced directors, the, a real sense of, of, of threat from, with other people's ideas.
16:23And, and, and it's always just ego getting in the way of, of the thing that should be put ahead of everybody.
16:31We're all here to do one thing.
16:32And also the final product is also subjective anyway. It land, it can land at a time in society where like people don't see it at all and they don't understand it.
16:39And then they'll like have a life afterwards. And I think it's like, as an actor, from my standpoint, there's also something that I'm learning over time too, of like leaving the attempt itself on the table.
16:49Being open.
16:50As an actor is all you have.
16:51Yeah. Right. It's all you have. And so you're like, here's my attempt and I'm just going to let that ride. You know, that's always a hard negotiation.
16:58So what y'all got coming up?
17:00I'm just, you know, you got animals coming up.
17:02Yeah. I directed a movie after that that Steven happens to be in. Yeah. He's very good. And it's sort of kind of in the thing we're talking about, about like people and the decisions they make and what they show other people and what's right and wrong.
17:15It's a kidnapping story that there's definitely a kind of genre, like very hardcore through line to it. But it's really fundamentally about, for me, kind of who we say we are versus who we really are.
17:29And you do the small movie.
17:31A little, a little indie. Yeah. The Odyssey is coming out in July.
17:34A little. I hope you was joking.
17:38I was joking. I was joking. Yeah. No, that'll be. Yeah. Another IMAX one.
17:43Yeah. That looks awesome. It's going to be awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen it yet.
17:47This is the first time in my life I went to the movie theater just to see the trailer.
17:50So Tiana, so you're on the whole campaign hustle. Just won the Golden Globe. And also you were telling us that you got nominated for a Grammy.
17:58So you're trying to EGOT all in one year? Because I don't think that's like.
18:01Yeah. You got to sign up for a play right away. Get the Tony. Yeah. That is, I mean, incredible.
18:08But until I get the Tony, I'm going to put the T for Tiana.
18:11You're like, if I get, if I get a few women. The honorary team, you know, EGOT Tiana.
18:17It's so funny because people are like, oh, Tiana, she's like, they act like, you know, I get the sense that the people and I get it.
18:25Right. Because when you become like when it steps up a level like that, for some people, it's the first they kind of notice it.
18:31But like it kind of feels like, you know, like you haven't been around doing this for as long as you haven't been doing this work.
18:37But still, it's is it a lot like this whole level step and everybody in the whole.
18:43It's a level step in two different disciplines.
18:45I know. That's crazy. That's what's crazy.
18:47It's crazy because it's a lot and it's a lot of hard work.
18:52But, you know, I will never complain about answered prayers.
18:57You get what I'm saying? Like, hard work is fun.
19:01Easy is not fun. Hard work is fun.
19:04Doing everything that you want to do is fun.
19:07You've got to have fun with it. It's the most you can do.
19:09It's like, wow, that prayer is answered. That prayer is answered.
19:14And now you're going to direct a movie.
19:15Yeah, because who got time to be sitting around?
19:18Who got time to be sitting around? Not me because I'm getting everything I've ever asked for.
19:22So I don't look at it like, oh, I'm just so young to play.
19:26You know, I get sleepy, but I never get tired of working.
19:30That's good. You know, you and your director bag is insane.
19:33And what you about to do, I'm just, oh, I'm going to be seated.
19:36I'm like so like lucky that I get to have like a group chat with y'all.
19:40I'm like, yeah, those are my boys. Yeah, my boy got a movie coming out.
19:44Yeah, you know, little Ben, little Ben, that's my, little Matt Matt, little Matt Matt.
19:49Little Matt Matt.
19:50Little Steve. Yeah, that's my cousin.
19:52Little Matt.
19:53That's a good Matt.
19:54Little Matt Matt.
19:55Little Matt Matt.
19:56Little Matt Matt, little Ben Ben, you know what I'm saying?
19:59Little Steve Steve.
20:00Little Matt Matt Matt.
20:20Little Matt Matt profits.
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