00:01No, don't be sorry. Laura was just saying, oh sorry, are we? Oh, sorry.
00:07Oren, congratulations on your film. Thank you.
00:10Laura was just saying that she's never been in a film quite like this, which is a huge compliment.
00:16I'll take it.
00:17Yeah, well congratulations, because it is very... What interested you? What hooked you in in the first place?
00:24Honestly, the first hook was a job that showed up.
00:28Really?
00:28Yeah, because Cate Blanchett approached me to adapt it for her, and obviously when Cate Blanchett calls, you answer.
00:35So I was interested in adapting it for her and seeing what she has in mind for the book,
00:40and I was curious why this was going to be her first movie as a director.
00:44As we started talking about it, I got more and more into her head and wrote a script for her.
00:49She ended up not being able to do it, so that's when I really dove in and started figuring it
00:54out for myself.
00:55And I think a lot of it has to do with the book and the impactful nature of that impossible
00:59question of how far will you go to protect your kid?
01:02Yeah.
01:02After a crime they've committed and gotten away with.
01:06But also, I guess as an outsider in the United States, as an immigrant, legal immigrant, as far as I
01:13know,
01:16I always look at things as an outsider, and I was wondering what kind of an American movie would this
01:21be?
01:22With these themes, what will kind of bubble to the surface that have to do with American metaphors
01:28and American elements such as mental illness, racism, white privilege, history,
01:37or the erasing of history from the American experience?
01:41All these things completely fascinated me.
01:44Did your own opinion of the characters change as you lived with them?
01:52Because the film is really interesting.
01:55You do that for the audience.
01:56We kind of, my views were changing as we went along.
02:00Yeah.
02:01And I wondered what it was like for you.
02:03Yeah, I mean, it was exactly like that, but I think that comes from the book.
02:06The book itself puts you in a position to like someone and dislike someone else.
02:11And you think you know your relationship with the characters,
02:13and as you go deeper and deeper, they change.
02:15I think what happened to me is that, you know, the more people started saying,
02:21oh, you know, the politician, he's actually surprising.
02:23You don't expect a politician to be talking this way and having these opinions.
02:28The thing that evolved for me there was after doing the movie and watching it a few times
02:32and sort of figuring out the ending is, why are we trusting this guy?
02:36I mean, he's still a politician, and somehow everybody's falling for him.
02:39And in a movie, Steve Coogan says literally, out loud, do not fall for this guy.
02:46He's not what he appears to be.
02:48And so that kind of dynamic where ultimately the shifting alliances,
02:51it becomes really a movie about the politics of family
02:54and how politics of family and politics of society are kind of mirroring each other.
02:58And so that was fun to play with.
03:01Oren, did you enjoy the setting, this incredibly fancy restaurant, which is very theatrical.
03:06I love your images of the waiters and waitresses arriving with trays and some kind of dance routine.
03:13Yeah, we were developing this looking, obviously, for a location to shoot the restaurant
03:18and knowing that it's not a restaurant that exists, we have to make it up.
03:22I wanted it, the way I described it to the production designer and the cinematographer is,
03:26let's bring it as close as we can to an absolute joke and then just pull back a little bit.
03:32So it's absurd, but it's not that ridiculous because you want to make fun of it,
03:37but you also don't want it to be cartoonish.
03:39And that particular location just opened up the script because all of a sudden there were different rooms,
03:44there were stairs, there were all these visual opportunities to play with.
03:48Yeah.
03:48And you clearly enjoy the contrast of a world where a restaurant as ludicrous as this exists
03:56in a world where there are homeless people out on the street.
04:00Yeah, that is the contrast and that is the reality.
04:03Completely.
04:03Let's talk about your cast because that's obviously crucial.
04:06When you've got your wonderful dialogue that these guys have to deliver,
04:09you need actors who are on their game.
04:11Yeah.
04:11And Steve Cougars, Paul, if we could start.
04:14Why Steve for that role?
04:16Well, to start, we kind of have to start with Richard because Richard is the first person who came on
04:23board
04:23and I gave it to him first and after he said yes, the challenge was finding his brother.
04:29Okay.
04:29Somebody who could credibly come, you know, portray someone who sort of came from the same world.
04:35And I've been a Steve Cougar fan for a long time and part of what I like about him is
04:40how intensely intelligent he is.
04:44And I knew that that could translate very easily from comedy to a drama of this nature.
04:49And he fit really nicely into the Richard Gere world, especially as someone who has made fun of Richard Gere
04:55in the trip.
04:56I knew he knew his mannerisms and he knew his way of moving in the world.
05:00And so I thought that could kind of put them as characters from the same world.
05:05Laura was, you know, just a quick no-brainer.
05:09She's such a wonderful actress and not always used this way in movies.
05:15I think she's absolutely, you know, she could be very homely in movies.
05:19I think she could be Lady Macbeth and absolutely gorgeous and interesting.
05:23And so, and then the Rebecca Hall character was a bit of an evolution because originally from the book,
05:30she was someone who was married to Stan for a long time.
05:33And we thought really in an American context, in this kind of character,
05:38he would probably be on his second wife at this point.
05:40It should be somewhat of a trophy wife.
05:41And so we went younger.
05:43And once we went younger, we went to Rebecca, who came on board.
05:46Thank you.
05:47Thank you.
05:48Thanks, guys.
05:50I'll talk to you again tomorrow.
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