- 8 hours ago
Anna Boden, Deborah Chow, Jon M. Chu, Alex Garland, Janet Mock & Jonathan Nola
joined The Hollywood Reporter to talk about their respected TV series.
joined The Hollywood Reporter to talk about their respected TV series.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:07Hi, and welcome to Close Up with the Hollywood Reporter TV Directors.
00:00:12I'm Rebecca Ford, and I'd like to welcome Deborah Chow, Jonathan Nolan, Janet Mock, Alex Garland, John Ev Chiu, and
00:00:22Anna Bowden.
00:00:22Thank you guys so much for joining us today.
00:00:24We just need to, you know, acknowledge the unprecedented times we're in, you know, between the coronavirus and the outcry
00:00:34about social injustice.
00:00:37It's a really unique time, and I'm curious how this current time is affecting you creatively.
00:00:44As a creator, how do you deal with the weight of what's going on in the world?
00:00:49Yes, usually this is a moment in which I would be able to gently feel my wife patting my shoulder
00:00:54and saying, shut the fuck up.
00:00:58I think it's a fascinating, terrifying, enthralling moment.
00:01:03I mean, part of what we were doing in the last season of Westworld was kind of telling a story
00:01:07about questioning assumptions about the way society is structured, about the way the world, so many things that we take
00:01:14for granted.
00:01:15And this is a moment in which it's a revelatory moment.
00:01:18It's a moment in which you're realizing that for many people, the world is not what you experience.
00:01:25I think it's a moment to listen, but also a moment to speak up.
00:01:31I mean, I've been kind of fascinated for many years with the structure of our society, the way that it
00:01:37works, and we've talked a little bit about this.
00:01:39We have the luxury in a science fiction show where you get to talk at a certain remove.
00:01:44But I think this is a moment in which you have to listen carefully and question assumptions.
00:01:51I think part of the problem beyond just racism, which there is more of in this country, in this world,
00:01:59I think that many of us understood.
00:02:02I think one of the other problems that we're beginning to realize is a certain complacency amongst people who might
00:02:07not think of themselves as racist.
00:02:09A complacency in saying, oh, well, I've done my part.
00:02:13I've done a little bit.
00:02:15And it's clear the little bit is not enough.
00:02:19So it feels like there's a moment here to take stock of the things we're all doing as people and
00:02:24as an industry and say the depth of the problem is much more significant.
00:02:31I think for a lot of people, they imagine the civil rights movement was the end of racism in this
00:02:34country.
00:02:35That's clearly not the case.
00:02:37Clearly not the case in our industry.
00:02:39We congratulate ourselves on our show that we have a good amount of diversity in front of the camera.
00:02:47Do we have enough behind the camera?
00:02:48That's a big problem.
00:02:50So I think it's a moment for everyone to realize that where they thought the incremental things they were doing
00:02:54were enough, it's not enough.
00:02:55Anything even beyond sort of our jobs to our own personal lives, talking to our families.
00:03:03So, you know, we all a lot of us have little children and explaining to them from the ground up
00:03:09what what is happening and what that means.
00:03:12Talking to my parents, talking to my uncles and aunts to help them understand, you know, we were here in
00:03:17West Hollywood when when, you know, police cars are being burned next to us.
00:03:23And we're but also the the protest was around us and that energy.
00:03:27And and so we had to talk about all those things.
00:03:30And as and I think as artists, as we all are, we're very sensitive to where we are as human
00:03:36beings, too.
00:03:36And so I think there's process.
00:03:38There's so many different places to process of what I what are we actually capable of doing?
00:03:44What can I be doing amplifying or doing stuff in my work or, you know, beyond that?
00:03:51And so it was I think it's been a long process of thinking about really heavy on my on I
00:03:56think all I'm sure on all our hearts.
00:03:57But I think the power of story and what we do shows how important it is to make the stories
00:04:05that that share our experiences with others and share other experiences as well.
00:04:11I just think that that really impacted me.
00:04:13That's right. The things that we do do are very important to expose people to to all the stuff.
00:04:19And also the the pandemic itself of allowing us to confront these things trapped in the house with our families,
00:04:28with our friends, with ourselves, I think really forces as artists to do that.
00:04:32And we're not done. It's just we're just we're literally in the middle.
00:04:35I think that's why Joan and I sort of talk and we're it's a lot of stuff because we're processing
00:04:40and we're in the middle of it.
00:04:41You know, for me, it's interesting because when we first, you know, got shut down on season three of Pose
00:04:48when I was directing the premiere, I was like, OK, good.
00:04:52I can take a breath. I can go home for three weeks.
00:04:54You know, we thought I'm a cute little three weeks and incubate and do some stuff, finish scripts, you know,
00:04:59polish things off.
00:05:00And then it just got darker and darker and darker.
00:05:03You know, we shoot our show at Silver Cup North in the Bronx and the Bronx in New York City
00:05:09is literally the epicenter for the United States of the the Corona crisis.
00:05:15And so we knew that it was the layered nature of these people living in projects and housing projects, you
00:05:22know, largely black and brown folk who are not getting attention or care, who whose facilities are not being cleaned.
00:05:30And so I I felt this stuff coming back up, you know, at first I thought it was like, oh,
00:05:35we're all connected.
00:05:36And this is, you know, and then you see the disparities that happen in certain communities. Right.
00:05:41So, you know, the first couple of weeks, I felt a deep sense of like creative energy.
00:05:45And then the news headlines were kind of hitting more and more and more about who was being, you know,
00:05:51disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus.
00:05:53And I found myself as an artist and a creative not being able to concentrate on the actual work.
00:06:00And I found myself being called to pay more attention to the news, to Twitter, as John was saying, amplifying,
00:06:07you know, the organizers on the ground.
00:06:09And of course, George Floyd happens and Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade.
00:06:17And then, of course, you know, black trans women being killed and all of this stuff is bubbling up in
00:06:22my various communities.
00:06:24And so I felt called to speak out, of course, as someone who, you know, is seen as a representative
00:06:30of a community in this strange way as a role model that I didn't ask for.
00:06:33But it's a responsibility and a duty that I must do. And, you know, when I look at the work
00:06:38that I've done on Pose and on Hollywood,
00:06:41oftentimes it's about outsiders looking in, coming in and wanting to change systems, surviving and having resilience despite these systems
00:06:50pushing them down.
00:06:51And so for me, I don't think that it's going to change my work.
00:06:54I think it's just a more urgent call to get to work and to use the privileges and the access
00:07:00that I do have in the institution of Hollywood
00:07:03to hopefully push for greater change and find more, you know, co-conspirators to jump in and help us do
00:07:10some work on the ground.
00:07:11I have to admit that, you know, I haven't even begun to understand how this time is really affecting me
00:07:19creatively.
00:07:19I haven't been focusing my energy very much in that area. And mostly I moved to New York.
00:07:27I was in the middle of a move to New York in March, nine months pregnant with a five year
00:07:31old.
00:07:32And really the first part of the time was just like trying to figure out how to have a baby
00:07:37during a pandemic, you know,
00:07:39trying to get myself situated in a house where I could really, you know, shelter in place.
00:07:45And it was so kind of inwardly focused. And then, you know, slowly, I think like what Janet was saying,
00:07:54you know,
00:07:54all just everything that was going on was becoming so much clearer.
00:07:59And being in New York and really seeing the privilege that I had to, you know, be in a space
00:08:06that was comfortable to live in,
00:08:08even though it was kind of hard to get there and seeing so many people who I knew having the
00:08:14privilege to flee the city and get out.
00:08:17And you really kind of start to see those contrasts between people with that privilege and people without.
00:08:25And it's all right in front of you because every time you leave your house, you're walking by people from
00:08:31all walks of life.
00:08:33And, you know, so I think that for now it's really been much more about me just trying to figure
00:08:43out how to deal with this period of time as a human being.
00:08:47How am I going to engage with it, be part of it?
00:08:51And it's something that I find myself kind of struggling with every day.
00:08:57How am I going to be a good mom? How am I going to be a good parent right now?
00:09:00How am I going to figure out how to engage with this?
00:09:03And I haven't even really arrived at how to deal with it creatively yet.
00:09:08Alex, how about for you? I know you're in the UK.
00:09:10It has affected me creatively quite a lot, I'd say. Initially, partly because I got sick.
00:09:17I got the virus very early on and it completely knocked me sideways and trashed about four weeks.
00:09:24But I didn't have to go to hospital, so it was unpleasant, but it wasn't dangerous.
00:09:29I think when I came out of it and looked around, there were two things, I guess.
00:09:34One was that I could see this was very bad and it made me unsure of how to write about
00:09:41the world
00:09:42because was it a world where everyone wore face masks and shops were closed
00:09:46and the sort of minutiae of sort of textural life?
00:09:50I just didn't know what that would be.
00:09:52There was also something I thought was quite good.
00:09:55I think there are, it's going to sound perverse to say it, but I think there are positives within this
00:09:59pandemic.
00:10:00And one of them is it shows up all of the populist leaders around the globe.
00:10:06Boris Johnson in my country, Trump in yours, Bolsonaro.
00:10:09It just shows what frauds they are. It shows what absolute idiots they are.
00:10:14It's uniquely the populist leaders that have failed to deal with this virus.
00:10:19It's very, very specifically them.
00:10:21And it's because they lie and their lies don't work against reality.
00:10:26And they've managed to push away reality with their bullshit up to this point.
00:10:32And this has penetrated it.
00:10:33And then you get to the outbreak of absolutely justified civil disobedience,
00:10:42which is different, but related in some respects.
00:10:45And with that, the creative effect that had on me was that I was writing about civil disobedience.
00:10:52And the reason I'd been going to Hong Kong last year,
00:10:55checking out the really fantastic popular movement there was over there protesting against,
00:11:03really protesting against the Chinese government rather than the Hong Kong government,
00:11:07to the extent there's a difference.
00:11:08And I was writing about it because I was really frustrated that I felt there were lots of things
00:11:15that deserved civil disobedience around.
00:11:18One of them being my government and the other one being your government.
00:11:22And that actually civil disobedience was what was required against these people.
00:11:26And not just against these people, but against the superstructures that support these people.
00:11:30And it was really, really bugging me.
00:11:33I was looking back in time and I was thinking about civil rights and Stonewall
00:11:38and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and AIDS activists, the ACT UP people in New York,
00:11:45particularly in New York in the 80s,
00:11:49and thinking these people knew what civil disobedience was.
00:11:53They knew how to protest.
00:11:54It wasn't a march with an Instagram photo or an angry tweet.
00:12:00It was going out again and again and again and again.
00:12:04So I was writing a thing about the importance of civil disobedience.
00:12:08And then civil disobedience started again.
00:12:11Real, real civil disobedience.
00:12:13The kind of civil disobedience that is actually needed.
00:12:16So I just instantly stopped writing.
00:12:18I'd written a quarter, two episodes of an eight part thing.
00:12:22And I just thought, well, never mind that, because it's already started.
00:12:25So now I'm sort of hunting around for something else to do.
00:12:28But in both instances, I'm kind of pleased.
00:12:31And it's a pleasure that comes out of something very, very dark.
00:12:35Both of these things are very, very sinister and dark.
00:12:39But there's a part of me that takes a grim satisfaction at the response,
00:12:46at the result of showing liars that they're liars
00:12:49and getting people to fight about things they should fight about.
00:12:54So that's where I'm at.
00:12:56I think for me, it has changed creatively.
00:13:00I was in development on one main project and a couple little ones
00:13:05when we went into COVID.
00:13:06And so we were sort of already developing material.
00:13:08And it felt like kind of when we went through the protests,
00:13:11there's sort of almost before and after,
00:13:12with just the perspective on how we look at the material.
00:13:15It's like you kind of come back and it just feels sort of different,
00:13:19the way you're looking at character arcs and stories and themes.
00:13:23And there's just certain things that just feel like,
00:13:25oh, you know, we can't do that anymore.
00:13:28Or things are, you know,
00:13:29it just sort of changed the whole perspective on certain things.
00:13:32And it wasn't just me.
00:13:33I think everybody was feeling it that was involved with the project as well.
00:13:36And I think, you know, obviously there's, you know,
00:13:38there's a long road to go and there's a lot more to come with the story on this.
00:13:41But I'm kind of glad for the change, honestly.
00:13:45I feel like, you know, there's been a lot of talk and a lot of pushing to kind of get
00:13:47here.
00:13:48But I'm glad that things feel different.
00:13:50And I welcome it, even if it's been sort of a very difficult way to get there.
00:13:55I think what we're seeing is, you know,
00:13:56these conversations are starting to bubble up about where does Hollywood go from here?
00:14:01How does this industry change?
00:14:04And it made me realize I have a lot of people who are firsts in this group.
00:14:09You know, Janet, of course, you're known for being the first trans woman of color
00:14:14to be on a major series with Pose and then also have that major deal with Netflix.
00:14:20John, of course, Crazy Rich Asians was a big first for the industry with its success.
00:14:25And Deborah, obviously, being a woman who directed a Star Wars series,
00:14:29these are all major landmarks we've seen over the last year.
00:14:33And so I'm curious for the three of you, what does that wait feel like?
00:14:36You know, knowing that you you were the first to do something and here we are in this next chapter.
00:14:42I mean, are you optimistic that there won't have to be firsts anymore?
00:14:46There can just be plenty or how do you sort of carry that weight?
00:14:50For me, it's, you know, I just don't want to fuck up because I want to make sure that they
00:14:55keep the doors open for other folk to come in
00:14:58so that eventually progress looks like, you know, not me being the first and the only,
00:15:03but then there's tons of folk coming in and being able to tell the stories that they feel are important
00:15:07for them.
00:15:07Right. And so for me, I think ever since I've been public with my story from my memoirs until working
00:15:16on Pose in Hollywood,
00:15:17I felt that kind of added labor of carrying people in with me as I'm also just trying to figure
00:15:25out,
00:15:25you know, number one, how to do the work. I didn't go to film school.
00:15:29Next, you know, trusting my intuition and my voice and the things that I know about story.
00:15:35And then also, you know, doing the other thing of like just engaging in content and stories that I want
00:15:42to tell
00:15:43because I feel at the end of the day as a creative that I'm not doing the movement or the
00:15:49people or my communities any service
00:15:51that I'm doing anything that doesn't feel real or authentic or interesting to me.
00:15:55What's called upon for me, I think, in these moments are to do the things that bring me joy, that
00:16:01make me feel,
00:16:02that make me feel like something's resonated or brewing, that excites me.
00:16:07And also at the end of the day, too, working in Hollywood and being in the entertainment industry,
00:16:12it's to entertain people. Of course, there are always going to be a message behind it.
00:16:16And I think now, similar to what Deborah was saying, you know, I do feel challenged.
00:16:22I feel an urgency. And I think now with the access that I do have as this sort of kind
00:16:28of, you know,
00:16:31trailblazer in this space is to hopefully challenge the people that do believe in me to say that because you
00:16:37believe in me.
00:16:38Now, listen to me as I say that, you know, we need more, you know, people of color on our
00:16:43sets, in the makeup trailer,
00:16:45you know, the gaffes, the grips, you know, the drivers, all of that stuff.
00:16:50And I think that right now it's trying to figure out a way with the institutional access that I have,
00:16:57is to try to transform those spaces a little bit so that there's more people in there.
00:17:00You know, there are moments where you feel the weight, of course, but at the same time, I feel like
00:17:06I just took a giant shower.
00:17:08Like, it's just like the, you know, we didn't create the movement, the movement created me.
00:17:12And so this idea that like everyone was out there to like create this wave.
00:17:17And then they're just like, you just have to stand up.
00:17:19You just have to make something and we'll be right there.
00:17:22Reporters such as yourself and others all around the industry, actors who had been training all these years,
00:17:28doing the work, a book that that came out of this time and readers who were open to it,
00:17:33all these things, they had to come together.
00:17:35And so in my mind, I feel very free actually to finally confront the things that are scariest to me.
00:17:43I mean, it's scary to be on the front lines or have people expect that from you when you aren't
00:17:48that person.
00:17:50But at the same time, it's an honor and you have this grand responsibility.
00:17:53I grew up, my family has a restaurant and my mom and dad always told me, you know,
00:17:58they were in the kitchen and they're in the front and people in the front when you're hosting or serving,
00:18:03you know, people who come in think that you're their server and they treat you like shit sometimes.
00:18:09And I would watch this as a kid.
00:18:10And my dad, I got very upset when I saw it for the first time.
00:18:13My dad took me aside and said, listen, you know, we're one of the first came out in 1969,
00:18:17one of the first Chinese restaurants, we're ambassadors here.
00:18:19So we have to like treat them kindly and with love.
00:18:23So when they see another Chinese family that they will see them as friends and they will see them as
00:18:29equals in that way.
00:18:31You know, whether that's the right way to teach a child or not, who knows.
00:18:33But for me, it was that responsibility of being an ambassador was in my DNA.
00:18:39So when we made a movie, of course, you're going to have people come after you.
00:18:42You're going to learn a lot of lessons.
00:18:43You're not going to get everything right.
00:18:44That comes with the territory.
00:18:46And I think if I didn't watch, if I didn't see my parents go through that, I think it would
00:18:50be a lot scarier.
00:18:51So I just feel like very free to to help in whatever way to help communicate my experience.
00:18:57And where I used to think maybe there wasn't somebody who could understand that.
00:19:01I realized with the Internet, there's so many people out there.
00:19:05So and Deborah for you, I'm so curious about stepping into the Star Wars universe.
00:19:11What ended up being sort of the biggest surprise about becoming a part of that world and the reaction that
00:19:19any any move of Star Wars property gets?
00:19:23I think I underestimated it for sure.
00:19:26I mean, when we were making the series, you know, there were there actually a lot of firsts in terms
00:19:30of the directors on Mandalorian, both in terms of gender and and race.
00:19:36But when we were making it, I honestly I was we were not overthinking it.
00:19:39Like I wasn't sitting there going, oh, my God, you know, I'm going to be the first.
00:19:42And obviously, Bryce was was with me as well.
00:19:45So but it was when it came out that all of a sudden, you know, the show, I think, came
00:19:50out streaming at midnight.
00:19:51And then I woke up at 7 a.m.
00:19:53And all of a sudden, I've got like 27 texts telling me I'm trending on Twitter, which I had never
00:19:57in a million years expected would happen.
00:20:00And it was at that moment, you're like, wow, like there really is a responsibility and weight with this.
00:20:05And, you know, it's like, you know, moving forward.
00:20:07It's the same thing where you do feel it because it's it's not only the responsibility of Star Wars of
00:20:13trying not to scrub Star Wars,
00:20:14but it's also the responsibility of trying not to be the first woman or Asian who screws up Star Wars.
00:20:19But I think in large part, the only way I can kind of move forward with it is just to
00:20:23focus on the work and just trying to make something good and just sort of be, you know, be in
00:20:28that position.
00:20:28And hopefully, you know, just that brings change or, you know, what not just by sort of doing the job
00:20:34and having the opportunity to do it.
00:20:36And Anna, you went from Captain Marvel, which was the first female centered Marvel movie to working on Mrs. America.
00:20:44And obviously, that's also a story centered on feminists.
00:20:48So I'm curious, were you aware of sort of gravitating towards feminist stories back to back like that?
00:20:54Honestly, I wasn't I didn't choose it because that was, you know, I wanted to keep making feminist stories.
00:21:05But it did end up being like I'm kind of working in post on Captain Marvel in a very, very
00:21:11intense period.
00:21:12And I don't want to read anything like I'm not interested in my next project.
00:21:17I just want to take a long nap. And the script came in and and it was like these real
00:21:23life female superheroes.
00:21:25All these people who, you know, I didn't know, you know, I kind of grew up learning about and having
00:21:34so much admiration for.
00:21:36And yet it was told from such a different point of view.
00:21:41I mean, really told through like the anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly.
00:21:46And it and it piqued my interest. It made me keep reading.
00:21:49And it didn't hurt that, you know, Cate Blanchett was also who's also kind of a female superhero was involved.
00:21:57They say that women are like tea bags.
00:22:01You don't know their strength until they get into hot water.
00:22:06And ladies, we sure did reach a boiling point.
00:22:14But when we saw that the devil was using one little word in that amendment, sex, to take away the
00:22:24rights of wives and give them to the homosexuals and to the abortionists,
00:22:28we knew we had to fight back and we are winning because we have God on our side.
00:22:34I really I don't think about, you know, what I'm going to do next as being part of like a
00:22:40theme of something I'm exploring.
00:22:42It kind of just is whatever I can get passionate enough about to focus the next couple of years of
00:22:49my life on because it's such, you know, it's so all consuming getting into a project.
00:22:56And, you know, I can't go part way with it.
00:23:01Alex and Jonah, both of your projects are so smart, you know, and let the viewers step into these imaginative
00:23:10sci-fi worlds.
00:23:11But I am curious how you think about the viewer.
00:23:15Do you ever worry that they may get lost?
00:23:18Have you ever changed a storyline or something to sort of, you know, help them out if you're if you're
00:23:25a little worried that maybe they won't understand something you're trying to deliver in your stories?
00:23:30My career began with the presumption.
00:23:34It's amazing to see how much this industry has changed in I've been here now 20 years.
00:23:41We started with my brother, Chris, with a movie that based on a short story I had written, he adapted
00:23:49it, you know, and it was with with memento was backwards and forwards.
00:23:54And it had this kind of Mobius strip construction to it.
00:23:57And the presumption at the time when we showed the movie, it was financed independently.
00:24:01I had just finished college.
00:24:02I moved out.
00:24:03We thought, shit, Hollywood is easy.
00:24:05Right.
00:24:06We turned up.
00:24:06We didn't know anybody.
00:24:07Someone gave us five million bucks.
00:24:09You begin to understand as you get older and you understand the different the different things that are helping you
00:24:13out along the way.
00:24:15But that part of it making the film was actually fairly straightforward.
00:24:18And then the time came to sell it.
00:24:20And I remember we did all these screenings one night.
00:24:22It was 20 years ago.
00:24:23It was March 2000.
00:24:24We screened the film all around town for different distributors.
00:24:27And they all came back and they said the same thing.
00:24:28They said, we loved it.
00:24:30We think it's great.
00:24:32Okay.
00:24:32Well, are you going to buy it?
00:24:34No, no, because the audience won't get it.
00:24:36And you go back to this place of what the fuck makes you think you're smarter than the audience?
00:24:41The prevailing attitude when I showed up in this town was the audience was dumb, that there was nothing you
00:24:46could you could never underestimate the audience.
00:24:48And so we banked our whole career, you know, Chris and myself at the beginning on the on the premise
00:24:54that there was an underserved part of the audience who wanted something that was challenging and complex, that the audience
00:25:01wasn't dumb, that in fact, the audience was smarter in many cases than what they were being offered.
00:25:08And so from the beginning, we kind of felt like, you know, you have this kind of lean in, lean
00:25:12forward version of of plotting.
00:25:16And look, fundamentally, I think, you know, the only way that I know how to work is to come from
00:25:20the place of writing the kind of the kind of stuff that I would enjoy watching.
00:25:25That has to be your guide if you start worrying or second guessing yourself too much.
00:25:29But that's the nice thing with the writers room.
00:25:31And that's the nice thing about television.
00:25:32The collaborative part of it is that you get to gather a really sophisticated group of people together and try
00:25:38it out.
00:25:38And you can feel in the room if the confused looks, you know, you've got a little bit of work
00:25:44to do to make sure it's clear.
00:25:46Alex, how about for you when it comes to devs?
00:25:50I know you were the writer, the director, the creator.
00:25:53You wore all the hats.
00:25:54So how much do you think about the viewer and how much they may or may not understand of what
00:25:59you're presenting?
00:26:00Not very much.
00:26:01I sort of try sometimes.
00:26:03I try to imagine, will this plot point make sense?
00:26:09Is it clear that this car is on that side of that car?
00:26:13Or some of the sort of mechanical type stuff.
00:26:19Yeah.
00:26:27Yeah.
00:26:35Yeah.
00:26:37Yeah.
00:26:44but broadly speaking i think when i'm making something pretty quickly i just drop into a hole
00:26:48and then i'm in that hole and i'm kind of really just working on instinct and uh so i i
00:26:57think in
00:26:57truth not not really very much i i come from a sort of independent film background a bit like
00:27:07i i think the the issue i've always had with pitches and treatments is that i personally
00:27:15can't tell from a treatment whether it will work as a script and so it's it's much it's actually
00:27:22much easier uh for me to write it as a script and they don't all get made sometimes people
00:27:29don't want to make them that well that you know that's the breaks um uh but um so yeah there
00:27:36there was no pitch there was a script and then you're you've got a good creative position because
00:27:42people aren't there for notes you're really saying do you want to make it or not so you know what's
00:27:48the most heartbreaking one that didn't get made you don't have to tell us the premise but the most
00:27:53heartbreaking ones are some of the ones that did get made i i'd much rather have a bad script not
00:28:01get made than a bad script made that that's uh but but you know that would be kissing and telling
00:28:07so john with home before dark i i read that you were finishing up crazy rich asians and you were
00:28:14looking for something meaningful to do next can you tell me what about that project you felt
00:28:19um was meaningful and drew you to it uh you know crazy rich asians changed my whole perspective of what
00:28:25kind of uh stories you know when you make a movie like that and that energy on set of of
00:28:30everyone
00:28:30having a higher purpose uh it's hard to go back and so when we're talking about tv and i had
00:28:35not
00:28:36really done tv before um uh my friend dana fox came to me and joy gorman from anonymous and they
00:28:43said
00:28:43you just had a daughter because i had a little girl uh two weeks after shooting uh crazy rich asians
00:28:49and she's like we we have this story about a father-daughter um journalist uh of journalist
00:28:55family basically and um i remember hearing hildi uh lysiac story of this this nine-year-old who broke
00:29:01a story in her hometown and i remember seeing her youtube videos of of people having all these bad
00:29:06comments on her and rather than sort of shrink back she made a video where she read all the bad
00:29:11comments out loud and i just that had stuck with me for years and so when they brought that up
00:29:16that
00:29:16they got the rights to that and that this was not going to be um like a kid's show kid's
00:29:21show this
00:29:21was uh for the whole family um but it was going to treat she was going to be the main
00:29:26role and that
00:29:27uh we could treat this little girl as seriously as any uh hero in any superhero movie um that was
00:29:34very exciting for me the idea of the search for truth is the thing that really got me
00:29:37what did you do i'm a journalist no you're a fourth grader you sent this to the whole effing school
00:29:44is it language technically effing isn't hildi not now you left the house in the middle of the night
00:29:51come on what were you thinking mom said we could have more freedom here yeah well that's gone now
00:29:56someone we know got murdered last night okay come on genie screen time this idea that the scariest
00:30:03thing in this was not going to be some monster under the bed this was going to be the stuff
00:30:07that we
00:30:08sweep under the rug um and confronting that stuff um there's a portrait of a family um and how
00:30:14important journalism is um and even from a little girl what you pour into your kids is a reflection of
00:30:19what you hope to be and they spit it right back at you like a mirror and so i just
00:30:24loved all those
00:30:25dynamics that it was this pulpy fun mystery but at the same time had a message of of journalism the
00:30:31importance of journalism and then um and a family understanding family um so that's really what
00:30:37drew it to me and then to be able to work with apple plus they were you know they're in
00:30:41their
00:30:41infancy so it was fun to just like get on that i grew up in cupertino near apple so it
00:30:46was fun to
00:30:47sort of come home and and and work on that with them and janet you have so much work you've
00:30:52done over
00:30:53the last year but i'm especially curious about um hollywood because it does explore you know if
00:30:59different diverse people had really gotten to have um more moments in in this industry can you tell me
00:31:06about what about that project what it felt like to sort of explore the what ifs if if old hollywood
00:31:13had had been that different i've always been you know fascinated with 1940s kind of star making
00:31:20machine of the studio system and the films at that time period were kind of like building blocks for me
00:31:26in my own kind of you know my obsession with glamour and you know the way that people move their
00:31:33bodies
00:31:34and a lot of the things that you kind of see in my work and you know there's always a
00:31:39piece of me you
00:31:40know as a black trans child growing up in america looking at those images and not necessarily seeing
00:31:47yourself and then when you do see like a little spark of yourself like a lena horn flutters on screen
00:31:53for one scene to sing you know a number and then is cut in the south because they don't want
00:31:59to see a
00:31:59black woman on screen you know those kind of things are what kind of pushed me to want to work
00:32:04on
00:32:04hollywood with ryan and ian um and so i think that the revisionist history of it was interesting to me
00:32:10as
00:32:11a fan of that time period um and really thinking about these conversations about you know how uh the
00:32:20gatekeepers are able to make the decisions that they do why they continue to make the same films
00:32:25over and over and over again why they put the same stars in over and over and over again why
00:32:29they say
00:32:30certain things don't work when they never tried before and then when things do work it's a fluke
00:32:34well you know what i am finished with patience and civility nobody's taking your name off any
00:32:42fuck this studio head fuck these white people in charge they don't play fair so
00:32:48why should we i felt like an uncle tom even writing this goddamn script about this dumbass white girl
00:32:53that ain't my life that ain't my story that's their story and it's still
00:33:01it ain't good enough and so for us you know the challenge when i came into the room they had
00:33:07written three episodes already and it was very much like a sex romp about the gas station and kind of
00:33:13that cd world and then you're going into the studio system world um and i had made a pitch to
00:33:20ryan i
00:33:21said what if you know the one colored girl on contract ends up fighting for a screen test and
00:33:26she gets the role how does that change everything how do the people outside the studio system react how
00:33:33do you know say like the kkk you know in episode six i had to do cross burnings which were
00:33:40its own
00:33:42magnificent thing because the imagery of it was so powerful um but as we were sitting there you
00:33:47know talking about the mechanics of it all i'm like oh wow we're really burning crosses on three
00:33:51lawns you know in hancock park um and it was like this weird kind of thing and so for me
00:33:57that kind
00:33:58of was the the interesting part about working on hollywood was um being able to make those little
00:34:03twists and like if you say what if we cast the black girl what happens then and everything kind of
00:34:09shifted in the series for the last basically five episodes because of that one little pitch and this
00:34:15is pretty unusual for a director's round table but uh we have two directors who worked together on on
00:34:20devs janet you had an acting role on on the show which i think is so fun can you guys
00:34:26tell me about
00:34:26how that came about and what it what you may have learned from working together in that respect you know
00:34:32so it was obviously i was a fan and admirer of alex's work and so when carmen cuba um the
00:34:39casting
00:34:40director and producer i believe on mrs america asked me to read for the role of senator i was just
00:34:45like it says she's 50 something years old like what you know i had never acted before but she's kind
00:34:50of been obsessed with this thing and then she said alex garland i was like oh my god and so
00:34:54for me i
00:34:55took it as you know i had just shot i think only had done two episodes at that point of
00:35:00directing
00:35:00and i was like this would be a great experiment for me to see what it feels like to be
00:35:06an actor
00:35:07on a set you know and the not knowing of it all and the the lack of control in a
00:35:13sense um and just the
00:35:15the trust you have to give you know to the process um and you know what was so great is
00:35:22that alex had
00:35:23written and directed all eight he knew exactly the moments that he needed and it was easy to just
00:35:30trust the process but at the same time i i left with a huge appreciation um for actors and and
00:35:37what
00:35:37they do and the bravery of just like you do it on the day and then it just disappears and
00:35:41it comes
00:35:42back and it's like this beautiful thing you're like oh my god did i do that well it's like yeah
00:35:48had you ever acted before oh no
00:35:53alex what was it like for you to to know you had another director on set uh you know watching
00:35:58your
00:35:58work you know it was good fun um it's uh i the thing about the thing about work is that
00:36:07um on the
00:36:08one hand you're constructing you know tv show or a movie or whatever it is and there's something kind
00:36:14of grand about that in some respects but in other ways you're you're really like a bunch of people
00:36:21standing around a hole in the road trying to figure out how to fill it and um and and there's
00:36:26a lot of
00:36:27it's it's all very practical you know on on the day on set it's really quite practical and
00:36:32straightforward and and it's quite fun having unexpected aspects like a director acting that's
00:36:39that's that's a good thing you know it sort of sort of brightens up the day i guess what i
00:36:44didn't
00:36:45know was whether i i felt very confident about janet and part of that comes from my confidence in
00:36:52carmen cuba i suppose as well but i felt confident what i didn't know was what will the very first
00:36:58moment be like you know because because i i i'd never do that i'd never stand in front of a
00:37:03camera
00:37:04and read lines never and and so there's a sort of suspended like held breath beat of
00:37:11is janet actually going to be able to do this and then she just did and then it's just good
00:37:15fun
00:37:16you know it was good i really enjoyed it and deborah you had a small role in the mandalorian
00:37:22tell me was that just uh a fun little appearance how did that come about that started as a joke
00:37:28that i think i ever thought was actually going to happen um and it was supposed to just be a
00:37:34cameo
00:37:34with no lines at all uh so it's it's developed like a life of its own but yeah we were
00:37:40when we
00:37:41the three of us decided to do it and we went on the day of shooting um you know john
00:37:46favreau was
00:37:46watching and basically just started throwing us lines as we were sitting there and then all of a
00:37:51sudden we're all like no we don't want to join sag we don't we don't want lines um i wouldn't
00:37:57say
00:37:57i mean i don't know i think for rick and i neither of us have even been able to watch
00:38:01it it's that
00:38:02horrifying for us like we i definitely do not want to be an actor but well let's talk about that
00:38:06relationship with actors because obviously it's so key uh to your work what would you say makes
00:38:13that collaboration you know it's just as easy as it can be trust trust yeah absolutely i mean and
00:38:21you have to build that with every step every moment you have to make it clear that that you've
00:38:28created a safe space and in exchange you get to a different place you can you can ask i move
00:38:35you
00:38:35know i i'm not 100 sure frankly that my presence on set makes any damn difference at all we have
00:38:41this on westworld we have one of the most ridiculously talented casts um i could imagine and so not really
00:38:49i'd flatter myself by imagining that anything gets better when i show up on set but you know i think
00:38:55part of what lisa and i did from the beginning on that show was create a place in which and
00:39:00part of
00:39:00that is how you design your set and who you allow to be on your set and the rules that
00:39:04you that you
00:39:05build just making sure that people that these incredibly talented people who you've asked to
00:39:11reveal pieces of themselves um feel safe to do so that they feel that um that they can trust you
00:39:20i love creating that process with my actors for for uh home before dark specifically with brooklyn
00:39:26prince who's nine years old eight actually when i shot with her um which is pretty amazing for an
00:39:31eight-year-old to carry a show and and she wouldn't just like say lines like she really had to
00:39:36understand
00:39:36it and i don't know the perspective of an eight-year-old little girl and so we would have a
00:39:42lot of
00:39:42conversations uh with me and her uh without her parents just about like what does this mean what is
00:39:48what does this word mean what does this moment mean jim sturgis uh who plays her father and
00:39:52annie miller her mother uh you know we'd have these family meetings just in the fake kitchen there
00:39:57talking about um uh how how brooklyn felt about being bullied or how uh or how hilde would feel
00:40:05sometimes we even call hilde herself and talk to her and i think that to have an actor that that
00:40:10that understands that perspective um and wants you know brooklyn would say often like i just want to
00:40:16make hilde proud like i want to know what that how she felt there to to present that properly and
00:40:21so
00:40:21when we when she takes it seriously we take her seriously and it's just like i love finding that
00:40:27everybody's currency and finding the process where we can all work on this canvas together
00:40:33anna how about for you what makes the best uh actor director collaboration for you part of it i think
00:40:39is just chemical and like there are certain people who um really like you just start talking the same
00:40:45language right away uh but one it reminds me of like one of the really early um things i learned
00:40:52from an actor on our first movies it's like you spend so long especially as an independent director
00:40:59when you're writing something on spec and you're trying to get it sold and you're trying to cast it
00:41:04and you're trying to put it together and you've created this entire world in your head and and you
00:41:09feel like you know every minutia of how everything should be and then you start inviting people into
00:41:16the process and um you know one of the first things i learned from my actors was you know it
00:41:23was it was
00:41:24an argument about what the facial hair of one of the characters should be and i had this idea i
00:41:30like
00:41:30knew how it was going to be i had imagined it a million times and the facial hair should be
00:41:35this way
00:41:36and then the actor had a different idea and said you know when i look in the mirror i feel
00:41:42like the
00:41:42character and um it really like i think about that all the time because whatever you know this person
00:41:53comes in and they're bringing this whole new life to it and it becomes this whole new collaboration
00:41:57and whatever you can do as a director to help them feel most like the character so they're going to
00:42:03give
00:42:03their best performance and that's kind of you know what ryan and i try to do i haven't mentioned ryan
00:42:10yet but he's my co-director who i always work with and really trying to create that space where we're
00:42:18opening up our thing that we've had that's just ours and really inviting actors into it and trying to
00:42:25create a space where they you know like you said trust just feel like they can try a million things
00:42:31and
00:42:32fail and you know and it's like a safe space to do that what do you do if you are
00:42:38not able to sort of
00:42:40collaborate well with an actor i'm i'm sure some of you have had this experience over the years
00:42:45how do you get past that and and work through something like that you just kill off the character
00:42:54no no you gotta you gotta work through it i mean you gotta you know the tv is t i
00:42:58mean tv's changing but
00:43:00tv is like a like a marriage right a film's like a like a you know like a fling but
00:43:05tv is like a
00:43:06marriage you're going to make it work with your core cast you've got to figure it out very quickly
00:43:09and if it if it's not working you need to sit down and i think sit down and really talk
00:43:13it through
00:43:14and and and you know and figure it out unless it happens at the table read in which case
00:43:19pre-cast for me my only experience has always been as first in the writer's room and then going
00:43:29to shoot the scripts that i write um and so uh i think that what jonah said a little earlier
00:43:36about
00:43:36the trust of the process i think that what most of the actors on the two shows that i've been
00:43:42on
00:43:42what they call for me is that i have a command of story and i know what i'm looking for
00:43:46and then that
00:43:47way they can show up and do new things and try new things i don't think i've ever had anyone
00:43:52yet
00:43:54just kind of give me what they want to give you know some of the more veteran actors will kind
00:43:58of
00:43:58have that you know these this is what i'm going to do and i'm not going to shift from that
00:44:03and i
00:44:04think oftentimes you have to then go in and have a little you know a little powwow usually in
00:44:08rehearsal or you know take a little bit of a break and explain the process of like where we're going
00:44:15for art for pose and for hollywood as we were shooting we didn't have all the scripts out yet
00:44:20and so i could use that oftentimes um to say well your character's going here and so you can talk
00:44:27things through to like justify sometimes why i need specifically why i need and most times it just
00:44:33comes from a process of like them knowing that i'm actually watching every little thing that they're
00:44:37doing and i'm intentional about the direction that i'm giving and i don't over talk anything
00:44:42um but yeah you know some days you have difficult actors who don't show up on time who don't do
00:44:48this
00:44:48don't do that and slowly but surely as jonah said you know they kind of get written down and down
00:44:53and
00:44:53down because they're not as dependable it's simple sometimes sometimes that tension is great
00:45:00you know that that energy uh shows up on screen and so like some of my most difficult actors like
00:45:07we could say difficult but like sometimes it's just perfectionist or trying to understand something
00:45:12that that i don't necessarily understand and so um i love fighting through that because energy is
00:45:18energy and when that camera turns on you feel it and they're trying and they're pushing and you're
00:45:22pushing it's like there's something that it creates there i wish i could get to that place the
00:45:27sort of werner herzog klaus kinski you know i'm going to stand behind the camera with a rifle
00:45:32pointing at pointing at the actor's place but i don't think i'm capable of it i just find i find
00:45:37i honestly find directing so difficult that when people kind of can't get out of their own space i
00:45:43mean it's you know as alex said you're all out there often literally by the side of the road
00:45:48looking at a hole in the ground it's a lovely metaphor and you sort of feel they're the folks who
00:45:54sort of appreciate how difficult everyone's job is on set and just try to show up and i've been i've
00:45:59been i've been really really lucky in working with generous actors and grown-ups deborah i do want to
00:46:06hear about you know stepping into mandalorian of course there were multiple directors on this project
00:46:11and i'm curious how that affects the way you worked on your episodes how much are you thinking about
00:46:17what came before and what came after uh your specific episodes um it was an it was an interesting
00:46:23experience because it was like nothing i'd ever done in television before um just because the process
00:46:29was completely different you know because we were in there so early i was there two and a half months
00:46:33ahead um and we previous everything going in because obviously we're doing the volume technology
00:46:38which we had to do the previous for it um so what as a result what was really interesting about
00:46:44it was
00:46:44that all the directors got to really know each other because we'd all be doing previous or you
00:46:49know prep at different times so as opposed to like sort of regular tv or traditional tv tv where
00:46:55you kind of maybe just overlap a little bit with somebody and sort of ships passing in the night
00:46:59it really we really got to know each other and we actually started i think a lot in a lot
00:47:04of ways um you know leaning on each other and sort of collaborating to sort of figure out okay like
00:47:10you know movement like how are we how is the character how are we defining this character by
00:47:14movement so um it was an interesting process because it was almost like a team which i have never
00:47:19been part of in such a way um trying to find the first season and it would also we also
00:47:24didn't shoot
00:47:25in order um so everything was sort of shot out of order it didn't go sort of one and and
00:47:30carry on
00:47:30um so it was an interesting process where i think we really learned from each other and we
00:47:34we all sort of developed the language together
00:48:02something i want
00:48:06i know you're working on the obi-wan series which you'll be directing throughout how different
00:48:11will that be sort of being in in charge of it all it's definitely going to be different uh just
00:48:16in
00:48:16terms of the the sheer workload obviously of doing the whole thing um but in some ways you know in
00:48:23some
00:48:23ways i'm going to miss having a team honestly and having people that are there to sort of bounce ideas
00:48:26off them um but then obviously the flip side is it is nice to kind of have like a coherent
00:48:30voice and know
00:48:31sort of what you're doing from beginning to end and and be thinking about the whole thing as one
00:48:36so you have to previs every shot in uh in the volume uh or you or do you can you
00:48:42riff on the day
00:48:43to an extent i mean you do have to previs because basically they're going out to get the you know
00:48:48they're doing the photogrammetry and they're building the environment um so you need a fairly
00:48:52time like of several weeks in order for them to have that content ready on the screen
00:48:56um so once you've got you once you have it on the screen then you could riff to a certain
00:49:02extent
00:49:02you know i mean you could within the environment you could change the blocking somewhat or you know
00:49:06change the angles but you can't change what's on the screen you know so that's that's what you're
00:49:11having to commit to early on and alex tell me about how you work with your actors sort of helping
00:49:19them prepare to step into the world you've created do you suggest books or films or do you just have
00:49:24talks with them um how do you sort of get them prepared for those roles that they're taking on
00:49:29it really depends on the actor there are some actors who you know who really just want to turn
00:49:35up and do it and um uh too much discussion beforehand would make them anxious and uh there's a there's
00:49:43others who who find their comfort in the space by talking and talking and talking and and swapping
00:49:49books or articles or youtube videos or or going on research trips to talk to whoever is relevant
00:49:56for their role or whatever so so i just i really just try and do uh just do what the
00:50:02actor needs the
00:50:03the only the only requirement i do or the only requirement i ask for uh is that everybody uh agrees
00:50:12to
00:50:12rehearsal for all the principal members of cast um uh sorry janet wasn't wasn't you on this one
00:50:20uh we blocked out two weeks before principal photography and then we shot in blocks so we'd
00:50:27keep doing a rehearsal period before all the blocks and that also came from uh having worked on film
00:50:34i i i know not everyone rehearses i simply don't understand why they don't it's only upside as far as
00:50:41i can
00:50:41tell um there's a lot of questions that might get asked on set and slow the day down that get
00:50:47dealt
00:50:47with if you rehearse properly so it it's not it's not to kill the performance it's for everyone to
00:50:54agree you know not know why a line exists know why this character feels that about that character
00:51:00so but aside from rehearsals i'm completely malleable according to whatever the actor wants
00:51:05do any of the rest of you uh believe as strongly in rehearsals or maybe not hold as much value
00:51:12to
00:51:13them for me rehearsals are that safe space where we truly get to talk about the material oftentimes we
00:51:19don't have time in our schedules to be able to do it beyond on the day so we do it
00:51:26before we set up
00:51:27cameras and i get to discuss my thoughts around blocking where i kind of want people at where how i
00:51:32want
00:51:32see them move we get to you know i get to have their feedback on what they believe or what
00:51:37they
00:51:37felt that their character would be doing specifically like on a show like pose where you know now we're in
00:51:44our third season um they have very clear opinions about you know what they want for their characters
00:51:51and so we have to have that space i agree with alex to be able to discuss that stuff and
00:51:57suss it out
00:51:57before the cameras go up and then you have a hundred other people around you watching and so i think
00:52:02in
00:52:02those private rehearsals for me it's it's essential to be able to have a to actually have complete a
00:52:07day and get what i need i 100 agree um ryan and i really have have always done rehearsals and
00:52:16sometimes
00:52:16that rehearsal isn't necessarily blocking out a scene it depends what the scene requires if there
00:52:22isn't a lot of blocking in a scene then you don't need to um and and you have a certain
00:52:27kind of actor who
00:52:28doesn't like to kill it in that way um or mark it out in that way but at least like
00:52:34reading through
00:52:34the script and talking about um you know character and story and getting some of those conversations
00:52:41out so that you're um just just closer to being able to delve into it in a more rich way
00:52:48when you're
00:52:49on set um we always love to do that on our movies and and i do think that sometimes it
00:52:54does
00:52:54um particularly on television feel like uh something that you don't always get to do or don't always
00:53:02get to do in as thorough a way um on mrs america our first two episodes we had a lot
00:53:08of time with the
00:53:09actors um and particularly with uh kate blanchett and john slattery who play a couple in in the um series
00:53:17we had a lot of time with them and we actually went to the location and used the space and
00:53:24talked
00:53:24through some of the scenes and it was setting up their characters and setting up their dynamic and
00:53:29it was so helpful um we didn't always have that by the time we got to the finale episode and
00:53:36um i i did
00:53:37miss that time um but you know you deal with it and you know we made it work but um
00:53:45you know part of
00:53:46that was just the learning experience of working on television where uh you know we're used to
00:53:52having the script i don't know how you worked um alex because you wrote and directed all the episodes
00:53:58but we didn't have the script for episode nine you know while we were shooting episode one and two
00:54:04and so that was a real learning curve for us in terms of how things are getting written as you
00:54:10go
00:54:10in television did you write everything before you started shooting death yeah so so so yeah because
00:54:18it was a it's a limited what do you call it limited series so um yeah so i just uh
00:54:25and i apart from
00:54:26anything i couldn't have been writing and also that sort of rolling state of writing just wouldn't have
00:54:32been possible um but anyway i couldn't have done it any i i sort of need to know what the
00:54:38ending is i
00:54:39guess but but i do i do understand that other process and um and it interests me um it sounds
00:54:45scary in in a sort of good way um a sort of like take take the parachute jump and you're
00:54:52not exactly
00:54:53sure did anyone strap it on and you'll find out about halfway down and there's something sort of
00:54:59something kind of exciting about that i guess um if you've got a death wish anyway and uh um but
00:55:05but
00:55:05no i i took the cautious route i took the the sort of the yeah the safe option i'm gonna
00:55:11write down
00:55:11some of your metaphors because i like them well you know what's so interesting about the the latter
00:55:18process is that you talk about the collaborative nature of television and specifically in series
00:55:24where you have different arcs over various series you have to retool sometimes based on how an actor
00:55:30shows up or their strengths and so you'll notice something like very early on we didn't know that
00:55:35billy porter would step up and be a lead on pose we didn't know that until we saw him on
00:55:40stage
00:55:42corralling this crew of you know 300 background actors and it's just like wow there's a presence
00:55:47here that is so much bigger than him just staying standing behind the microphone podium we then gave him
00:55:53we made pray tell an even bigger character and it's all because of how they showed up so we had
00:55:58the
00:55:58first two scripts written and we had drafts of um the next three episodes and then we went back and
00:56:04retooled after the pilot and we gave billy so much more so many more scenes with blanca which became kind
00:56:09of the heart of the show and so similar we had that on on hollywood as well that you get
00:56:14to kind
00:56:14of see how they are in the pilot and you sit there and you watch and you're just like oh
00:56:18wait there's
00:56:19something here like the rock hudson character is actually comedic and he's funny he's a little goofy it's
00:56:25like let's write more to that and so we retool things for the later scripts based on those
00:56:30strengths that the actors come up with or have neatly so i do want to ask you all about um
00:56:35going
00:56:35back onto set and into production you know uh things are starting to move in that direction and obviously
00:56:42as the directors you are the leaders on set how are you feeling about the idea of production starting
00:56:48up again and what do you feel like will have to change for that to work for you i'll jump
00:56:53in i'm feeling
00:56:53very apprehensive about it you know you do feel i think um in in television be the director but
00:57:00also the executive producer i mean you know you feel very responsible for your crew feel responsible
00:57:07for them right now because you know all crews plan for a month or two of not working right it's
00:57:12it we're
00:57:13showbiz folks this is how it works nobody plans for i think with the sort of big um productions that
00:57:20you know the big on location stuff that all of us shoot it's going to take a long time to
00:57:25figure out
00:57:26how to do those again and how to do them safely we had a relatively minor illness um westworld season
00:57:33three and it was a you know it was a massive amount of money that went into that it's hugely
00:57:40disruptive
00:57:40so if you consider a disease that you know that incubates for 14 to 18 days that people can be
00:57:47asymptomatic and still we still know so little about this so on a level feeling concerned feeling
00:57:54worried about your crew's physical safety i think we have a lot left to figure out for these big
00:57:59productions there's certain things that can go back into production yeah and i think if we were you know
00:58:03as as directors you are responsible for these people and like we were finishing in the heights we
00:58:08were in the mix and i knew as soon as schools and we were going like we had we had
00:58:12a deadline and as
00:58:13soon as schools were shut down and kids like our our mixers our sound editors their kids were coming
00:58:19home and i could see in their face that they didn't of course they're going to work of course
00:58:24they're going to finish our movie but i can feel in them that they are they have kids coming home
00:58:28and
00:58:28they don't know what to do with them and so there is a responsibility in our roles to protect them
00:58:33um
00:58:34and when the government's not necessarily doing it then we have to take it upon ourselves i think that
00:58:39that response i've never really felt that responsibility until this time really being
00:58:43like we i need to fight with the studio whoever's paying for this because i know they want to move
00:58:48forward but like we have to protect our crew who's sitting here in pain because they don't know they're
00:58:53gonna fight for our movie but like they're in a tough situation so i think all those things if someone
00:58:58were to get it if someone's parents or kids get it like i don't want that on my shoulders either
00:59:04so
00:59:04there's a lot of questions of what what to do i think there's also like what kind of production
00:59:09what are the stories that you can actually do and maybe do and i'm not sure i feel that comfortable
00:59:14just for my own to protect my own family really i have a two month old at home so i
00:59:19have been just
00:59:22extremely um conservative about this whole thing in in in my own personal life and so you know i just
00:59:30totally agree with um everything you guys just said about yeah feeling a lot of concern about what
00:59:37that looks like and um making sure that maybe there's like a resort movie that we could all make
00:59:45where like everything's shot in the resort it's a great film and everyone can bring their families and
00:59:51we all quarantine together on the resort and we just shoot everything in the resort and eat the resort
00:59:56food i don't know but that's not something that i'm really seriously thinking about you know
01:00:02there is just one thing i understand the apprehension and of course it's correct to have apprehension
01:00:08uh and i've got it too but at the same time i don't i don't know if we can all
01:00:14sit around saying
01:00:15a vaccine's going to turn up and we do work in an industry and and the the people that we're
01:00:20talking
01:00:20about protecting there's other ways they need protecting as as well as their physical health
01:00:25which is economically and uh they need to work um and so we do have to find a way to
01:00:34get back on set
01:00:35to get productions going and whether that is like you the day works a lot slower possibly so it's like
01:00:43you know you do the lighting and then everyone steps back and then the grips come in and sort out
01:00:48the dolly or like however it's done the sort of circus all moving together the circus starts to
01:00:54splinter up maybe it's something like that i don't know but but what i really feel is i kind of
01:01:01i'm
01:01:01getting to the point where i want to start figuring out how to get on with it because it's it's
01:01:06the only
01:01:06thing i've maybe ever agreed with donald trump about which is that the the some of the economic
01:01:12consequences become quite serious in themselves you know if if people aren't earning if people don't
01:01:18have money recessions kill people just the same way viruses do and so uh i i'm i'm definitely
01:01:26going to stop saying that because i really i can feel like i'm breaking out in hives uh um
01:01:31finding myself in a point of agreement with him but but i do i do think we need to get
01:01:37back to work i
01:01:37really really do feel that strongly and so i spend quite a lot of time thinking about the practical
01:01:44aspects of it about how to actually get on a set how to make it function sort of reasonably safely
01:01:50i i
01:01:51i don't think we're going to be able to say nobody's going to get covid i i that that that
01:01:57seems
01:01:57impossible so so we have to go into it in a certain kind of way and like do the best
01:02:01we can but we kind
01:02:02of we do need to get on with it do you think that smaller crews like i mean is that
01:02:08going back to a way of
01:02:10working that um that maybe we kind of uh started out with you know small indie films i i think
01:02:18that
01:02:18that indie model where where it's quite guerrilla it's quite strict back but at the same time you
01:02:25can get a tracking shot you know it doesn't it doesn't mean everything has to be handheld with
01:02:29one key light you can it gives a lot of flexibility but and and maybe that's the baby steps before
01:02:35we get
01:02:36back into the kind of big movies that you know like you guys know how to make i've never worked
01:02:40on a thing like that but but i i i kind of uh yeah i i just feel i i'm
01:02:47sort of like straining at
01:02:48the leash a bit you know i think there's two parts to it right someone used the metaphor for me
01:02:52with
01:02:52regards to the american economy in in the face of this crisis it's like a car that's built it's like
01:02:57a dragster it's built to go 400 miles an hour it's got no fucking seat belts so if we hit
01:03:02the first bump
01:03:03everyone dies right there is no structure in our country for supporting people in a moment like
01:03:09this and i think the other thing we need to think of yeah we need to think of ways to
01:03:12get back to work
01:03:13it's very important but we also need to look at our industry and figure out okay look everyone you
01:03:19know everyone's accustomed to the you you work for a few months and then you take a few weeks off
01:03:23a few
01:03:23months maybe the job comes maybe doesn't i mean in many ways hollywood people are kind of adapted to
01:03:28this world right this is how we live we do some work we stop the work dries up for a
01:03:32bit you go back to
01:03:33work but is that really how it should be so we've been working with the motion picture and television
01:03:37fund which is a tremendous organization in terms of making sure that there's a little bit more
01:03:41of a backstop for our crew members and making sure look the reality is no we're not going to wait
01:03:46necessarily for a vaccine right but we will wait to figure out the appropriate responsible
01:03:52methodologies where you can now you're not going to be able to guarantee no one gets sick
01:03:57but you have to get to a place where um you you feel good about inviting your family back on
01:04:03the
01:04:03set and you feel like you're not going to become you know the reason and so you need resources in
01:04:09place we need to figure out methodologies for being able to shoot but we also need to figure out take
01:04:13a
01:04:13look at take a hard look at our business and say is this the way it should be where people
01:04:17are paid
01:04:17for a certain amount of work and then discarded or you know is there is there more work that we
01:04:22could be
01:04:22doing to make sure that our industry like other industries when things shut down because this
01:04:26ain't you know this isn't the last time this is going to happen um that the resources are there to
01:04:30make sure that you know that things don't get too desperate for people in our business joan i did
01:04:36want to ask you about season three of westworld and directing because i know you didn't direct in
01:04:41season two but you decided to take on uh this episode in season three what was it about this one
01:04:47that
01:04:47you had to do yourself every time i direct i'm taking a slot away from someone else who could be
01:04:53bringing something different to it so season two uh and lisa and i run the show together lisa directed
01:04:58in the second season and did an amazing amazing episode and now went off to make a movie she's gotten
01:05:03very fancy very quickly uh i i stuck around uh and and on season three it really felt like look
01:05:11we're
01:05:11reinventing the grammar of the show completely we're going from this is one of the things we're excited
01:05:15about with the show is that in every season it could subtly shift genre almost looks like it makes
01:05:24sense from up here all you see is the order of it plan your plan you mean doesn't inside control
01:05:34all of
01:05:35it even the traffic with just the technology company
01:05:42so we had been shooting a western and for this season we needed to to really take a look and
01:05:47from
01:05:47the beginning lisa and i struggled with okay well how how is this going to work what's it going to
01:05:50look like how do you do it on a tv schedule and budget um luckily we have one of the
01:05:54most fantastically
01:05:55talented uh crews uh you know that i've ever worked with incredibly imaginative but i really felt like
01:06:03it wouldn't be fair i felt like i i needed to be the guinea pig i had a vision you
01:06:07know you're threading the
01:06:08needle here in terms of you know visions of the future blade runner has kind of set you know kind
01:06:15of dominated the space for so long uh you know you're asking someone to invent a visual language
01:06:20near future i think is actually is actually many ways you know kind of the tallest order you know
01:06:25far future you can get out there and you can kind of create from whole cloth near future you need
01:06:28to come up with something that also rings true for an audience so i felt like look i'll have a
01:06:33lot of
01:06:33ideas uh and i really didn't want to um put anyone in the position of of if i figured if
01:06:40we screwed it
01:06:40up it would be it would be my fault and i would have only myself to blame and in truth
01:06:44i just love
01:06:44working with our our cast and crew so it was it was a lot of fun to be to be
01:06:48back back in the director's
01:06:49seat so guys we're going to end this with uh one lighter question i'm going to have you all answer
01:06:53and the question is if there was one director alive or dead you could sit down with and pick his
01:07:00or her
01:07:01brain uh about their work uh who would you pick and what did you what do you want to know
01:07:07fuck holy fucking shit yeah that's a big question that's such an unfair question
01:07:15did you say alive or dead well i'm just gonna i'm just gonna say a name right because it's a
01:07:22long list
01:07:23okay but uh just because uh i've been watching and stuff recently re-watching uh i was gonna say
01:07:31nick rogue um uh walkabout don't look now uh man who fell to earth um because there's some there's
01:07:39there's decisions that get made within those films that are absolutely fascinating and i would like to
01:07:45know how those decisions got made so i'd say i'd say nick rogue but i could say peter weir as
01:07:52well
01:07:52because i re-watched picnic at hanging rock the other day and that is a very very interesting movie
01:07:57but anyway i said nick rogue so i'm going to stay with nick rogue to be honest one of those
01:08:02people
01:08:02would be alex garland for sure uh i love his movies i love his brain i uh i would want
01:08:11to
01:08:12thanks john i would i would love to talk about the future with him no no joke that's like thank
01:08:17you
01:08:17that's very kind the details of the future these are the things that like i i i stay up at
01:08:23night
01:08:23thinking about i don't make movies about them yet because i just don't feel smart enough so what
01:08:27about when i watch your movies i i i i see such uh honesty in technology and um and humanity
01:08:34and i
01:08:35just think that that's such a beautiful thing because i think it's something we're all gonna
01:08:38it's such a thing we're all going to be having to confront very soon if not already um and i
01:08:44just
01:08:44think you you you have a view of a perspective that's so fascinating and interesting and that we're
01:08:49all going to have to engage in that conversation sooner rather than later well i'm definitely
01:08:53blushing john thank you very much for some reason the first name that popped up was it was nora efron
01:08:59and george kukor and i think because they you know both of them were kind of dismissed for doing women's
01:09:05pictures um and there's something about you know specifically for nora there is a clear kind of
01:09:13you know parallel in in our career she started off as a journalist and then started writing about
01:09:18her life and then she wrote a screenplay for hollywood and then she got to write and direct
01:09:22and so just wanting to just sit with her over a meal that she cooks and you know ask her
01:09:29about
01:09:29everything um including what i should wear and what doctor i should go to um but then also like how
01:09:36she did it what made her jump in how did she learn um what did she learn how did she
01:09:41get better you
01:09:42know those kinds of questions i'd say kurosawa i would love to sit down with him um i'd have a
01:09:48lot
01:09:48of questions and i think the biggest question is just that how how he managed to make things so
01:09:53powerful um with such sort of seemingly simple stories uh and just kind of learn from that the
01:10:00first name i'm just gonna say the first name that popped into my mind because there were a lot of
01:10:04names
01:10:04right afterwards um which was robert altman i've just i think he was one of the first filmmakers i
01:10:11watched um you know when i started like around when i was a teenager started watching movies and just
01:10:18really feeling like oh my god i i could just fall into these characters and um and you know the
01:10:27way that
01:10:28he kind of is able to explore character and have this kind of light naturalistic touch but um i don't
01:10:37know i would just i'd love to spend a day with him i was gonna say kurosawa so deborah you
01:10:43blew me up
01:10:44uh but it's true i don't really understand watches i go back to his films and watch them again and
01:10:49i
01:10:49don't we try to do uh what we did uh samurai episodes in the second season of westworld which is
01:10:55one of
01:10:55the most uh enjoyable experiences as a producer i've gotten to participate in um i look back at
01:11:03those productions and i don't understand how he did them um just extraordinary and in those days when
01:11:09you didn't have the luxury of fixing it in post just the ambition the scale the largesse but also the
01:11:14small human beauty that he smuggled in every frame incredible thank you so much everyone for joining us
01:11:21again i know this was an unusual way to do this in this virtual setting but i thought the conversation
01:11:26was wonderful thank you guys
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