I interview a lot of people — it’s part and parcel to the job of entertainment journalism. It’s not generally my favorite thing, as I’m almost always more interested in writing about my film experience and discussing said experience with the screenwriters, whom I rarely find myself in a room with. More often than not I’m visiting an actor who has spent the better part of the day repeating themselves and building up a frothy disdain for the questions I’m trying to avoid, but eventually going to have to ask. There has been very little, if any, gravity to my interview experience. They’re mostly non-events.

…until last week.

I had no expectation that I would be sitting across from the step-father of a brutally murdered child when I arrived in Santa Barbara on the twenty sixth. To be honest I could think of few things I’d want less, and yet I was the one that requested his time on a whim as I watched Mark Byers shuffle painfully through the lobby of the Hotel Santa Barbara. The festival’s publicist caught him as he stepped onto State Street, and five minutes later we were together — and my video camera was pointed at him.

Mark Byers is fifty two,  and six foot five inches tall — he towered over me as we walked together into the hotel’s hospitality room, but he seemed somewhat frail. He has a nagging back injury, and looks perpetually tired. Mark Byers hasn’t lived an easy life; he has a string of past criminal charges ranging from theft, drug abuse, and threats of violence.

When Mark’s step-son Christopher was murdered on a summer evening in 1993 along with Stevie Branch and Michael Moore in West Memphis, Arkansas, it stood to reason that he was immediately looked upon as a suspect. Anyone familiar with the case of the West Memphis Three, and the subsequent Paradise Lost documentaries via HBO knows that Mark was somewhat theatrical. Many of his reactions and interviews were fodder for a hungry media that needed a character to follow, and even if unknowingly, Byers fed the press. Now, just like then — Mark Byers has maintained his innocence. He never pursued a lawyer’s defense, and remained an open book for any evidenciary pursuits in the state of Arkansas.

Mark Byers, for all of his criminal past and somewhat odd behavior, has been repeatedly vindicated. Additionally, he has been one of the strongest supporters of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley — the three men that spent eighteen years in prison for the murders of the three boys, and the focus of Peter Jackson and director Amy Berg’s documentary, West of Memphis. Much of his support is derived from the strong, exonerating DNA evidence that not only helped remove the West Memphis Three from the short list of suspects in the murder, but additionally scratched him from said list.

What the DNA and new physical evidence have suggested, is a rather damning connection to the murders of Christopher, Michael, and Stevie to the latter’s step-father, Terry Hobbs.

I’m a writer — while I like to follow logical conclusions with as much supporting evidence as I can in taking a position, I’m not going to pretend I know enough about the science behind the findings in this case to make definitive statements. If this were another story, I might even share what my personal leanings are in greater detail. This isn’t really an opinion piece, however — it’s a long, drawn out intro to a video interview that was difficult for me to participate in. I will say that I felt genuine pain in Mark Byers, and he had my sympathy. In the video I think it’s likely obvious that full impartiality wasn’t the place I was going — but to be fair, I had no idea where that was until I began speaking.

Below, Mark Byers talks to me about condemnation, forgiveness, pursuit of justice — and a very final, overwhelmingly cruel truth.

About a year ago, I saw Ben Wheatley‘s Kill List at SXSW. I walked in to the theater unfamiliar with what the film was about and what exactly I was in for with my viewing experience. Wheatley’s dark, unpleasant, and funny hit man story was my favorite viewing experience of last year, and explaining why has been a real chore.

However, it isn’t a problem for Ben Wheatley, who was open to discussing the big spoiler topics, in particular the final minutes of the film. Much of my chat with the writer/director dealt with the ending, and the many theories it has spawned.

Here’s what Ben Wheatley had to say about seeking out interpretations, the wonky logic behind Minority Report, and tedious exposition in our [SPOILER] conversation:

Have you been hearing some interesting theories about the film?

You know, I’ve gotten to thinking about this a bit recently. I know I shouldn’t, but I look online at everything that’s written about it, which is the power of the Google alert, sadly. I think the theories that are popping up are mostly right. I haven’t seen one that made me think, “Oh God, they’re insane.” There’s a few details people quibble over, like who’s involved in the cult and whether Gal or Shel’s involved, and she’s not. The rest of the stuff seems pretty spot on, and I’m really happy about that. People are reading it [well], so it’s clear what we’re saying [with the film]. There’s not loads of people making up stuff. [Laughs]

[Laughs] I plan on doing that after this interview.

[Laughs] What you need is a piece of paper and write down one to six different words, and then just roll the dice and see where you go.

[Laughs] How about calling it an allegory for the Iraq war?

Yeah, that’s good, you can have that. [Laughs] That’s absolutely fine.

[Laughs] Good. You mentioned the theory about Shel being involved, but I don’t really see that, since she clearly loves him.

Yeah, I don’t think she’s involved. There’s a confusion over the laugh at the end, which makes people think she’s involved. I always read that as she’s going, “Oh God, you fucking idiot!” I saw someone Twittering the other day, “God, I can’t believe she couldn’t recognize her own husband without his clothes on!” [Laughs] Yeah, the last time I had my kid strapped on my back as a hunchback with a mask I couldn’t recognize my wife, either.

It happens.

[Laughs] It’s a common problem!

[Laughs] When it comes to Shel’s laugh, it’s like, how could she see something this insane happening?

Yeah, that’s exactly it — it’s an ironic laugh. It’s caused a whole matter of trouble of, “Oh, she’s involved!” She’s really a poor ‘ol gal and is innocent in all this.

Even though you don’t think that’s a logical takeaway, you must enjoy that people are digging this deep into the movie.

I love that people are interested enough to think about it, and that’s the biggest compliment of all. They’re taking time trying to unravel it, and that’s great. You know, there’s many films you see that you can barely remember as you’re leaving the cinema.

Definitely. So far the tag for the film has been a “hitman horror movie,” but what about a “love story”? It’s a bit of a love triangle between Jay, his wife, and Gal.

[Laughs] Yeah, an awkward love triangle. On the commentary we had to sum it up, and we described it as the trials of a failing business and a nasty man who wins a hat [Laughs].

[Laughs] That’s perfect. With that love story, though, it paints these guys as very human, and not just as killers.

Yeah, totally. It’s the same approach we had with Down Terrace, where it’s pouring a load of social-realist stuff into genre. Like, who are these people and what do they do when they’re not doing their genre stuff? They’re real people who live, love, and have these lives. If they have all that stuff, you feel a lot more awful when things happen to them, rather than just going, “Oh, this is an interchangeable character with a thousand different hitmen. He can be any fucker. If he gets killed, you don’t care.” I think that’s what we were looking to do: make the audience identify with them as much as they could.

Obviously you see Jay commit horrible acts so was it a challenge finding an actor who could find that level of humanity?

The whole thing for this film was the parts were all written for the actors. You know, I was always going to use Neil Maskell. There was no casting involved with this film. I was always going to use Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring and Emma Fryer, and they were in the front of my mind when I wrote the parts. I always knew Neil could do that stuff. I knew he was very versatile.

How long ago did you start writing the script?

Around the Christmas of 2009. We had the green-light around March of 2010.

That’s pretty fast. Do you write fairly quick?

Yeah, yeah. There was a couple of drafts after that, but we moved very fast after Down Terrace.

Were there a lot of changes made along the way?

There was a bit more to it. The stuff that came out was for pacing, really. There was another layer. Like, [there was] a fixer character before the client. It was all just points. You want to strip it right down. The first cut of the film was two hours, so there was a load of scenes that came out, which were mostly Jay and Gal mooching about, going to hotels, and stuff. We pulled it right back to the barest essentials.

The film’s especially lean in exposition, which, if I recall right, there’s not a whole lot of in the film.

Yeah, there’s a couple of tiny little investigation scenes into the cult, which involves Jay drinking whiskey and looking at a couple of photographs [Laughs]. That was about as far as we got towards traditional exposition.

Do you find exposition tough to write?

I just find it dull, you know? I think the only good exposition I can think of is Kyle Reese describing terminators to Sarah in the car chase, which is a crazy idea but he delivers it insanely well while in the middle of a car chase. Beyond that, I find exposition pretty tedious.

You usually get the worst of it in sci-fi.

Yeah, it’s like, “Who cares?” [Laughs]

I think a great recent example is Minority Report. The first twenty minutes sets up everything during an action scene.

Yeah, you gotta be moving fast while explaining stuff, otherwise it doesn’t work. If they’re sitting across from each other, it just falls out of their mouths. What I wanna know about Minority Report is the ins-and-outs between the distance of the precogs and where you could commit the crime, and if you could step over the line [Laughs].

[Laughs] Do they say how far they can see? I remember it only being for DC.

No, they don’t [Laughs]. They go to the pond and show the murder, and it’s just on the edge of a lake. What does the line look like? Can you jump across? [Laughs] Who knew the future had an actual physical boundary? It’s crazy. What kind of shape is this precog distance?  You can commit crimes in the desert, but you can’t commit crimes in a town!

[Laughs] In terms of explaining things, do you have an answer, for yourself, when it comes to the ending?

Yeah, for sure. We know exactly what it’s about, and all the evidence is definitely there for it. It’s not even that the answers aren’t there, the only thing missing is someone doing a summing up. I was going to say there’s no Scooby-Doo scene, but they all take their masks off at the end! [Laughs] There’s no summary of, “As you can see, the cult had been planning this all along.” You know, I don’t think anyone would thank me for that.

The way I see it is that the character’s so violent, that violence will always overrun his life.

Yeah, totally. He was totally open to all this shit. He wants to be alone, and he gets what he wants. In the end, he gets rid of everybody he loves. He’s just left there seething with anger with a bunch of maniacs. It’s kind of a “be careful what you wish for” [story].

Kill List is now in limited release and available on VOD.

On the eve of the Berlinale, Swedish director Daniel Espinosa joins us to talk about waterboarding Denzel Washington and the mind games of Safe House. Plus, we look forward to a few films to catch in Berlin, and it’s Matt Singer versus Alison Willmore in a Filmspotting: SVU showdown of Movie News Quizzing.

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On This Week’s Show:

Movie News Pop Quiz: [Beginning - 17:00] It’s Singer vs. Willmore, and we discuss Redbox‘s dominance of suburbia which they plan to take to the streaming world.

Our House: [17:00 - 33:30] Punk rock director Daniel Espinosa talks about cranking up the action in Safe House, the connection between Scandinavia and the US, and working with iconic cinematographer Oliver Wood.

Kino Berlin: [33:30 - End] In the final moments, I toss out a few movies we’ll be trying to see at the Berlin International Film Festival as we check out next year’s Oscar contenders when they make their world premiere.

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The first reaction of anyone coming out of The Grey probably won’t be, “I bet the director of The A-Team, Smokin’ Aces, and that BMW short Ticker made this!” Joe Carnahan prefers it to be that way. The director’s fifth feature film isn’t a full-blown action romp, but is instead a thrilling meditation on life, death, and survival. (Check out our review here.)

Similar to Carnahan’s breakout feature, Narc, The Grey shows all the trappings of a true personal project — the kind of story that a filmmaker had to tell. And, after speaking with Carnahan for 25 minutes, that was clearly the case. From White Jazz to Killing Pablo, when the personable man finds a story that comes from his core, he’s got to get it made.

Here’s what Joe Carnahan had to say about the life and death themes of The Grey, writing and portraying real men, and why he never wants to become a “one for them, one for me” filmmaker:

So, how are you feeling on opening day?

I feel good, man. Listen, my kind of thing is to be a hard-on and monitor everything, and I got to stop. Literally when I hang up the phone with you, I’m going to take a five mile hike and put on my Dr. Dre headphones to block out the world. At some point, you just gotta forget about it. I’ve done everything I can do, it’s going to go out into the world, and I’m extremely happy with the reaction it’s gotten. I’m content now to let the course be taken, whatever course that may be.

The reaction has been really strong. Does that ever affect your view on a film? 

Does it help when Roger Ebert says he couldn’t “watch” the film he watched after The Grey, because it did such a number on him that he didn’t feel he was fair to the next film? Yeah, dude — that’s huge for me. When they slam it… like when Smokin’ Aces gets slammed, a part of me just thinks it’s not really a film for you. I’m not making that movie for you. The other thing is, if you start making films for everyone but you, then you’re in a lot of trouble. [Laughs] Admittedly, I have an odd sense of humor and there are certain things I find funny that other people don’t find funny. Certain things I find dramatic and meaningful, but other people don’t find dramatically meaningful. Some people really like the film, and that’s always lovely.

I saw this interview where you got asked about why you wanted to put yourself in a bind making The Grey, with the technical challenges. Was that the reason why, the challenge?

Oh, I think so, brother. Again, I don’t like being deemed as, “Oh, this guy can do one thing. He’s going to do the crazy action and the wild stunt stuff.” I don’t even know where that stuff takes root. I guess beyond, yeah, I did a movie with stunts and Smokin’ Aces has guns. I guess I much prefer the path of the contrarian: the guy who goes against the grain a bit. The careers of the people who I admire deeply — like the Coen brothers and Soderbergh – don’t repeat themselves, and they make radically different films at times, and I think that’s wonderful.

The Grey does feel like Narc, though, in that personal way.

Very much so, Jack; it’s very much a deeply personal thing. It was something that was reflective of my world view, without being heavy-handed or high-minded about it. I think it’s asking very basic and simple questions, and you’re going to take them with what you will.

Yeah, and they seem like questions maybe the 25-year-old you, as a director, wouldn’t be asking. 

The 40-year-old in me is definitely thinking these things. You know, I think you have to pay attention to where you’re at in life — not only as you’re living it, but creatively and artistically. Like, how do you feel about the world? Is it enough to express it in a film or with your art?

One of the big questions in the film is faith. There’s the scene where Ottway is screaming up to God, and you don’t usually see that in films, since God is treated as such a taboo subject and gets taken out of a lot of stories. Did you ever get a note about that?

No, it would’ve been false, man. I think it would’ve been an empty exercise without that rant to the heavens, because I think we all do that from time to time. I don’t think we’re being honest with ourselves if we don’t say, “What the hell, man? Is anybody out there? Is anybody looking after me? Does anyone care?” I think that’s a very human response in that moment. To me, it seems very appropriate. I think it would’ve felt like I was ducking it, for reasons that weren’t good enough to duck it. Do you know what I mean? Like, “Oh, man, I don’t want to say anything about God, in the fear that I might offend someone.” I think that’s a pretty chickenshit reason to back away from something.

It’s interesting, too, because I got the sense that Ottway’s probably not a religious guy. But it is something you think about.

Right. Well, I don’t know if I’m the most religious guy, but I think I’m a spiritual man and these are the things I think about a lot. In terms of the film, I think The Grey is very much a non-denominational kind of film. I don’t think it’s something that relies on a particular religious bent to tell the story. I’ve said this, but if an atheist sees this film, there’s no way there’s a God. If a Christian sees it, there’s absolutely a God. There’s little contradiction along the way. Like, you mentioned the scene of Liam yelling away at the heavens, but in the next scene he’s making a very Christian memorial with the wallets. When he wraps a wallet in his hand, it’s like a prayer. I think, like I said, there’s that duality in all of ourselves.

When it comes to Ottway, I was surprised to hear Bradley Cooper was initially cast. I’m sure it would’ve been good, but I think Ottway’s age and tiredness plays a big part thematically — how he’s probably seen a lot of bad things happen. Did you initially think of him as a younger character?

I absolutely did, Jack. He was written as a younger guy. What I find interesting is that younger actors had a greater difficulty wrapping their heads around a man in the point of his life where he had no use for that life. I think with an older actor and older character — who would’ve seen life’s great tragedies and life’s great triumphs, and everything in-between — that transformation becomes much easier.

Did you see that as a happy accident, getting Liam? In terms of how the older presence played a thematic role?

Oh, yeah. I thank the movie Gods for that one, because I think I would’ve made a potentially fatal error to have another actor. [Laughs] You’re right, the error wouldn’t have been casting Bradley Cooper, and I think the movie still would’ve been great, albeit completely different, tonally. To have Liam was to have the trump card, as it were.

You mentioned natural responses early, and you even do that in small things. Like, characters actually say “fuck” in this movie.

This is how those guys talk, and that’s how I talk! I got a filthy mouth, what do you want? Like, I’m not going to clean it up for anybody. I’ll clean it up for my mother when she’s around. For anybody beyond that? Fuck ‘em.

[Laughs] It does remind me, though, that your characters are usually very manly.

Right. I mean, not like I’m the most macho guy in the world, but the guys I hang out with and spend time with use that word. It’s an action verb and a noun. [Laughs] The word fuck is multifaceted, multipurpose, and, for my money, it doesn’t get used enough.

[Laughs] I agree. I’d imagine you use those types of guys as templates for your characters. Does that have an impact on the writing process, using traits that you see in your friends?

Oh, absolutely. One of my best friends, Ben Bray – who’s in the film — that’s very much him. When Ottway finds him after the crash and he says he has to call Vanessa, that’s Ben talking about his wife. Anytime you can interweave the personal stuff and make it a color or an added thing, I think you do the movie and your art a service.

When you do something as massive as The A-Team, do you still try to find a way to infuse the personal?

Oh, yeah, man. I mean, that’s much more set up to encourage improvisation, encourage interaction, and to encourage them to have fun in the moment. I think it’s a different kind of personal, because it’s very much immediate, whereas The Grey is much more formal in that we had long discussions. I wanted what was in the script to be made without a lot of additional stuff. Structurally, I thought it was important to keep it that way, since it is essentially a plotless movie and a survival film. I didn’t want a bunch of working parts to suddenly gum it up. I thought, with The A-Team, that was a part of the fun: being out there and experimenting in the moment.

The structure is fairly simple, in the way Narc was. Does that make the writing process easier, sticking to the basics?

Yeah, I guess in a way. Listen, that was a tough script to write, too, because you start to deal with the idea of mortality, the metaphysical, and God. You know, you owe it to yourself to explore that, to slow it down, and to let it have its moments to live and breathe. It wasn’t easy, but it was certainly aided in that. It was just a much longer process, I guess.

Do you enjoy writing?

I love it, man. I love it, Jack. It’s one of my favorite things, and I think it remains the thing I’m the most comfortable with because I’ve been doing it for so long. It’s like, I’ve had this great left-handed ovation guitar staring at me for months, waiting for me to pick it up, and I don’t do it. I have no cool hobbies, dude — I can barely swing a golf club, my jump shot’s crap, and as you get older you’re reduced down to very simple tasks. Writing, for me, is very comfortable, and I feel really at ease doing it.

Do you stick to the script pretty thoroughly, or are you looking for new discoveries in the editing?

I think in both spheres, brother. I think you do a tremendous amount of exploration while writing, and I think you do even more in the edit. I think the things that seemed very precious and irreplaceable to you become things… I’ve always found it interesting, corollary, that the stuff while you’re cutting that is the spine and the backbone of the film becomes irrelevant, and the stuff you didn’t think would ever matter becomes the spine. It’s always this interesting kind of trade-off, and it happens all the time. I still really enjoy writing, and I look at editing as an extension.

Was there one scene you cut in The Grey that you saw as killing one of your babies?

You know, the camp fire scene where Ottway talks about his father’s poem, which I find hysterical, this pocket of jagoff reviewers who have taken that poem to task, not understanding it’s not meant to be “high-art.” I mean, it’s written by a guy who had never written a poem. Anyway, there’s an extended scene, which is seven minutes but used to be fifteen minutes, and I love that scene. I’ll probably put it, in its entirety, on the deleted scenes in the Blu-ray. I loved it, and that was a tough one [to cut]. But I understood I couldn’t stop the movie, where it couldn’t come to a full stop. It had to keep moving forward. It was necessary, at that point, to cut that out. That was one where I was really sad to see it go.

What about for Smokin’ Aces? I remember hearing that original script was massive.

Oh, yeah, I can’t even remember the stuff I took out of that. I think a lot of that was written to be continuous. You know, a guy extends his hand in one scene and a guy shakes a hand in the next. It was meant to be a bit of a continuous kind of process. Yeah, there was stuff I took out of that, and you have to. I think the biggest thing was a much longer conversation between Chris Pine‘s character and Martin Henderson‘s character at the end. It was probably three or four minutes longer, and I loved it. I remember having to cut it, and it was a bummer. Pine was just on another planet; it was great, man.

That movie feels like a director really unhinged. When you write something that wild, do you just think “anything goes”?

Absolutely, man. I think like a fighter: you gotta let your hands go, you just gotta punch. I knew that was a movie, to me, that was a catharsis coming out of Mission: Impossible III and having a long time where I wasn’t doing anything. It was very much an explosion of, “I’m just going to let it go.” I knew there were going to be people who hate the movie and love the movie, but I didn’t think there were going to be many in-between, which I quite like. I like it if something polarizes you, and I think those are always great. Nobody wants the middling, “Eh, yeah…”

I read your White Jazz script years ago when you put it on your website and, if I recall right, it was a dialogue-heavy script.

Absolutely, dude. Lots of voice-over, lots of intricate and interwoven… yeah, I love that script. I would love to make that film.

Yeah, that’s a great script. Is being so dialogue-driven — and a period piece, as well — proven a challenge behind getting it made?

Yeah, man. You know, something like that is really tough to get made, because it doesn’t lend itself to an easy — well, it’ll be interesting with Gangster Squad coming out. I’m hoping that gives out a nostalgic… I don’t mind drafting on that movie, because if it creates the ability to make White Jazz, I think it’d be worth it. If there’s a little kind of renaissance with those period films, it’d be really nice.

White Jazz, Killing Pablo, and The Grey have clearly been personal projects. When you completed those scripts, what made you say, “I have to make this movie”?

On the ones you really pour your heart and soul into, you come away from it and say, “I have to make that film.” Like, I recently wrote and stepped away from this thing called Umbra. Although I love that script — and I thought I did everything I could to make that thing really sing — it never felt like it was from the core of my being. As much as that was a work-for-hire gig — and I busted my ass on that thing, and it was a page-one rewrite — it never held me enthralled the way Killing Pablo and White Jazz do.

What’s that writing process like, where you are brought in as a work-for-hire? Is it just a different challenge?

I think so. I hope I can become a good enough filmmaker where I can take a script that I’m not “heart and soul” into, but I could still make something really great out of it. I don’t know how to do that yet. It has to be an “in for a penny and out for a pound” process for me.

But never a “one for me, one for them” deal, right?

I feel like you just go down a very dark road when you do that. I used to think that was a great idea, but I’m not sure now. But you never know, man. Whatever way the wind is blowing on any given day; I wouldn’t say I’d do a certain thing today, but then I could feel differently about it tomorrow. You never know. I think that’s what’s great about life when you’re given the opportunity to make movies: you never know. Right now, if I can stay in L.A. and be close with my wife and the kids, that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to trudge off to the far corners of the earth, but if that means somebody beats me to the punch on a Pablo Escobar film, then I’m going to make that movie.

[Spoilers for The Grey]

To bring it back to The Grey, I have to ask about the final scene. Can you discuss how it came about in its finished form?

There was another ending that was tacked on; not tacked on, but there was another, initial ending in the script. There was a fight, a shot fight. I just thought, for my money, it became very plain in editing: is this a movie about a man living his life and confronting death, or is it a movie about a guy fighting a wolf? That didn’t seem to be a question for me, as we were near to completing the movie. I knew it was about a guy confronting death, so that made it quite easy to end the film where we ended it. If you come out pissed off it didn’t happen the way you wanted it to happen, then you missed the point of the film, and you didn’t engage with the film the way you should have. That’s how I feel about that.

To me, his arc is done where you cut. 

You’re absolutely right. You know, it’ll be interesting to see the reactions of people coming out of the theater. I think it’ll be a commentary on where we are as filmgoers, in some weird way. Like, if people can’t accept something that questions, as opposed to something that provides you with perfect punctuation.

There is that nice hint at the end of the credits, though. Early on in the film, you see Ottway listen to that wolf dying, and that final shot could be interpreted as him doing the same thing.

That’s exactly what it’s intended to be. It was intended to be a small harkening back to that moment with him and the wolf earlier.

I think you love that character too much by the end to kill him.

Yeah, I don’t know, dude. I don’t show him being alive or dead, you don’t really see him. You’re not meant to make that connection beyond that one little image. That’s all I wanted to leave it with.

Have you seen a lot of people arguing about it?

No, but if people come out of a film arguing, you’ve done your work. You’ve done exactly what you need to do. Most people — and I’m certainly one of them — come out of a movie [thinking], “Alright, where did I park?” I don’t care if you hate the film; the movie will definitely stay with you.

Did you test screen the film?

I did early on. It was interesting — people were bitching that it was not what they wanted by the end of the film. There’s a vast difference between marketing a movie and the movie itself. You try to cast as wide and broad a net as possible. Even the people who were reported to hate the film, when asked if they would talk about it the next day, they all raised their hands. When they were asked if they’d talk about it the following Monday at work, they all raised their hands.

[Spoilers Over]

Another sequence I want to touch on is the plane crash. If I recall right, you don’t cut to the outside of the plane. When you think of a scene such as that, do you try to approach it in a way that goes against how it would usually be shot?

I think so. I think you have to, dude. I just wanted to make the experience of the whole film very subjective, and the plane crash is certainly a part of that. I think every time you set out to do something, you should try to, first and foremost, not follow what others have done. I think the only cue I took was… I love Fearless and Peter Weir‘s rendition of a plane crash, and I thought that was a good starting point. Certainly the violence that would follow and being at the mercy of that plane and what was going to happen to you was a lot more exciting.

I’m glad you mentioned Fearless. Not enough people talk about that movie.

Oh, it’s a great film. It’s great.

I love it. To wrap, I have to ask about Nemesis. It’s a cool comic, but it’s not exactly the most mainstream or audience-friendly material. If you make that film, how would you go about adapting that?

You know, it’s an interesting question. I think you have to… obviously this is a conversation Mark Millar and I are going to have in the next couple of weeks. I just love the idea of the anti-Bruce Wayne — the guy who’s not kind, but a menace and a malevolent guy. I don’t how, brother. Obviously you read that [comic], and the stunts in there are completely over-the-top. There’s a guy back-flipping over a motorcycle and firing an RPG into a helicopter, [Laughs] and right there is a $12 million stunt. It’s going to take some work and some thought.

The Grey is now in theaters.

With the Oscar nominations out terrorizing the community, we turn to IMDB Managing Editor Keith Simanton to discuss why the Academy Awards still matter, how the voting environment works, and why Harvey Weinstein always seems to control the conversation. Plus, Landon Palmer explores the death of the movie star and the rise of franchises. Could it help the revival in independent filmmaking?

As if that weren’t enough, Cinema Blend‘s Editor-in-Chief Katey Rich squares off with Hollywood.com Movies Editor Matt Patches in a Movie News Pop Quiz that will change everything.

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On This Week’s Show:

Movie News Pop Quiz: [Beginning - 20:00] It’s Rich vs Patches in an impressively fought Movie News Pop Quiz that leads us to discuss Sundance and whether anyone really cares or not. ‘Tis the season.

Take My Envelope, Please: [20:00 - 43:20] A different kind of Oscar discussion. Keith Simanton sits down to discuss what really goes on with voting and why we all still watch.

Rust Era Hollywood: [43:20 - End] The days of Rock Hudson and Cary Grant are long over. With movie stars no longer being manufactured, how will the industry change? Landon Palmer brings his Culture Warrior thoughts to a tough subject as we explore the shift and share a vision for the future.

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We’ll be packing for the Berlin International Film Festival and talking with Safe House director Daniel Espinosa.

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Not a whole lot of negotiators on film look like Elizabeth Banks. They’re usually gruff, jaded, overweight, sloppy, and any other cliche description you can think of. Most of those adjectives don’t much apply to Banks, whose negotiator even uses her looks for the job. However, even though the actress doesn’t come anywhere close to the appearance of a 300-pound 50-something, she still gets to do plenty of things those old men get to do.

She gets to shout, “This is my negotiation,” and without having to be bold and off-putting while doing it. That’s an accomplishment right there. It’s a nice little twist on the genre, and in my brief conversation with Banks, that’s what she seemed to be the most impressed about when it came to Man on a Ledge, the new thriller involving Sam Worthington hanging on a ledge for mysterious reasons…mysterious reasons that were mostly revealed in the trailer.

Here’s what what Elizabeth Banks had to say about no-brainer titles, playing with archetypes, and working with Gary Ross:

When you got the script, were you pretty taken with the title? I don’t think it could be more straight-forward.

[Laughs] You know, I’m always intrigued by things that promise exactly what they are, and then back it up with other things.

You also got Zack and Miri Make a Porno and The 40 Year Old Virgin, which, again, make for pretty straight-forward titles. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Yeah, it’s what makes the marketing a lot easier. “This is what you’re getting, everybody!”

[Laughs] You don’t even need a trailer. Jumping into the film, what I think works about the film is the structure, which is pretty tight. 

I agree. It read like a really tight thriller. Two of my favorite movies in this genre are Inside Man and The Italian Job, and, to me, this is a great combo of those two movies. I love things that surprise me and trick me, and I definitely felt like…clearly there’s more going on than a guy on a ledge, and you know that’s going to be the case. You don’t really know what you’re watching until the twist comes, and I love that. As an audience member, I love that. The archetype is pretty well set up, but you don’t see the twist coming.

You even get that classic archetype line, “This is my negotiation!” When you approach an archetype like this, do you try to infuse it with something different, or did you already see it as being different on the page?

[Laughs] One of the things I really liked about this is that gender doesn’t come into play. She’s not girly, doesn’t have a breakdown, and I basically got to play this as a man, which I appreciated. I felt like that was kind of new. I also liked that I got to run around, chase bad guys and do stunts, that really appealed to the tomboy in me. Also, we spent a good amount of energy creating that sense of camaraderie that the NYPD clearly has; it’s sort of a boys’ club that exists there. I just wanted to make sure I actually had something to do and say. I feel like my character’s the smartest one in the room.

I like how you say boys’ club, because a lot of the movie feels like a pissing contest.

[Laughs] Yeah, I know.

There’s even that line Titus Welliver has, the one about Mikey sticking his dick in the wrong door. [Laughs] It’s one of those great, “Who would say something like that?” kind of lines.

[Laughs] I know. I mean, you’d be surprised, the NYPD dish it out to each other.

[Laughs] I’ll be using that line in the future. You mentioned how the role wasn’t gender specific, and usually this character would be a tired, 50-something old guy. Do you see a lot of roles like that, non-gender specific ones?

No. I mean, I mostly just read “wives” and “girlfriends.” Yeah, she’s got a bit of John McClane in her, which is a lot of fun for me.

Is it ever tiring just seeing the girlfriend role?

Yeah, but they get weeded out now a little bit more. By the way, sometimes the girlfriend is a pretty interesting character. [Laughs]

[Laughs] I thought Our Idiot Brother handled women well.

Yeah, I really thought so, too. Each sister was very recognizable, but at the same time there was a lot of nuance and specificity.

When you’re doing a film like this or The Next Three Days, where they are these fairly tight yarns, does it require you to be pretty disciplined with the material?

You know, not really. So much of that is done in editing. I’m really just trying to play authentic character beats, and whatever gets me to that place. In The Next Three Days, I was in jail isolated from my loved ones, so I spent a lot of time sitting in corners and not talking to anyone…so that was not a very fun moviemaking experience. [Laughs] On this I sat around on a rooftop with Edward Burns drinking coffee, it definitely felt like we were cops on a stakeout. We were actually out on the ledge, so that was a true gift, since you don’t have to act that. The sense of adrenaline pumping through you, the sweaty palms, and the nervousness — I definitely felt I had a four percent chance of dying at any moment. [Laughs] In the back of your mind it’s, “Accidents happen, accidents happen!” I had an amazing group of stunt guys I trusted and precautions are taken, but human error and accidents happen, so I was thinking, “Something could go wrong.”

It’s interesting comparing The Next Three Days and Man on a Ledge because both of a lot of their drama takes place off-screen. We don’t see that, but do you fill in those blanks for yourself?

Absolutely. I had a really strong backstory here. I heard an amazing story before we started filming, from a female negotiator, about a fellow police officer who was in a bad custody battle with his wife, and he took his daughter hostage. It was a bad situation and the negotiator ended up getting the daughter out, but then he ended up killing himself. Two years later, the negotiator ended up killing herself. You know, that was the backstory I kept going through in my mind, that she lost a fellow police officer and it wasn’t just anybody. What would bring that much notoriety to someone? You know, I spend a lot of time in New York and I used to live here, so I know what the Post cover looks like everyday. I know if a police negotiator let a police officer die under their watch, of course they would splash their photo on the cover of the newspaper, there would be an investigation, and the whole thing would go sideways.

For the most part, these guys have a pretty great track record. You know, their motto is, “Jumper’s jumper,” meaning if you want to kill yourself, you go to the top of the building and jump off, and you’re not still standing there by the time I put my pants on, head uptown, and have a cup of coffee. [Laughs] If you’re still there by the time the negotiator gets there, you likely want to live and will let your rational mind takeover, unless you’re just crazy. They usually can help someone in that situation, so their track record is pretty good. It is life and death, and I never would want someone’s life in my hands. They’ll also tell you, once you get there and the person does go over, then you really blame yourself.

I know I gotta wrap up, but I gotta say I’m really looking forward to The Hunger Games.

Thanks!

And I actually haven’t read the books, but I’m a big fan of Gary Ross.

Oh yeah, he’s a great moviemaker and a great storyteller.

Yeah, he has a great handle on character. How is he as a collaborator?

So much of it is that. He’s a writer too, so every character matters and it’s about the fun performances he’s trying to get everyone. I mean, Effie Trinket is an amazing character, so we had a great time figuring her out together. I can’t wait for people to see it.

It looks a lot different from Seabiscuit. [Laughs]

Yeah, it’s very different from Seabiscuit, but I think all his movies are different. I’m really impressed by Gary’s taste in everything; he has such great taste.

—

Man on a Ledge is now in theaters.

If you happened to be in Austin for SXSW last year, you just might have seen The Divide, a dark post-apocalyptic film from up and coming French director Xavier Gens. And if you did, you probably noticed the familiar face of Michael Biehn. Biehn made his name in classics like Aliens and The Terminator, but these days he’s starting to write and direct his own films.

FSR had a chance to speak with Kyle Reese himself about the tensions on the set of his latest film and the differences in finding himself behind the camera instead of in front of it.

Obviously, The Divide is a difficult film, a bleak and depressing film. Can you tell me what it was like on set filming that type of movie.

The thing about working on the movie was that Xavier basically gave all the actors the opportunity to kind of like throw the original script away and do whatever we wanted to as far as writing, improving that sort of thing. Some actors did more, some did less. My character for instance, Mickey, was originally the antagonist in the movie all the way through. The Mickey that was in the original script doesn’t bear any resemblance to the Mickey that I ended up writing, along with Eron Sheean who was helping the actors write their characters. So we were kinda writing as we were moving forward and we were doing the improvisations during people’s scenes. That caused a lot of animosity between the actors because some people would come in thinking they were going to do their big scene that day and somebody else would be improving something off to the side and the cameras would shift to them. So the actors started having a lot of animosity and there was a lot of fighting that went on, a lot of tension on that set. Mickey actually didn’t really have to take sides because he was kind of a loner but there was a lot of tension and a lot of people that were really really pissed off.

I work with Friedkin, I work with Jim Cameron, I work with Michael Bay, you know these guys all have this reputation but I’ve never worked on a set before that had that much tension. It felt like violence could break it out like at any moment, somebody was going to get hit somebody was going to get hurt. It was kinda scary actually. It was a very volatile set.

Wow, it sounds like. That comes out in the film and frankly, it works for the story you’re trying to tell. Looking back on it do you feel like that was the best way to go about filming this type of movie?

Yeah, well I think Xavier knew that from the very beginning and I don’t think we understood. One of the things about the movie also is we shot it in sequence, so the first day was the first day, the second day was the second day and so and so forth. So a lot of times the movie would move away from where we thought it was going to go. I mean there was a script, but it was very loose. And we thought it would go one way and all of sudden we were playing something else and doing something different. Characters were acting differently than you thought that they would act. I think that it was Xavier’s plan all along to kind of pit the actors against each other and to bring people into scenes to take other people’s scenes away from them so that he could create the animosity and he did. And the actors took the bait, they really took the bait. It was very volatile situation as far as acting, I’ve never been on a set before that had anywhere near that kind of volatile situation and like I said, I’ve worked with some pretty intense guys.

This movie comes at a time when you’re also starting to branch off and write and direct yourself. Do you feel like this was a different experience because of that?

Well, my [writing/directing] experience is completely different because I didn’t think that I had the money to make a movie. And some guy told me he had the money, but people always say that. I said well put your money where your mouth is and all of a sudden his check didn’t bounce. And when his check didn’t bounce, I realized that I only had three weeks to write a script and mount a production. So I had three weeks of pre-production. During that pre-production where I was crewing up, casting, dealing with the Screen Actors Guild, props, makeup, locations all of that kind of stuff we had three weeks to do. During that three weeks, I wrote the script. And then after I wrote the script, I only had 12 days to shoot it. I think we had 30 some days to shoot Xavier’s movie. So they were two completely different experiences. When we did The Victim, I said listen I’ll work for this amount of money because it was such a low amount of money. When you make a movie in 12 days dude, that’s…like I’ve never done anything in less than twenty-four days before and even that was quick, you know. I said, I’ll make this movie but I have to be able to make all of the creative choices, all of them, I have to make all of the production choices and I have to decide who we’re going to sell it to and when we’re going to sell it. And I said that to the guy who put up the original money, which wasn’t much but they agreed. So I had that all on my back but at the same time too, I got to do whatever I wanted. It was a completely different experience. I did learn, Xavier did a film called…

Frontier(s)

Frontier(s), yeah. When I watched Frontiere(s) I noticed how beautiful his nights were. And I said to him on the set, how did you create the nights? They took on a feeling of their own. And he said, “oh Michael, I shoot this day-for-night.” I’m like day-for-night?! I didn’t even know they shot that way anymore. So then I realized that I had a script, it was a page-one rewrite, but the script took place mostly at night. If we had to light that movie it would have taken us like three months to make. But we just shot it day-for-night and we shot it in 12 days. We were doing like 35, no 45 setups a day and one camera. It was just a panicked rush but it turned out really well, we’re really proud of it. Anchor Bay just announced today that they picked it up.

I saw that, congratulations.

Thank you, there was a group of companies that were interested in it, but I always wanted Anchor Bay to get it and they stepped up, so I’d like to thank them for that. And then we’ve got a guy that’s going to put us in college theaters around the country. A lot of colleges have theaters on the campuses. So we’re going to be in 50 college theaters before we go to the DVD market, so we’re kind of excited about that too. I mean it’s just a little grindhouse, a little exploitation movie. So I said to myself, well I don’t have any money, I don’t have special effects makeup, I can’t do zombies, I don’t have visual effects, what do I got? And I looked over at my girlfriend Jennifer Blanc and I said, wow, how about you getting naked for me for this movie? And she said sure, I’ll get naked. And I go, you got any friends that’ll get naked? She said, maybe Danielle Harris from the Halloween movies? And I go yeah, you think she’ll get naked? Turned out she’d get naked, so I thought OK, I got that. Dirty cops is always good, little drugs, little bit of torture I thought I could afford, a little bit of action and I thought fuck it, I’ll just throw in a serial killer. And I just fucking made it, I wrote it in that 3 week period of time and we rolled right into the 12 day shoot and did it. I think the production had a little angel sitting on its shoulder the whole time because I think we got really lucky. It turned out really good, we’re real happy with it.

That’s awesome. Can we expect more writing and directing output from you?

Well, you know the most important thing about directing a movie or acting in a movie is finding a really good story. So I’m in the process right now of trying to find a really good story that I can afford or that somebody will work with me on. I would like to direct again if I can find  a really good story. I’ll certainly be acting again.

Well thanks very much for speaking with me, I really appreciate it.

You’re welcome.

—

The Divide is currently in limited release.

One of my most anticipated films of the year is Jeff Nichols‘ Mud. Nichols is behind one of, if not the, best films of 2011: Take Shelter. With only two pictures under his belt, he’s quickly established himself as a filmmaker to get excited about.

Earlier today Nichols was kind enough to make the time for an interview to discuss Take Shelter, for the upcoming Blu-ray release. We discussed an array of topics, and Mud was briefly covered. Nichols was hard at work in the mood swing-sounding editing room when we spoke, and although he stated he’ll have clearer answers for the movie once it comes out, the writer-director shared enough details to give us a small sense of what to expect from Mud. After talking about the love-hate relationship with editing, the joy of shooting the Mississippi river with 35mm anamorphic cameras, the no bullshit (and awesome) attitude of Sam Shepard, Nichols touched upon the themes of the film:

Shotgun Stories was about revenge and Take Shelter focused on anxiety. What would you say Mud is about, in that sense?

It’s funny because the quickest answer would be it’s about love, but all the movies are about love, so that doesn’t count. Shotgun Stories is about loving your brothers and Take Shelter‘s about loving your family. [Laughs] This film is, it’s about a lot of things. It seems, to me, this film is about mentors, and it happens to be [about] mentors in love. It’s the idea of love, romantic love, and sometimes you don’t pick the right mentors for that. Or sometimes you find the right mentor for the right time in your life. Give me a few months on that.

Are you still discovering what the film is?

Yes and no. You write it, and then think it’s one thing. Then you edit it, and there are changes involved. Inevitably it comes back around to what your original intention was, and that’s the way it’s been on my first two films. You’ve caught me in the middle of the roller coaster ride right now, and I don’t want to misspeak.

And when I asked Nichols about religious undertones of Take Shelter and Shotgun Stories, he said, although that’s absent from Mud there’s definitely a “mystical” quality to the film.

Make sure to check back in the next few weeks for our full interview with Jeff Nichols. 

This week, on a very special Reject Radio, we talk with the filmmakers behind The Devil Inside about going guerrilla in Vatican City (and responding to negative reviews) and writer Derek Haas (3:10 To Yuma, Wanted) about jumping between screenwriting, short stories, and his “Silver Bear” novel series.

Plus, it’s Rob Hunter vs. Robert Fure in the first Movie News Pop Quiz of the season. Let the slap fight commence!

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On This Week’s Show:

Movie News Pop Quiz: [Beginning - 19:40] It’s Hunter vs Fure in an all out brawl of movie news guessing. The challenge will take both contestants to the mat, and the victor will emerge sweaty and ready to talk about MMA movies. So, guess who that is.

Sweet Talking the Swiss Guard: [19:40 - 36:00] Writer/director Brent Bell, writer/producer Matthew Peterman and producer Morris Paulson drop by on the day of The Devil Inside‘s release to respond to the barrage of negative reviews and to explain filmmaking methods that could have seen them arrested in the Catholic holy city.

Contract Killer: [36:00 - End] “Dark Men” author Derek Haas talks stacking the deck against a main character, murdering protagonists, repeatedly killing his screenwriting professor and the deadliness of Angela Lansbury. Just, a ton of death in this conversation. But then we keep it light and fluffy with some Popcorn Fiction.

Pick up a copy of “Dark Men”

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On Next Week’s Show:

A thrilling segment in which I buy a monthly planner in order to schedule things ahead of time. Plus, more talking about movies! Huzzah!

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In our first show of the 2012 season, we set off the filmmaking fireworks by finding out why Innkeepers director Ti West doesn’t believe in spooks, and by talking to indie icon Ed Burns about the twitter revolution, his $9,000 budget, and his new must-see movie Newlyweds.

Plus, Neil Miller stops by to dangle the hope and potential of 2012′s most anticipated movies over our noses. Will he say the movie you’re thinking of and validate his opinion to you, or will he neglect it, making everything he says in the future suspect?

Be prepared to find out a metric ton about movies and their makers, because it’s our third season, and we’re only getting started.

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On This Week’s Show:

Your Dreams Were Your Ticket Out: [Beginning - 21:40] Our very own Dear Leader, Neil Miller delivers his 5 most anticipated movies of 2012 – a tough task, considering we could only whittle our site list down to 52 of ‘em.

Booking a Room at the Yankee Pedlar Inn: [21:40 - 39:00] Ti West is back with another horror flick. This time he’s tackling ghosts and ghost hunting, and we tackle why he should stop being called “The Slow Burn Kid.”

The Honeymooner: [39:00 - End] Ed Burns bucked the system as an indie filmmaker in the 90s, and he’s set to do it twice in one career. His method? Using twitter to engage directly with fans, to get feedback, and to use $9,000 to make the kind of movies he wants to make. It’s the future of film, and @Edward_Burns talks to us from the edge of it.

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On Next Week’s Show:

Talkin’ ’bout movies. Talkin’ ’bout crazy cool medallions. See you then.

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As I wrote in both my review and interview with Gary Oldman and Tomas Alfredson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is not one’s average spy thriller. Nothing portrays the spy lifestyle as exciting or “awesome,” just cold, lonely, and harsh. Perhaps the greatest character who represents the themes of the film, while also still feeling like a person, is Jim Prideaux, played by Mark Strong.

Prideaux, like every other character in the film, descends to worse and worse places, emotionally and mentally, as things progress. The character’s as lonely as can be, and Strong conveys that with every somber and sad look on his face. It’s an interesting contrast to another one of Strong’s performances from this year as Clive in The Guard. A lot of actors discuss how they love variety and go for it — and most genuinely mean it — but Strong seems to be one of the prime examples of someone doing it right. A sympathetic villain, an alien superhero, and an isolated spy make up an eclectic bunch of characters.

Here’s what Mark Strong had to say about the catharsis of press, the divisiveness of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and the comfortable amount of takes:

Are you enjoying your press day?

Yeah, I don’t mind doing these, you know? Everyone says, “Oh, you’re tired. They go on a bit.” I love talking about the stuff I do, because you spend so much time doing it in isolation — working out your character and approaching a scene. Talking about it is quite cathartic.

Plus, I’d imagine you wouldn’t go, “I have to go talk about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy“!?!

[Laughs] No, exactly. Touch on wood, I’ve never had to push one that’s been rubbish, and I don’t know what that would be like.

[Laughs] I think this one’s fantastic, so that must help.

Oh, good! I think it’s divided people, and quite rightly. Everyone comes to it with their own subjective opinion. I think cinephiles, people involved in film, critics, and people who know about movies have really taken to it. You can tell what an intelligent piece of work it is. There is a broad side of the cinema going public who just [find] it too challenging, and not that there’s anything wrong with them. I think they just want something different from it.

I do think it takes more than one viewing to really take it all in, and the movie really requires you to stick with it.

What’s also important for people to know is that it’s very faithful to the book. Not necessarily in the narrative or what’s incorporated, but in the tone. The tone of the book is incredibly arcane, difficult, obscure, and frustrating. When you read the novel, you never really know if Smiley knows more than you and if he’s discovered something you haven’t, and you never really understand that in the novel. The film mirrors that from the novel. For the people who haven’t read the novel, they’ll see it as being willfully difficult to follow. The fact is, that is the way the novel and the story was originally conceived.

I’ve seen a lot of people say how you get to know nothing about these characters, even though I think the film says a lot about them.

Yeah, you may not know much about these guys, but that’s somebody talking about the way they’ve been trained to consume film, which is everything has to be explained. Tomas sees it different, that everything doesn’t have to be explained. Sometimes you can absorb things by osmosis, just having a flavor or a feeling of something. There was a direction he gave, which Gary [Oldman] mentioned, when he asked Tomas how he wanted the scene to feel, and Tomas said, “I want the scene to smell of damp tweed.” What kind of director talks like that? [Laughs] It tells you everything you need to know about the scene. It makes you realize he’s operating on a different level, not from the usual type of spoon-fed narratives that everyone’s been trained to want. In that sense, I think it’s a very delicate and intelligent film. But people are perfectly at liberty not to enjoy it. It’s all subjectivity anyway.

Yeah, you don’t wanna be that guy who says, “Oh, you didn’t get it.”

Right, you can’t say that. In fact, it’s like Shakespeare in a way. If you go to see a Shakespeare play, you don’t understand every allusion to everything, because a lot of the language and references are archaic. It doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of the play, though, because you get the general idea.

Exactly. Like I said, I think the film says a lot without saying anything. One scene in particular that does that is when you see Jim give Bill a very vulnerable look at the party. Can you talk about finding those little moments that say a lot about who Jim is?

Yeah, I was very lucky with Jim. He does have his own particular arc through the story. You see him in Budapest being a spy, you know, doing the job. The reason he’s sent is because he’s the best at it. You see him doing the thing they’re trained best to do. Then you see him very down on his luck being tortured in this prison somewhere. Then you see him being chewed up and spat out having to go undercover at a school and trying to recover. What’s brilliant is, you get these flashbacks of all of us together before this whole incident. You realize they’re all in their own world, these guys. They’re all lonely and dissociated from everything around them. By sheer necessity, they have to be extremely private, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings or emotions.

I love that [party] scene because you get to realize Jim has had a crush on Bill Haydon for his whole life, but it’s observed with subtlety. There’s no great scene in which I say that or which it’s revealed; it’s just done with a look. Earlier on in the film, you see photos of them just having played a game of rugby, and they look very happy. Little subtle clues such as that I really enjoyed about this film.

I read this quote of yours about how the process of transformation is your favorite part of acting. For Jim, where did that transformation come from?

I think it was the vulnerability of the character. I’ve played so many villains recently, that I really enjoyed the opportunity to play someone sympathetic. Although Jim’s the least abled to do something, compared to what I’ve done recently, the transformation was the subtlety of what he wore and his hair. We had that debate of, “What if you were bald in the ’70s, just as everyone was getting to grow their hair, as you’re starting to lose yours?” We found that sort of comb-over thing Jim has, and it makes him look vulnerable. I love going to work on how we were going to make this guy work — very capable, which he obviously is, since he was the one sent to bring back the General, but also very vulnerable, since he’s the one spat out by the machine.

I’m surprised to hear you mention that about villains and getting the chance to play sympathetic. For me, Clive [in The Guard] was very sympathetic.

[Laughs] The gag I loved about Clive is that, he’s a villain bored of being a villain. He’s had enough and is having an existential crisis. Really, he just wants to settle down. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think it’s like the old days, where all the policeman are now stupid and all the other gangsters/criminals are not honorable. I like the in-joke, if you like, of playing a villain who’s fed up with playing a villain.

I love how Clive, instead of running or freaking out during a shootout, just revels in it. I think he had that line, “This is like fucking Christmas!”

[Laughs] Yeah, exactly. He’s been so numbed in his life of crime that he’s just looking for excitement.

[Laughs] Him and Sgt. Boyle would probably get along really well in that film.

Yeah, they’d bond over a pint, that’s true.

[Laughs] I think The Guard and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy are those type of films you find new details on repeat viewings. While reading those scripts or even seeing those films, do you constantly make new discoveries, as well?

It’s those things that usually ring the alarm bells in your head, that you’re dealing with something a little bit different. Certainly, with The Guard, that made me howl all the way through. I just thought it was dark, wicked, and funny. When we came to play it, there was no movement away from the original script, because John was the writer and the director, so he wouldn’t let you change anything. With this, I could just see it was all in the play, the nuance of the whole thing. Tomas adapted a lot of it. It was a joy coming into work because even though you felt you had a handle with what you were studying at home, when you got on the set, he would change things, and that was always exciting.

If I read correctly, he would usually only do two or three takes. Was it a very disciplined form of acting on set?

Yeah, I love doing that. That’s my perfect number, in a way. One take gets you used to it and gets you started. The second one corrects the mistake of the first one. The third take is when you’re flying a little bit and have now had a couple of gos at it. Beyond that, I find you’re then starting to repeat things and adjusting things for the sake of it; that’s exactly the way I like to work. The first take is usually the best, because that’s the first moment you come to it. Endless and endless takes, I’m not really sure what that’s for.

Do you recall the most amount of takes you’ve ever had to do?

I don’t. Martin Campbell is fond of many, many takes. On Green Lantern we would do quite a lot of takes, and Martin wouldn’t really explain why or what he was looking for. I began to realize he just wanted you to have a go at it, to get familiar with it. Like a duel, one would just pop out and be the right take, and he always knew what the right one was.

Even when doing those endless takes, do you just figure the director has his reasons?

Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt with Martin. Normally when somebody does that many takes, I’ll be asking, “Well, why? What do you want me to do differently? What do you want me to change?” The truth is, he didn’t want me to do anything different or change. He was just waiting for that one take that just works. It’s like taking a photograph — you’ll take five pictures, which are all pretty similar, but there will be one that’s better than the others. That’s how Martin works.

How’s Mr. Alfredson on set? Is he extremely detail-oriented?

Yeah, he’s very meticulous and very delicate in his approach to every scene. He would never force anything, though; he would just allow you to find it. It felt like a very straightforward, very easy, and absorbing job to do without any chaos or panic.

To end on: Speaking earlier about the transformation of acting, what roles have you had to transform the most for, both externally and internally? 

Externally, I’d probably have to say Sinestro. When I got into the comics, I thought, “Wow, if I could look like that,” and that’s exactly what I love doing, where you do things that people don’t know it’s you. I did Polanski’s Oliver Twist, where I had a top hat, ginger hair, and big teeth. I did Syriana, where I was playing a second generation Lebanese Muslim, which is completely different from Oliver Twist. I love the perversity of that. Body of Lies came out the same time as RocknRolla, and they were completely different. Now, if you think about it, The Guard and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy are completely different things. Externally, certainly Sinestro. Internally, that’s a very tricky question. I suppose I had to plumb the depths a bit with Lord Blackwood [from Sherlock Holmes], since he was such a fictional character, where he was supposedly in league with Satan and wanted to conquer the world, and those are pretty big concepts. [Laughs]

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is now in theaters.

To classic horror fans, the word “hammer” does not simply denote a tool or a now defunct 80s rapper, it is a six-letter seal of excellence. For years, Hammer Studios reached into the cache of our collective nightmares; resurrecting boogeymen theretofore romanticized in black and white and splashing them onto our eyes in savage, gorgeous technicolor. Their treatment of the likes Dracula, the Mummy, and Frankenstein’s monster not only reacquainted us with monsters, but introduced us to silver screen legends such as Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. After experiencing a popularity that made them a powerhouse, the studio seemed to have whispered meekly out of existence after a short-lived television swan song in the 1980s. But now Hammer Studios is poised, like so many of its signature villains, to rise from the dead with several new films released in the last few years and others currently in production; the newest being the upcoming The Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe.

In apparent celebration of this resurgence, the official Hammer historian Marcus Hearn has plundered the hallowed Hammer archives and come out with “The Hammer Vault.” This book is an epic, glorious catalog of some of the studio’s greatest marketing materials, behind-the-scenes photos, film props, and other artifacts of enormous cinematic significance. It turns out the only thing that ever managed to rival the dark beauty and grandiose gothic tone of Hammer’s films was its marketing for those films. The book is an absolute triumph not only for fans of the classic studio, but also those who revel in pictorial film history. We were fortunate enough to sit down with good Mr. Hearn, a man worthy of knighthood in our humble, geeky estimation, to discuss the book. Not only does he lend even more insight into the Hammer archives, but also lets slip his opinions of the upcoming Woman in Black.

Grab your wooden stakes, unburden your bosom of those top blouse buttons, and prepare to take a perilous journey into “The Hammer Vault.”

As a huge fan of Hammer myself, I have to know, how did you rise to the ranks of official Hammer historian?

It all happened by accident really. I started working with Hammer in 1994, when I was an editor at Marvel Comics. I was given the job of editing Hammer’s official magazine, and this led to laserdisc commentaries, DVD commentaries and, most notably, the chance to write “The Hammer Story” with Alan Barnes. That book was the company’s authorized history, and it’s since led to “Hammer Glamour,” “The Art of Hammer” and now “The Hammer Vault.”

When you made the decision to take on this daunting project, what was your first step in acquiring all these incredible pieces?

Well I feel as if I’ve been rehearsing for this one since 1994. It’s the culmination of all my research into Hammer’s archive, although I’m also grateful to the private collectors who have helped to plug the gaps.

Despite being a Hammer historian, did it still give you chills to see and/or touch certain artifacts from the archives such as, say, Christopher Lee’s first Hammer contract for The Curse of Frankenstein?

Oh yes, of course. Hammer has preserved all its artist and writers’ contracts, and it’s astonishing to see how much (and how little!) some people were paid. These are the kinds of details that I wouldn’t feel comfortable about including in a book, even 50 years after the event, but I know that Christopher has never made a secret about what he earned for The Curse of Frankenstein so I hope he’s okay about me reproducing his contract for that film. I’m sure he earns a bit more nowadays!

In your opinion, what was it about Hammer’s advertising ideology that allowed them to stand apart even from other British studios or horror studios?

Hammer’s marketing campaigns were very aggressive and, unlike many of their contemporaries in the British film industry, were aimed at an international audience. This aligns them more closely with the James Bond films than the Carry Ons or the Ealing comedies.

In conducting your research, what were some facts you uncovered that genuinely surprised you?

Sometimes I unearthed things that I couldn’t include in the book because the illustrations or artifacts relating to the story weren’t in the archive. For example, in May 1958 the Blood Transfusion Service in England mounted an exhibition to coincide with the release of Dracula. They recruited quite a few volunteers as a result, but the exhibition was withdrawn after just one week on the grounds that it was in poor taste. I would love to find something relating to that exhibition, but sadly there’s nothing in the archive.

Were there any pieces that you uncovered in the archives that its administrators did not want featured in the book?

One of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed working with Hammer so much is that they’re always been quite relaxed about criticism of the old films. When you’ve made more than 200 films, which they have, they know as well as I do that they can’t all be classics. So I feel as though I’ve got the best of both worlds with Hammer – access to some wonderful material, and relative freedom in the way I write about it.

I have to say, I love the photo from Nightmare of Clytie Jessop casually reading Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye” on set with a prop knife stuck in her chest. Can you talk about some of your favorite candid photo discoveries?

There have now been so many books about Hammer that it’s getting quite difficult to come up with something unusual. Some of my favorites in The Hammer Vault include the shot of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee with the Queen’s Award to Industry and Ursula Andress feeding the camel during the making of She, but really I like anything that tells a story from a behind the scenes point of view. I especially like the shot of Martine Beswick and Michael Carreras on the set of Slave Girls, and I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what they’re doing with that rhino horn.

Who is your favorite Hammer beauty?

I think I’d incriminate myself by answering that question. Most of the Hammer ladies I’ve met have been lovely, and some of them are beautiful people as well.

Can you explain for our American readers what a campaign book is and how a front of house still compares to the more commonly used lobby cards here in the states?

There are numerous examples of campaign books in The Hammer Vault. They were issued to cinema managers and publicists, and served as a guide to how to run a publicity campaign on a local level. As well as essential information they included ideas for publicity gimmicks and details of the posters and stills that could be purchased to decorate cinema foyers. Front of house stills are just like lobby cards, but smaller.

Something I’ve always wondered, why are British quads so named and what was the reasoning behind their being horizontal where American posters are traditionally vertical?

Quad is short for Quad Crown, and to be honest I don’t know why we went for the landscape format in the UK while in the US you’ve generally preferred the portrait one-sheet format. It’s still the same today.

Something I’ve always enjoyed on a base level is Hammer’s use of cleavage in their posters. However, I know the studio drew quite a bit of ire from critics over this. In your view, was there ever a point wherein Hammer’s utilization of ample bosoms in their advertising began to go a bit too far? If so, to you, which film’s marketing represents their first steps over the line?

I don’t think any of the published posters crossed the line, but in the book you’ll see several examples of pre-production posters – created purely to entice potential distributors – that are quite explicit in the way they mix sex and violence. Hands of the Ripper is one example of an illustration that would not be considered acceptable on a publicly exhibited poster, even today.

Why do you think contemporary film marketing in general has lost the grandeur and artistry that once characterized it?

The advent of Photoshop spelled the demise of the painted film poster, and as much as I love Photoshop I think that’s a great shame. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg still commission painted film posters, and Hammer has just commissioned one for their next film, The Woman in Black, but it’s very rare these days.

Obviously Hammer has a special meaning for you, can you tell us about your first experience with the studio?

I’m too young to have seen the original films at the cinema. My introduction to Hammer was through late night double-bills on the British television channel BBC2. I think many fans of classic horror in this country fondly recall those double-bills, which were a crash course in Hammer, Universal, Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur and so on. These days it’s increasingly rare to see any black and white films on network television.

What are your favorite Hammer films?

My favorite Gothic horror is The Brides of Dracula, my favorite science fiction film is Quatermass 2 and my favorite thriller is Cash On Demand.

Have you been fortunate enough to meet any of the Hammer legends?

I didn’t meet Peter Cushing, sadly, but we corresponded when I was a teenager. I got to know Christopher quite well. In fact I published his authorized biography about ten years ago.

What are your thoughts on the resurgence of Hammer and their stylish new onscreen logo?

I’m delighted that Hammer is back, because the films they’re making are so good. The next one, The Woman in Black, is the best yet. For those who haven’t seen it, the animated logo comprises images from classic posters which solidify into the word ‘Hammer.’ For an old timer like me, seeing that on the big screen is genuinely thrilling.

Buy “The Hammer Vault” over at Amazon

We Bought a Zoo strives to be Cameron Crowe‘s biggest crowd-pleaser yet, and it’s coming after two of his most splitting features. Elizabethtown was not met kindly and Vanilla Sky either blew your mind or frustrated the hell out of you, despite being a film that made one of the most likable movie stars a total narcissist whose face is mostly hidden — how many directors do that to movie stars? Not many. Crowe doesn’t exactly disfigure Matt Damon in his Christmas release, but the film does what Crowe usually does best: showing good-natured people simply trying to do their best.

While speaking to Crowe, he reminded me a lot of his films — someone who clearly wears his heart on his sleeve, and not in an artificial way. In fact, the first thing Crowe said to me left a big goofy smile on my face for days, which is what his films usually do as well. The man was kind enough to give me extra time, and even by the end I felt like we could have gone on for hours.

The writer-director and I spent more time than I expected but hoped on Vanilla Sky, as well as his writing process, how old films are like diary entries, and why it’s easier to make cynical films nowadays.

At what point did Fox suggest doing the early screenings?

I’ve never been in a position of entering the holiday fray quite in this way. When they said, “We’re going to date your movie,” I didn’t know what it meant [Laughs], and it was that they wanted to put it out two days before Christmas. I think it was a bold move of their’s to say, “Let’s sneak it early, put it out there, and hopefully the movie itself is the best spokesman for what it is.” Luckily people showed up, and it seemed to really effect them. I like that the studio seems to believe in the movie so much that they just want to show it and be proud of it.

As I wrote, the film is the furthest thing from cynical. Like everyone else, why haven’t you become cynical and jaded yet?

[Laughs] You know what’s funny? Right now it’s actually harder it seems to make a movie that is uncynical, because people are going through such a tough time. So many of the movies and stories are reflecting the grief, anger and rage, and it’s kind of easier to make that movie now. A movie that wears its heart on its sleeve has a rocky birth, so I was really proud to make it. Like, Billy Wilder is one of my favorites of all time, of course. He’s a guy who had clear eyed — I wouldn’t call it cynicism — whimsical view of all the pain, strife, and backstabbing in the world. That’s a really great way of filmmaking, too. This one, for me, felt like an expression of joy. Sometimes you can’t experience joy without grief or loss, and that’s in there too. It’s that great happy-sad feeling that I love about music, which I thought this movie could catch. That’s my favorite thing in movies and songs. We Bought a Zoo felt like a great happy-sad story. When we got Jónsi‘s music in there it took that joyful feeling to another place.

My mom went to see an early screening on sneak night. She went to the bathroom, and there was a woman in there. She walked up to the woman and asked, “So, what’d you think?” The woman just put her hands up and said, “I’m still in the feeling!” [Laughs] She blew my mom off. My mom told me that story and I was like, “Yes! That was the goal, to create that feeling.” You can stay in that feeling a little longer than the movie.

[Laughs] That’s always a nice and rare experience.

Yeah! I remember seeing Close Encounters a long time ago, and it was an early screening. All these people were waiting to get in and they were like, “What’d you think? What’d you think? What happens?” I was like, “I must go for a walk! I can’t speak!” [Laughs] I was a little bit that way after seeing The Descendants, and that’s my favorite thing. When the movie takes you a little bit outside of your experience and you gotta still breathe that air, that’s my favorite.

Not to make a bad transition, but I think both The Descendants and We Bought a Zoo find those little human moments which mean a lot. What’s the process of getting that down in the writing process?

Often it comes from real life, because that’s generally the stuff that comes out of me when I’m writing. The thing you’ve just gone through just bubbles to the surface and says, “Write me! Write that feeling you had yesterday when this and that happened.” Pretty much down the line, that’s what people respond to — the stuff that came from real life. That’s a good signal. Writing at its best can be authentic and create a universal feeling, ya know?

Does that type of searching also make the writing process more difficult? I’d imagine you sometimes think, “This could be a great scene, but it probably wouldn’t be realistic.”

Yeah, also you don’t want to be looking inward all the time. I think it’s kind of a dance you do with yourself. Like, what’s the story that’ll mean something to you? Your life is the research for anything that you write. Generally, in writing, there are little things that become bullies you swim to in a project that just make you go, “Well, there’s this scene and that scene.” I remember in Say Anything it was Lloyd talking into the tape recorder about his lost relationship with Diane. Everytime I didn’t feel like that was on firm footing or where we’re going with the movie, I’d always think of that scene with the tape recorder and we’d get back on track. When we started showing the movie, that was one of the scenes where people just really responded. I think Pauline Kael, in one of her last reviews, was like, “I don’t get everything with this movie, but I love that sad John Cusack talking into a tape recorder!” [Laughs] I remember reading that in a mall when I had just got the New Yorker and I went, “Yeah!” It’s never changed — it’s always been about a handful of scenes that have been your bullies. In this movie, it was the argument with the son in the hallway and the last scene of the movie, where Matt reenacts when he first his wife.

Was that process different at all on Vanilla Sky? Did the trippy feel of that movie affect that process?

That’s a really good question. Again, it’s the stuff that’s grounded in the personal. I’ve always loved the idea of Noah Taylor saying, at one point, “Am I blowing your mind?” [Laughs] I love that. That was dialog I thought would be really fun. Or when that guy says, “This is the revolution of the mind,” that was a big thing. Also, sad Tom Cruise watching the Thanksgiving parade go past him his window in New York scene was another one of those bullies. It’s fun, it’s fun to think about it now.

It’s interesting how, unlike the rest of your films, that film is about someone very narcissistic and there’s some cynicism to it. At the time, did you see it as going outside of your wheelhouse?

I did, I did. I love Abre los ojos and liked that this was a movie that could shake it up. It was kind of a way I read other people talking about their punk rock experiences, where there would be one record they made and didn’t think about. They went in with a producer who knew how to work fast and just banged up this thing that may have rough edges, but it was a snapshot of how they felt at the time. That was Vanilla Sky — a chaotic look at an internal life through a prism of pop culture. You’re getting bombard with all these images of paradise and pain, and everybody’s throwing their images at you. Where’s the personal in the middle of that chaos? That was the idea. So we were going to make the movie the way the movie felt, with the search of meaning. You know, I saw Vanilla Sky not too long ago, and I gotta say, there are things here and there that make me go, “Whoa, that could’ve been different or you could’ve done that.” Overall, it completely matched what we were going for. It felt like a cry the inner-caves of pop culture [Laughs].

I like how you described it as being similar to punk rock. At the time I remember my Dad seeing it, and I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but he hated it.

Oh yeah.

But, to me, it had that punk rock feel of, “He doesn’t get it, but I do.”

You know, Jack, when they first showed that movie I think people were still upset about 9/11 and it had been advertised a bit like it was a Fatal Attraction story. When it became obvious that it wasn’t that and was more risky and psychedelic, they would send people up the aisles of the theater saying, “This is not the movie you think it is! This is a warning!” I was like, “Wow, that’s like what they do for smell-o vision or something.” [Laughs] It’s like, “We did something different here.” I gotta say, through the years, that is the movie I hear about the most, that and Almost Famous.

It almost seems like a post-9/11 movie, actually. There is that theme of finding meaning in a terrible situation.

Yeah. We made it, you know, right before 9/11 and it came out after 9/11. It was kind of like a message from pre-9/11 to post-9/11, and it was disturbing. I love Noah Taylor. Also, underrated Tom Cruise.

I love the idea of casting a movie star of that caliber, and then making him an asshole whose face is behind a mask for a lot of the film. When making that film, did you ever get a note saying, “What are you doing?”

No, no notes at all. Tom really wanted to bravely go right to that. [Pause] They’re handing me notes that I got to go, but we will hold them off! Tom was constantly driving the protective element of that movie in such a great way. Not only did he not want the paparazzi not to get a picture of him in the disfigured make-up, he didn’t want anyone to know much about what we were doing. We ramped up fast, similarly to We Bought a Zoo. It was, “There’s a feeling, and let’s go quickly and catch it.” Tom was really a big fan of us doing something different and surprising people. You know, not unlike going to the top of the building in Dubai for Mission Impossible, he was like, “Man, you wanna clear Times Square? Let’s do it!” It was that kind of spirit of adventure that we were into. Again, when you get an actor like Tom or Matt Damon — who are just skilled, experienced, and trust you — you just feel like you can go, go, go. In the case of Vanilla Sky, it took years for people to understand what that movie was trying to do. Now, they get it. The Roots are obsessed with Vanilla Sky! When we were on the Jimmy Fallon Show, I thought they were kidding at first. Man, they’re working on a tribute album with samples from Vanilla Sky! I just love it. It makes you feel like everything you do is like a rocket you send out, and sometimes it lands way, way off into the future someplace.

When a movie like that and Elizabethtown get those type of divisive reactions, how do you approach that? Do you see them as being movies not for everyone or do you begin to wonder if there’s something wrong with them?

I think you have to ask yourself, “Is it authentic? Are those songs meaningful to you? Did you write it from yourself heart? Did you tell that story from an authentic place?” The answer is such a resounding yes, for both of them. You kind of have to say, “If you’re lucky enough to do a bunch of stuff, some of them are going to affect people differently.” No, I don’t really rethink it. Elizabethtown was for my Dad, and that is really a souvenir of the feeling my dad left behind. In the way the personal stuff tends to resonate really strongly, it resonated strongly with the people it affected. Like, I love it for that. Yeah, no regrets.

You mentioned how, when recently revisiting Vanilla Sky, that there were a few things you thought could’ve been done differently. When you rewatch your films, do you try not to think too much about that?

Oh yeah, definitely. We did this book on Billy Wilder and he was still recasting his movies, including like Sunset Boulevard into his 90s! [Laughs] That’s a part of the, “I would’ve changed that or that chord.” But, really, it is exactly what you meant to do at the time. It’s always a snapshot of where you were then. It’s like a diary. When you go back and read a diary you think, “Oh man, was I really feeling that?” It’s the same with going back and changing a classic album for remastering. You think, “No, don’t do that!” I wouldn’t really, but it is fun to play the parlor game.

—

We Bought a Zoo opens in theaters on December 23.

I spoke with John C. Reilly a few months ago for Terri, and now the seemingly always-working actor has two drastically different films coming out for the holiday season. While Terri was a humanistic and empathetic portrayal of naturally flawed people, Roman Polanski‘s Carnage is a cynical and full-blown satire of pretentious, childish adults. It is 79 minutes of characters slowly revealing their dark, immature, and somewhat understandable views.

Reilly’s other film, We Need to Talk About Kevin, a mostly liked but slightly divisive film, is probably one of the most misunderstood movies of the year. Lynne Ramsay‘s film, as Reilly perfectly puts it, is meant to be taken almost as a dream. Very few scenes should be taken literally.

I recently had the chance to discuss both films with Reilly, along with Roman Polanski’s specificity, the responsibilities of an actor, and when tools become human beings.

A few months ago you had Terri, which was pretty humanistic. Now, with Carnage, you’re in a film that’s pretty cynical.

Yeah, it’s more of a satire, isn’t it? It’s a bit about pointing out the hypocrisy of people. It’s a very different tone, the two films. Both pretty imperfect characters, just the way I like ‘em!

[Laughs] There’s certainly a lot of shades with Michael [in Carnage]. What grays initially stood out to you? 

There’s a lot of black in Michael [Laughs]. By the time he reveals his true feelings about marriage and family, you’re like, “Wow, that guy’s in a pretty cynical place. I think that scotch may be a daily occurrence…”

He’s still kind of charming, though.

Yeah, definitely. He’s probably the least pretentious of the people — although that’s not saying much, since they’re all pretty pretentious [Laughs]. He’s a fun character because he’s the first person to call out the fact there’s an elephant in the room and they’re all pretending to be something they’re all not. It was fun get to be that guy.

Plus, he’s pretty manly, in an old-fashioned way.

[Laughs] Yeah, although, he’s afraid of hamsters. The play and the movie are both really interesting looks into the masks we not only put on to present to other people, but the masks we believe of ourselves. It’s almost like an inward facing mask, these ideas. When the gloves come off, it’s, “Look, this is the way I am!” I’m not even sure if that’s true, it’s just how he’s coping. It’s just, to him, “This doesn’t matter and that doesn’t matter.” I think it’s one of those stories, where if you spent 90 more minutes in the room, you’d get through more layers of the onion. They’d probably all be fucking each other by the end [Laughs]. It’d be interesting to see what would happen come nightfall in that apartment, if the kids didn’t come home. Maybe they would become better people by the end.

[Laughs] It seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into where they could go.

Well, I spent a lot of time in that apartment with those people.

You mentioned the idea of the masks they’re wearing, and that’s a very human idea. There’s something relatable about that — thinking someone’s a nice guy, but then the more time you spend with them, they become very off-putting.

You know, I find the opposite, for normally what happens to me. I’ll meet someone who’ll be off-putting like, “Oh God, this guy’s a real tool or whatever.” Then you end up spending enough time with them, and you start to see their humanity. I think it’s the other way. We have a lot of judgements and preconceived ideas about the way people are, when we first meet them. I think the more time that you spend with them, it’s, “Whoa, this guy’s a human being. Yeah, he’s kind of messed up in that way. Now that I know him a little bit, I can see how he got that way.” You end up having more compassion for people. Well, I do anyway, the more time I spend with someone.

That happens. I guess I’m used to the opposite experience.

I’m sorry for you, Jack.

[Laughs] I appreciate it. I’m in DC, so you meet a lot of shady people.

Ah yeah, that’s a dirty little town, DC.

[Laughs] It is, yeah. When we spoke for Terri, and you mentioned how suffocating Mr. Polanski would be, when it came to blocking. Did you see that as a more disciplined form of acting?

He was very specific. Did I say he was “suffocating”?

Yeah, you mentioned how, if you moved just a little bit, he’d say it would ruin a shot.

Yeah, it was a little bit constraining, at first, but then you realize how right he is. The guy’s been making movies for 60 years, and he’s pretty good at it [Laughs]. It was just a process of working that way specifically. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years who come to the set who have no idea what they’re going to do and they just make it up as they go along, and you can get great stuff that way. It ends up putting a lot of responsibility on the actors. You can feel overwhelmed, when they’re trying to reinvent the wheel everyday.

I got used to it after a coupe of days. Roman’s very specific with blocking and stuff, so you start to realize, “Whoa, this is great. I can relax.” You definitely knows when he’s happy. When he gets what he wants, he knows. You know when he gets what he’s after. It’s a different experience when someone’s like, “Oh, did we get it? I don’t know…” Some directors you feel like you never please them, because they don’t know exactly what they want until their in the editing room.

Do you see that as a bad thing or just a different way of working?

It’s a different way of working. Like I said, you can get great things out of it. You know, I’ve done movies that are almost entirely improvised, at least the dialog’s improvised, and that’s a big responsibility. I like to work both ways, actually.

Why’s that, just to keep things fresh and new?

Yeah, there’s great things about both. Being given a lot of freedom to improvise and experiment while you’re shooting is very empowering, and it gives you a sense of having a voice in the storytelling, which actors aren’t always given. Sometimes working with someone who knows entirely what they want and has very specific ideas can be a big relief, too. It’s, like, “Ah, alright, that responsibility is off my shoulders. Rather than figuring out what we’re going to do today, I just have to perfect what we’re doing.” I like doing them both ways. You have to be adaptable, and I think that’s the job of an actor: you have to adapt to certain circumstances.

There’s been a lot of talk about, when it comes to We Need to Talk About Kevin, who’s to blame: Eva or Kevin. I don’t really see that as the point of the movie, but it’s what some people takeaway from it. Do you view the film in that way of who’s to blame, or is that irrelevant? 

Yeah, I think people get a lot wrong with that movie, they take it too literally. It’s almost meant to be this dream story. The events, especially the events that take place in the past, which is most of the movie, are meant to be seen through her memory. It’s not meant to be like, “This is exactly how it happened! She was this awful with the kid! The father was that oblivious! The kid was this!” It’s all [about] how it felt to her and how she remembers it. In a weird way, it’s kind of a heightened reality kind of story.

I think to try to blame it on the mother or on the kid just misses the point. Tragically, I think that happens when these real massacres happen. A lot of finger pointing happens instead of, “Why is this happening in our world?” The truth is, kids spend a lot of time with their mothers and fathers, but, by the time they’re seven or eight, you’re spending a majority of your time with other people. If there’s anyone who’s responsible, it’s definitely a shared societal responsibility.

—

Carnage is now in theaters.

Tomas Alfredson‘s directorial follow-up to the beloved Let the Right One In is, on the outside, appears to be a drastically different film. Taken at face value, Let the Right One In is about a boy following in love with a vampire and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is about the search for a high-powered government mole. Digging deeper, both films are startlingly, but beautifully similar. They’re stories about repressed loners, even down to the smallest of characters and the most intimate of moments.

At the center of the lonely bunch is George Smiley, played by Gary Oldman, in an all internal and “it’s-in-the-eyes” performance. Very few spies are as emasculated, cold, and unsuave as Smiley & Co. Unlike the Bonds and Bournes of the spy world, by the end of this film, no one will wish they were these characters of the Circus.

A few weeks ago I had a chance to sit down with both Alfredson and Oldman for a quick interview where we discussed the paranoia-causing structure of the film, the gray enigma of George Smiley, and how much politer British spies are.

Warning: This interview contains spoilers.

I’ve actually seen the film three times now.

TA: Are you still confused? [Laughs]

[Laughs] I was a little shaky on the first viewing, but I think you find a lot of great little details that help on second and third viewing.

TA: Oh, good.

Did you always intended for it to be a film like that, one that takes a few viewings to soak in?

TA: It was not the intention to make it as difficult as possible to understand, no. The piece of the charm of this genre and John le Carré‘s work is that it is complicated and almost like you get paranoid yourself — you yourself become an investigator, with the material. I think our struggle was to make as much images as possible out of the actions referred to in the flashbacks and the present story. It’s very inspiring to hear how different people have seen the film. I think it’s fantastic to hear what people actually see in it.

GO: There was a guy the other night at the Q&A who was talking about the color red. I mean, there’s the nicotine-y kind of brown, the oranges, and things. Like you said [referring to Alfredson], you have an almost neutral palette. The guy was seeing red in every frame, and he asked if it was the threat of Communism and Russia, and whether it was a subliminal kind of thing you wanted to do.

TA: Yeah, yeah. [Laughs]

GO: But he saw that, so that’s not wrong.

TA: It’s not wrong, it’s what he saw.

That’s a good reading of it. The film actually reminded me of Let the Right One In. Underneath the genre stappings, it’s sort of this dark ensemble love story about loners, even with minor characters. Did you both approach the material that way?

GO: I think that’s how we both responded to the material and the book, and I think that’s why it’s had longevity. John le Carré doesn’t always get into the whole philosophical kind of polemic, it’s not overloaded with that. It’s about very lonely, fractured, and sometimes desperate people. It’s an emotional story.

Throughout the film there’s always this quiet determination to Smiley. When we first see him, he’s very emasculated, with losing his wife and his job. By searching for the mole, is he trying to prove something to himself or to others?

TA: My reading would be to others. I think he’s a 100% loyal in working for Queen and country. He’s from a generation that experienced the war. It’s nothing of the self-obsessed generation of today who goes to shrinks, complains, or, like you said, your mother never complains, so she must be from that generation. I think George is exactly like that. It’s the Queen, the country, his wife, and his friends. What he is about to see is what his friend has done not only to his wife, but to the country.

GO: The empire, yeah.

TA: As the mole says, at the end of the film, “You knew it was me all along, didn’t you?” I think that’s right, I think the mole is right. George did know who it was, and it’s one of the toughest things for him to accept.

GO: Again, you can interpret it. We believe George knows who it is before he lets the audience know who it is before the reveal. Here’s the thing, people say, “You’re very quiet and very still, but there’s a lot going on.” When we meet him, he’s been forced into retirement and he’s got the wife who’s another chip away at the stone, and God knows how many times he’s been through that. When he really keys and zeros in on Bill Haydon, before we know he really has, then he’s carrying that around. Yeah, there is a sadness and melancholy to him.

You get a sense, even with that brokenness to George and everyone else in the Circus, they’re very capable violence, despite never using it.

GO: Yeah, they would’ve been trained.

TA: Yeah, in an old fashioned way, if George would confront someone, it would be like this [note: Alfredson and Oldman quickly reenact this scene]. [Laughs] He would do it like a gentlemen, but he would be able to do it. He knows how to use a revolver, but he also knows how effective he could talk people into stuff. In a broader sense, a gun is something you wouldn’t use very often. I asked John le Carré if he would ever use torture, who said, “No, never. Why would we? You don’t do that to people, you have to be nice and proper. Secondly, the information you would retrieve through torture would be useless.”

GO: And it’s very British. If you just take the fact Germany started the war, it was their fault, and they invaded Poland, then that was the beginning of it. We countered and joined the war against them, fascism, and the whole thing. In turn, we bombed the hell out of them. And then we went, gave them money, and helped build their society up. It’s a very sort of British thing, “We won the war, so now we’ll help you out.”

TA: ”Come on, can I help you?” [Laughs]

GO: I think George shows his colors. Also, Haydon’s sex is obviously ambiguous. Well, he’s obviously a bisexual, probably leaning more to homosexual. [Pause] I lost my train of thought…

TA: You’re maybe aiming for the ending scene? Where Bill says, “There’s a girl and a boy, can you help me?” They’re two polite gentlemen. Here Smiley is in front of the mole, and they’re speaking very politely to each other.

GO: In a way, it’s like Haydon is empty in that end scene. He’s crying, but is he really crying? Maybe they caressed him a bit, but he says he doesn’t mind the tears, just the excitement. Look at what Smiley’s feeling, who isn’t crying, despite what he’s carrying. At the end of it, to top it off, he turns and says, “Is there anything you want me to tell Ann?” He cares about Ann, but it’s so bloody British. Nowadays we’d wanna do a fistfight [Laughs]. I love the fact he asks if there’s anything in the particurally he wants to tell Ann.

That final scene where you see George get Ann back and sits at the head of the Circus table is kind of a funny scene, with how it’s a bit of a hollow victory. By the end, does George really win anything?

TA: Order has been reinstored. There is some –

I should clarify and say if he achieves anything on an emotional level.

TA: Right. I’m not sure that seat he enters, in the end, is for him.

GO: No, no, he takes over temporarily, just to sort of tidy things up.

TA: There are needles on that chair, when he sits down. In that way, it’s not a happy ending.

GO: And Ann’s back, for now.

At one point Rickie Tarr says, “I don’t wanna end up like you bunch.” Despite knowing what their lives are, is he still destined to end up like George, Bill, and Jim?

GO: Yeah, I think he means it. I know Tomas screened the film at MI6, for the real guys, and, on a scale of one to ten, that line was an eleven.

TA: They all understood it.

GO: They all understood exactly what he said. I mean, the personal sacrifices must be, you know, very tough to think about.

I think that ties in well with this line Jim has, where he says to the boy, “Loners are the best watchers.”

TA: Yeah, that is what Jim Prideaux says to that kid, who he knows is the type of person who would be drawn into that world.

GO: Yeah, good spy material.

TA: When he says to the kid, “Go out and play with the others,” he’s rescuing him.

—

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is now in theaters.

When I was given the opportunity to interview French composer Alexandre Desplat, the question wasn’t what I would ask him, it was how many questions I would be able to get in. One of the busiest composers in the business, just this year alone Desplat has created the scores for The Tree of Life, A Better Life, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, The Ides of March, Carnage, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and is already on deck to compose next year’s Moonrise Kingdom.

Desplat first caught my attention a few years ago when I realized he was the composer behind both the quirky score for Fantastic Mr. Fox and the epic score for Twilight Saga: New Moon – two very different films with two very different musical tones. Having won Film Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards, it is clear that the rest of the world is starting to take notice as well.

As this year comes to a close, I spoke with Desplat about what inspires him, his composing process, the differences between working on American and French films, and how he balances his various projects while keeping his passion for composing fresh with each go around.

First and foremost, congratulations on winning Film Composer of the Year! How did you begin your career in film composing?

Movies and music have always been the great passions in my life, so it was a natural choice to go into film composing, and one that I made at an early age. I soon started writing short films, as many as I could, and this led to me building up a career in French cinema.

In looking back over your body of work, is there a particular score or project that most stands out to you?

Writing good music is always a challenge. An intimate score like the one I recorded with the Traffic Quintet for L’Armee du crime [Army of Crime] requires a lot of attention. Sitting by a legend like Roman Polanski and playing him your themes to picture can be rather…nerve wracking. Of course Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2 were challenging in terms of the amount and scale of the music that had to be written and the expectation of the most famous global franchise, but it was also a great pleasure to meet this challenge. I cannot say that I have one favourite project – I give each project my all, so my favourite is the one I am currently working on! Or actually…the next to come.

You have worked on a variety of films from last year’s Academy Award Best Picture winner The King’s Speech to Terrence Malick’s artistic vision for The Tree of Life to the teen-centric Twilight Saga: New Moon – what draws you to a project and makes you want to take it on?

It is a combination of the subject, which has to resonate in me, the quality of the script, the anticipation of the relationship with a new director, the long-term relationship with a faithful director or producer. The cast can also be decisive – you don’t want to spend eighteen hours a day for several weeks watching an actor or an actress on screen who does not inspire you. All these many things together inspire me to take on a project.

Do you prefer a collaborative process when composing or to figure things out on your own before conferring with others on your vision?

I spend a lot of time working alone – I can be quite monk-like in this respect and try to go almost into a trance. So I prefer to be on my own when I write, although every score is of course a collaboration with the director.

What is the first thing you do when sitting down to begin composing a new project?

The first moment I see a movie, I don’t think melodies, I think colours. Before I find a structure and the way I would write a motif or character moments, I think about what the orchestra will play. What textures, what “sound” does this movie need? Then I start searching for ideas and themes and once I have found a strong skeleton or structure for the score I then build on it to flesh it out, adding and varying these colours, and developing the music. My favourite part of the process is conducting the orchestra and hearing the best musicians, like those of the LSO playing the score for the first time.

Do you prefer composing along with footage from the films or simply based on the idea of what is happening in a scene?

I am quite a visual composer. I write the majority of my music to picture. I spend some time absorbing the images and the narrative, then try to find my way of expressing not just what is on the screen, but often what isn’t there.

Is there a difference between composing for French films versus American films?

Yes, there is, because our cultures are different, our history of cinema is different.

[Luchino] Visconti or [François] Truffaut has a different point of view to [Howard] Hawks or [Martin] Scorcese.

The filmmakers are all different, but the composer has the same exchange with the director. It’s always: how can I improve the movie with music? What’s my duty here, what can I do to help? Working with American directors or French directors or English directors actually is the same. It’s an exchange between two creators who know the crafts of their own and meet to put these crafts together and make them merge. At the end, I’m working for the director, he’s the one I need to fulfill with my score. Otherwise, I would write for the concert hall.

You may be one of the hardest working composers in the business having composed the scores for no less than FIVE films this year alone – how do you jump from the emotional space of a father struggling to provide a better life for his son (A Better Life) to the finale of the beloved Harry Potter series (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 & 2) to a high stakes political thriller (The Ides of March)?

I dedicate myself to each project for a period of time. So I become immersed in the film and its emotions and can then write quite quickly. Once the score is complete, I then commit and invest myself fully in the next project.

You are composed the score for the upcoming Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – how did you get involved with this film?

I have wanted to work with Stephen Daldry for a long time but our paths had not crossed until this project. He contacted me to ask if I could score his film and I could not refuse!

You’ve seen Michael Shannon before. Many times before. Similar to screen veterans Chris Cooper or Dylan Baker, Shannon is one of those actors who has had an extended career in front of the camera long before anyone really took notice of him. Even though he has been in films since the early 90s, he gained a strong national presence in 2009 with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Revolutionary Road.

Shannon is getting more attention now with the independent hit Take Shelter, playing a man named Curtis who starts having apocalyptic visions, leading him to build an underground shelter to protect his family. With Take Shelter in limited release and acting award buzz building, Shannon took part of his lunch break from his “super” schedule to chat with Film School Rejects about his career and what he hopes will happen with this stand-out independent film.

We’ll jump right in. First question: Is this going to be the year of Michael Shannon?

Shannon: Oh geez. Which year? 2011?

It spills over into 2012. There’s a lot of good buzz for Take Shelter. What do you think?

Well, I have to be honest. I love my film Take Shelter. It means a lot to me. I really just hope and pray that as many people as possible go to see it. As much as any of this can help, that’s what I’m shooting for.

After you made this, your co-star Jessica Chastain’s career blew up. Did you see this coming, and do you have any bets going as to who will get more nominations?

Oh, gee. Well, we knew that Jessica was going to have a big year with all her films coming out. She was very excited about it. But we’re both kinda bashful about that kind of thing, I think. When we were making the film, it was a real nuts and bolts kind of affair. It was a very low budget film. There weren’t any fancy trailers or anything. We were just showing up and doing our job, doing the best we could. Yeah, I don’t think it’s in either one of our natures to toot our own horns. We just like to work.

Do you prefer small independent productions like this, or the big explosive ones? I mean, do you like those big, fancy trailers, or do you like sleeping in a motel?

They’re all different. I’m working on something right now that’s very big, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. I think the way that we shot Take Shelter, the budget that we had, really suited the film. If we would have had a bigger budget, it may not have benefited us necessarily. There’s something about how fast we had to work and how hard we had to work that I really feel brought the film to a different level.

Does it bother you that a film in limited release doesn’t get seen by as wide of an audience, as opposed to when Man of Steel comes out, it will be all over the world at the same time? Or do you like that slow burn of a limited release over several weeks?

I think Sony Pictures Classics was very smart about how they’ve done it. For me, as long as the film’s playing in a theater, people can go see it. It doesn’t need to be in 50 theaters because there’s no screening that’s totally sold out. There’s always a seat for anybody who wants to go see it. I don’t think people are getting turned away. It’s just more a matter of people taking a chance on something that is not guaranteed instant gratification or instant entertainment. Take Shelter’s obviously a difficult film. It raises a lot of serious questions and issues. I just hope people have the courage to go and check it out.

How strong of a role does religion play in Take Shelter?

I think it plays on so many different levels. I definitely think there’s a spiritual level to the story. Although it’s interesting though because Curtis doesn’t go to church and avoids that. But I think that he is looking for something spiritually. Because the reaction that he’s having to nature is very understandable if you believe that there’s no one in charge of it.

If you don’t believe in a god or any sort of organizing principle, then nature becomes a very arbitrary thing. These storms that are happening, they’re not evil or ill-intentioned. They’re just a manifestation of something that nobody is really looking after. They become very random, and so I think that’s one of the main reasons that religion exists, to help people deal with how random life is and how random nature can be.

You’ve done a wide variety of emotional characters – including Bug, The Runaways, Take Shelter and even Machine Gun Preacher – all of which go to some pretty tricky psychological places. How do you find your comfort zone to bare yourself like that?

Well, I never really focus on being crazy or being emotional or any of these things. I really focus on what a character wants or what a character’s trying to accomplish. Something like Take Shelter, Curtis is a very practical man. He’s not an overly emotional man at the start of the film. He’s fairly normal, and then he’s confronted with this situation that he doesn’t know how to cope with. But he tries everything that he knows of to do.

For me, I never show up on set thinking, “Oh, this is the day where I’m supposed to be emotional.” I show up and see what I’m trying to do and what’s happening to me, and focus on it from that. Just like people do in your life, you get side-swiped by things, you hit certain challenges and certain obstacles, and you do your best to overcome them. I look at it from that context, really.

Do you carry that emotional burden home with you? Can you detach from it?

Well, I think if you’ve accomplished your objective, there’s been a certain release of energy. I think if you’re going home with the energy still inside of you, then that’s a mistake because that was meant for the camera. It wasn’t meant for you to be sitting at home by yourself experiencing something. So you have to release it. You have to let it go, hopefully while someone’s filming you, and then the rest of the world can see it.

With your long career, in a couple years, people are going to be flipping through cable, run across something like Hellcab and say, “Hey! There’s General Zod!” Does that give you a sense of accomplishment as an actor?

Well, yeah. It’s funny you mentioned Hellcab because somebody brought that up to me the other day. I shot that when I was still in my teens or maybe my early 20s. It certainly gives you a sense of being on a long journey and yet you can never really prop yourself up on your past credits because nobody ever really cares when you’re at work. They want to see what you can do today, not what you did ten years ago. It’s a combination of having some appreciation for what you’ve accomplished, but also wanting to accomplish even more. I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near as good as I can be. I’m always trying to get better.

What do you want to do next after Take Shelter, Man of Steel and beyond?

Oh, gee. Well, it’s hard to know. I like to be surprised by what I’m offered and the opportunities that I receive. Right now, I’m looking forward to doing some theater next year, getting back and hitting the boards a little bit. But something like Take Shelter, even though it’s a very volatile story, it shows that I’m capable of being a father and a husband on screen. I don’t always have to be a loner. It’s hard for me to say because I just appreciate continuing to get any sort of opportunity. It’s hard to be picky about it because you never know when things might change.

Take Shelter, starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain, is currently in release in selected markets.

It’s been a while since Miranda July‘s acclaimed feature debut, Me and You and Everyone We Know. That film had more than a few moments of sweetness and, for the most part, was quite hopeful. Her return, on the other hand, isn’t half as cheery. Why’s that? As July says, it stems from a tough experience during the editing of her first film, which kicked off our whole conversation about her process and whether she finds catharsis through filmmaking.

Before speaking with July, I had just viewed The Hollywood Reporter directors roundtable. They’re usually exciting hour long conversations — and it helps when you have directors like Steve McQueen, Bennet Miller, Alexander Payne, Jason Reitman, Mike Mills, and Michel Hazanavicius all in a room together — but one awkward and head-scratching moment arose: When the moderator asked, “Why are there no women here?” As most pointed out, there were women filmmakers who could’ve been invited: Kelly Reichardt, Lynne Ramsay, Dee Rees, and, of course, Miranda July.

This topic is only a small focus my conversation with July, but for a woman director to hear a moderator ask that question, as if no woman director was worth inviting this year ’cause their movies didn’t hit big, must’ve been hard to hear. For July, who describes the process of looking through those Hollywood Reporter photos honestly, it didn’t sound like a pleasant experience.

Here’s what writer-director Miranda July had to say about about her creative process, when an idea becomes dead skin, and the time that made her forget she was a filmmaker:

It’s been a few years since Me and You and Everyone We Know. At what point did The Future begin to evolve?

Well, I think I had the first inkling for it when I was editing Me and You and Everyone We Know. It was a dark time. I was going through a breakup, and there I was editing a fairly hopeful comedy. I remember thinking, “Ok, the next movie is going to be a lot sadder and darker, and I’m going to find a way to do that that’s like my style.” I didn’t want to make a movie right away. So, after doing a book of short stories, I started making a performance, and the movie evolved out of that performance. It was a very organic process. The performance, essentially, was about the same thing, but done in a totally different way, and it’s probably the reason why this is a little less literal in some places. I had the freedom in that performance, and I kept as much as I could have in the movie.

You mentioned this coming from a dark place. Does exploring those type of feelings on film make for some type of catharsis?

It’s funny, it’s never cathartic in the sense of satisfying or overcoming it. It’s more like: you get so sick of it, then you get over that feeling by, “Oh my God, this is such old news now!” [Laughs] You kind of ruin the topic, and possibly forever. You know, in that sense, it’s kind of a catharsis. Yes, at one time, it held you.

I’d imagine revisiting those type of feelings on film wouldn’t be a pleasant experience, either.

Right, yeah. Hopefully you move on. What the original seed was — I also got married, fell in love, and all these amazing things happened over the course of making the movie. In little ways, those things are in the movie, for me. I’m never autobiographical in my work, but it is personal. I always try to come up with fiction that’s really going to get across what I’m feeling, and the truth really does.

So, after getting married and falling in love, are you going to make a big studio romantic comedy?

[Laughs] You know, it’s possible.

[Laughs] Does your work usually stem from what you’re feeling at the time of conceptualizing it and creating it?

You know, it’s many, many moments over days and years, so you can’t pinpoint it like that. Also, it’s not just what I’m feeling, it’s what my friends are feeling, what books I read, and things I witness in the world. It’s not my diary.

When you’re drawing off of something you’ve seen or felt, does that make the writing process simpler, with having something genuine to go off of?

Well, I’ve never written a scene in a movie that happened in real life, that would be hard for me. That’s not where I excel. Some people are really good at that, with transferring their life into a movie in really interesting ways, and my husband did that in his movie [Beginners]. For me, I need the fiction. I’m less agile when I stick to reality.

I actually talked to Mike Mills at SXSW, and I found it interesting how he said he used to suffer from extreme shyness, and his characters seem to be like that — shy, but use art or some form to express themselves, like he does with his movies. 

Yeah, yeah. I don’t know, maybe you know him better than me! [Laughs] Obviously we both love to make art. I think there’s an idea of catharsis that’s pretty allusive, to most artists. The whole process is a little bit torturous. The idea of having all of these epiphanies and setting yourself free is probably romantic.

Has one of your films or a piece of your art ever had a personal affect on you, though? Maybe in a way you didn’t even expect or seek out.

It’s not to say there’s not great joy. For me, it’s not as literal. Like, it’s not: I have a problem, and I’m exploring it and trying to resolve it. It’s less A to B than that; it’s more like, making things makes life more bearable and interesting, and the way that it does that are in ways I don’t really understand. That’s what’s powerful about it.

Where does that great joy come from, just the process of creating?

Yeah, I think there’s nothing better than having a new idea. It may not always stick, but it’s a little like falling in love [Laughs]. In the moment it feels like you’re the first person to walk on the moon. Those moments are so outnumbered by the grit of it [Laughs], so you always try to downplay them.

When an idea doesn’t work, do you just look at it like a failed relationship?

[Laughs] No, there’s just so many kind of… it’s like dead skin falling off.

Say when an idea isn’t working, do you try to fix it or do you move on to do the next idea?

Well, you don’t know, so you keep trying for a long time. Often something else comes unexpectedly, which either solves it or makes it clear it doesn’t need to be there, and that happens all the way through. There’s scenes you edit, tinker with, get them just right, and then, at the last minute, you realize you don’t need it and cut the whole scene [Laughs].

[Laughs] Does that ever happen on set, where you love something you wrote, but doesn’t work when trying to capture it?

Not on the set. A lot of things often seem like they don’t work on set, but you just push through. Sometimes things that felt bad in the moment come together. Likewise for things that feel great, where you think, “Oh my God, what a great scene!” When you get to the editing room, you then think, “What a bunch of bozos.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] How about the opposite case, when you find something great in the editing room you didn’t even think about?

Oh yeah, that happens. Also, that happens for things you just missed. Like, you’re there, but just don’t see them on the set, which is one of the great things about actors. You’re often invested in what you’re trying to get out of actors, you often overlook some of the great things they’re doing and find them later in the editing room. You just think, “Oh, thank God he found that while I was trying to find that other thing.”

A lot of filmmakers say editing is their favorite part of the process, is that true for you?

Yeah, I do like it more than shooting, which may just be because, at this point, my shoots are so short. They’re, frankly, kind of brutal [Laughs]. With editing, it’s a cheaper process, you can linger on something, and be loving with the material, to get it really right. With shooting, I often think, “Ah, if only I had 30 days instead of 21.”

I know some directors who find that challenge artistically helpful, where they have to be more creative. Do you get any enjoyment on that level?

No, because what ends up happening is, we’re totally glued to the script. There’s no time for improvising, because we gotta get this or that down. You think, “Sure, if we get this, we can try something new I’m thinking of in the moment.” You really end up just fulfilling the blue print, you know? You’re building the house you exactly wrote. It’s a great skill to have, and it makes you very precise. I love to improvise and get happy accidents, and all of the things that come with that. So, you know, I end up feeling more cheated than anything else [Laughs]. What you’re saying might be true if we were talking about a 60 day shoot, but I’m just talking about a week long [Laughs].

[Laughs] What are the non-brutal moments on set?

It’s really nice when I actually get to act. I like to direct, but on this movie, I’m in a ton of it. I’ll end up being so focused on directing and what the other person’s doing, that I’ll end up going through a ton of scenes I’m in thinking, “I don’t even remember what I just did,” and then we just have to move on. Also, I enjoy the times where I feel free and not just like a director, when I feel inside of a character’s pocket. For a director, that’s pretty great to have.

I have to wrap, but before I do, I want to ask about something from The Hollywood Reporter’s director roundtable. Have you seen it?

No, but Mike told me about it and I read a little bit of it.

There was a moment where the moderator asked, “Why aren’t there any woman directors here?” and I felt it was kind of dismissive, since there were plenty that could’ve been invited. If you don’t mind me asking, are you treated differently as a director who’s a woman and what does a comment like that say to you?

When I read that, it’s not like there were no movies made by women, but a lot of those films — mine or Kelly Reichardt’s  – are smaller and, for the most part, they’re weirder movies for smaller audiences. The dismissive part seemed to be where he said, “Well, real movies.” Well, he didn’t say “real” movies, but something odd like, “movies people have seen.”

And that seemed like such an odd defense, since Jason Reitman and Steve McQueen’s films hadn’t even come out yet.

Yeah, that’s true. Also, it’s pretty hard to compact. It’s like, “Well, why aren’t we getting financing?” Or, in this case, “Why aren’t we choosing to make movies that would demand larger budgets?” We’re coming from — I don’t know. Yeah, that was a horrible moment. The reasons why there aren’t any [there] are pretty complex. Being inside of it, it’s not like I’m experiencing sexism everyday. And yet, it’s pretty heartbreaking [Laughs]. I mean, I flipped through those pictures of all those men and thought, “Why do I feel like I’m looking at politicians?” It felt so distanced from me, it was hard to even remember I’m a filmmaker too. I mean, I’m just as real as those guys. Yeah, it’s disturbing.

The Future is currently available on DVD.

David Gordon Green is one of those rare filmmakers who has the comic power to make fairly despicable or unlikable characters oddly sympathetic, and oddly, likable . While Green believes everyone in the world is likable – and how he thinks that I have no idea – he certainly seems to love his antiheroes. Very few David Gordon Green characters one would want to hang out with in real life, but on the big screen, he makes oblivious, frustrating, and moronic fools highly watchable. Hopefully that’ll remain the case with his latest R-rated comedy, The Sitter.

Thanks to David Gordon Green being able to say a 1,000 words a minute, similarly to Danny McBride, in my 15-minute conversation we were able to cover a lot of ground. From the greatness of breakfast tacos, a topic I didn’t foresee being discussed, to Soul Surfer topping Your Highness earlier this year, Green goes in every direction possible with any mentioned topic.

Here’s what The Sitter director had to say about why one should live in Austin, going through hell with actors, dealing with ego, and when too much Sam Rockwell crying becomes self-indulgent.

I’m guessing you’re in LA?

I’m in Austin, Texas, where I live.

Oh, OK. So you haven’t made the move to LA yet?

No, I lived out there for about six months.

Most directors say you kinda have to live there.

I don’t know. I’d rather live down here because they have really good breakfast tacos in Austin, and I’m a big fan of the breakfast taco. Like daily I’ll go out and get a breakfast taco. I can walk to 40 different joints, so I get all sorts of different kinds.

So that’s the only reason to live in Austin, right?

There’s a lot of reasons, but that’s my favorite. That’s the one I sell people on. When they think, “Oh yeah, there’s a hip music thing…” There’s a million incentives to come here just in terms of culture, politics, or lifestyle. But people who are on the fence say, “Well, maybe I’ll move to Portland, or what’s another hipster city I could live in?” Then they come here and they eat a breakfast taco and they’re like, “OK, I’m here.”

I was there in Austin earlier this year and I thought it was pretty great, despite some of those hipsters there.

Yeah. No, I mean everybody’s got that. Any city you live in, it’s kinda about carving your own little niche out of it and making yourself comfortable. And this is that. I can walk anywhere. I can walk to the Alamo Drafthouse, go get a beer and watch a movie.

To start, I unfortunately haven’t seen the movie yet…

Je-sus! [Laughs] Hopefully you’ll see it. Now I get an extra ticket out of somebody, so that’s good. If this interview goes well, you might be charmed into seeing it.

Well, I’m actually seeing it for free Tuesday.

Je-sus! Well buy some concession to support the theater.

All right. It’s still kind of a lose-lose for ya.

For me it’s lose-lose. But if it’s like an AMC theater, I’ve got a history with them. I was an employee there. I worked at the Lowe’s Theater chain. So if you can go to a theater that I actually still feel I support…

Well, I’m seeing it at a Regal.

Je-sus! Nobody’s winning now!

If I really like the movie then you win a little.

Yeah. Well, then you’ll tell your friends and write nice things about it and then it will be good.

Yeah, exactly. So it’s kind of a win for you.

OK. I hope. I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed until you see it.

[Laughs] To actually start, one thing about your comedies is I feel that you’re very interested in torturing your characters as much as possible. Is that the intent or is that just a misinterpretation of it?

That’s a very philosophical way to look at it. But I really just like to torture actors. It’s more of a masochistic…you know, I like them to get crazy on me. I like the challenges of working with performers and coming up with new and inventive ways that we can spar. The idea of directing movie is great, and seeing big movies on the screen, that’s great, but I really love the production process of turning on cameras with a group of actors that you’ve assembled and challenging each other. It comes across as characters going through hell, but that’s literally because I’m putting them through hell, and I’m going through hell, and we’re on this hellishly fun roller coast.

I talked to one of your frequent collaborators, Danny McBride, earlier this year, who said one of your directions on Your Highness was, “Talk like you’re taking a shit.”

I’m like that all the time. There’s just so much more sophisticated directions to Daniel McBride.

[Laughs] Can you give me some examples?

There was a lot of that on Eastbound and Down season 3. It was incredible. We took it to new lows. And new highs. It literally, for me, is about like…directing is like puppeteering. I don’t sit at a monitor and scratch my chin and throw my beret in the garbage. I just dance beside the camera and I’m like shadowboxing and talking to people. This is in dramas, too, by the way. Speak what you will of my dramas. This is kinda just my process, is really to engage performers and play music on set, and, in the middle of takes, start shouting stuff at them and, “Say this. Try this.” You know, put a few little cues into their mouths and they can improvise in the next scenario. For example, on this last Eastbound season, in the middle of the scene I just told one of the actors to punch Danny in the face. And he did it. It sounds like chaos, but there’s really a trust. There’s a real genuine collaborative enthusiasm that gets really put into place in the rehearsal phase of any of these projects. And it tends to get violent. It tends to get violent in my low budget independent dramas, it tends to get violent in these bigger budget comedies that I’ve been doing, and everywhere between. It’s like kids playing make believe in the backyard. Ultimately, you are going to start out king of the castle on the tire swing and then you’re going to pick up a stick and somebody’s going to get hurt. We’re little kids.

That’s a good analogy. When it comes to getting violent, you once said how, when you’re making a big movie you’re dealing with a lot of greed and ego. When you are dealing with that, how do you work under those conditions?

You gotta get the cameras rolling. Once the cameras are rolling, all the greed and ego goes away. If you cast well and you’ve done your job, actors are in a place. Everybody respects a rolling camera, at least on my sets. It could be studio executives, producers, PA’s, whoever it is, anybody. I treat everybody the same on a set. But once the camera is rolling and we say “quiet on the set,” then it’s truly a spiritual place that we can let loose and nobly mess with you. Greed and ego is left at the door. Those are the things… you know, if people ask me what I hate about movies, it’s very little. What I hate about movies is putting credits together, because it inevitably cites conflict as to whose credit goes where and what size the fucking font is. And those are just lame conversations. The most amazing thing is a movie like when Jim McKay made Our Song. Did you ever see that movie?

No, I haven’t seen it.

Great movie. Anyway, it’s a beautiful movie, and Jim McKay is a real inspiring filmmaker in a lot of ways. He had a big stamp of “Film by:” everyone that made the movie, alphabetically. So he could fall in the middle and everyone that worked so hard, so the PA that busted his ass named Adam Appleson, you know, top billing. That’s putting greed and ego aside and just really admiring the collaborative process that is all to infrequent. You spend a lot of time talking to lawyers, and you’ll hear a lot of people in negotiations as to how to address their vanity the most. And that stuff is so uninteresting. I just want to roll film.

If you don’t mind giving me an example, what’s the biggest vain thing you’ve ever had to deal with, without naming names?

I couldn’t not name names because I get adrenaline going so much, and then I become a shit talker, and I’ve learned not to do that in interviews with people I don’t know very well. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Let me ask you this then. Say when you get like a bad note maybe coming from ego, how do you usually deal with it?

I don’t think I’ve gotten a bad…Like something like, “We don’t like this?”

Yeah, or “Change this”, or, “Couldn’t you make it like this?”

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How do I deal with that? You know what? I’m pretty diplomatic about that. I say, “Back off. Let’s let an audience decide.” The Sitter is a good example. I get extremely self indulgent in making movies. People talking about making movies, one for them, one for me kinda thing. I can’t make movies for other people. I’m too self-indulgent. I would feel like I was just in a job I didn’t like if I had to do something like that. I had a lot of jobs I didn’t like before I got into movies. So I finally feel like I made it.

If I want to go away and rocket out my vision hell or high water, and I’m willing to have no one go see it because it needs to be exactly my precise vision, I’ve made movies on those terms. In all of those cases, no one went to go see them. So I’ve been there and I’ve made those choices. Movies like The Sitter, it’s a movie that you want people to go have a great time. You want them to bring their friends, get a bucket of popcorn and have a blast, and have a few laughs, and be quoting the movie on the way out the door and thinking about it the next day. That’s the dream when you make a movie like The Sitter. I’ll put a in a lot of crazy. We just throw crazy shit against the wall in the production of any of these things I work on. It is fun. And it does get violent. It’s just really fun. But some of the stuff I personally like the best ends up on the floor because it’s too strange and it’s off-putting to people that don’t want to be challenged by a three minute shot of Sam Rockwell crying in the arms of a female bodybuilder. And believe it or not, a lot of people don’t want to see a three-minute shot of Sam Rockwell crying in the arms of a female bodybuilder.

I happen to love it. I happen to think it’s incredible. It’s going to be on the DVD in the extended version for all the self-indulgent people that like crazy shit. But when you show it to a crowd of 600 people that are supposed to determine how to market the movie and get the studio’s trust behind the movie, and of 600 people, 549 say, “Get that shit out of there!” There’s a responsibility, at least I have, to consider that.

So people reacted like, “Why is the guy from Charlie’s Angels crying so much?”

Yeah, exactly. People get really…and I’m talking to a journalist at a site of people that are on the sophisticated end of movie-going, I’d imagine.

I think so.

But you gotta take into consideration that for a movie to be successful, it has to be appealing…For a movie that costs a lot of money, it needs to be successful. You have to at least consider the appeal of a little bit more of a broad culture. I try to use kind of my own ethical and emotional gauge of when to push the envelope and when to say, “All right, that’s just for me and my deleted scenes.” Some deleted scenes I would never even put on a DVD because they’re so fucked up and I would be murdered by groups of activists for having done them. I wouldn’t want anyone to be aware of them other than me and my crew. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Would you mind giving me an example?

I become very vulnerable in the process of rolling film. I become vulnerable and almost like threats; I just start throwing things out, ideas out there. If the actors and I are in sync, they’re doing things, and they’re doing some things because of our trust. And because we’re in sync, they’re doing some things that they may come up to me that night and say, “Where I went with you I love and it felt really good and it was a great process. I would rather you not use that in the movie.” Things like that. So I have to respect that.

You mentioned, when it comes to films like this, you have to make a movie for everyone. Earlier this year, I would definitely say Your Highness wasn’t a movie for everyone. That movie doesn’t play for a good amount of people, so do you think it’s just not for them or does the movie not work? 

That’s why we’re having a different conversation than if we were to talk before Your Highness came out, because I was editing The Sitter during the experience when Your Highness came out. Your Highness was made…I’m still 11-years-old, basically, trapped in a 35-year-old body. So Your Highness was made as my 11-year-old dream project, and it was made relentlessly with the support of a studio that was gracious enough to trust me because of the success of Pineapple Express. They trusted me and Danny and they were really supportive of whatever we wanted to do. And we said, “This is what we want to do, and we hope to God people want to go see it.” Some people did. Actually, I get stopped on the street more for that than any other movie. But I also got the most scathing reviews for it. Not for any sort of like, “You’re a sellout” kinda thing, but more for like, “How dare you? The audacity of a movie like that!” Which, you know, in its own weird way, in its own strange Vincent Gallow of kind of  way…it kinda feeds your ego. You’re kinda like, “Wow. I’m a badass.” It’s kinda like putting your collar up on your leather jacket in 1984.

That’s a good way of looking at bad reviews.

You know, you gotta have some sort of defense mechanism. Otherwise, financial and critical failure don’t look too good on your report card. So that was a movie where I did have the…I made choices to put in the theatrical release of the movie scenes that we knew the test screening audiences weren’t really receptive of. And I was really encouraged by everyone that I was working with that we could get it to work and we could get people to wrap their head around it. You know what? I think that movie will have its own life in a different time. But it wasn’t the time. More people wanted to see Soul Surfer, so let’s let ‘em go.

[Laughs] I know I gotta wrap up, but to end on, the one thing you, Jody [Hill], and Danny do a lot is making socially destructive characters very empathetic, even when they don’t really learn any lesson. Is that something you aspire to do, making unlikable antiheroes very empathetic?

I think everybody in this world is likeable. You kinda gotta unfold them a little bit. It’s been some of the fun of a movie…I’d even cite my film, Snow Angels, as a movie where we were exploring the darkness of a character but trying to find the humanity within it. Kenny Powers on Eastbound and Down is exactly the same thing. This is a man, a genuine fellow with despicable qualities, and on paper, and if you just take a glimpse and watch one episode, you can’t stand him. You don’t want to be around him. He’s the crazy uncle you wish wouldn’t come to the family reunion. But if Jody and I and the writers have done our jobs right, and if the audience is willing to stick with it, which is the reason that they make…You know, first season of Eastbound was not a success, which is one of the things that we kinda cited at least in our mourning of Your Highness, trying to think of, “Well, just because it didn’t have the time to evolve like Eastbound did,” by the third season now…second season we got really significant numbers and HBO is begging us to keep the show alive for a fourth season after we finish the third. So it’s a whole different song being sung now than when people saw the pilot.

To be able to follow Kenny Powers or Jonah Hill – his character is Noah Griffith in The Sitter and has some very off-putting characteristics, to be able to follow any of these guys, or James Franco’s character in Pineapple Express, and to be able to find the sympathy within them, the humanity within them, it’s an absolute testament to the performance of an actor and the gift of an actor to be able to say some harsh and unflattering things and still maintain that audience’s respect. Or, perhaps dismiss the audience, they close their eyes for a minute and they come back in, they take ad deep breath and they get it, and they start to see that…And some of that is in the editing room, honestly. It’s like by lingering for a few extra seconds and seeing the eyes of an aggressive character start to drop a little bit or some sort of little inflection of somebody searching for something more, realizing that everybody’s got their wounds and every asshole is an asshole for a reason. Those are really fun. Those are really depressing attributes of characters, and that’s what storytelling is about for me.

–

 The Sitter opens in theaters this Friday.

Material similar to Shame, to use an immature and simplistic description, could easily falter into emotion porn. With a story that’s, on the surface, about a self-loathing sex addict, overwrought drama is easy to get into, even with the slightest lack of subtlety. This could be one of those films where characters are emotionally tortured for the sake of torture, with no greater meaning.

Co-writer and director Steve McQueen, who is surely aware of the dramatic trickiness of Shame, takes a more sensitive and observant approach. McQueen uses his cold and perfect framing to create the atmosphere and world Brandon’s created, not to draw attention to himself as a filmmaker. This, among many other topics, is what I recently discussed with the press tour-exhausted filmmaker.

Here’s what Steve McQueen had to say about internal writing, powerful expressions, capturing beautiful butterflies, and why films can be important:

To start, both Hunger and Shame both kind of throw audiences into the middle of the characters’ story, with there being no big intro or typical set up. What’s the intention behind that?

In some ways, when you’re racing to catchup with the protagonist, I think it’s interesting. It’s more stimulating. You have to make yourself aware of your surroundings in a very quick way, and I like that. It’s for the audience. I prefer throwing people into the deep end, rather than having the birth and long yawn sort of a beginning. [Laughs]

You also don’t seem to be a big fan of spoken exposition. Where’s the desire come from to express ideas facially and visually?

Well, I wouldn’t say I’m not a fan of exposition, since there is a moment in Hunger that’s like a fifteen-minute conversation. In the reality, when we’re speaking, we’re not telling each other about where we come from and why we behave the way that we behave. We don’t want to let everyone in our background and our private life, that just doesn’t happen. What I wanted to do with Shame, as a film, was to look at this character, Brandon, to show who he was and how he was. There was no best friend or shrink he could confide in and talk to, and a lot of writers use that to tell the audience more about the character. I wanted to, as you said, throw the audience into the deep end. In the narrative, the past comes into the present – who he is somehow arrives within the present.

With moments where characters are communicating through expressions, like the “New York, New York” sequence, do you write down what those expressions mean, or do you let actors interpret scenes like that?

Oh no, I write it. You want to let an actor know what you’re thinking and when the character’s emotion appears. For example, when she does the a cappella stuff, when the camera falls back and you hear her voice, that was in [the script] too; it was meticulous. Also, sometimes it’s difficult to write things in the abstract — you have to put it out there on paper. It just makes people imagine better what it possibly can be and how they can actually interpret that.

You even give minor characters, like David, their own story with expressions. When David leaves the room, after discussing his computer, you see him stare off sadly. Is a character touch like that in the script?

No, that’s James Badge Dale. What it is, sometimes you have to leave the actor hanging. It’s not about me saying cut, it’s about what happens afterwards. They’ve been wound up and compelled, so what happens afterwards? It’s very important to allow the actors to imagine. It’s a simple expression, but a very powerful moment.

To capture those type of moments, what type of atmosphere do you try to give the actors?

It starts with the staging, starts with hair and makeup, starts with wardrobe, starts with the grip, starts with the cinematographer and the sound department, basically the whole crew. It was such an amazing experience being with this crew. Of course, actors come to a situation and tend to know what’s going on. If the environment is collaborative, warm, and has a certain kind of unity to it, they are allowed to take risks because they’re in a safe environment.

What happens, even with that safe environment, when an actor does not feel comfortable or is having a hard time finding honesty?

I think that whole process has to happen before we get on the set. You’re talking, talking, talking, and talking. For Michael [Fassbender], it was like that on Hunger. This time, when we were on set, we wouldn’t have to talk; we knew each other. For Carey [Mulligan], there was a lot of talking, reassuring, and reading, to get to that place. Again, [same with] James Badge Dale and Nicole Beharie. When you’re on the set, they know what’s going on. If there’s a problem, we go back to where we started and retrace those steps. The homework has to happen, obviously, before we get on the set. It also comes down to rehearsals, but we don’t rehearse too much, because you want to bring freshness to it.

Are you very tied to your words on set? If an actor has an impulse that differs from your idea, will you let them run with it?

Oh yeah, goodness gracious. Of course, if it’s wrong, then… [Laughs] I’m all about experimenting, and that’s what film is. Of course, it has to come within the confine of the story. I feel like a bandleader in some way: I write a song and a harmony, and then they jump on the train. Within that, they improvise within the harmony or the melody. If they go out of it, then it’s wrong. It’s not all improvisation, since they’re interested in the script. In fact, 90% of the script they found improvisation in.

The idea of a film being about sex-addiction could make it distancing to a good amount of people, but I think there are some universal and relatable themes in the film. Was it important to make a film that thematically went beyond being solely about sex addiction?

Absolutely. Again, it’s from the starting point, of course, with the story. This is also about me. What I want from movies – and why I’m interested in doing them – is creating a screen, which is a mirror. When you’re in the cinema, I want you to see yourself, so you can reflect on the screen and totally understand it. That’s very important to me. I see cinema as important, and it can be important. I know a lot of people may laugh at me, but, no, I find it important. Sex addiction isn’t focused on enough, but hopefully people will start talking about it. There’s hardly any movies made about it. If there have been, it’s played as a joke. There’s a stigma attached to sex addicts; they’re ostracized. If people start talking about the subject because of the film, that’d be great. I think that’s what movies can do – they can be important and start conversation. Of course, it’s not specifically about addiction, it’s about how we live today. The majority of people who use the internet look at pornography. Show me someone who says they haven’t looked at pornography on the internet, they’d be lying. Everyone does it, but nobody talks about it. It’s strange that no one talks about it — how is that possible? It’s all around us. My goodness, it’s the elephant in the room.

There’s a very relatably human aspect of sex addiction, that feeling of self-loathing and regret.

Yeah, it’s very human. The film’s not about freak-shows, it’s about human beings. I love Brandon very much. He’s trying and he’s doing his best. You know, I think that’s what we’re all doing, in our own way; they’re human beings. It’s one of those things where – if I had self-will, then I’d have a six pack. I don’t, and why don’t I? We’re sometimes fighting against ourselves.

You do see that Brandon is trying, and he never does anything inherently bad. Did you and Michael always see him as a genuinely good person?

He’s not a bad guy, at all. He’s just in a situation where his addiction…he’s terrible to his sister, in a way, but we’re all terrible to our siblings in one way. What Cissy does is bring the past to the present, and he doesn’t want to have anything to do with. He is a good guy, totally. He’s like you and me; he’s trying. We’re not all angels.

Sissy’s presence also seems antagonistic because she’s the only person who sees his problems. Is she aware of the pain she’s causing him or is she oblivious to it?

I think she’s oblivious to it, in a way. A lot of the time people are just about, “Me, me, me, me, me,” and Sissy is one of those [people]. At the same time, she thinks, through her love, he’ll open up his love. She thinks her love is enough, like, “I’m only giving you love.”

When Sissy sings “New York, New York,” she seems to be finding some sort of catharsis in expressing herself. As an artist yourself, do you relate to that idea?

[Pause] No, it’s not therapy. Art is not therapy, at all. At the same time, it is an outlet for her, absolutely. I saw her as an extrovert, and Brandon as an introvert. As a performer, she lets herself out, in that way. For me, it’s all ideas, really. It’s about we than me, that’s for sure.

Does art ever affect you in a personal and unintended way, though?

It does take a toll. When I finished Hunger, I had this huge rash under my arm. I was talking to murderers and people who have done horrible things to each other. I block them out, because making a movie is about focusing on all the information about making a movie. When you stop, the world of the merry-go-round stops, and you sort of confront what you took on and and what spoke to you. There will be a reaction. I’m not sure what the reaction will be once Shame is finished, so we’ll see.

You mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter roundtable how, when it comes to finding a beautiful moment, it’s like trying to capture butterflies. When you do capture one, do you know it right away?

Yes, everyone does. It’s like you capture it, then move on. You feel it with your goosebumps, and that’s when you move on. The duality that comes with Michael, ‘New York, New York,’ and the threesome, which I like to call a foursome, you just know.

Is there ever a case, when you’re editing, where you find a moment you didn’t even notice on set?

When Brandon comes out of the cab — and David and Sissy go up into the apartment — what happens is: Michael is supposed to go straight up into the elevator, but Michael stands outside of the elevator. Of course, the elevator goes up and he sits on the cushion behind him. It’s a wonderful moment. It’s not an accident, at all, but it’s a wonderful moment of Michael being so much in character.

It’s a very precise shot. If I recall correctly, you didn’t storyboard on Hunger. Was that the same case here?

No, I didn’t storyboard, at all. I never storyboard. Ever. I have to find it; I never storyboard. The idea you bring up of storyboards offends me. [Laughs]

[Laughs] At first, I was going to say you sound angry.

[Laughs] No, no, I’m joking. I never storyboard.

Visually, do you usually know what you want, though?

Yes, but sometimes no — sometimes I gotta find it.

Can you give me an example of, in Shame, where you had an image in your head, and you then captured it?

For example… you know what? Sometimes when you’re in the environment, you sometimes find something better than what you had in your head. I rely more on half of an idea than a whole idea. I don’t want a whole idea. Otherwise, what’s the point? I really want to be in the moment, which is very important.

Even though I said there’s a preciseness to the framing, I think the camera is always at an observant state. Are you always conscious of, no matter how good a shot is, not calling attention to yourself?

Absolutely. I don’t want to put a stencil on a situation, I want a situation to tell me what it wants. On Hunger and Shame, it had to tell me what it wants. You have to deal with it.

In the wrong hands, a director could be very emotionally exploitative with this type of material. Where was that line for you, where you weren’t reveling in showing Brandon and Cissy’s pain?

Well, that’s a very good question. Let me think. [Pause] It is a balancing act. If you fall down, you can fall down, in a big way. It’s also about responsibility, really. I have a responsibility to this movie, and a responsibility to show what you don’t show. I think we achieved that, and I hope we did that.           

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Shame is now in theaters.