Happy Sad Confused - Damien Chazelle, Vol. II

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

You'd be hard pressed to find a more impressive trio of films in a young filmmakers' career than Damien Chazelle's trifecta of "Whiplash", "La La Land", and his newest effort, "First Man". It's no wonder the 33 year-old stands as the youngest recipient of the best director Oscar in history (that would be for "La La Land").  In this return visit to "Happy Sad Confused", Josh and Damien delve deep into the appeal and challenges inherent in a space race film like "First Man", from the technical obstacles to the emotional underpinnings. Chazelle also candidly talks about the influence of Steven Spielberg (an executive producer on "First Man"), whether we'll ever see a genre or franchise film from him, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Today on Happy Sad Confused, filmmaker Damien Chazelle takes Ryan Gosling and audiences to the moon with First Man. Hey guys, I'm Josh Horowitz. Welcome back to the show. Welcome to another edition of Happy Sad Confused. On today's show, one of our greatest filmmakers working today.

he's obnoxiously young and talented, but we're going to just set that aside and just appreciate what he is contributing to cinema, Damien Chazelle. His last three films are La La Land, Whiplash, and now First Man. And I would put those three films up against any three in a row for any filmmaker today,

and you could even go back a significant time in history to look at a run like that early, especially early in a filmmaker's career. Taman Chazel is operating on a level that few filmmakers can aspire to. And First Man is currently in theaters. You've probably heard about it by now. It is, of course, the true-life tale of Neil Armstrong and the insane endeavor to get to the moon for America to beat the Russians in the space race and to put a man on the moon.

We know where the story ends, but the story is unexpected in many ways. It's a deeply personal film about a man and a family wrestling with tragedy, surrounded by death, surrounded by hardships, who perseveres and focuses on one task that seems foolhardy at best and just impossible by most standards. Again, we all know where this ends up. And it's a thrilling movie. I'm a big fan of this movie. I've actually seen it three times for various reasons. And my appreciation actually has probably even grown as I've seen it over and over again. The craftsmanship is impeccable.

The last 30, 40 minutes are basically about the moon landing and takes you on that journey. But it's a surprisingly emotional film, too. The first time I saw it, I was really caught off guard by how it hit me and how intensely it hit me at the end. And I think that's a tribute to the filmmaker, to the writer, Josh Singer, who has written a bunch of great stuff in recent years, most notably, Spotlight. He was a co-writer on The Post. And of course, Ryan Gosling's performance, which is understated like the man apparently was, but deeply moving and effective. And of course, you know, I'm going to mention Claire Foy. If you listen to this podcast, you know it's a Claire Foy love fest. And she is, of course, wonderful in it. Kind of taking Neil Armstrong to task as his wife at times. You know, she's not a shrinking violet. She's not just the wife at home. There's more to this character than that. And that's, again, a testament to the writing direction. And of course, Claire Foy's performance. So this was a great treat. Damien's been on the podcast before. He was on for Lala Land. It's, you know, it's, the dollarland was like my favorite film of that year, Whiplash.

I'm not sure if it was my favorite of the year, it came out, but it was certainly near the top. And this will be near the top as well this year. So I have, I have so much admiration for what Damien is doing in his career. And it's, it's thrilling to talk to just a master filmmaker, even at this young age. You know, to call this a spoiler conversation, maybe it's a little weird, because again, we know sort of where the story heads. But if you're adverse to that kind of conversation, if you want to, it probably is to your advantage to have seen the film before listening to this conversation. It probably plays anyway, but we do get into some specific scenes, specific choices that Damien makes. So fair warning, if you are spoiler adverse, maybe see first man first, and then come back to this conversation.

And I think if you have seen it, this in-depth conversation will be richly rewarding, at least I hope so. It was for me. Anyway, that's the main event today. A lot of cool films out right now were really deep into the fall where all these great films are coming out. Beautiful boy just came out. I really recommend that

with deeply personal and emotional performances from Steve Carell and Timothy Shalame. Hate You Give is still in theaters. I recommend that. A Star is born is going to play for months and months and months. If you haven't seen that, check it out.

Can you ever forgive me? Of which we're going to have a notable cast member on the podcast very soon. mid-90s. There's a lot of good stuff out there. So enjoy, enjoy this fall season where all the good stuff comes out. I know I am. But for today, let's talk first man. Please enjoy this conversation with Damien Chazelle. As always, please spread the good word of happy say I confused. Remember to review, rate and subscribe to the podcast and let your friends know you're a little secret, your secret little favorite podcast. Let them in on the treat that is happy say I confused. A lot of

really cool guests coming up. Please enjoy this conversation with Damien Chazel and go check out First Man if you haven't already. Damien Chiselle was in my silly office in New York. Thanks for helping me by man. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. We've been commiserating about the, you know,

this is a busy time of year, especially for you. You know, you've done the film festival circuit and now the world at large is about to receive your film. Congratulations, man. I've seen this one twice. It's amazing. Oh, thank you. Unbelievable.

So you, and also in the middle of all this, you got married. Yeah, well, yes. I mean, we actually, we got married a little bit, a little bit before, but it's, yeah, it's been a lot of stuff happening. Checking every box in a life. Well, yeah, you know, it's just going down the, get down a list. So there's a lot to talk about in this film. One thing that I'm just curious about, Stephen Spielberg's an executive producer on this film. I'm just curious, like, as, like, a film fan, as someone that, like, grew up, I'm sure, enjoying his work.

Does that check a box in a career that have his name in the credits? Maybe, yeah. I mean, it's certainly, it's certainly fun. I mean, I had never met him before, you know, before this movie. But, you know, when I heard that he was. sort of coming on as an executive producer, you know, his company was helping finance the

movie, you know, I kind of immediately saw my opportunity to you know, wait, I've got some questions, even if you don't have any questions. Wiggle my way into his office. And no, I mean, he's such a he's such a generous filmmaker in that way. You know, he really,

man, yeah, I, I, like, where do you begin with him? Like, what's the, like, what was the thing when you met with him that you were like, I need to, before I get out of this office, at least pick his brain about X. I picked his brain a lot about the D-Day sequence in Saving Private Ryan. And, I mean, you know, just sort of various kind of, yeah, just kind of technical how-to questions.

I was just, I was curious sort of how long it took and how involved it was and how they rehearsed it and if they rehearsed and yada yada and so i you know and and the shooting choices and everything so i kind of uh i feel like that was the the main um the main sort of thrust the conversation and i and i also i think i had some questions for him because i you know i was sort of figuring out at that point how i wanted to do some of our launches especially sort of sort of do the exterior imagery yeah um i was kind of deathfully afraid of the you know that sort of CG no man's land that you can kind of fall into with fire and smoke especially, which are very unforgiving. And so trying to kind of trying to find ways to co-opt a lot of the actual archival

footage and augment it as opposed to sort of, as opposed to working from scratch. It was this sort of this kind of, it was this sort of two-tiered process that the VFX team and myself kind of were working on, but I was just curious what he thought of it. And, you know, if he had any um any stuff you know any like to shed and then and then he wound up telling me how they did the the the really great tidbit was how they did the uh water rippling in Jurassic Park the you know the little water in the cup and then again in the pond yeah um and it was basically just this big uh maybe you already know this like kind of big guitar string it was just underneath um I mean it's so it that was literally just being plucked I mean it was

so low tech is such a delicious way. It's kind of... It's great. One of the most iconic moments in film. It's so great. That's the kind of stuff that's really fun, I guess, when you get to like peel back the curtain a little bit. And often you find, yeah, the through line is just the simpler, the better. Yeah.

Well, it's interesting you bring up, because this was on my list of things, I definitely wanted to talk to you about the launches, particularly the... I mean, both... I want to talk about both the Gemini 8 and the Apollo 11, And we're going to run this after the films come out. So minor spoilers. I mean, you know, this is all public record. We know what happens.

But they did make it. They made it, guys. It's not like clue where you go into like one theater and they don't make it. And another theater they do. Yeah. They make it all the time. But I was struck by, well, maybe like start like, I started the last sequence, the Apollo 11. Because like, I feel like you and Justin in particular, that collaboration struck me.

in watching that sequence because his score is gorgeous, as always. But I feel like he kind of held back the emotional kind of like really going for the jugular, like that kind of bombastic score that you might expect in a film of this type until that sequence. Is that something you guys discussed

in terms of like, let's not blow it too early? Not blow the wad before the, yeah. I mean, it was sort of, yeah, I mean, I think it was also, I guess, trying to be in keeping with the character who was at the heart of the movie. Neil was famously not someone who was very overtly emotive. And so it felt like I kind of liked the idea of trying to lean into, in all aspects of the movie, lean into the, you know,

what would you call this sort of pressure squeezer, the kind of pressure cooker idea of emotion in a movie where you just sort of let it. simmer for a while and let it kind of build up pressure beyond the point where you normally would and only only after you've bypassed that point and then some do you finally let it explode and you know it just kind of feels like that if you do that i mean it's always risky because uh you know because it is but you know you want to make sure that people are are still along with you uh for that right pissed off and like stop manipulating me exactly but um

But ideally what you're aiming for, I guess, is, you know, being able to indulge ultimately in, you know, I guess, you know, what I'd kind of call pure cinema, you know, that's just where it just becomes about imagery and sound and the raw emotion that that can communicate without words or without leaning on words. And you just sort of, you can kind of ride that wave. But you have to, like, bottle up enough energy in order to give yourself the wave to rise. It does make sense. And I was also struck by the fact that, like, you know, as someone that's seen, like, all films of this, if you want to call it a genre, you know, it feels like we've seen every possible angle on that kind of launch and you actually did find new ways. It was interesting because especially in that sequence, you're talking about, like, the pressure cooker, like, so much of the film is about intimacy on the eyes and the claustrophobia. And that sequence kind of like goes back and forth between that and then these vistas and these wide shots that I don't remember seeing in launch. sequences before, where you pull back even further than I've ever seen, actually, in one of those sequences.

Yeah. Well, it felt like, yeah, I mean, it felt like, I mean, there's essentially two launches in the movie, two kind of, you know, traditional rocket launches in the movie. And I always knew that one of them, the first one I would want to, you know, have pretty strict rules about, one of which would be that we never leave the capsule. that we stay entirely within the capsule. And so in a way, you know, we've kind of used up our mileage of within capsule photography through that launch. So by the time you get to the Apollo 11 launch, it's, you know, it felt like, and also, again, in keeping with that idea of contained emotion that you're now exploding. Release the valve, yeah.

Yeah, that you could actually indulge in just the sheer enormity of that launch. I think that's something that people maybe don't realize or forget about the Saturn 5 is just how enormous it was, how enormous of a rocket it was, the object itself that sometimes we see as a little speck rising up in the distance, is bigger than most high rises, it's bigger than Big Ben. And then the thrust of that, that rocket gives off. It's the, you know, in the history of man-made sounds, it's the loudest sound ever created by humans next to a nuclear bomb. on. Wow. So it gives you a sense of just the ferocity of that. Well, you feel the heat in that sequence. You feel it's just like everywhere. It's, to me, it also speaks to just how, you know,

it sort of speaks to maybe, maybe this, you know, I think you could use those launches as a way of arguing, look, human beings really should stay on the ground. No, exactly. Because this is how much it takes to get them off. Or it's like, this is to, you know, Claire's character's point when she's kind of berating, you know, forgive me, Deke Slay and Kyle Chandler plays him. That it is, to a degree, boys playing with Balsawood and... There is an inherent madness to it. Absolutely. And that strikes you in all the sequences in the film.

It's like some of these crafts literally feel like they're being taped together with... Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's partly because of how fast moving that program was. I mean, you know, eventually sort of when I grew up, I was. used to the kind of routine of the shuttle launches, and, you know, not that those didn't have their own dangers, but

the, but, you know, eventually there was a somewhat regular routinized kind of aspect to this, and they were able to kind of fine-tune things with each successive mission, but this was, you know, the period in this movie, it was a period in time where, from, within eight years, from 61 to

69, they went from having barely, barely put someone in sub-orbit, not even in orbit, to literally walking on the moon. And when you think of orbit, I mean, it's like, you know, you think of a, you know, we had Dick Slayton kind of draw that thing on the map, or on the chalkboard early in the movie. But, you know, if you take, if you take the earth and you scale the moon out in terms of distance and size from the earth, it really helps kind of encapsulate. I remember

using like a soccer ball and like, you know, some kind of smaller sort of, you know, a ping pong ball. Right. Marble or whatever, yeah. In a house to do that. And you needed the length of a room to do it. And so you just start to realize, okay, how do human beings go from there to there in eight years? Well, they do it. Slap it together. They do it by slapping it together. Yeah, they don't have time.

And failing until they... Exactly. And they don't have time to perfect in the way that, you know, we might have wanted them to perfect. And so as a result, it requires people who are that courageous, that willing to, you know, essentially give up their lives for a greater goal, you know, in a way. And also the willpower, I guess, around all of it, the political willpower, the national will, the kind of this sort of collective will to,

to, yeah, birth something that was not easy to birth. Right. It's interesting. I'm glad you brought up, like, the sequence of Zique where he's on the chalkboard because, like, it struck me when I was watching it, that sequence and the sequence where it's like a NASA film kind of like outlining, like what the moon landing is,

it reminded me, ever heard you. Like, I always think of the expertise with which, like, James Cameron can lay out exposition. Oh, yeah. The scene in Titanic. Titanic one is brilliant. It's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. The CGI, like, they do the computer simulation, so you know literally how it's going to go. I, I looked at that a million times. I mean, the, the, um, it's also kind of really, you know, what's sort of brilliant about that is, um, I guess what I love about what Cameron does there that I sort of tried to rip off a little bit is, is the idea of reducing a massive event to literally a cartoon.

There's something about the bite-sizedness and the kind of innocence of a cartoon. I mean, here, in our case, it was, you know, we used an actual, I mean, we wound up changing the voiceover bit, but we used the imagery is from actual NASA cartoons and, you know, that were designed as vaguely information, you know, sort of a public service announcement, so to speak. But, you know, there, it very much is, I think, in keeping with kind of the mystique and the mythology that NASA wanted to kind of propagate around itself, which is that, you know, look at this fun adventure that we all get to embark on. You know, at the end of the day, they had to be salesmen. Yeah. They had to, in between missions, go to the White House and beg for money.

Yeah. They had to be always showcasing the fact that this was fun, that this was doable. You know, maybe they couldn't quite say it was easy, but they wanted to, you know. They wanted to definitely say it was feasible, eminently feasible, that they had to be able to beable, that they had to beable. They have the best minds in the world, which actually was true. Right. But, you know, they have the best minds in the world, and therefore anything is possible, and it's not going to be particularly dangerous.

All the little figurines in those cartoons, they look pretty happy, you know. And so it felt like that would be a place to really begin a movie. Then from there on, I think, really, the point for me of the movie was to actually, you know, show how much of a, you know, how much of a movified version of everything that really was. Yeah, it's a pretty gritty cartoon. Let's assume in and see. It was, exactly. Yeah.

And these little things that they're showing be kind of semi-easy, charming, kind of trips into space actually costs lives and destroyed families and cost a lot of money and a lot of upheaval. So it's, you know, the irony there I think is, was interesting. But then of course, you know, you also have to take into account that it worked. Like at the end of the day, we did walk on the moon and maybe you need a certain amount of almost delusional innocence at the outset. to wail something like that into existence.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I feel like people, you know, and they often, and I'm guilty of this too, talk about your films or about ambition. And that's, it is a clear through line. It's, I think, also a word as important as that, especially for this film, is focus. Like, I was struck by,

especially the second time watching it, you know. Neil, you know, and his family are struck by this horrible tragedy of losing their daughter in the first, what, 10 minutes or something. And it's not like you set him up as like this heartless person. that is like focused on work in absence of his daughter. His focus is actually on healing her, on solving that problem.

It's just a shift of focus. Yeah. It's a way of coping. It's a way, it's like he's clearly a directed, passionate person that just needs to focus all his energies in one direction, whether it's saving his daughter or landing on the moon. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it, and Ryan was really actually instrumental in sort of helping me and Josh Singer,

the screenwriter, kind of hone in on this more, you know, it really sort of at a certain point for us became a movie about coping with grief, you know, and coping with loss and, you know, different people have different ways of coping. And I think Neil had a very particular, you know, way in which he coped. And I think in which he needed to cope. I think he needed to stay airborne in some way, at least in his mind, to have any change. chance of dealing with or not being completely crushed by, you know, certain events he went through on the ground, you know, largest of which, of course, was just the loss of his daughter. I also appreciate it. I mean, I think you, and I say this is a compliment, I think you underplay a bit of like this, this looming loss through the film so that, you know, again, without quote unquote ruining anything. But like by the end, there's this amazing emotional, cathartic moment. That's very similar to what we were talking about that, the launch. sequence where there's like a kind of a very small moment in the last act that for me caught me like

and I think I've heard this from other people it catches you totally off guard and suddenly you're like tearing up like what just happened so like what did Damien do how to do this um and I'm sure that's very much by design um I mean without making you into a calculated asshole it's like here's where I want you to cry but like it is like that's uh well I guess us you know so we're all calculators assholes really it's all manipulation I think positive spin on it but to put a positive spin on it no I mean I guess I guess I what I will say that's hopefully a little more inspiring than that is is you know this was the first time for me of course doing a movie that was not you know that I didn't just come up with it was the first time doing a movie based on real events and based on real people and you know so on the one hand you feel an extra responsibility in that but there's also this this kind of reservoir of, you know, just the real, I was consistently struck by how the real life version of these things was infinitely more, right, infinitely richer than, then I think

what I would have come up with, you know, on my own. And, and, um, so that's so it, well, I guess what it felt like was it felt like, uh, uh, I, I guess what it felt like, was it felt like, uh, I felt like, you know, we're lucky to have this opportunity where, you know, somehow history sort of conspired such that the first person to, you know, set foot on another celestial body was at a time in his life where, you know, you could sort of reasonably surmise that there was a lot for him to run away from. and a lot for him to try to find some way to answer, you know, and, and so in a way, history kind of provided this sort of, this spine that was, that was, you know, sort of very clear the way you hope for as a storyteller to have, you know, something to, to hang your incidents and your, and your, and your textures over. And, you know, but there wasn't that much jimmying that we had to do.

You know, Neil did, in fact, lose his daughter right on the eve of his joining NASA. And certainly you can kind of draw some parallels between, you know, draw some connections between, you know, difficulties he was having at work at the time and the sickness and then death of his daughter, and then his decision to sort of plunge into basically the next big problem that would kind of supplement maybe his emotions into something else. And then the various other losses

that we kind of depict throughout the movie. Not only did each of those, of course, happen, but there were certain kind of tragedies that we didn't have time to get into. Certain other, you know, there's a small role in the movie, early in the movie played by Brian Darcy James, who plays Joe Walker,

one of the great sort of X-15 pilots, who was maybe one generation older than Neil, a close friend of Neal, sort of a mentor to Neil, who himself died in a freak plane accident shortly around the time of Apollo 1. We didn't have time to get into that in the movie. Neil and Janet's house when they first moved to Houston burned down in a freak fire a year after moving in. And we shot that, but it's not in the final movie. I guess it's a long way of saying that there was a little bit of a story of Job kind of quality to Neil and Janet in those years. And yet you can't help but think

or wonder, in some way, did all that tragedy somehow lead the way to the moon? In other words, was it not an obstacle? Was it actually secretly exactly the fuel that ultimately drove him to the moon? Because what does drive a human being to do something as really on paper insane as going to the moon? And it's just this amazing kind of question, which I don't really know the answer to, but hopefully you get to use the movie as a way of posing those questions and throwing them out to the audience. Yeah. We got out a little bit of what I want to bring up here, which is that when you approach

this quote-unquote genre, if this is a genre, you know, you can't help but think of things like the right stuff and all 13, et cetera. Like, I remember talking years ago to Danny Boyle when he was doing Sunshine. Oh, yeah. And he talked about like the intimidation, like the cloud over that film of Ridley Scott and Alien and how you do your version of that, what's left to mine. And that's probably one of the first question. you had to ask yourself, which is, like, why, what do I bring to the table that's different?

Like, like, these mission movies, these, these NASA movies have kind of been done pretty well in different ways. What was the early answer for yourself that said this was worth two, three years of your life to pour your heart and soul into? I think it's, you know, I think every, I mean, in a way, there's so, you know, there's the sort of NASA subgenre, you know, of kind of these historical space travel movies and then, and then, you know, there's

but in a way there's also just you know, I guess to me, it's, at the end of the day, every space movie dealing with space in any kind of way, whether futuristic or period, is also just ultimately going to be if you're not careful in the shadow of

2001. Sure. And that it's sort of like, it's this kind of godfather that birthed everything that you kind of have to, you can't ignore, but actually you sort of want to try to ignore, you know, you want to, you want to acknowledge, but also you have to sort of shut off that part of your mind. And so I guess that's kind of the way, the way I approached a lot of those movies was to, you know, these were all movies that I'd watched many times kind of growing up and, and, you know, being a movie lover. but, you know, and movies that I think I then took the time to rewatch right away when I first started working on this, and then made a point of kind of very purposefully not watching for a while, especially the good ones, you know, the good ones are the ones that are kind of the most dangerous because they, you know, you want to, you want to replicate them in some way.

Yeah, exactly. Do people really remember that? I remember it, but what other people remember that? You know, and, and so I think, it's, I don't know, it might be similar to when I was doing whiplash at a certain point. I had to kind of stop looking at any movies about

musicians. I had to kind of be looking at things that might seem to be completely different terrain and hope that if I can make my music scenes like that, then they'll wind up in some middle zone that hasn't been traversed before. And so I think here it kind of wound up being a similar thing. We spent

a lot more time watching war movies and And, you know, movies about physical violence or movies about grief or movies about, you know, or documentaries, sort of, you know, verite documentaries of the period and whatnot. Ultimately, then we did space movies and sort of, you know, kind of on purpose. Yeah. But I don't know if that answers the question. No, it does. It does.

And I think it's also, I think what also answers it is what is the kind of the stuff that you were, not to put words in your mouth, but like what struck me as a major. differences was you know actually thinking about like what but Spielberg did in that D-Day sequence kind of like taking the sheen off of of of what we have kind of in our mind's eye oh yeah I mean I think actually deconstructing and like actually you know that's that's not a bad well you know it's funny you bring up alien because you know it's also interesting thinking about alien and even before it Star Wars after 2005 after 2001 yeah yeah because because you know in many ways you can yeah you can read that as a

I mean, visually, what is Star Wars, but kind of a sort of redo of 2001, but really dirtied up and kind of basically made by Scotch tape and in sort of private garages and stuff. Like, that's the brilliance, I think, of the original Star Wars. And then you can kind of look at Alien as sort of what is alien, but kind of taking a haunted house movie and putting it in that same kind of dirty space world. and even emphasizing more the blue-collarness. It's truck drivers in space, you know. But in each of these cases, you can kind of see where they grow out of 2001. And so I think here it was also kind of maybe identifying

that, okay, at least, at least to my eyes and ears, the space rays in particular had maybe been given a somewhat glamorous treatment in the past and a somewhat kind of, a, you know, sort of mythological kind of thing that's partly the movies made about it, but it's also partly the sort of mystique of NASA that we were talking about, partly very intentional on NASA's part in terms of what they kind of wanted to feed into the narrative about them.

And actually one thing, you know, that was really, I think, sort of provocative and interesting about Jim Hansen's book, first man that the biography of Neil that the movie is based on, is I think he was actually one of the first historians to actively cut against that. to really, you know, if you look at that book, and, you know, certainly there's very little in, in terms of big, broad strokes in our movie that isn't kind of found in some way in the book. He was almost one of the first historians to actually really start talking about ways in which, you know, death could have actually affected these astronauts.

You know, that actually, that idea was almost vaguely controversial before his book. You know, the idea that the sort of assumption was, well, these guys were built of such steel that, you know, death just pinged off their shoulders. and they didn't really, there wasn't much inquiring also about what kind of skeletons they might have in their closet. A lot of people that Neil worked with never even knew he had a daughter. And so it was just kind of not talked about. And Jim Hanson made a point of really talking about it, you know.

And so things like that, I think, just, I guess, paved, you know, sort of paved the way and kind of dictated, I guess, what the approach for me and Ryan and everyone in the movie could be of leaning into all the things that normally would be tucked under the rug. Both the mundane things, the sort of day by day, sort of cleaning the pool, taking out the trash things, but also the darker stuff,

the actually confronting death head on and the amount of loss and danger and kind of risk that this program kind of involved and what that means to families. Families being torn apart by this, you know. What happens, like, after you get the umpteenth phone call about a friend of yours that just died in an accident? What happens when you go back into your house?

How many phone calls of that nature can a human being take? Yeah. And that felt like that was thematically just something that I hadn't seen before and just kind of helped dictate, okay, if that's really the thematic stuff that feels kind of new that we can delve into, well, then that dictates the style. That dictates kind of how we shoot it. And we're going to shoot it, you know, with muck on the lens. We're going to shoot it without a tripod. It's going to be a camera on the shoulder in 16 millimeter, and it's going to feel rough and messy and scary and dark and intense and visceral and violent

and physical and sweaty and smelly. You know, I wanted the audience to smell these capsules if they could. I would have used smell vision if I could have. Maybe there's still a possibility for a smell of vision release. Surprising, look. It's Oscar season. You've got to bring out all the bells and whistles. Yeah, I don't know how well that one would go over.

I'd like to go a little broader. Speaking of like Oscar season, are you kind of itching at this point to like make a movie with zero expectations for awards? I mean, you've now gone into this bizarre, rarefied air where thankfully

the last two of your films have just like been so successful both commercially but also critically in an award show. So inherently something like this comes with those expectations. Does that wear on you as a human being and a filmmaker?

Is there a... I guess it's that weird thing where you're, you're, I guess, ultimately out of your control, but you're thankful as a filmmaker to, you know, it's an honor to be in any kind of, to be part of any sort of conversation like that. But, you know, it does wind up involving a lot of this stuff that I like the least, which is, you know.

Talking to me, you can say it, it's okay. Which is talking to you. This is really, this is the low point of my, No, which is the, you know, the, some of the glad-handed that goes with it that can be tough, especially for people like me who often prefer to, you know, sit at home and write or be behind a camera instead of in front of one. You know, all that sort of stuff can be, can be, it's a steep learning curve. But, yeah, I try to just think about the movies themselves, you know, and, you know, I've at least tried to do the last few times, be working on something while the other is doing

its thing. At the same time, like the whole Walla Land like ride was it was so emblematic I feel like of like what we do to movies now where like, you know, you won the award and like you succeeded as much as you can pretty much and

I remember that night, I can't forget it but I guess my point is like you know, the backlash pieces that inherently came and now come with every film. I'm not even going to bring up the stupidity of the of the American flag on the moon in this one, which is just a non-story.

But like, you know, I was Googling, you know, I was looking back at like La Land reception. And like one of the things I found, like, amidst all the praise was like, Washington Post, top 10 backlashs to Walloland. Like, it was like, it's become like an institutionalized part of the process where does that, did that sting and did you take any of that criticisms to heart? Did you feel any of it was warranted?

Did it all feel overblown? Just give me a sense of it. sort of how you reconcile that kind of? Well, you know, it's, I don't know, you know, it's kind of par for the course. So I think you're right that it's sort of, in a way, it's part of the process. And what's kind of interesting is, you know,

once you finish the movie, it's not really yours anymore. So at least that's how I kind of feel. Once it's kind of out into the world, it belongs to the world. And so there's some part of you that may be wishes you could kind of, you know, write all the pieces yourself, you know. Well, actually, here's what we're going to do. Right, or spend your time responding or correcting or whatever. But it's kind of, it's not a battle that you can win. And if you're going to get overly kind of involved in that sort of stuff, then you're probably in the wrong line of work.

Um, but, uh, but, you know, yeah, yeah. So you just sort of, uh, you try to focus on the movie at hand or whatever, sort of, whatever you're kind of working on at that point and, and, um, um, yeah, can we, I'm curious to talk to you a little bit about genre filmmaking. I remember we talked about like last time you were on the podcast, like, the closest you come as a director, like, Whiplash is in many ways a thriller as much as it is anything else. Um, if you'll get a lot of your writing work outside of the films you've directed, You've actually written some pretty great thrillers, namely like 10 Cloverfield Lane and then Grand Piano.

Are you, is that something that you wouldn't be surprised that you gravitate towards at some point doing your kind of like De Palma Hitchcock full through and through thriller? I don't know. It was definitely the kind of movies that I think I was the most, you know, maybe the most into as a kid or as a kind of teenager were those sorts of thrillers. So I think it, you know, I mean, it sort of came by happenstance in terms of the writing because I, you know, I have one that gets another. You do one. Yeah, and it just sort of started with, oh, shoot, I need, you know, I'm out here in L.A. and, you know, kind of knocking on doors and none of the doors are opening. I got to figure out some way to, wouldn't it be great to at least be able to pay the bills with, you know, well, I have no expectation of directing yet, but pay the bills with writing. And, and, um, okay, so what, so what, what can sell? Well, it's not going to be my, you know, my sort of, uh, uh, musical, you know, uh, my, my jazz musical, uh, is not really going to do the trick. So, so, you know, uh, maybe I'll write some thrillers. And, and so it kind of, yeah, it was like one thing. It started with some, uh, it started with one, you know, just kind of spec thriller that I wrote and tried to sell and it kind of led to another. And then, you know, something like the 10, like 10 Cloverfield Lane was.

It was actually basically a rewrite job, you know, that kind of, and so it, it, uh, basically that was my life for, you know, however many years, uh, before I made Whiplash, which just kind of, uh, writer for hire, um, in that, I guess, circuit, you call it the kind of low budget genre circuit. Um, and, you know, some of those movies are good. Some, you know, turn out good. Some of them are really bad. And, um, you know, and, uh, and then of course, most jobs you go up for, you don't get, you know, so I spent a lot of time pitching on, you know, most. You know, Most of my time was spent pitching on jobs. They wouldn't get a very funny list of... What was the one that you were dying to do that you didn't get? I spent a lot of time. I mean, I spent months working on a Ouija pitch. That is so... Here's what's funny about that.

It didn't, you know, I didn't get the job. My brother is a writer, a rather successful writer in Hollywood, and he was attached to a Ouija film. Mika Chi was supposed to direct for a while. That's gone through so many different iterations. And that didn't happen either? It never happened. Oh, my God.

The one they eventually made was. like a very like like a small horror film the one he was going to do I think was like a big like action adventure got it so it's like uh it's interesting maybe it's just like this like this road not travel that unites there you go it's all of us that's funny you and you and adam horrors can look across a room and just nod to each other uh we unspoken wich exactly is there um like uh you know christopher nolan is a is a self-avowed like bond freak right and like i'm i'm sure that at some point he's basically said at some point he's going to make a james bond film which just that needs to be the right timing right um um is

Is there a similar franchise or character or something that would be difficult for you to say no to? That is just so in your bones, so close to your heart, that feels like it would be cool to take a shot out? Probably not. It's, it's, and that didn't necessarily used to be the case. I think I have a hard time, I would have a hard time not feeling like I could be on the ground floor of, of, of, creating something. So, you know, for instance, if it was a, if it was some sort of franchised and it would have to be some kind of a reboot or something.

Yeah, a redo where, you know, kind of as Nolan did with Batman, you cast it and you sort of conceive it and you design it and everything, but to have to inherit, you know, anything from other directors. I just have too much, my ego is too insecure to handle that. So you're saying you're passing on Fast and Fury. 10. This is a major... I'll make an exception for that. I'm sorry. You and Vin Diesel are meant

to be. I know this is like, Scorsese and De Niro. I've always had that sense, too. But were you were you a... You mentioned like loving thrillers growing up. Were you a genre kid? Like, were you into Yeah, yeah. I was into

comic books and into, you know, James Bond and into you know, horror and thrillers and sci-fi and, you know, whatnot. Did you, because I, you know, from a different vantage point, obviously, I didn't end up making film, but like I geeked out on all the, like, the director commentaries. Yeah, yeah, I did the same books and all that stuff. Like, that was, that was part of your path, I assume? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Sydney Lumet, yeah, making movies, uh, the Hitchcock Truffaut book, the, the, you know, the sort of, um, uh, the godfather notebook and, like, all, yeah, just, just, just kind of everything I could get. What was that conversation series? Did they still do that? Where it's like a collection of, like, by filmmaker. It's like 20 different interviews with the same filmmaker. I have so many of those. I have so many of those. I have so many of those. I have so many of those. I have so many of those. I have so many of those. I have so those kinds of books. I can't even keep them straight. Like there's a sort of masterclass kind of series with filmmakers. There's my first film, my first movie. It's a good book where it's just a collection of, you know, directors talking about their first movie. Actually,

I have a couple of those. Breaking In, it's another one that talks about first movies. Then there's also the DGA, you know, recently, somewhat recently started releasing kind of just their, you know, their, the conversations they do. The conversations, you know, exactly, just transcripts of the end of year conversations with whoever was nominated, you know, since whatever, you know, since the early 90s or something. So that's another good, yeah. So there's a lot out there. There is. So it sounds like you have, I don't know if you, have you started working on either the TV projects. There's one that you, I believe, were going to do for Apple. Yeah, that, that one is still pretty, sort of early, early, early stages working with a writer on that. And then, but yeah, I mean,

Next year, I'll be going to Paris to shoot just the first two episodes of a Netflix show there that I developed a while ago with writer Jack Thorne and producer Alan Poole and Glenn Ballard doing the music. And yeah, so that'll be kind of a return to music, sort of. But I'm just kind of doing the getting it on its feet in a way. people bursting into song in that convention? No, no, that's more um, um, um, dietic, you know, just, uh, uh, musicians, making music, yeah.

What it is, do you feel like you need a little distance before you consider another musical after making something like, like a, like a full, full musical? Yeah, I think I would need a, yeah, I don't know, I'm not, you know, I go back and forth between never again and, uh, you know, maybe in a few movies. So I don't know, definitely need some, some, some distance. So what, so what is the one that you talked about sort of like to take your head? off of like all the silliness that goes along with award season. What is, what are you pouring your artistic brain into right now? Is it one of those shows? Well, a little bit. I'm trying to

write, I'm trying to write the next movie as well. I just, but it's very kind of, very early on. So I'm not doing much in the way of actual writing yet. It's more a lot of reading and kind of hunting for inspiration and a little bit of research, things like that. So I kind of, I'm in that sort of zone right now. I remember, again, the last time you were on, we talked a lot about, like, audacious filmmakers and our mutual love of sort of filmmakers that kind of just go for broke, right? And I would count all of your films as audacious thus far, but they haven't had necessarily the price tag attached to it that maybe feel like, you know, you haven't, you know.

The sort of the folly kind of. Right. And I'm curious, do you, is in your back pocket or in your drawer a, a, my Fitzcarold? Yeah, is your 1941, your whatever, not to say it'll fail, but like the thing that, like, you know, at some point, I'm just going to lay my cards on the table and say, I need $150, $200 million to execute something that feels ambitious. Well, you know, maybe. I guess I like, it's a more boring answer, but I like the idea of sort of slowly working my way up, maybe. Of course, it depends on the definition of slow, but, you know, in terms of, like, what the budget gaps are,

but, you know, there was at least, to me, kind of a reasonable escalation. Right. What I would determine would be a reasonable escalation from budget to budget from my last few movies, you know, going from Gaimala into Whiplash to La La La Land, now First Man, you know, each cost a little more than the one before. But, you know, none of them are,

are exponential, break the bank kind of movies. They're fiscally responsible films. So, yeah, which, which, you know, I'd like to say that that's all that matters to me. But, but really probably what matters more is that, you know, if you can keep that ceiling down a certain amount, it gives you that much more creative freedom. I guess my biggest fear would be sort of signing on the dotted line for some really juicy enticing kind of, you know, a wowser of a number of a budget, you know. and then quickly you realize what comes with that budget, because it's the irony that more money... Less free than less.

Yeah. Yeah, the money comes at a price, you know, and very much so. So, you know, we'll see. I mean, one step at a time, but I kind of, you know, right now I don't think that my next movie, whatever it is, is going to be, you know, that much more wildly expensive than what I've done this far. Well, we'll talk again on that one, and we'll talk again.

It doesn't mean it can't be a folly, though. Yes, please. I would expect nothing more. less. Please go for it. You can really, you can mess things up even at a low budget, you know? That's the takeaway for the young film students out there. It's very inspiring.

I look forward to that folly. All the follies to come, and no, the brilliance to come, because, I mean, every one of your films has been just wonderful. And your future collaborations with Vin Diesel. I mean, I feel like we launched something here today. Weji, maybe. We can bring it all together. We can bring it all

together and make it for $300 million. dollars worst idea you heard it here first uh david thanks for stopping by again thanks thanks for having and so ends another edition of happy sad confused remember to review rate and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts I'm a big podcast person I'm Daisy Ridley and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh American history is full of infamous tales that continue to captivate audiences, decades or even hundreds of years after they happened. On the infamous America podcast, you'll hear the true stories of the Salem Witch Trials

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