Happy Sad Confused - Jordan Peele (Vol. II) & Hoyte Van Hoytema

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

If any 2022 film demands a deep spoiler dive, it's NOPE and here it is! Josh gets geeky about the filmmaking process and the mysteries of NOPE with writer/director Jordan Peele and legendary cinematogrpaher Hoyte Van Hoytema! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to Josh's youtube channel here! Check out the Happy Sad Confused patreon here! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to The Wakeup newsletter here! Thanks to our sponsors! WILDGRAIN -- You can get $30 off the first box - PLUS free Croissants in every box - when you go to Wildgrain.com/happysad to start your subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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into a spoiler-filled conversation about Nope. Hey, guys, I'm Josh Harrow. It's welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused, and we got a special one for you guys today. I know I say that all the time, but I love me a filmmaker, deep dive, and we have not one but two amazing filmmakers today. Jordan Peel, he has been on the podcast before I could talk to this guy for hours. He has really become, in a very short period of time, one of our greats. Three films, three for three, as far as I'm concerned.

Get Out, Us, and Nope. We are also joined, and this is a special treat by his director of photography, cinematographer Hoita Van Hoitima. If you don't know who Hoyta is, you know his work. He has worked with Christopher Nolan on his last four or five films. I think he joined him on Interstellar, and he's kind of now the master of IMAX. He has also worked with Christopher on his latest film Oppenheimer coming out next summer. This guy makes big movies, makes beautiful big movies. he was the perfect collaborator for Jordan on Nope, which if you've seen the movie, and you probably should have seen the movie for this conversation, because I'll get it out of the way right now.

There are spoilers ahead. Big time spoilers. This is a super nerdy conversation. So put your nerd hat on. Get ready because we're going to talk deep into not only the themes of the movie, but really the tech side too. And that's not always like rich territory, but in the case. of a movie like Nope, where they really achieved something very unique, unprecedented, frankly,

in how they achieved their nighttime scenes in approaching the vast landscape, the outdoor landscapes in an IMAX form. There are many aspects of this film that are really fascinating. So if you are a true film geek like myself, this is the one for you to have this kind of opportunity to really dive deep months later into a film like Nope, which frankly for me has also just kind of richer with each viewing. I've seen it three times now. It's like all Jordan's movies. There's so much to dig into. And especially in this one, not only on a narrative level, but also on a visual level, it's juicy stuff. So I couldn't be more excited that this one came together. Nope is one that will stand the test of time. I hope it gets recognized in some

way by the Oscars for cinematography or writing. We'll see. But whatever happens, it's a great piece of work, and we have this conversation to enjoy. So I know you guys are going to take this one. Again, one more warning. If you haven't seen Nope, see it first before you listen or watch this conversation because it's just going to be all the more rich. I'll get to the conversation pretty much right away, but the usual preamble, if you want to watch this conversation, you can, of course, watch it on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash Josh Horowitz. The information's in the show notes. If you want the early access to this and all my podcasts, go to Patreon. Patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused. That's where all the bells and whistles are, the merch, the posters,

the discount codes. Check it all out there. Again, the info is in the show notes. Okay, let's get right to it, guys, because you're not here for the intro. You're here to hear, you're here to listen. I'm not going to say here to hear, because that's just too much. You're here to listen to two of the greats today, writer-director, Jordan Peel, and his cinematographer, director of photography, Hoita Van Hoitima. Intro. I have two kings of geekdom right here, despite what Hoyta says. We consider him a master, a geek, all the adjectives. Jordan, welcome back to the podcast.

So he's a pleasure to see you, man. And Hoita, this is a real. distinct honor. I am such a fan of your work. Only Robert Richardson has proceeded you as a DP on this podcast. So we only allow the best on here. So welcome. You could say that again. So this is this film. I, you know, I didn't get a chance to talk to you guys when the film came out initially. And in a way, I'm like actually happy now because we get to have this kind of conversation where we can really dive deep. First, I'm just curious. Like, I often ask filmmakers or actors

like what when they recognized like what a director did growing up when did you guys recognize what a DP did like what a cinematographer did and and what their contribution was to filmmaking you mean as a kid yeah yeah like was it a teenager

was it 12 was it 8 was it 20 like when did you kind of figure out oh wait this is what their job is this is what they're contributing to the craft I am I figured it out quite late I'd say You know, I went to film school in Poland and when I came to Poland, you know, I knew I wanted to do something creative in film, you know, and I've been, you know, taking lots of pictures. I done a little bit of writing, you know, everything, like a mixed bag, but I never had real contact with, you know, with sort of the mechanics of filmmaking. But then when I came to do entrance exam in Poland, I found out that the school only had two directions,

and one direction was directing, and the other direction was literally cinematography. So when they asked me, so which direction are you choosing? I was like, oh, shit, what am I going to choose? And at that moment, it was a language space, because I just figured out, okay, I can, you know, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, all the, I could, I could study directing, but then I have to write and do, does that mean I have to start writing in Polish? Does that mean, does that mean, I have to sort of start thinking about actors in the Polish language or, you know, uh, um, I could, I could, I could, could become a DP and learn that. And then, and then, you know, I get to play with cameras and lights and so and there's not really sort of a verbal language involved in that.

So I kind of, you know, I kind of rolled into it that way, you know, in a in a sort of a mindless light way, but... So you thought it was the easiest path. Little did you know what the adventure you were embarking on. Well, it made the most sense when I sort of had to start, you know, figuring out what I was going to study or what I wanted to learn, you know. And I think, you know, the sort of the mechanics of it, of the craft itself were appealing to me, you know. I like, you know, I like engineering as a person, you know.

I like photography, of course, a lot and, and, you know, light and the arts and visuals. But I always felt, you know, I fit very much into that sort of, you know, invention building sort of mechanical engineering corner of it you know and for you yeah for you jordan i was i was going to jump in and answer that same question to say when i was starting off um my love of film i don't think i really understood what a director of photography what a cinematographer does you know, except that you, you know, occasionally you sort of hear this word, you see this credit. And it wasn't until I started studying, you know, probably in my 20s even, started just doing a little bit more research into film, really realized that how pivotal a role, how crucial a partnership this is.

And in Hoyta here, you know, I'm, I just, when he speaks, I just, I soak it up the, I soak it up because I really do feel like I got the opportunity to work with one of the great cinematographers of all time. He's gonna, he's not, he's, he's gonna hate to hear me say this. But his, you know, I can honestly say for this ambitious film, no, you know, I knew, I needed somebody that I knew was, you know, the top level that you could get. And getting to work with Hoyt and his style, which is very much, you know, led by his technical, his obsession with technical and and tinkering and figuring out problems, but also really led with this sense of the joy of collaboration. Right. So, yeah, we, we, we had, we had fun. one of the many unique things about this project about this film is that it's very rare when the style and approach is also the kind of the thematics of the movie um it's it's a foundational principle of the movie is the way you have approached the shooting of the movie uh to get a little meta many times over um so more so than ever needles to say you always have to be in lockstep with your d p but did that change the nature of the relationship? You obviously had to be, again, lockstep on Get Out and Us in different ways. And those are visually accomplished films.

But there's something next level about this in every way, in the thematics and in the marriage of spectacle and image and theme. Wouldn't you say, Jordan? I thought, yes. And I thought, I think there may have been part of that plot line that may have been even born out of the desire to, to work with someone on Hoyt's level. And from the moment we, you know, I could give him the script. You know, I knew more than any other film

that he and his work were going to be a character as in this film, that was a lie. And I think from the very beginning, Hoyt, I think I talked to him in turn, we started talking in terms of him as a, you know, I mean, there's a many technical, and visual marvels we pulled off or he pulled off that I want to talk about as well. But one of my favorite pieces of collaboration that I think he took in and adapted from the early stages was this idea of him and his crew and his camera being a character, being the audience and that audience needing to have a sense of wonder, have a sense of wonder, have a sense.

sense of missing, just missing the spectacle until we finally get it and see it. And so, you know, I watched, Hoyt really adopt this sense of character, I think,

with his entire approach. And as well, his connection to the adventure of the film. We just, we looked at this like we were getting to shoot a UFO. But that's kind of, Jordan, I mean, listen, needless to say, when you get something like that on your table is cinematography, it's a dream.

But it's not necessarily a dream because it's written on the paper and it needs, it has these requirements. But for me, it was specifically like a dream scenario because, you know, both in your writing and when you produce your script and tell, you know, and elaborate what you want to do with it, I mean, it's, it's all about curiosity and it's all about figuring shit out and finding out and, and, you know, to go on a journey. It's, it's, it's, you know, when you get a script from you, it's not an absolute sort of airtight little piece of information that you have to process. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's more like an invitation.

to listen, I want to figure this out, I want to sort of explore this, and I want to sort of learn more about it, and can you come along with me on that journey, you know? And then it becomes for me, you know, with my sort of expertise and sort of my, my part of, you know, what I contribute, it really becomes this sort of, you know, absolute discovery project, you know, you have to look into yourself and you have to sort of, look beyond yourself and figure stuff out in order to find out what it is that you want to tell or how you want to tell it. And that's, of course, nothing is more exciting for a cinematographer than that,

especially when you collaborate with somebody that is absolutely naked and open and sort of, you know, perceptible to this discovery. you know well there's something very exciting about what you guys are talking about because look at someone that obviously like all three of us born and raised on film and just has studied it their entire life to find new new ways to do it to still for something it feels like oh we've done it all in a hundred year hundred plus years of movies like you've cracked it like

there are only so many ways to shoot but you are iterating and reiterating with every project and let's talk about some of the ways you did in this one because some of it is even even imperceptible to the audience at first blush and that's okay i mean you know you don't need to like show off like what what they're seeing but there's some really fascinating aspects of this movie like i mean i know you guys are talking about this but let's indulge me for a second um the nighttime scenes okay so day for night people might have heard of over the years you shoot day and then there's in post or you apply a filter et cetera you basically mask night for a variety of reasons. Usually, I assume, budgetary ones. That's not what you did here.

And I guess I'm curious, was this something you were thinking about for other projects? Have you been exploring this approach? How did you guys decide this was the way and this was the project to apply this new technique to? I have, you know, I have based the technology for no on a technology that I sort of figured out for something else way, way before. But, you know, it's like utensils, right? You can use them for whatever, you know, you can, no, no. So I have always the feeling that what we did for NOPE is very unique to this film. I mean, let's start by saying, I think Jordan just had some sort of a desire and some sort of

a will to do something that initially just felt very impossible, you know, or very difficult. I think that Jordan, you know, had written into the script situations and sort of thrill-er-est moments that were very sort of untypical and unclassically based on, you know, peering through the night where you normally cannot. see-through, you know, in a fast scope and fast landscape. So reading that was like, oh shit, you know, this is going to be very difficult to do for real or to do in a film, at least I didn't really know how to do it, resulting in the fact that both, you know, Jordan and myself, we just started to feverishly find solutions to do

that to be able to do what we wanted to do and one of the results is that is our sort of day for night technology you know so in layman's terms i'm an idiot i know something but not a lot explain to me the methodology and explain to me what what we're getting out of this that we're not getting you think out of what we've seen in typical day for night so so let me try in layman's terms No, no, I mean, listen, I'm not a very verbal person in general, but normally, you know, when you, when you shoot night, you put a camera on the scenery and you roll, you know, the camera doesn't see anything. It's dark. So then you put lights there. And then the camera starts seeing. Wherever you put a light, you know, the camera will eventually see what, what you, what you. want the camera to see, the bigger your scenery, the more lights you're going to need. At some point, when you open up your scenery to a gigantic landscape, you know, you theoretically,

you have to light up the whole landscape with film lights. But that's, besides that it's very unpractical, it's also impossible. You know, you cannot, you cannot light a mountain or you cannot light something that is miles and miles away you there are just simply not enough lights in Hollywood in order to do that yet when you read on paper you read a description of somebody looking into the sky and seeing something disappearing over the over the mountain ridges at nights you know you start thinking how can we do it now traditionally people have done a thing that's called day for night. So they shoot things during the day.

Then they darken up the image. They put blue filters on there. And you give the audience a sort of a light impression of night. You know, and the untrained eye, let's say the untrained eye in the 60s or the 70s, you know, they thought it looked great. You know, now it looks night in film. And we see all this stuff. In westerns, you see it.

You see it open sea shots, et cetera. and people used it, used it all the time. Now, it is a method that has a very specific look to it and a very specific feel to it. And of course, you know, when we were designing sort of nope and the way nope, nope had to look, it just didn't feel like that was kind of the look we were after for the night.

So I've been looking after methods in order to make those day for night. shots look better. So I did a lot of tests with an infrared camera and an infrared camera reads a very specific wavelength of light, which is the wavelength of infrared and infrared has a lot of different wavelengths, you know, doesn't really matter. But like a very, if you use a very narrow bandwidth of that light, you can theoretically shoot a black and white image in which the light that comes to Earth during the daytime looks very similar. to the moonlight, you know, with a little bit of tweaking of the buttons, you can create an image that looks very specific to the way the eye sees at night. The only problem is then you have

an infrared image or you have a black and white image. This is one of them to be color. So I thought if we combine that infrared image with what we should normally, the color image, and we put those two together and mix them up in the correct way, we would be able to get the color information and the grain information and all the information from one and sort of the relations of the light or the perception of the levels of the light from the other and we would marry them together and we get some sort of a day for night version 2.0 and that's kind of what we did so but the interesting thing is I mean I feel like the result is as I said like the audience may not be able to perceive exactly any of that, like obviously the particulars,

but they can intuit, I am watching, I am feeling immersed in this in a different way. I am this, the goal, correct if I'm wrong, Jordan, is you're basically trying to approximate what it is actually how we perceive night in reality. There's one way of looking at night in film that is not reality, and this is the closest thing we've come to yet, I think, from achieving what we actually perceive night as in our day-to-day, perhaps? Yeah, I mean, we've got very specific ideas of what night is in film. Now, you see night in cities shot all the time because the lights from the cities light

everything up. But when you're outside in the middle of nowhere at night, you really can't approximate what that feels like without something like this day for night. technology. So basically with the system and the camera, the technology that that Hoyta has developed here, you know, we're able to get this infrared light, this valuable infrared light that allows us to take something we shoot at the day and then paint, basically, with all those, the intricate colors there to make it feel like you're outside at night, your eyes have adjusted, and you can still kind of see far. You can still see some color. And with that,

and both tweaked by tweaking in post, you know, with the help of a Guillaume Rocheron, the FX supervisor, we're able to literally approximate what the, the effect of the dilation of your pupils, getting used to something like that. Right, right. So this was, I mean, the whole thing was I really I didn't realize how hard the script was I was just writing away and I write this thing and brought it to Hoy he says this is impossible and you're giving you're giving me a little bit too much credit to figure it out on point he says I do have this idea there's there's this technology and there's this there's something that we could try that has never been done and try and make night and I know I know we're putting this faith into something that hasn't been done

And the only way we're really going to find out if it works is it's going to be too late because it's all about the post process. So it really was this locking arms like, boy, I'm going to trust you. And by the way, what he's saying makes sense to me. And I do have a sense in my head of how to tell a story that uses this idea of the pupil dilation and the isolation and the immersion of that. so we we locked arms you know i didn't tell universal that it might look like shit we got this i really don't worry yeah yeah i mean listen i you i you say i give you much credit i i sometimes think i give you too little credit because you know i mean when the idea started jordan it was so fragile and small and and and i sort of spurred that idea out

from the outset, but you took it straight away and you have been super inquisitive from the start, you know? I mean, at that moment, you have become sort of the main bounce board of that idea and that little seed that has to start growing, you know, it has to, it really needed to start. I mean, when we started this, I will never pretend that I totally figured out what it was going to be, you know. It was, it was a, it was a, it was a very, young, adolescent idea. It needed nurturing and it needed parents to sort of come to fruition.

And I mean, the nice thing about this whole sort of nerdery was that, I mean, for me, I can always sort of bring it down to a moment that we had together when we were scouting and we walked out of that car. For me, that was very crucial in sort of the start of this idea, which was we scouted the ranch and we scouted during the day and we did a lot of tests during the day, I think, or we were there, but we ended up, we just wanted to

stick around to look at the night, you know, because it's fast and, you know, how does, what are we having during the night? Can we even shoot here? So we drove out in a long, the long road, to the same road where you see him running up and down with the horse and we parked the car there where we in the middle of that road and we at some point in the total darkness after sunset we started walking around we walked out of the car the headlights were still on so at that moment you just can see around the car you can see you know the people you're with lit by the headlights of the car and then we switched off all the car lights and then you're standing like an absolute darkness and we started walking over that road further on or through that field and then at that moment your pupil

start dilating and suddenly this whole sort of fastness of landscape just just opened up and it's and you know it's like when you're in the middle of nowhere you suddenly you stare at the sky and you start seeing all the skies and suddenly you realize there's a billion stars out there and it's magnificent it's huge and that moment that that sort of When that landscape started to open up, you started to recognize the shapes on the mountain ridges and the coloration in the sky and the clouds, which were very important, that's when I thought, fuck, this is exactly what we need, you know, for the point. We have to talk a little IMAX. I mean, you can't make a movie that is a spectacle and is also, you know, know, a self-reflective, maybe criticism of our addiction to spectacle without indulging in the ultimate format for spectacle, which is IMAX. And you obviously brought in the king

of IMAX and Hoyt here, Jordan. Is it IMAX or bust for you now? I mean, when no one started, he has not looked back. He only makes movies. Now, he only employs IMAX at his movies. Do you imagine you'll be able to let go of utilizing IMAX and future projects after doing this one? Sure. I mean, I love the task of using exactly what's needed for whatever. project with me. And this, I came in, you know, I come into all of these films with really looking, looking to collaborate. And, you know, in these moments, you know, I'm looking to see what, what, that sparkle in Hoyt's eye, right? I'm, you know, I'm saying what we, how would we do that? And these, these little moments of inspiration he has, when you

can see he's excited about something. He's genuinely excited. That's kind of all I need to know that this is the right way to go. Now, I did feel like this is a big movie. I think we probably would have landed at IMAX no matter what. But there was a pivotal moment when in the metaverse, you know, the crossover, where I asked, boy, I said, if you had to shoot a UFO, what would you, what would you, what would use, he said, well, for posterity, you know, the IMAX has the format. It has the best

resolution. And so, you know, of course, it made the perfect sense. And then from that notion was how we said, well, then that's the same thing Holst would be thinking. Right. He uses the IMAX camera to shoot the jean jacket in the film. And obviously has the same scarf collection that our TP here has. So the similarities, and there. Hoyt, who's more secretive? Christopher Nolan or Jordan Peel about their movie making?

Secretive? Yeah. I think they're all super secretive, which is very important to the process, you know? It's, you know, I'm not going to compare apples to pairs, but I think both are very much

committed to the you know, to the cinematic experience and, you know, think that their audience deserve to see, you know, have the audience experience their films for the first time. And with that, not trying not to give away too much spoilers and therefore, you know, don't risk that a lot of stuff will leak prematurely from, from, from the, you know, from the sept or from the process. So I would say, you know, I think. I think Chris is probably actually more secretive. I'm just better at bluffing.

Like, I know what fuck is going on. Listen, it's also no years to get into the comparison game, guys. That's like... I love them both. Don't worry. I'm not sure making you choose, nor am I ever going to choose. But, okay, let's talk for a second. We've been talking obviously about...

It's like asking which child do you prefer? Your youngest or your older child? Any of the first two children, your favorites? No. I believe the eldest goes in Sophie's choice, which means I'm the keeper. So, Jordan, it has been several months since this movie came out. You have had ample time to read all the Reddit boards, all the fan theories, watch all the YouTube videos. as with all of your movies.

You're sitting in your underwear at the kitchen table, Googling your own name until like four o'clock at night, until your family says, are you coming to bed now or what? Thank you, Hoy. That was basically my question. Yeah, how far deep down that rabbit hole do you go? Because it's fun.

It's pretty awesome. It's rare to make a movie that is that ripe for different interpretations. Yeah, you know, I think in the early, in the first month, I went down quite a few of the reactions. And I was just, I was honestly just so blown away by the reactions, by the analysis. And that people were sort of willing to accept the differences of this film from the last. And willing to sort of accept the mystery. box of it.

And, you know, what I always say is, you know, I don't, people ask me what a message of the film is and people trying to get at what I'm trying to say. And I feel like if I, with my films, if I could do that, if I could break it, really break it down into a couple of sentences, I wouldn't need to make a movie. In fact, the thing that I'm trying to put together is something that I don't quite know what I'm saying. All I know is the rules and the building blocks that are going to be put together. And ultimately, you trust that if you can get everybody on board with this idea, with this vision,

even though we don't quite know, we haven't seen it yet, then we'll get something new. We'll get something that I can not only watch as a creator, but when I get a little distance, I can watch as an audience and I just appreciate all the work that was put into it. And for me, I would say honestly, sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. I don't need to necessarily know all the answers. It's not a puzzle I'm trying to solve. I'm giving myself over to it. And if it sparks a thousand questions, that's a great thing. And that can live on in my brain forever. And that's pretty cool. It's quite interesting. I mean, you have this, you know, two different kind of directors, and one director, you know, has a lot to say, but tells that he doesn't really know what to say.

And the other director has nothing to say, but will tell you all the time that he knows exactly what he's going to do. And that's nice, because for me, Jordan, you're always in that first category, you know, you always have. have interesting things to sort of bring forward. But you're always on the outside, you say, I'm just figuring it out. I'm just discovering it. And I'm going through the process. So it's a question mark, you know, and that's always where, you know, this project, you know, that's where, for instance, for me, this project really sort of went

through a, you know, an interesting, you know, spiral and vortex. And it's very nice because you just told me that you were looking in my eyes and you see that glimpse, you know, like that spark that you, you know, okay, now he's getting, he's getting excited about things. But at the moment that you're looking in my eyes, you don't realize I'm looking in your eyes and trying to look exactly for the same thing, you know. It's like, oh, he's excited about this now. And now I'm going to give him this. We could really run each other off a clip. Just like a staring game. You know, one of the things just to say about Hoyt's style that I found to be really liberating and fascinating to me is he's very anti-contribance.

You know, anything that one sort of does to tell a story that because they feel like that's how movies look. Right. Or because that's how you're supposed to. Just because it's been done a thousand times. Right. Because it's been done. And you've sort of, he's really from just his principle and his manner and his ethos as an artist is very much like, let something be. And as a photographer, too, let something be.

Don't get precious. And which is something that I think we both share and we're both extremely precious people at the same time. So I think it's probably why we have to continue to remind ourselves that we'll always be able to sniff out our own contrivances, even if I don't know. So I know I've just said that the mystery is more important than the answers, but just on behalf of the audience, Jordan, I'm going to throw out a couple questions and just bat them away, blink your eyes, do whatever you want to do, okay? I'm going to do full service job.

what the hell is up with the shoe what's going on with the shoe just what's going on with the shoe yeah so the shoe you know the the shoe represents a moment of uh where the we we check out of the trauma and juke uh he zones in on this little shoe that's mary joe's shoe that's mary joe's shoe that has landed in a precarious, odd situation. And this is the moment he disassociates. So the issue for me is, in essence, in one way, it's the impossible shot, it's an impossible moment.

is it a bad miracle would we call it that it's a bad miracle very good you got it you got the shoe okay i needed your help a little bit nope is that an acronym for not a planet earth was that your intent one of the intents of the title uh yes okay it was it was one of the intents okay yeah the alien design biblically accurate angels and or inspired by anime, Neon Genesis, Evangelion. Well, you've, you know, you've addressed your own question. Of course, the Evangelian angels are based on the biblical angels. Got tied together.

So, yeah. And I didn't want to be sort of literal that Gene Jacket or this oculonimbus species is an angel. But I do think that there is something about where evolution and design collide that leaves doors open that may or may not be answered in the future, Josh, may or may not be answered in the future. Okay, so that leads me to the nature of the ocular and nimbai. That leads me to nobody, a character that does not appear in the film. We haven't even talked about the Gordy sequences, which I'm obsessed with. We'll have to save that for another time, sad, because we're running low on time, but I'm obsessed. You've hinted that we might see that story.

Nobody might come back in another film or story because it didn't make the final cut of this movie. It sounds like a very dark, in a dark storyline, a very dark aspect of that storyline. Yeah, there's a character that people are growing more and more interested in. You see him briefly in the trailer And one of the trailers for No But he's not in the film And yeah, I would imagine there is Yes, there will be some

Discovery about this character So where are you at on the next project And is it something that would tie to To Nope? No, there I have to cut you off I'm so sorry I have to watch it Wait, I see your wrist. There's nothing. Can you just say, tell me this. Do you have a script for something? Like, where in the process are you for the next one? I do not have a script yet. Okay. So I'm working. I'm writing right now. Okay. And for you, Hoit, see, I'm going to let Jordan off the hot seat for a second. But Hoyt, I do have to ask an Oppenheimer question or two very briefly. Hey, you okay, Jordan? Yeah, I'm good. Oppenheimer, I could not be more excited Jordan. I'm sure you share my excitement. I mean, but no one cooks with Hoy.

It's going to be special. Black and white IMAX. I don't know if we've ever seen that. Is a good portion of the movie in IMAX and black and white? I can't. No comment. How much does this one push the envelope? Again, we talked early in this discussion about pushing,

about trying new things, about iterating. You didn't exactly blow up a nuclear bomb for real, but you did blow up some real explosives, it sounds like. How much of this test do you, you think? Well, you know, the thing is, it is really hard for me to talk about this film because we simply haven't sort of altogether agreed and what we want to say and what we can't say. I'm just going to shut up about...

You know what? I don't have... I don't work for the film. I don't have a contract or anything. all I can say is I'm so envious I didn't get to be on set for this production

the talent looks incredible the image I have seen a couple of images from it that just look so beautiful anyway it's gonna be it's gonna be a real it's what I'm most excited for next year I know I have to let you run one quick question for you Jordan

there isn't Akira homage in this film I know that you that was the last kind of IP you flirted with what would your Akira have been. Did you have a take on it? How far down that road did you get? And when that eventually is made, what do you want to see in an Akira movie? Well, you know, I don't know. It's such a project I'm so passionate about. I'm glad I didn't do it because, yeah, I feel like, you know, staying away from that, trying to interpret that IP just set me on the path to create something new. Yeah.

that that um but um you know i want to see i want to see neotokio um i want to see a japanese cast and i want to feel immersed in the the world um uh you know the the way of the films in the manga fair enough uh gentlemen this has been a real pleasure i mean i got to like six percent of the stuff i wanted to talk to you about but that's that that's how dense and beautiful a piece of work you guys made. Everybody should check it out. This is a movie that bears repeat viewings. I've seen it three times.

I'll see it many more. Congratulations on the work. Hoyt, it's been a pleasure to get to know you a little bit today. And Jordan, it's always a pleasure to catch up, man. Thanks, Josh. 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.

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