Happy Sad Confused - Robert Eggers

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Robert Eggers is in a lane seemingly all by himself. His first four films as a director have earned legions of fans and rightfully so -- THE WITCH, THE LIGHTHOUSE, THE NORTHMAN, and now NOSFERATU. He joins Josh to talk about it all including the variety of influences on him and why he's not directing a STAR WARS film anytime soon. SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Quince -- Go to Quince.com/happysadco for 365 day returns and free shipping! UPCOMING LIVE EVENTS 1/15 -- Sam Heughan in NYC -- ⁠Tickets here⁠ 1/20 -- Adam Scott in NYC -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠ 1/23 -- Michelle Yeoh In NYC -- ⁠Tickets here Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. I'm Josh Horowitz, and today on Happy Say I Confused, Robert Eggers is here. As far as I'm concerned, he's 4 for 4 in his filmmaking career, The Witch, The Lighthouse, the Northman, and now Nosephiratu. Fans of this podcast are well acquainted with that film by now because we've had Lee Rose Depp on, we've had Nicholas Holt on, we've had Bill Scarsgard on, we've had Aaron Taylor Johnson on. so it's really destined to be.

We can't do this, Robert, without you, the man that made this all happen. Welcome to the podcast for the first time. Thank you so much for having me. Congratulations, truly. I love this film. I love all of your work. Talk to me a little bit about first,

like where your heads at after this, this has been a long journey. For those that don't know, this has been in your head in different forms for a long while. So is there a sense of relief, of exhaustion, of satisfaction, where are you at right now in this process?

Yeah, I mean, certainly relief and, and satisfaction. Like, it was nice, I finished the movie in early April, and it came out like Christmas in North America and January 1st, most of the rest of the world. And I, and so I'm not, like, like as exhausted as I might have been if it had just like rolled into the release. So it was nice to have the time to get into it. But I, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's out there and I'm glad.

I was glad to finally share it with the world. Well, and not to mention, look, obviously your work has always been critically very well received and commercially by and large, though, I mean, I know the Northman, and I was a huge fan of the Northman for the, for the record. And commercially did fine, but like I know expectations were probably, We were all hoping. You were probably hoping for more. So, I mean, I mean, coming into this is there like a fear of like, you're not going to go into director jail if this doesn't succeed. But you're, but this, this probably does feel like I would imagine, again, a sense of relief. Like, this is a commercially viable thing that I've made to. Yeah. I mean, it has, it's been, it's been doing very well so far. Like, it's kind of unprecedented and quite exciting and, and, uh, and, uh, and. And I mean, I think the thing about that fact that it is doing well in the box office at the moment, that is, is, that is, that is, so vindicating, I suppose, is that, is that, like, I had total freedom on this movie.

Right. And I hope that this helps other filmmakers, you know, get to do the same thing. You know, because it is not always the case. Yeah, rewarding the uniqueness, the idiosyncratic, the vision, as opposed to watering it down in the hopes that you're going to reach 10% more people. Here's proof that you don't have to. You can stick to your guns and there is an audience out there for it. No, it's crazy. I mean, like in the UK, we were like number one in the box office even with all like, you know, kids movies and stuff.

It's insane. Amazing. Amazing. So can we talk a little bit about the history of the near production kind of like misses for this? Because I know this almost went into production at least a couple different times. Like how close were you to actually getting on set full steam ahead on Nosephara? I mean, the most recent time that it fell apart, Jaron Blaski, my cinematographer, had moved to Prague and put his daughter into school there.

And so he ended up living in Prague for that year without the movie getting made. Real life consequences to art. Yeah, I mean, Craig, they threw up the production designer and Linda Miro, the costume designer were also there. But thankfully, they just went home. But yeah, that was close. So has the script essentially remained unchanged, though, in the different incarnations? Not unchanged, but it has, like, fundamentally it's been,

the same. Like once I had a script. It's been fundamentally the same. The sort of like how much are we on the ship has kind of shrunken and large, shrunken and large over the years. Willem Defoe's dialogue kept getting cut down because I didn't, I think as with the first time when I was developing it with the studio, like there was so many questions by the studio executives that the like that the exposition got like quite massive. And it was. is also very enjoyable to write dialogue for Willem Defoe. But that's something that kept getting more and more precise and honed over the years. Well, that sounds like that sounds like that sounds like an irony of like studio notes actually saying the audience doesn't need as much.

Like you don't need needs to over explain. That's actually refreshing to hear. Well, no, but basically it was my going back and cutting it down. Okay, so it was from your end. Sorry, I had it reverse. No words. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, but no, but I think that, you know, even, yeah, I think, I think there's always kind of a question of how much. And it was also kind of kind of interesting when we did audience test screenings. Some older viewers were sort of like, I don't really need all this stuff, but maybe the kids do. worried about their dumb children they're not going to get it i get it but yeah um i know i've heard you talk and maybe facetiously over the years about like you know mernow's ghost almost saying give it up maybe this isn't meant to be at these kind of false starts um did you feel at at some point that like the universe was telling you just to give it up like how close were you

to just saying maybe move on no i'm there wasn't facetious i mean i you know i don't know i don't know i don't know if it was like actually we're now's ghosts but but as far as like signs from the world or the other world saying stop that seemed quite clear to me you know right um one of the joys of this is like we've all seen innumerable vampire tales and i and i love all stripes i love like when john badham directed frank langello in that classical sense i love the the copula i love it all um Do you find something to love in all? Yeah, I was going to say. So did you find something in all of them, even if you have your preferences?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, and I think the cinematic influences of this movie, for the most part, aside from More Now and Todd Browning are not mostly not Dracula or vampire movies. But certainly in the script writing phase, I watched every single version, you know, and there were helpful things, you know, in Dracula, like, 1972 AD, you know, honestly, like there were, and, and I've said this a lot, but, but Dracula dead and loving it was probably among the most helpful because Mel Brooks points out everything idiotic about the story. and all the kind of traps and pitfalls so that, you know, but yeah, I mean, I love Christopher Lee. I love, I mean, Dracula's daughters, quite a fantastic, you know, Universal movie. There's, yeah, there's, and the Coppola and the Herzog, while I tried to not watch them, while I did not watch them for the 10 years of trying to make this film, I watched them a bazillion

times growing up you know right yeah and i and i know that like it's also when it hits you and where it hits you right like that coppola film hit me like when i was in that sweet spot of a teenager and i know that and one of the exciting things i would imagine from your perspective is that's going to be this film or a generation for a lot of teenagers who kind of first experience like a true vampire tale 10 years ago they had twilight now they've got no spherratu yeah i mean i think it's been what like it's obviously incredibly, like, you, you, you know, when you recognize by your, by your peers, it is a marvelous feeling, but I think, you know, teenagers, like with black metal t-shirts or whatever are the people I'm the most interested in, I think. No, I get it. They're the obsessives. You're an obsessive. They're the obsessive. and they're going to just drink this up. So you worked with Rob Pattinson, famously, a vampire, obviously in the Twilight Saga.

Did you ever talk vampires or anything with him? Because obviously, Nosferatu was on your mind even when you're making the lighthouse. Yeah, I mean, Rob's pretty allergic to vampires. I mean, you know, it was kind of interesting, like, when the, when there was the, like, beard for Nolan's next movie being like a 1920s vampire movie. I was like, really, Rob's

doing it. I neglected to text him to reach out, but now I know that it was all a lie. There was no subversive bent for you, an idea for you. Like, let's cast Edward Cullen as Nospheratu in my Nospheratu.

I mean, obviously there's subversive appeal on that, but I think we ended out with the right orlock you did you did bill is amazing in this um and i when i talked to bill you know he talked about how how he was obviously cast in an earlier incarnation in a different role in it and he mentioned in passing that willam was even talked about at that time mads mickleson these were all roads you went down pretty far really let it he really let it loose didn't he Is that true?

Did you go pretty far down the path with those guys for your Orwalk? I, you know, it was no comment. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. But we got to the right Orwalk. We got to Bill. So what was the turning point? Because you had a minute in mind for the Hutter role, which is obviously a much different kind of a character. What was the turning point when you thought you saw Bill in this?

role um it was it was uh it was it was it's it's chapter two um he he he there's a scene where he plays it as a middle aged or penny wise as a middle aged man and a clown and it had a kind it had a real weight to it and a real believability to it and a darkness to it and i thought maybe he could do it yeah i have to say i feel like not since tom hardy did bane have i been as with a voice as Bill Scarsguard as Orlock. And I'm glad to see, like, the internet kind of agrees with me. I feel like people are really like this voice is in our brains now forever. Was it a journey to get there?

I would imagine, I mean, I know you had very specific ideas for the look. Did you have very specific ideas for the sound of Orlock? Yeah. And, I mean, like, the screenplay is probably available for reading now. and the voice is very carefully described in the script as, you know, the way it sounds in the movie. And Bill sent me recordings and that he was working on. And I would say a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And then eventually he ended up working with an opera singer to coach him on getting his voice as low as possible with also as much breast support and strength as possible.

And in terms of the look, I know you've talked about this a bit. But I mean, were there different iterations or was it kind of fully formed once you kind of like research, oh, this is what this is what a Transylvania Nobleman would look like. Let's go with that. Like I mean, I did it. I did a digital painting that is quite close to what we came to. But obviously there was there was work. And David White, the prosthetics designer like is, you know, like, you know, Milo Schormon has said, I mean, a lot of people have said different versions of this. But like, like, you know, a director is a little bit an actor, a little bit of costume designer, a little bit of DP, blah, and then he hires people who are better than him and all these things. Right. And, you know, and David White is, you know, a supreme magician when it comes to prosthetics. So I shared David White, my painting and a lot of other stuff, and we had a lot of discussions. And then he did several sculpts that he sent to me.

And then I would say, kind of like with Bill, like, oh, a little bit of this one, the nose, bridge of the nose from that one, this earlobe from this one, and, you know, and then we kind of put it together. And then when it was all sort of designed, it had to go on to Bill. Adjustments came from that. And then Florin Lazaruscu was the Romanian consultant, like the Romanian folklore consultant, he also wrote the Romanian Dialogue and the Ancient Dation, which is the language that Orlock speaks in his magical incantations, which is a dead language that was spoken by the ancestors of the ethnic Romanians. But Florin said, remember, in the folklore, Stragoy are often described as being red-faced.

And I was, you know, and looking all my books and seeing like red-faced, red-faced, red-faced. Right. so then i said to david white like we've got to figure out a way for blood to be like pooling under the skin at least like after he feeds uh you see it like when hutter throws the lid off the coffin you you see it it's more pronounced on the on the corpse that the uh roma uh characters dig up but actually it's interesting because in the firelight which is quite red it kind of cancels out the look and in the moonlight it kind of gets rid of it

because it kind of everything looks sort of black and white in the moonlight so you don't actually see it a lot because then in the scene with the sunlight smack straight on him the more we had overpainted or underpainted with a lot of detail on the silicone, because of the bright light on it, it looked fake.

So we had to dial back the detail in order for the makeup to look less artificial. So that's more than you needed to know. No, it's, no, I love it all. Was there ever a thought in going black and white? You obviously did that for White House. No, no, no. There's a good black and white nose for I, too. It's pretty good.

Yeah. comparisons will happen anyway why invite more right no totally um is there an image that goes back like furthest in your brain that you're just shocked and pleased as punch that it actually exists now permanently cinematically that you've created what goes back the furthest in your mind i tell you honestly it's really it's really hard to say i will i'll deflect and say that I'm very pleased with the atmosphere in the cemetery in the last act. Like it, you know, I really have seen a lot of movies where they end up having to shoot the cemetery with sunlight and it just fucking ruins it.

And I'm so glad that we got full cloud cover and the skeletal trees and the fog and and the Victorian morning garb. It's a nice gothic funeral that I think, you know, Roger Corman would be proud of, and so would Boris Karloff. Nice, nice. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside.

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that blends gripping pacing with emotional complexity, offering a dramatized look as it revisits the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox for the tragic murder of Meredith Kircher and the relentless media storm that followed. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is now streaming only on Disney Plus. So talk to me if you'll indulge me a little bit, going back, influence-wise, when you're a kid. If I talked to, like, 14-year-old Robert Eggers, what's the, who are the filmmakers' films that you were consuming over and over again?

What were you just really obsessed with around that time in your life? Around that time, you know, Tim Burton, and I think it's kind of, it was actually kind of crazy. I was watching on one of these flights, I threw on Batman Returns and the like snowy Gothic atmosphere of that movie is quite like shockingly similar to a lot of this stuff we were doing here, which is something that I never. really considered at all when we were and it's got max shrek in there too it sure does yeah but in wayne manner like doesn't look a hell of a lot different than grunewalt manner i've got to say if it was not falling apart so that was kind of interesting no i saw i saw that first batman film i skipped school i was 13 years old and yeah what was it Anton first i think was the production designer it was just like that that just it was it's just transported you and i guess around

that time for you he's already yeah his bad man returns then he's into like ed wood mars attack sleepy hollow that's that's a sweet spot that's glorious tim burton yeah yeah absolutely yeah and uh you know i i've also like as a shakespeare dork like i was you know very interested in what kenneth brana was doing and that was like a lot of ways i was able to like see these works and and and and Terry Gilliam I was very into Terry Gilliam and I was kind of like just sort of discovering that like David Lynch existed um you know uh 12 monkeys what's your Terry Gilliam what's your Fisher King I think I think yeah I mean what's my favorite Gilliam that's the hard one I mean there is something

really tonally great about Fisher King like never getting to do like living just on the edge of like not too schmaltzy you know like even at the very end when it's like you know so sweet they like fall into the like a whole bunch of like porn videos you know so there's always something to kind of like undercut the schmaltz in a tasteful or distasteful way totally i also yeah i also think back to like the bleakness of the ending of 12 monkeys like again

how do how do you accomplish that and i think that was like a universal film actually at the time like that that's that's amazing that that film exists yeah i mean also like the i i watch the making of 12 monkeys whenever i'm like testing a movie to feel a little bit of comfort the hamster wheel one yeah right yeah just like Yeah. Yeah. You know, what you watched, watching Lost in LaMontia and, like, Heart of Darkness, like, when I'm in production, it makes me feel like things that could be worse. Yeah, no, I heard you talk about not only another podcast, I think you were talking about, not only films that influenced you, but like the Star Wars to Jedi making of Doc. Like those things can be as inspiring to a young person as the films themselves. You know, I didn't go to film school.

And so the special features for movies were like, you know, a huge way for me to kind of wrap my mind around things. Like, you know, obviously many of them only scratched the surface, but like the sort of something unexplained. But, like, you know, an image of, like, how the Dolly track was set up, you know, in some kind of situation, even if they're not talking about it, like, at all. Like, and, like, they're, you know, the actors are just talking about how great the experience it was. But I'm seeing like, okay, pause, like, what's going on there? You know, like, I hadn't been on a film set, like, you know, and so, yeah. I have a very basic kind of just, like, a life question for you. Like, before The Witch, were you making a living as a filmmaker?

You obviously were working on shorts, you were directing, you were being costume design or production design or art. I was making a meager living, like, I was making a meager living with, like, art department and costume department, both, you know, in low-budget short films that would pay very little, but I would also, I mean, I did, I did plays. did dance pieces, but I would also work as a set carpenter or a stagehand. I repaired curtains for like a theater downtown and did a pulse street because I was like one of the few guys in the crew knew how to, so, you know, and like when I find, like in my very, in my late 20s, I was an assistant for a more successful set designer in the print world. old. And so that was that was kind of nice when I finally started working for him because those jobs were short and they paid at the time for me like enough to kind of get by and take a little

time to focus on on writing. But we would do like whatever like Tommy Hilfiger stuff and like Kenneth Cole catalog shoots like you know not very exciting. But I you know, I learned a lot. And I would also say this guy we were doing one of these Kenneth Cole things and like sometimes when they do the catalog shoots they don't have they haven't totally figured out like what the

product is they're selling so you have these kind of samples that are like sometimes they don't even like match each other and he had to like these ugly flip flops with like a little heel on them or something they were so heinous and

and Matthew like took these flip flops and made like a beautiful sculptural like composition with these flipflops and I kind of and I said you know like you don't really have an

excuse to make something shitty right you know it like you know those are the ugliest fucking things that I've seen in my life and this dude like turned them into something that is like has some attractiveness to it you know it was

something I try to stick with by the time you get by the time you finally get on set for the witch did it feel like it was a make or break moment like I'm going to pour it all out on the field because most people don't get one shot at this and if this

doesn't click this is it yeah but you do that you try to always do that even for the flip flaps right but yeah you but yes of course of course you know uh i mean one thing you know any any movie that like or commercial or whatever that took place in the woods i would immediately say yes to so i had like a lot of experience like being on set in the woods and and and and that was very helpful uh but certainly

the which was uh yeah it was it was a challenge and it was scary and i you know my but honestly my biggest hope and dream was that it would be it would get good enough reviews that I could make another film that was really like ultimate goal aside from trying to make the best movie I could make did you well I think among the many shocking things for I think a lot of us had the sensation when we saw the witch that it was like you seemed like a fully formed filmmaker right from the start and maybe that's again because you're you're succeeding and failing kind of like yeah on Tommy hill figure shoots and we don't see it like you're doing the work just we're just not seeing it but also like and that goes to the way it's put

but even the performances and a lot of like I think great crafts people as filmmakers don't know how to work with actors at the start and you've got some really great performances right out out of the gate what accounts for that like I mean I grew up performing in theater and directing theater and the only thing that I have training in is acting so like so you know yeah so I I have the language to to to work with actors because of of that and um and i also and so because what happened was is that like i also people have asked me a lot like does working in the art art department and and with costumes like is that changed the kind of films that you make but you know being interested in gilliam and tim burton and also like you know and i'll like and and and i'll like and and also, you know, merchant ivory films, like, you know, and whatever fucking Lord of the Rings. Like, you know, movies that took you somewhere else were what excited me. And I was always into making costumes and sets. So basically when I was directing theater off off Broadway, I was doing

the sets and costumes because I loved to do it. And I was impassioned about it. And then what happened is that I realized I could make a living doing that. you know uh but but but but it was really the acting that i have the training in uh that i think with the witch what set me off in great stead uh for for then being able to work with the actors that i worked with in the lighthouse was that when it finally got financed like uh i was able to cast so I wanted to cast. And so I also wasn't like saddled with a weird situation that didn't work. And so I was looking for with, with Ralph and with Kate, like really exceptional actors

with really exceptional faces, but also people who are like good people. So that like dealing with the children was going to be like a healthy and good environment. And I had the freedom like, you know, had I needed. a certain kind of name, I might have gotten a great actor, I might have gotten a great face, but I might have not had that element, which was an important element

in making that film at that scale, at that budget, at that schedule, in that location, you know, that was a big part of it too. And ironically, the fact that those faces for the most part weren't recognizable to the audience, I think, in the end, put you in good stead. It felt you were able to lose,

yourself more as opposed to if I love Tom Cruise, but I don't know if Tom Cruise would have been the right fit for Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that the, I think that, I think that you know, RT features, they understood that that was like, the case. Goodbye, summer movies,

Hello, Fall. I'm Anthony Devaney. And I'm his twin brother, James. We host Raiders of the Lost Podcast, the ultimate movie podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo DiCaprio leading a revolution in one battle after another, Timothy Salome playing power ping pong and Marty Supreme.

Let's not forget Emma Stone and Jorgos Lanthamos' Bougonia. Dwayne Johnson, he's coming for that Oscar in The Smashing Machine, Spike Lee and Denzel teaming up again, plus Daniel DeLuis's return from retirement. There will be plenty of blockbusters to chat about, too. Tron Ares looks exceptional, plus Mortal Kombat 2, and Edgar writes, The Running Man starring Glenn Powell. Search for Raiders of the Lost podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Hey, Michael.

Hey, Tom. Well, big news to share it, right? Yes, huge, monumental, earth-shaking. Heartbeat sound effect, big. Mink is back. That's right. After a brief snack nap. We're coming back.

We're picking snacks. We're eating snacks. We're raiding snacks. Like the snackologist we were born to be. be mate is back Mike and Tom eat snacks wherever you get your podcast unless you get them from a snack machine in which case call us call us I know you talked in the production of the lighthouse how Willem and Rob came at the work from much different perspectives as actors I mean Rob it sounds like um enjoys a little little bit of self-flagellation, a little bit of, like, just putting himself through it just to get him to the right place. Was that something that, I don't know, that you had to kind of restrict him or enable him to do?

Like, what was your role in kind of, like, getting robbed through that process? To let the actors do what they need to do. I think that, like, good actors understand that you need to submit to the directors will, like, in order to make the film work. but also you need to, like the director needs to recognize that different actors have different ways of working and that needs to be respected also. So you kind of see, you know, and but Rob likes to push as much as he can within the box that you put it in. Right. And that's, that's great, you know, and it was great for the performance and, you know, and the fact that they came at their approach for the characters from very different ways was also helpful in the character dynamic. and the, and, and, and, and the struggle between the two characters. So, uh, it's all, it's all

good. Yeah. It worked for that particular kind of story, totally. So I was telling you before, I'm a big fan of the Northman and I know that was your, still was your biggest production to date. And, but it sounds like, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're always very open in saying, like things can be hard and that's okay. And it sounds like the Northman was a hard production. And I don't know if you're talking about the actual production or the post process. Can you give me a sense of sort of like why the Northman tested you in ways that other films didn't? I just, you know, it was, it was basically a massive scale jump that like was an incredible gift to be able to do and Regency was incredibly gracious in allowing me to use my heads of

department, you know, across the board. And I don't think it would have worked otherwise, but it was a big jump for all of us. And so I, like, I think that there is a feeling of like, of like you're constantly just like trying to drown and like get and get through it and doing it far away. Like I can see why movies like that are done like multi-camera with like a whole lot of coverage and you figure it out later because like when you have all these elements, it's just like it can feel overwhelming. I think, having said that, though, having done it, and then doing Nosephratu, which in some ways was kind of a larger scale, even though it wasn't as big of a budget, it didn't have battles and things like that. But like, I now feel comfortable working in that world. So I don't feel the same sense of like, save me as I on the Northman. But then, I mean, I think I did a lot of whinging about.

like not having final cut and all this stuff which I sort of regret that I know I regret that sort of like crying about it because it is just sort of like that's how movies are made like sorry like part of the deal

yeah like grow up so but but it was something that I hadn't dealt with before and also the movie was so big that there was like a tremendous amount of felt like a tremendous amount of pressure and so it was just like a different thing that said

like doing Nospheratu and having like complete control was a lot like more enjoyable wasn't to say the film was like a walk in the park like it had like it was

it was a hell of a lot of work and we deliberately challenged ourselves and pushed ourselves beyond what we were capable of to try to make the best film possible but having support makes it a whole lot better

you know when you know I go to the line producer's office it's 9 a.m. and say Bernie like I know we're already a couple days behind here but unfortunately I have to reshoot the crypt scene today and he says

you know that's absolutely not what I wanted to hear, but we're going to figure it out. You know, we're going to figure it out. Like, that's great, you know. You've achieved this wonderful, like, thing now in these four films. Like, you know, you're working on your own terms. Like, you're making the films you want to make. You're obviously writing or co-writing these stories that are very personal, important to you.

Have you closed your mind to, like, you can hopefully continue on this lane forever? Or do you open your mind to, like, working someone else's sandbox at this point? Or for you, are you like, don't even bother with that meeting. I don't, I'm Kevin Feigy, I respect what you're doing, but I'm good over here. I mean, it's, I suppose it depends on what it is. But I mean, technically, you know, no, Nosephratu is like an IP movie. So, like, I think it just sort of, it would sort of depend on, it would sort of depend on what it is. Got it.

Is there a Star Wars story within you somewhere? Is that part of your soul still in there? As much as my son would like. like it. I don't think so. Why is that just even though you loved it as a kid, it's just not your sensibility now? Yeah.

Okay. I think it would be hard. I think it would be hard to bring what I'm particularly good at to that world because it also, like it exists with its own roles and that need to be respected to

like to do the best Star wars you can do and i don't think that they like work with what i'm particularly good at fair enough what um what do you watch nowadays in terms of contemporary film are you kind of all over the place um i mean the stuff that generally like excites me the most is are still old films that i'm like find out about and search for and and whatever I'm sure that's not a big fucking surprise, but I, but I watch what's out, you know, I, you know, I, the substance, Anora, the brutal lists, they're great, you know, a girl with the needle is underappreciated and extremely good, you know, I watch pretty much every horror movie that comes out, like even if it's crummy. you know do you bristle kind of like that that like quote unquote elevated horror like thing that's been put on some is horror horror does it matter like what i mean i don't like

you know the all of these labels are are like unimportant aside from that it's a way to talk about things so i think it's i think it's like fine um but i think that there it has been while while there's plenty of schlocky horror movies still made it like like it's become like Todd field said like the the new noir like you know of our of our era the genre that is like the you know the most explored but but I think it's because it it you know as long as it's under a certain budgetary level it usually does it usually performs so or fill filmmakers working in like a commercial space it allows them like a place where they can explore interesting topics through genre and I think it's the film makers who are doing that that tend to

be put into like elevated horror and I think that that's fine I think it's I mean actually I think it's great you know I like like I wish that there was more opportunity for like American commercial filmmakers to do like, you know, what European filmmakers can do if they want to do it. But, uh, you know, but at least there's something. It's back to the, uh, the flip flops. Work within your box and just as long as you have the creativity within it, you can make something great. Exactly. Yeah. Um, sci-fi. Any interest? Do you have a sci-fi idea in you? Uh, I do. But I, I don't, like, like, I, I don't know. I think, I think, with um with the with the with the with the i mean you know if you look at last year it was still

like sequels and uh remakes and horror movies under a certain budgetary level that did well and so i think that my weird sci-fi movies not anytime happening soon i do it excites me on this level because we you know you talk so much about you know you love the historical accuracy, the detail, and making, you know, this is going to be the most authentic Viking movie ever. And like, how do you apply that to sci-fi or some realm where there, you can't really be accurate in a way? I guess you can in some way. Well, I mean, I'll, I'll, I teased enough. So to say there's an answer to my, my question, it's just not coming today, basically. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. And just.

No, it's all good. It's all good, man. As we wrap up, just looking ahead, is Rasputin still something you want to come back to as a television project? I know there's also the night, which has been out there. Is that a script that's a completed form that you want to mount at some point? Are these projects still on the docket? Yeah, I mean, there is, I have a lot of scripts and a lot of projects and a lot of things that I'd like to do. And, you know, I mean, I think Rasputin is probably not happening any time soon, although

like it'd be hard to get the plate shots in Russia. So I don't know. I don't know. But, but, but, but it's, it, it's so dependent on what the studios have the appetite for. You know what I mean? Right. But I have a lot of things that I'm passionate about. Excellent.

It is evidenced on the screen. I'm a big fan of your work, sir. You're doing great, great stuff, man. I hope this wasn't too painful, the 1,000th conversation you had on Nosferatu. Not too silly. Not too silly. He was warned that I was silly, guys. Am I silly?

I don't know. It's good to meet you. Hopefully one day in person. Congrats again on the film. And best of luck on everything, man. Thank you. 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.

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