Happy Sad Confused - Steven Soderbergh, Vol. II

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

Few filmmakers would warrant a return visit just six months after their last trip to "Happy Sad Confuse", but there are few directors like Steven Soderbergh! Since his last visit, he finished a new film ("No Sudden Move"), shot another ("Kimi"), and he produced the Academy Awards! So yeah, there's lots to catch up on this chat! Don't forget to check out the Happy Sad Confused patreon here! We've got 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! And listen to THE WAKEUP podcast here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get after him or have you shot You mean blow up the building From this moment on None of you are safe New episodes every Wednesday Wherever you get your podcasts Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now.

Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, Director Steven Soderberg returns to the crime genre with No Sudden Move. Hey guys, I'm Josh Horowitz. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. You might be experiencing a sense of deja vu. It's only been six months since Mr. Stephen Soderberg. Graced the podcast airwaves of Happy SET Confused, but I live by a set of pretty easy to follow rules, and one of them is, if you have the opportunity to chat with Steven Soderberg,

you take it. Whether it's every six months or every six years, you take it. This is one of the most intelligent and fascinating filmmakers of our times, and the fact that I can now say that Steven Soderberg is a regular guest of happy, said, confused, and I think in the foreseeable future will be. He seems to enjoy coming on the podcast and has intimated that he is a game to come on in the future. I am thrilled to no end because not only does he make great movies, but the conversations with him are deep and profound and interesting and can go in any number of directions. This one diverges into a dissection of assholes on the sets of films and why they get in the way and why we put up with them. He actually had more about the subject to say than I thought he would, and I have a feeling if we wanted to spend the entire 45 minutes or hour talking about that subject, we could have. But maybe that's for the next podcast.

For this one, we're here to talk about his new film, The Excellent Flick, No Sudden Move, which stars in another great ensemble. of actors, as Steven Soderberg is apt to do. He gathers the best actors always, and this one features some returning familiar faces to Steven Soderberg's work, including Benicio da Toro and Don Cheadle, but also includes new folks to his world like our friend David Harbour and John Ham. The list is endless. When I spoke to Stephen, it was just the day after No Sudden Move had premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, hence that conversation about the premiere and premieres in general. And I'm thrilled to say that this one's getting great reviews. And there was a lot to catch up on, even in just the six months since we had chatted. Of course, the Oscars had come and

gone, and he had produced the Oscars. So we definitely talk about that, and he's open about that experience, the good and the bad. He's also shot a new film, which sounds awesome. It stars another happy, say I confused veteran Zoe Kravitz. I'm very excited about that film, which I knew very little about going in, but everything he told me intrigues me to no end. And Yeah, like I said, you get bang for your buck out of a conversation with Steven Soderberg. So if you're here for another geeky film conversation with one of our best, you've come to the right place. Other things to mention, tons of stuff going on. I did an interview with Vin Diesel that's on MTV News's YouTube page.

That was a wild ride. Even a relatively short interview with Vin is always entertaining to say the least. You should check that out if only to watch Vin Diesel repeat my name for a second. solid minute at the outset of the conversation. I can't do it justice here, guys. It's, trust me, it's worth checking out. Also coming up, I chatted with Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johansson for MTV. That conversation is fantastic. That's coming out soon. Game night episodes over on the Happy Set Confused Patreon page. There are a ton of them coming up. We've banked a few. I think, well, here, I'll mention one that's already up that you should check out. If you

haven't already. It's with the aforementioned David Harbor, and it was so much fun. I went to David's apartment in New York, hung out with him in his apartment, and yes, in his bed for the better part of an hour and played some games. That sounds weird, but it's true. And he was delightful, and you should really check it out if you're into all things, David Harbor. And if you're not, what's your problem? We have a new game night episode that's going up. I think by the time you listen to this in the next 24 to 36 hours, I'm just going to say it. I don't even know if by the time you listen to this, I've announced it yet. But hey, you're listening to the podcast. You deserve to know. It's with Chris Pratt. It's

with Chris Pratt. Who doesn't love Chris Pratt? I do. He's amazing. His new film is The Tomorrow War on Amazon Prime. And Chris has always been so generous with me. And he is just a delight. And I love geeking out with him. And this one was fantastic. We played a bunch of games. I got caught up on all things Jurassic World, Tomorrow War, his new series Terminal List, Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 3. Yeah, there's a lot in there. So check that out, the full conversation, the full shenanigans over on the Patreon page. Again, that's patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused.

Also about to announce a slew of upcoming guests on Game Night on the Patreon page that you will be very excited to hear. So stay tuned. I'm going to announce those really, really soon. Don't want to leave you guys hanging too long. But suffice it to say, I'm happy, and I think you will be too. Oh, one other thing I do want to mention. I got a really cool event coming up that I'm a part of called WitcherCon. You might guess what Witcher con is about. It's about the show The Witcher on Netflix. Very popular show based on the games and the books and starring our guy, Mr. Henry Cavill, I am so thrilled to say that Henry asked me to chat with him for Witcher Con.

So I will be doing kind of the main, big old chat with Superman himself, Sherlock Holmes himself, the Witcher himself, Henry Cavill. That's going to be July 9th, doing it for Henry and Netflix. Details to come on that, but they're putting together a really cool event for WitcherCon with a bunch of panels and thrilled to say again that it'll be me and Henry, geeking out on all things, Witcher and his love of fantasy, you will definitely want to check that out. So, yeah, I've been busy.

Hope you guys are doing well. Hope you guys are enjoying the summer. Spending time with friends and family, getting a time to relax, and hopefully enjoying podcasts like this one. All right. Let's get to the main event. I'm so thrilled again. Steven Soderberg, returning guests to happy, sad, confused.

Check it out right now. Stephen, thanks for re-entering the podcast twice in six months. I don't know how I deserve this honor, but thank you, sir. What are we going to talk about now? What is possibly left to discuss in your filmography? It's been an eventful six months since we last chatted. You have a new film that just premiered, I think just last night at Tribeca. No Sudden Move. Congratulations.

You produced the Oscars. I think you might have shot another film. in the last six months? So I got a dog. So you've beaten me in terms of updates on our time. No, that's a very serious commitment. As a pet owner, I understand the implications of making that choice. This is my first adult ownership of another being.

Yes, it took me a while, but no regrets. I love Lucy. You might hear her at the door in this conversation. So congratulations on the new film. I really dug it. You had your premiere last night. Premiers are an odd thing. Give me a sense, like, is there any way to judge a reception of a film,

having done this once or twice, and gone to a bunch of premieres? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, this was a really interesting setup. So it was outdoors down in Battery Park, giant, really stunning LED screen, terrific sound. You know, from a technical standpoint, you know, a really wonderful presentation and about 600, a little more than 600 people, you know, present. So it was a real, it was a thing. And you could feel the audience, and hear the audience responding,

which is something a lot of us haven't heard in a while. There was, the real world aspect of it was interesting. There was some sort of car chase going on in the neighborhood. There was multiple, helicopters circling, but it was all, I just had to laugh because it was, it was just part of the vibe of the screening, and it didn't drown anything out. It was just a sort of hyper-aggressive Dolby Atmos kind of sonic intrusion. But it was really, especially by the end of the film, it was great, because it got gradually darker and darker as the movie went on, and it felt like it was you were getting more enveloped in it as as it progressed and and by the end of it people were quiet focused and and really responded when when it was over when the credits came

up so that was you know premieres are typically not something um that are a ton of fun but this was this was such a, this was such a special circumstance, even apart from the COVID of it all, that I really enjoyed it. So that was, that was a new experience. Was the first premiere you ever attended one of your own? Was it for sex, size and videotape? Yeah. Yeah. And what do you, what do you remember about those first round of? Well, I take that back. Technically, um, a year before in 1988, I'd gotten tickets to see the new restored version of Lawrence of Arabia

in LA where David Lean was present and spoke. So that was kind of a thing. That was the first time I've been to something like that. So, you know, but as far as my own thing, yeah, it's just, it's not, I don't, I guess you could ask other people who, are in the same situation I'm in, I don't know how if it's your film

that you enjoy this. I just don't. I guess if you've made something that is just, you know, loved, just absolutely loved right out of the gate and it's kind of, you know, unified in its embrace of you and what you did,

maybe that's gratifying. I guess it well the nature of your films are a little bit yeah it's like Solaris doesn't lend itself to people jumping on their no they don't they don't have a lot of there aren't a lot of raised fist moments at the end of things that I make sometimes um but

uh so they just they they they they tend to be a very surreal um disorienting experience I mean it would be interesting you know to to do an fMRI while you're watching something because i can tell you even last night as as pleasant and and unique as that circumstance was the sensation that i had was that every frame was being projected for 10 seconds like it felt interminable and this is not a movie that moves slowly but i was i i it went on forever for me well thankfully you're a

and I think in that assessment, judging from the reaction. You again have formed, as you have many times before, an amazing ensemble of actors in this one. Some of them you've worked before, notably people like Don Cheadle and Benicio. Some new, like one of my favorites, Mr. David Harbor. I think John Hamm, perhaps, is the first time you've collaborated with him. Is there an alchemy to casting an ensemble? I mean, this one had a much different cast than a different iteration, I know.

So how does it work? Like does it sort of does one beget the other? I mean, how do you kind of figure out when you are casting an ensemble how it's going to fit all together? Yeah, there's not, it's not something I think that can be really codified or that you can come to with, you know, an approach that is on paper. Like it's certainly, it certainly start. In this case, you know, it started with Don.

It was developed out of a desire to work with Don again. So it was written for him. So he's first. And that's, you know, in terms of the alchemy you're describing or the algorithm that you're going to employ to approach the casting, this is a very significant first step that is going to drive, you know, all the decisions that follow, given that it is mostly. a two-hander, you know, the Ronald casting now becomes crucial, and you want somebody who's going to really parry with Don in a compelling way. The fact that it made it easier, the fact that Benizio was a wonderful contrast to Don in a lot of different ways. I've worked with him, of course, And he and Don knew each other socially,

and it talked about trying to find something to do together. So that felt like something that was meant to be. And then David, you know, Carmen Kubha, our casting director, did Stranger Things, so she's a huge fan of Davids. And I met David socially because he worked with Scott Frank, who's a very close friend of mine. And that felt really. really good again that triumvirate felt really interesting and distinctive and so you're really

you're sort of going step by step and then there are times when you think you have somebody and you don't have them for whatever reason and our motto which is to date always proven to be true is you get who you're supposed to get yeah you can't spend time wondering like well why did they say no like what was it like i don't know and people do say no i mean people say no to me all the time and you know the next as soon as that happens you know i'm texting carman going okay who's who are we going to now well that seems to also follow your philosophy in approaching films like i think we've talked before about like films that like kind of fell apart and you waste no time generally like if if if money ball goes away you figure out the next week okay what else is on the list what can we

get going you're not one to sit and kind of mourn the loss No, because it doesn't change anything. Yeah. And the only thing that's going to make you feel better is getting back to work. So, yeah. But I've been, look, I've worked with less than a handful of casting directors, I think my whole career. All of them are exceptional, publicly acknowledged to be exceptional at what they do.

it really, it really is, you know, its importance can't be sort of overstated because a casting mistake is fatal. Yeah. Like if you can have a perfect cast and still fuck your movie up, but if you've made a casting mistake, there is no, you may as well just pack up. Kim, can we talk a little bit about sort of your evolution of working with actors? because, you know, we've referenced sexized and videotape, and you're working generally like your age group, like your contemporaries.

And then with Kafka, your next film, you're working with folks like Jeremy Irons, Alex Guinness, which is a totally different kind of thing, as accomplished as James Spader, et cetera, are. Was the learning curve for you and working with different stripes of actors and different generations a steep one? How long did it kind of take for you to kind of feel totally comfortable working with every manner of actor. Yeah, that wasn't, that wasn't, that wasn't a problem.

And I don't think I really, you know, thought about it too much. I do remember, I do remember having conversations with Jeremy Irons when we were making Kafka about Mike Nichols and the sort of the specter of Mike Nichols and his reputation for working with actors and how, how, you know, philosophically intimidating those stories are, you know. And so I said, you know, you'd hear, you know, you'd hear these stories about Mike. You've told them, every actor's told them about. And it's really true, you know, he just had a very, very pronounced gift for metaphor.

And he just had a really wonderful way of getting you to think about something by considering this. Right. And saying, it's like when, you know, and it was always. like a funny thing that you're like, oh, yeah, it is like that. And I told him, I said, you know, I read a story like that. And I'm at a loss. And Jeremy goes, well, let me tell you this, Stephen. Those stories are all true. And he is the only person that can do that. So yeah, don't hold yourself to that standard. Yeah, just, he goes, just, just do what you're doing. He goes, you can't be Mike. He's Mike. And, and that was very helpful.

And later, as I became friendly with Mike, the truth of that was borne out. It's like, yeah, he's Mike. There's no other Mike. He comes up on this podcast almost more than any other filmmaker. And I greatly enjoyed the biography this last year by Mark Harrison. I don't know about you. But anyway, maybe we'll come back around to Mike. I'm always fascinated by like the way different filmmakers conduct their sets and certainly

this production is a unique situation because you did make it in the in the crazy year of covid but even in talking to david casually recently david harbour i mean he basically kind of intimated that like it was a pretty kind of like civil way you run a set it's not like 16-hour days it's like it's a huge even in this experience um do you are you a believer that like the way a production is mounted is reflected in the finished product like the energy of making a film comes out in the end? I think it can. I don't think it always does, but I think it can.

And the fact that it can means that it should be taken seriously and that you should really consider what the vibe is within the production about what we're all doing. I mean, that alone, the possibility that it can affect what's going to be on screen is worth some serious consideration. So as a result, you know, what I'm aiming for in all areas and at every echelon is just a certain efficiency and focus on the thing that we are making. And so, you know, I was on a panel the other day

about toxic work environments and abusive bosses and what to do about that and how to handle it. And my feeling is to really bring home to everyone, especially people who finance projects, that it's inefficient. It's just inefficient at the end of the day. If you have people whose psychic real estate is being chewed up by some asshole, this is an inefficiency that when you multiply it out really affects the product. because people are not focused on what they're supposed to be focused on. They're not thinking about the thing, and that means they're not going to be as creative. They're not going to be as quick. Like, it's, I think, I think I could make a very good case that, you know, having an asshole in any position,

but especially in a position of power, is bad business. It's just bad business. It's fine. This comes up, I mean, that has come up a lot in my conversations with filmmakers and actors, especially it just occurs to me, like, the depth of talent in your field is pretty deep. Like, if we apply to actors, for instance, like, sure, there are the unicorns, but there are enough great actors that aren't assholes that why bother with the assholes? Like, have you seen, have you sport?

That exists, you're right. It exists in every category that you choose. And so given that fact, yeah, why would you? why would you go there? Now, what I think we're all trying to grapple with now is how do we identify these people? I mean, most everybody knows who they are, but how do we put them on notice, so to speak?

How do we let them know that we're essentially, we're yellow carding them. We're giving them a yellow card going, yeah, see, here's the thing. General vibe is it like you're being an asshole. And so how do you do that? What's the mechanism for identification? Then what is the mechanism for, you know, repeated offenses? Like what somebody who's just an unrepent asshole?

Like what's the move here? And there are these people, believe me. I mean, there was a notorious producer when I was vice president of the DGA who we essentially, tried to intervene with. We would meet with this person to say this has gotten just such a place and we've gotten so many complaints and the allegations are so alarming that we got to come here and talk to you to, you know, ask for you to stop abusing these directors. And this person said, don't care. I run it the way.

I run it and it's my show and they have no interest in engaging in this conversation at all. And they're still out there. They're still out there doing fine. Great. So, you know, you've, so again, so what is the, let's say you can, we can, we can yellow card some people. You know, what do you, what do you do? How do you, again, how do you convince somebody, the studio, the person paying the bills on, on that salary to go, I guess the question we really have to ask ourselves is can we

discriminate against assholes? Is this the only context in which discrimination is appropriate is when somebody is an unrepentant asshole with let's discuss. My gut goes in the positive direction for that. It's an interesting social question because their destructive power is so disproportionate to the power of someone who's a good person and a trustworthy person. You know, it's it takes a lot of coordinated energy on the part of a lot of open-hearted people to create a vibe on a movie that's really positive and creative and successful and efficient one asshole and you are back to square one every day like you're just and so it's it's a

problem in this context it's a problem in the world you know is the is the disproportionate destructive power of the assholes there's this guy I don't know if you know this book assholes a theory by Aaron James I don't know somebody sat down and said you know I've noticed this walking around in the world, this specific issue that there is such a thing that we can do this is like a, in sociological terms, you know, a term of art, the asshole. And what they do to the rest of us, like what impact they have on the rest of us. And it's a really, to me, it's a really key question for us to sort out. Like, what do we do with people that do, just can't be cool and are just toxic assholes. It's a thing. I love that this is the first

rabbit hole we fell down. But let's talk about the non-assholes that you worked with again on this one. David was telling me that you would have a movie night. Maybe I don't know if it was a weekly thing. Is that something? Is that a tradition for you on your sets? And do you select films that are reflective at all of the film? Are you showing like asphalt jungle or neo-noir films or is it just It can be, more often than they tend to run to, no, I don't do it all the time. This was sort of a special circumstance. We were in this, we took over this hotel in Detroit and we were in a bubble and we couldn't go out. And so it really was born just out of a desire to, you know, not feel caged.

And it was a very small group, just, you know, three or four people. And in this case, they were running more toward. ridiculous melodrama and kind of camp. So I think probably the most, you know, the most spirited of the nights that we had a screening, where David was in attendance, was the Oscar, the 1966 Stephen Boyd, you know, if you haven't seen this, stop listening to this podcast.

and go find it because it is just, it is just both side-splitting and mind-blowing in its insanity. And especially if you have a group of people that work in the film industry to watch this is, man, my face hurt at the end of it. I mean, we laugh so hard that I look like I've been punched. But, you know, there's, I have my own sort of screening program that's ongoing as I'm preparing and as I'm shooting of things that I'm watching just to, to be inspired by or to steal from.

And that, that changes from film to film. I mean, for this one, in particular, I'm curious because, like, you know, this takes place in 54 in Detroit. And you've certainly, you've approached period works in different ways. I mean, the most notable kind of daring movie made was with Good German, where you made basically a movie of that era, like a lost film in many respects of that era. So, like, talk to me a little bit about the approach, because, like, when you read a script, a lot of it is probably self-evident from the script, but there's still 100 different ways to skin a cat. Like, do you know when you read Ed Solomon's script, like, this is the clear way to approach this,

or are there some big choices to be made? Well, I think the first, you know, the first choice is just the visual. grammar of the film. So you just start breaking that down. You start with format. What format do I want to shoot in? So, you know, in something like insane, we ended up with a format that's almost a square, basically.

And sometimes you feel like, okay, 185, or in the case of HD178 kind of works for this. And then there are times where you go, okay, I want to, I want to shoot anamorphic. Or I want a 2-4-0 ratio, whether I achieve it with a spherical lens or an anamorphic lens. And then you start talking about the rules of movement and composition. Like, what am I allowed to do? Like, is the aesthetic of the movie objective or is it more subjective? because if it's either one of those,

then the rules of movement and composition are different, potentially. Black and white in color, obviously, is a big choice. Then you're talking about color, tonality. You know, in this case, I think the biggest influence visually would probably be influences is these two Nicholas Ray films, Rebel Without a Cause and Bigger Than Life.

Cinemascope, you know, saturated, high contrast imagery, you know, really stark, bold compositions. Like, that's what I was thinking of as a starting point for no sudden move with the understanding that the equipment that I have now enables me to put the lens. in places that would have been harder for them to place the lens and move the camera in a way that it would have been very, very difficult for them to move a large camera back then. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to like turbocharge. I'm trying to take what I understood as a certain set of rules that, let's say, Nicholas Ray was employing

and just really inject them with the modern technical capability that we have now, but retain them. spirit of it. Right. Like many of your films, I know you basically had a cut of this film immediately after you shot. And that's, yeah, you're editing as you go. You have, it's more than assembly. It sounds like it's like it's an actual cut of the film. You're leading man in this that Cheatel himself told me once about, I think the film he directed, it was like the most demoralizing moment of his life was watching the first cut of his film. So clearly you've been through that rabbit hole, you've figured out a way so that you are, whether you're detached or

you're doing enough work as you go so that it isn't a demoralizing moment for you. Or is it still when you're seeing kind of the first rough pass at a film? Like how do you get to that point where you're like able to work in that fashion? Well, you know, until until technology advanced to the point where you could turn footage around quickly, I was in I was in I think the same situation that Don found himself in on his on miles ahead. So, for instance, sex lies, Kafka, King of the Hill, not a single hour of editing took place until we were done shooting. That's unthinkable to me now. And I think those films suffered for it. I think any film I made in which I wasn't able to cut as I was going suffered because what happens now is

the ability to iterate and recalibrate that quickly, just for someone like me who likes to work the way I like to work, you just can't put a price on that, the ability to see it in something that's very much approximating its final form. I've got score. I've got sound effects. I've got, I can adjust the color if I want to. I mean, I can make it look pretty finished that night. And if I feel like that, that scene, that thing that we did today is lacking, then I'm on the phone to the first AD and the producer going, okay, first up tomorrow, we're redoing this. We need more shots of that. Like, we're, you know, we hit the ground the next day, making the thing better that we shot the day before. And so that means, yes, when I get to the end of it and I plug in the last days footage, we have, you know, a fairly polished first cut. And again, the fact that we have that then means we can start that conversation of do we need to reshoot something? Do we need more scenes? Like everything just moves up and you're saving time, you're saving money. You know,

it's really, the benefits to me are just very, very clear. And I try to take advantage Have you ever test screened your films back in the day? Oh, sure. Is that ever helpful? It is helpful. It can be helpful. If you're making a comedy, it's, it's, you really have to do it. Like if you're, if 400 people are not laughing, then you really need to know that as quickly as possible.

With dramas, it's a little different. And everybody's got stories of movies that tested poorly and did well, movies that tested well and did poorly um the first magic mic tested in the 60s like a 63 which is not a good score and the second one tested an 89 um and so you know what do all three oceans films tested identically like identically so you know it's it's it's a tool but it shouldn't be a hammer Like I know a lot of studios use it to hammer on filmmakers, but it's not precise. And like I said, especially if you're making a drama,

people will react to dramas in very different ways, and it's hard to tell. I'd say comedies, you have to screen a comedy. We talked a little bit about Mike Nichols earlier, and it brings up one of the topics I want to bring up with you, which is mentors. You've mentored other film makes, you were an important advocate for no less than the Russo brothers and Christopher Nolan.

And I'm curious for you, like in the wake of sex lies and videotape, did filmmakers come out and kind of invite you to the inner sanctum? Did you have people that you immediately look to and could lean on back then? There were some people that reached out just to ask, you know, what do you want to do? and is there it's kind of a version of the conversations I have with young filmmakers

which is what do you want to do and is there anything I can do to help? And so... Which in many ways is the most important conversation to have for the... Yeah, it's certainly, yeah, that's a call that you're always happy to get. And in the case of sexual eyes,

Sidney Pollock was the first person to call me or reach out. And I was very, very happy to go and talk to Sidney Pollock, and we started working on a project. It was actually an adaptation of a book called The Last Ship that we worked on for a couple of years. And then after the Berlin Wall fell, it kind of became less relevant.

And then it turned out, times changed, and it became more relevant. It became a TV show of multiple seasons that Michael Bay was involved as a producer. So, yeah, he was, he was probably the most significant of the people that reached out and that I really followed up with. And then, you know, since then, it's all been very serendipitous in my case. I think the first thing I was involved with as a producer with my name on it was Sucher, the Siegel and McGeehee film from 1993. Then the day trippers followed after that and then Pleasantville.

And the producing part of my life became a little more active. And then Section 8 happened. And then it got really active. Is it true that you put in a call to Feige when the recess were going up for? Well, they reached out to me. The guys reached out to me and just said, would you be willing to have a conversation with him to vouch for us? And I said, well, I only have one question. I mean, I knew them well enough that I could vouch for them as like people and filmmakers.

But what I wanted to know was, why are you doing this movie? Why do you want to do this movie? Because if they'd said, seems like a good career move or our representatives think it's a really good career move, I would have a certain response to that. response was, we are huge comic book fans. We have a gigantic comic book collection. We've always collected comics. And this is our dream job. And I said, that's what I wanted to know. And I spoke with Kevin and just said, I think you're going to love these guys. They're good guys. They're really hard workers. You know, they're nice. They get my full support. And so that's

I'm that's very gratifying when you're just able to to help something happen you know what I mean and and to see what I'm not at all they're probably more surprised by what's happened to them by you know getting into that universe than I am I'm not surprised I wasn't surprised at all I'm like these guys these guys work hard like they're they're self-starters like if they're given this opportunity they're going to run this thing down so I wasn't surprised. surprised at all. I'm really happy for them. They've, yeah, they've, I know you've got on record with me and others. You know, like for you didn't grow up with comic books, it's not necessarily your kind of thing,

but it's funny to think. I know they've cited out of sight as one of the big influences, for instance, on Infinity War. So your influence, your influence has made it into some comic book movies. Well, they're going to have to generate an essay that proves that that explains that, that that was an influence, but I'll leave that to them. You have one of my favorite quotes about another film ever, which is about Mad Max Fury Road, in which you basically said, I haven't been here somewhere, but among other things you said, I don't understand two things.

I don't understand how they're not still shooting that film, and I don't understand how hundreds of people aren't dead, which really speaks to, again, Mike Nichols comes up a lot, and Man, Max Fury Road comes up a lot in this podcast. That's just an example of, to anybody that knows anything. about film, they agree with you. It's like, how did he make that magic happen? When you watch that, when you watch that, give me a sense of what was going on in your brain.

What did you understand? Did you relate to it in any way? Or did it feel like an alien had made this film? A little bit of both. I just watched it again, actually. I was, I had a brief vacation a week ago, and it was one of the movies that we brought to watch. So I got to watch it, you know,

and think about that. It's kind of a combination of everything. I mean, it's just, you know, none of those shots are simple. And they're all new. Like, it's just one new, difficult shot after another. And just the stamina, the physical stamina, the psychological stamina, to just sit, to keep grinding this thing out shot by shot day after day, month after month, never waver in your commitment to the quality of that shot or whether or not you need that

shot. Like, it's just, it's, it's just, I can't wrap my head around it. I mean, I couldn't have directed 10 seconds of that. Like, it's just, it really just, I would say it makes my head hurt, except that's not fair because it's, it's incredibly pleasurable for me to see somebody operating at that level. And then you just add everything else on top of it. We're not just talking about the pure, you know, staging and editing aspects of what he's doing. There's the script. There's the cast. There's the, you know, there's every, the costumes, you know, like everything, just the world, you know, that he's created, like everything. Everything is just so completely unified and so completely the best version of itself. Like, it's, it's just kind of astonishing. Yeah, everybody that I know that I respect, not just that film, but, but knows that George Miller,

is George Miller like this this this this is somebody that you it's somebody you have to reckon with I guess if you care if you're a director that cares about the camera at all he is one of these people that you have to reckon with yeah um since we last spoke uh you shot a film I mentioned you also produced the Oscars you are a very intelligent man sir you know that producing the Oscars is like hosting the Oscars it's basically a no-win situation um did you know that going in? Did you feel that in your heart? Yeah. And so it's

yeah. Look Trashing the Oscars is rolling a ball downhill. That's fine. We knew that and we were focused on, you know, trying to create something that was distinctive and that was

personal and emotional, if possible. So no, I didn't worry about any of that and I didn't, I don't read about things. Anything that has my name in it, I don't click on or turn to. So I didn't have to worry about that. I was very focused on, a, you know, coming up with ideas conceptually about how to do it.

And then discussions about how to execute the logistics of keeping people safe and getting people there. This was crazy. It was just crazy. And that we were able to do it and have not a single positive case was remarkable. So I really, and I have to say, I said to my wife after, I said, you know what, doing it was worth the feeling the week after of not having to do it. I feel so good right now that I don't have to do it this week. Right. It was worth doing it.

Like, I'm ecstatic that I don't have to do it this week. I don't know if I follow that watch. I'm going to become horrible. I'm just telling you, that's how I felt. I'm going to become addicted to heroin. It's going to be horrible. But when I'm out, I'm going to feel so good and clean. Well, I don't know.

I mean, the good news was that, you know, the Academy was great to deal with the network. It turned out to be great. to deal with all of the talent. Like, it wasn't, the challenges, I think, were just literally logistical and having enough hours and people to execute the thing. Like, that was, that was all that we were pushing up against. You know what I mean? We didn't creatively, we were given free reign to do whatever we wanted.

And it was really just coming up with an idea and then, it be done can it be done with this amount of money can it be done in this period of time like that's what we were dealing with what was on the list that couldn't be done there must have been a few ideas that just logistically time-wise three full cities three full venues london new york la like where you have people hosts in different like three full on separate locations couldn't do it couldn't afford it in the logistics then we went down to two we went we took out new york then it was going to be L.A. London. And then it became clear. They went into another, again, this shit was changing every two days because of COVID. They went into another,

like, worse lockdown than they were. We're like, okay, London's off. We're just going to do a thing where we have some of the nominees in a theater. You know, we're not going to do a full-on event. Like, we were, we had to change course so many times. But I'm just, is, is for me, is at the conclusion of that opening shot of Regina King coming into Union Station and standing there and seeing a room full of people not wearing masks, at that point, it didn't matter to me what happened that we had, I felt, okay, we made it. We made it. And now it's out of our hands. Look, last time we chatted about your Kafka nightmare involving Paul Hogan. And to me, that's the only mistake you made is not bringing Paul back as an Oscar host.

Because Leslie forget, he was once a host of the Oscars. That's true. But he's in Australia. And Australia, you know, during that period, that was still traveling back and forth from Australia. It was a problem. So you're right. We were, we were not very forward thinking in reaching out to Paul. The, uh, Kimmy, is that how I'm pronouncing the new,

Zoe Kravitz, what can I know, what should I know? This, so from what I understand, this actually takes place, this is the film you shot recently, and this actually does, is a contemporaneous film. This takes place, is COVID an aspect of the story? Absolutely. Or the aftermath of it is, is an aspect of the story. And also, you know, so there's that because it ties into

certain psychological issues that our lead character is, is battling and Overlaid is a very contemporary, you know, zeitgeisty issue of, you know, giant tech companies who have a lot of listening devices and a lot of homes, and what are they picking up? And what if you worked for one of these companies analyzing streams that have been flagged for some reason or another,

that the voice recognition software is there's some aspect of this recording that it doesn't understand or has a question about and it gets kicked to a human analyst to listen to it so that they can go like, oh, that's a slang term that this thing hasn't heard of. Now I gotta load it into the system so that software can now recognize, you know,

so this is what this person's job is. And, you know, she hears something that sounds not cool. Sounds like the 2021 version of the conversation. Yeah, pretty much. And a little bit of rear window and a little bit of panic room. So it's all my favorite stuff. So this was an idea that David Kep floated to me a couple years ago. And I, that was a, my philosophy when people approach you with things is, if it's not hell yeah, it's a no.

This is, this was a hell yeah. Like, I wanted him, at that, at the point he told me the story, I wanted him to start immediately. But he eventually got around to it. Sex-wise, the sequel, where are we at? I know you're working on the script last we spoke. I need to do, it needs a new draft. because I wrote one draft very quickly. So it needs to be revisited from a writing standpoint.

And then it's just scheduling. Like things pop up and take on critical mass faster than other things. The good news is in that regard, the theme that's explored in that movie is not going away. and there's no there's no hurry i'd rather it be done right than soon um but i want to do it it's it's it's it always generated out of a desire to address a topic um that i haven't found a way to to to really address yet and for whatever reason i connected it with these two sisters 30 years later kind of random marriage of two things that I think is close to being realized and is different enough at the same time for people to understand when they're watching it, why I wanted to do it.

Well, we've waited 30 years. I'm content to wait a little longer, sir. We found 45 minutes more of conversation to find. That does not surprise me in the least. Congratulations on the new film. No Sudden Move. Check it out, guys. And Stephen, hopefully, yeah, it sounds like you're going to shoot three more movies in the next year and we'll just keep talking like this until we run out of things to say. I'm happy to. That went really fast. Thank you, sir, as always. All right, thanks, Jeff. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused.

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