House of R - ‘Interstellar’ Revisited With Van Lathan | Chill Nolan Winter

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

It’s Chill Nolan Winter! Mal and Jo are joined by Van Lathan to continue their journey through Christopher Nolan’s filmography with ‘Interstellar.’ They discuss their original experience with the movie, the influence it’s had, the story, and more! Plus, they give out some superlatives!(00:00) Intro(17:46) Opening Snapshot(01:00:49) Funniest Line(01:06:17) Sickest Set Piece(01:12:33) Who Is the REAL Villain of This Movie?(01:18:11) Most Exquisitely Gorgeous Shot(01:26:57) The Scene You Think About the Most(01:35:18) Where Would You Put the F-Bomb(01:42:29) Best Use of a Nolan-Verse Regular(01:48:20) Stealth MVP(01:53:17) Best Dead Wife Moment(01:56:19) Clearest “Great Man” Moment(02:01:13) Who Was Miscast and How Would You Replace Them?(02:09:35) Horniest Moment(02:14:18) The Line That Hits the Hardest(02:21:19) Most Devastating Moment(02:29:23) Most Unforgettable Zimmerism(02:34:13) Actor Who Should Have Returned to the Nolan-Verse(02:36:44) The Most Nolan Thing About This Movie(02:42:05) ‘The Odyssey’ HypeHosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinGuest: Van LathanProducer: Carlos ChiribogaSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back to Halsevar, I'm Joanna Robinson. That's Mallory Rubin. And joining us today from Sycamore Studios. It's Van Lathen. Hey, Van, how you doing? What's up, guys? How are you guys doing? I'm here at Sycamore.

Spill S-I-C-K. What about Slickamore? Slick-a-M-M-A-M-L-A-M-L-A-L-L-E-E-L-E-E-L-E-L-E-E. I like that. I like both of them. These are fantastic names. We're hearing our new digs. Everybody's so excited.

All right, here's the deal. Mallory and I are at home, Van's luxurating. on our beautiful couch there in the studio. And we are here to talk to you about interstellar as part of our ongoing Christopher Nolan series. We'll get into that right after this. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus.

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meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar don't miss sol de janito's limited edition perfume miscollection only at sefora all right so mallory do you want to announce the theme that we've definitely planned long in advance sure like we've been planning this for so long and definitely did not just come up with it what house of our is doing for the month of march i would say we had planned all of these podcasts and only just recently realized we had many space podcasts in a row because we are so excited for Project Tail Mary. It's a book we love. It's a movie we're very much looking forward to it. So it's Space Month. It's Space Month here at the House of Our Move Over, see our month. You're on notice. It's Space Month in March. And we will be doing, obviously

we're doing Interstellar today as part of the ongoing Christopher Nolan rewatch on the, here at the House of Our slow and steady march toward the Odyssey. It's the first one of Winter. We've been workshopping some titles for that. I think it'll ultimately fall on Carlos to name it. When the podcast goes live, is it chill, Nolan Winter. You've been workshopping some other ideas. Then we're going to be revisiting the Martian,

because that is another Andy Weir space adaptation. Drew Goddard screenplay. So we need to revisit that felt before Project Hail Mary. Then we're going to do a space movie draft. Can't fucking wait. That's going to be a blast. That is going to be so fun. And then we will be diving deep into Project Hail Mary.

And guess what? We're talking to Andy Weir. We're in the pod. Great stuff. Friling. So, yeah, it's Space Month. We're really, really excited. And I'm so excited to have Van here for our trip into Interstellar.

We could not save the human race without Van. We needed a team up for Interstellar. It's an absolute must. Mallory, how can folks keep track of everything we're doing in space and everything else is happening on the feed? Here's what I would recommend follow the pod. That's really all you need to do. Follow the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

You can see full video episodes of House of R and the Midnight Boys. Poo! On the Spotify app and the Ringerverse YouTube channel, you're going to be able to see around the Oscars. You're going to be able to see the annual team up the Verses. That's a thrill. We're all excited for that. We're going to be gathering next week to do the Verses. That's always a treat.

Always fun. And while you're at it, follow the Ringervis on the social media platform if you're choosing. We're not going to tell you what that should be. wherever you want to be, that's where we are. Live your life. Live your life. Find us. Find us on the internet. Engage where you will. Yeah, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc. And then, you know, email us. The inbox is always open. We had a wonderful time with the seasonal mailbag just a few days ago. Keep the emails coming. Send us your Project Hail Mary emails, your Space Month emails. What do you think should be selected in the space draft, even though you don't know who will be drafting or what the categories are going to be? Let us know.

And send us your Project Hail Mary thoughts, your Daredevil thoughts, anything that's coming later in the season. We always love to hear from you, Hobbiton's and Dravetton. Dragons and gmail.com. Van, what are your thoughts on space and space movies in general? I was thinking about this because I, you know, I saw Project Hell Mary last night. And then I dusted off Interstellar this morning because I wanted to have it fresh on my mind. And boy, do I feel small this morning? Feel small and dumb? Yeah.

And I'm ready. But you know what I think, though? And this is the real take watching these two movies back to back. And obviously, we'll all as family talk. about Project Hell Mary a lot on the channel later on. Space. And movies set in space give creators, filmmakers,

a unique opportunity to litigate humanity. You can make movies in space that tell you more or demonstrate more about what it's like to be human, what it's like to be alive, than you can, you can do that easier in space than you can with movies set like right in a heart. of Los Angeles. Around here, there's so many distractions wherever you live that take you away from

your connection to people, from your feeling of a greater human experience, from sometimes how you are dedicated to humanity. But when you see people in space doing stuff, and all they have are the sentences that they're saying to one another, the bravery, the mission, and it's for all of the marbles, normally you get these really profound statements on life and love. I think, what do you think of the fact that there's like so many space horror movies?

Like in addition to these sort of adventure, Project Hill Mary, the Martian, Interstellar, etc., etc., you get a lot of space horror. What do you think about that? Any thoughts? So I like space horror because you got all kinds of crazy things that can happen, right? You can pass, or what was that? What was that one?

Was that one where they went through the black hole and everything went crazy? What's the name of that one? What was it called? Event Horizon. Remember that one? That was wacky. Oh, yeah. Okay? So you get a crazy beast, a demon, a virus, or something like that.

It's always fun. And I like that because space itself is a prison. So even if you're on a ship, doesn't matter how big the ship is, you're trapped inside of the ship as you're doing all of this stuff. But the things that really move me about these space films, like I said, are the exploration of the science behind them and, like, this fundamental examination of the human. experience that can only happen when you're so far away.

This space is the ultimate away game. Okay? You're on somebody else's turf. You're around stars. Time is different. All of that stuff. What do you have left? Love, commitment, and experience.

Mallory, I don't want to, like, blow up the spot of the person we were talking to, but we were talking to a mutual who said they, like, didn't like space movies because it, like, the concept frightened them. Sure. Like, do you have any big, big picture space movies or space stories or space stories? ideas that you want to share in this particular moment? I think I'll save most of my takes for the space movie draft, so we're not, yeah, step it on that too much. But I do love a space movie. I think a lot of what Van is saying feels really right to me.

That extends to television shows novels as well. You know, something like Battlestar Galactica is one of my favorites to the state because it allows us to explore all of that, like, what is worth preserving and fighting for and saving about humanity, but also there are episodes where the sheer terror that you're forced to confront when, you know, one of the moments in this movie in Interstellar, which we're about to talk about, is like, that I love, it's quiet, it's quick, but when ROM is like, there's just nothing between us and all of the things that could kill us other than this thing piece of metal. So you have the capacity in a space story to explore all aspects of what frightens human beings and what human beings are driven by, motivated by trying to preserve. They also, it's just, this is like the most obvious thing to say, but it is just so cinematic. It is the capacity for grand spectacle in a scene. space opera and a space film. And then this is one of the things that I think we're really excited

for the to explore more in the space draft. And any draft here at the Ringer, there's always bleed across categories, but you have an opportunity to try to like codify and to find something. And as you both are saying, the subgenres inside of the genre of the space film, like are kind of boundless. You have space horror. You have space friendships. You have space adventures. You have first contact, right? You have space stories that are ultimately more set on some sort of terrain and planet is that something from space reaching us on Earth, have we or other beings gone elsewhere into the great abyss? Can we establish a sense of connection and home? Or will we always feel like we've lost that if we're not on this very planet? It's just it's great. So I love

what it unlocks for people. And like there's something about when I was texting Joe this the other day, like when I was a kid, I had a telescope. And I loved the idea of how having a telescope. And I was weaned on sci-fi stories. This is like my dad loves sci-fi, and his introduction to something like Asimov's Nightfall, for example, leaving that as one of the stories of the bookshelf in my room is like a big gateway for me and getting into all of this in the first place. So I like kept this telescope at my room and I just always wanted to look up at the stars and think about it. Never really learned how to use it. And it's a regret of mine to this day. And maybe this is the year that I pivot back to a telescope. But I can't really see stars in

Los Angeles. That's the problem. Too much light pollution. Honestly, it's quite tough. What about you, Joe? Why do you gravitate toward space cinema? I think that idea of the size thing that Vann was bringing up earlier, like how small we are, when we leave a planet where we are considered like the apex predator, the most important thing on the rock, and then we go out in the world and we see in the wider world, see how big it is, see that there's intelligent life out there, see that there's intelligent life that. is far more advanced or far more intelligent than we are, and all of a sudden we're the apes, you know,

we're the whatever. I think that's a really interesting. I think there are so many shots in this movie specifically, and we will be spoiling Interstellar, by the way, in case you haven't seen Interstellar, we will be spoiling in her stellar. So what are you doing, go see that movie, and come back and listen to this. But there are so many shots in this movie where the ships,

the ship is so small in relative to the size of everything around it when you see Gargantua or Saturn or even. even on the ocean of Miller's planet, like there are all these moments when the minute nature of humanity is taken in sharp relief. And then also one of my favorite things across many space stories

is the silence in space. Yeah, me too. Right? There's like the favorite alien lake in space no one can hear you scream, but like all the exterior shots you get of the endurance and like how all the sound cuts out, I think that's like one of the coolest things

that happens in a space movie. I'll add one thing that all, I always love about these movies as well, is the math. And I tell you what I mean, is that like, so there's so much chaos, right? There's so much chaos in space. There's stars that are dying. They're black holes in this movie. There's all kinds of different things that happen.

But the math is the salvation. The universe does have an operating system. And that operating system, we can decipher. We can understand it. We can math our way through. the universe. There's this theoretical astrophysicist named Miguel Alcubair

and he wrote a paper where he talked about the fact that warp speed, light, travel actually the math checks out. It's the engineer, I was stuck on this for like a month so I got to put it in it. It's the engineering

really that we don't have. We really don't have the engineering to build the craft that we would need, but the math checks out. So when we see human beings who are at the mercy of all of these different forces in the universe, just have to use something that we've been

able to observe and wield with our own minds, which is the math of the universe, that's our salvation. It's almost like a God in it of itself. It's almost like a spirituality in it of itself.

The equation, if you can figure that out, you can save yourself. I really love that you brought this up at the top of the pot. I think this is a fascinating film through which to assess the question of, frankly, whether you need to be able to track the math and science and whether the math and science inside of the film is sensical at all. So I'm sure that will come up as we go through it today. But more broadly, what I love about it is and what I love about the category of film

is that, you know, you can calibrate your relationship to that question as a viewer. and I think what something that interstellar, I have quite a few notes on the science of interstellar, even though I am not a scientist, not a physicist. I think the way that interstellar deploy some of that is a little bit befuddling to me still all this time later. However, what I love is pairing,

like the intention to pair, the hard sci-fi and the soft sci-fi. So you have a lot of actual science, right? in the equation, the idea of the singularity, the black hole, the event horizon, plan A, plan B, gravity, three dimensions, five dimensions, et cetera. You also just have the very tidy concept of the explorer. And that is the same thing inside of this film, because the impulse to explore, and we get the comp to like the explorer and the boat right before we're on a water planet, wonderful stuff, right?

It's great. The idea of just the human impulse to always seek something else. And so maybe that is just something that you feel in your soul. Maybe it is something that you say, I actually need to be able to crack the code of this. And the math and the science support that one day, I and humanity will be able to do that. And whatever the character's relationship to that idea is or the viewer's relationship to that idea is, it propels you outward and forward. I think this idea, to bounce off what both of you said, first of all, I think this idea of, like, faith inside of this movie is really, really interesting. Like, the daddy issues and the God issues are all wrapped up in one the way that they always should be inside of a story that we love.

But also this idea, and this is definitely present in Project Hail Mary, of course, is like our salvation being science. Our salvation is a species being science and the way in which, like, you know, the world we live in, the country, we live in right now is consistently devaluing science and devaluing the idea of NASA as like a vital part of the human experience versus now it's shifting towards like this is what the Uber rich do and will do and so like that so we're not like gathering around to watch our scientists we're gathering around to watch like Katie Perry go to space and it's just like the way in which NASA is so humbled inside of this story and and the way in which but then the way in which largely these stories so value scientists and math and curiosity and exploration is important to me.

Can I just note one scene and it stuck out? This stuck out to me as I watched the movie this time. All right, when good old coupe, the best-looking pilot farmer in the world, there's never been a better-looking pilot. His skincare routine. His skincare routine in the dust bowl? Amazing. Okay.

So it's a second good old coop. So when Kub and Murph follow the gravity puzzle and they get into the room, there is a thought that they are inside of an Illuminati meeting, right? There are people legitimately, the way that scene is set, is there a bunch of people sitting around a table doing some weird shit? They're asking questions. They're asking questions. as if they have some sort of authority.

They're asking questions as if the coop is beneath them at first. It seems that way, but what they really are, are curious. They're curious about what's happening, right? And

that's sort of, the veil is ripped off that when we find out who they are. They go, this is NASA. So this is not some military installation. This is not all the world. billionaires. This is not like this in-time sort of religious cult that is there to figure out, this is NASA. Our relationship to NASA, the fact that we looked at that time at least as the

people that explore space, as these people to be, there was an altruism there. We looked at NASA. We looked at space exploration as something that broadened our experience as a human culture. something that was awesome for us, something that brought us all different types of investments into technology, something that changed our lives and made us understand how we interact with our universe and our natural world. When they go, this is NASA, you feel safe.

You feel like he's safe. That would not be like that right now. If that was, this is Space Force, or this is Blue Origin, or this is SpaceX, you'd be like, it's a bomb villain at the other end of this conversation. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. The billionaires have like the billionaires and the near-do-wells have, like, taken this thing that was like so patriotic and American and unifying and all this other stuff. And I don't know. Okay. Anyway, time dilation means that I have done this podcast in a weird order. We're going to go now to our opening snapshot, which we do. All right. So this is this film was directed by Chris R. Nolan. Have you heard of him? Screenplayed by Chris Nolan and my beloved Jonah Nolan. We'll talk about some differences between their versions of this story.

But it's based on an idea from Kip Thorne, renowned scientist, Nobel Prize winner, I believe, Kip Thorne, and Linda Ops, who is a producer who worked on contact. So this came from, like, scientific minds who had an idea for a very grounded, I mean, Mallory, not a scientist, but has some questions about the science movie. But the idea was, let's make a space movie that has very grounded science in it. And that's what we want to do here. This came out November 26, 2014. Budget $165 million, so less than a Christy Nome ad campaign. Box office, $773.8 million, which is insane. This is an original concept sci-fi movie.

Matthew McConaughey was like real hot shit at the time, but like this is like, yes. 2014, original concept movie, $773 million on $100,000. $165 million budget. This is the fifth highest grossing film for Christopher Nolan after Inception, two Batman movies, and the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer. And then it's interstellar. That's completely wild to me, honestly. Incredible stuff. For Van, like, because Mallory and I've been, you know, hopping and jumping around Christopher Nolan's filmography, people know how we feel about Christopher Nolan. What's your relationship

to Nolan's filmography? What do you think of him as a filmmaker? So Nolan was one of the first directors of my, you know, I had the directors that I came up with. These were my guys, right? These were guys and we all got older together. It was Spike Lee and, you know, Spielberg was like the older guard. All of these guys that I came up with. Nolan is one of the first of the new guys, like a friend that I met in college. You know how you have your friends that you grew up with and they're your friends?

Yeah. Then you get to college and you make a new friend and you go, is this friend going to be as with me as the guys? This guy might be with me. This is one of my guys. That is who Christopher Nolan was for me. It actually started off with Batman Begins. I know he had done stuff before and I went back and watched it,

but I went to watch Batman Begins and I was like, yo, what the fuck? This was way better than it had any business being. This is a weird take on Batman. And subsequent movies just continued to push me. to expand my palate as a film fan, to really work my brain out, he just doesn't make a simple movie. He goes into the world of magicians

and does all of this crazy shit. Goes into the world of sleep. He does all this crazy shit. It goes into the world of Batman. It does all this crazy shit. You're relitigating. It's the Joker, right? I never thought about this before.

All he wants to do is poison the water supply of Gotham. I never thought that he might have a point before. And so by the time we get to interstellar, I'm like, all right, me and him are good now. I'm like, whatever he's going to do, I'm pretty good with it. And I'm going to be real with you. It had to have been that way because that first watch was lift. That was lift. That was deadlift.

That was bench press. There was a lot on the screen. I'm at the TCL Chinese theater getting bombarded by sound, getting bombarded by sound, getting bombarded by the depth of what's on the screen. And then by the time you're, it's dusty in the world, is this earth? Are we on earth? Where's the dust?

They're eating nothing but corn products. What's happening here? No explanation as to what's going on. You just have to infer that. And then they start with the science. And Inception had kind of primed me for this a little bit because you get to a point at the end of inception where I really cannot really explain.

This is the fourth, kick, third kick, we're down to the fifth level and all that stuff. I really don't know what's going on. So, in the end of the end of the end of the end. By the time I got to interstellar with Nolan, I could surrender to his taste the way that he makes movies and what he demands of an audience. And I remember leaving the theater,

the first thing I thought was, when can I see it again? That was the first thing I thought. It's like, when can I go back? Mal, where were you when you saw it? And did you love it right away? So this is 2014. I was in Los Angeles.

I was working at Grantland. I was just. recounting this to Sean the other night. I have a pretty vivid memory of this being a, of being a very active discussion in the Grantland offices about this movie, in part because one of Van's co-host, Tate Frazier, was a Grantlin intern at the time, and Tate walked into the office, and this is my memory, perhaps apocryphal, but I feel like this is true. I basically declared that this was the best film that had ever been made.

And I think that is how people of a certain generation feel about this movie. How old is Tate? Yeah, how old Tate... Yeah, so is that, what, is he Gen Z? A young millennial? What's the line for? I don't even know. I just know I'm old now.

Is Tate 32 that makes me feel so fucking old? He's 32. I got hired Tate when he was an intern. Oh my God. I'm going to have to process that later. There's a lot of discussion. The grip this movie has on a generation is so interesting to see. Yes.

This is one of the first movies that I remember, like, feeling... I love this movie, and I'm sorry, I was going back to you to second, Mallory, but, like, I love this movie. I didn't love it in the first watch. I do love this movie. But it's the first movie that I remember being, like, of the older generation, watching a younger generation, like, claim something in a very serious way that, like, other generations don't adhere to it. And you're like, oh, wow, you have to be a little bit younger to feel it kind of precisely the way that maybe these kids who have grown up with the... larger looming threat of climate change or whatever the case may be, whatever the reason that their fixation on this movie has come about.

Okay, sorry, I'm not what you were saying. Yeah, like I think, sure, certainly plenty of people who are older than this slice of people who saw this movie. When this came out, they were in high school or they were in college and they're like, this is the film of my generation and one of my favorite films of all time. Plenty of people who are older than that or younger than that and have come to it later, love it as well. But it is, I think, undeniably, like one of those films for that age group, which is interesting. I mean, we've talked, you know, this is our fifth Nolan rewatch pod. We've done four

to this point. So we've kind of established what our top three, you know, is. And I, one of the things I've said on every pot is I want to, like, leave open the ability to reset my power ranking as we go because revisiting movies over time, you know, they always shift up or down in your estimation. Intercellar is a really interesting one for me where it has remained. I feel very similarly about it now, as I did when I first saw it, which is like, it's a, it's a, a middle of the pack Nolan movie for me in a way that I think might surprise people who like listen to our pod and like know some of the tent pulls of things that I'm drawn to in stories. There are parts of this movie and aspects of this movie that I think are masterful and I love.

I think the middle of this movie, the second act of this movie, basically like Miller's Water Planet, all of the knockdown, drag out arguments between Cooper and Amelia Brand, Coop watching the 23 years of videos from home into revealing who man is and all of the man twists on the ice planet is like God tier. I have a little bit less of a deep and abiding connection to the first and third acts of the film. But I think the emotional highs and like emotional resonance inside of the film really work for me. I think there are certain riveting and rapturous aspects of scripting in dialogue and then there are some lines in this movie where I'm like, I was struck by how often

I wrote, do people talk this way in my notes? That's true of all Nolan movies. But this one really has them in the first act in a way that is distracting. There's some ridiculous dialogue here, guys. I don't know. Nolan tracks so much into a movie that every now and again, you just have to deal with,

hey, aren't you the guy who did the thing back in the day and they told you you'd never do it again and blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought you were gone. And like, so why I see that, actually, he does that every movie, by the way. So, but he's packing so much into the movie. That's just one of his things that you just got to deal with, man. Yeah, no question.

And a lot of, like, one of the ways that we've ended every pod is to talk about, like, the most Nolan thing about the movie, which we will again today, and the thing about revisiting this film that kind of has its most prepped or hyped for The Odyssey. And I find that almost for every pod, like, I'm trying to mix it up. But I end up gravitated towards some of the same beats. that's actually part of what I love about his filmography. And Nolan is a filmmaker who, you know, he's one of my favorite filmmakers and I adore his movies. So saying Interstellar is like a middle of the pack Nolan movie to me is no dig. You know, it's like still a movie that I really

enjoy. I just think it is, it is more of a mixed experience for me than his top tier films are, you know, Inception, the prestige, Dark Night, etc. I'm curious to see like where it checks in when we when we finish the watch. I think if you said to like House of Our List, listeners, space opera, family-driven adventure story where love in a magical, also scientific bookcase saves the day, they would be like, that's probably Mallory's favorite movie that was ever made. So I'm like always a little surprise. And I'm like, that is a movie that I find myself crying during many times and visually astonished by many times.

And then also a few times every time I watch it, I'm like, I've rubbing my chin a little bit. So that's how I feel about it. I think for me, the hot, so I, in 2014, I can't remember if I had started, I might have just started at Vanity Fair, or I might have still been at Pajibah, but it was at an era of my life when I was, like, still very dedicated to snarky reactions to things, and which has changed a bit for me over the years, not entirely, but somewhat. And, but I used to just, like, it was an era of my life when I thought, like, being snarky about something and, and feeling. like you're smarter than the thing made you smart, which I don't agree with anymore. But, so I had, like, a real snarky reaction to this movie. Like, the library section at the end of this movie is, like, you know, easy to make fun of if you want to. And my memory is that, like, this is a very divisive movie at the time that a lot of people

were like, what the fuck is this? And then some people are like, I love this. And my experience of The Interstellar is that every single time I watch it, I like it more. Yeah. And it's highs are higher than most other Nolan movies for me. Like, you know, it just, the McConaughey weeping scene is like one of the best things I've ever seen. And I would also say, and I bring this up every time we talk about like a Jonathan Nolan, Chris Nolan collab. My journey through Westworld, which was such like a deep, deep scholarship of television that I did made me go back and like revisit Jonathan's other works.

And so, like, to see the DNA of what he was interested in in this movie and play out in the better parts of Westworld, Amelia's speech, I think, especially, like, really helped my appreciation for it. And so, like, you and I, Mallory, you and I both bumped a bit on the runtime, and I will say... It's a long movie. It's a long-ass movie. Van, you watched this morning. Did you... Do you ever get surprised by how long this movie is?

Yeah. So I started last night before probably... Roger Kelmary, right? It's going. I have some times. I watch the movie. I like to watch the movie. I like to watch the movie.

I was like, God damn. You know? I know. It's like, I'm up at. It's an hour in and we're still on earth. And you're like, oh, shit. I'm up at 6 a.m. in the morning trying to finish this bitch. This bitch is long.

Yeah. But, you know, I think what we're all saying is that, like, Nolan, it's interesting. Like, at the end of the day, it's a guy screaming at his daughter. right? It's a guy, it's a father. Everything is, everything comes from the human thing. Everything, it's the human thing. It's the human thing. It's the father. It's the daughter. It's explaining what being a parent is. In this movie, we get an explanation of what being a parent is. And then we also get an explanation of how love is stronger than gravity. Yo, if you are going to do that in a movie, you literally, it has to be three hours long because that's such a deep concept. And it's a novel concept. It's something that I had never heard. heard before. Love being the only force in the universe that orients the universe like gravity. You got to give a little math. You got to give

a little connection. You got to play with time. I got to see this poor black guy who's on a goddamn craft for 23 years. Why they played it. Poor bastard. You know, he's up there 23 years. He comes back. Tell you what, what thing they got right? He got a little salt and pepper in his beard, but he basically looked the same. You know, why? Like them crack.

But all of those things, I guess that's what intrigued me about the movie. When I first walked out of the film, I don't know if I could say that I thought that it was one of the best Nolan movies or whatever. I had to kind of surrender to the movie. I was kind of on my

back foot a little bit about what my expectations were. I had to sit with it at the crib. Because in the theater, there's another thing. Just from a technical aspect, like I was like legitimately overwhelmed. I almost thought the first time I saw it

that I was going to have a panic attack because that other movie had just come out with a, no, maybe it came out after. What was a movie with Sandra Bullock? And she was stuck in space. Gravity. Gravity. That movie makes me anxious too.

Yeah, I couldn't handle that movie. That one was too much. You know, so, but, and so with everything that Nolan does, the films are just so deeply human. They're so deeply, human, but they're grandiose. I think they are,

but something that, that, you know, I've been saying again, again, as we talk about the prestige, which is the Jonathan Nolan co-pro, like, I think the Jonathan Nolan co-written scripts are by far more emotional and warmer than, you know, because Chris Nolan sometimes gets accused of being

kind of cold and clinical, and I think sometimes, and he has talked about that, and he has talked about a couple things about this movie, like the code name for this movie when they were shooting is Flora's letter, which is about his daughter, Flora. And so, like, this is a letter to his daughter about being a father and having a daughter.

There are so many things from Jonathan Nolan's script that he changed dramatically when he came on the project. Right? This project was originally Kip Thorne and Lund Ops bring it to Steven Spielberg, who hires Jonathan Nolan, who works on it for years, and then Steven Spielberg leaves Paramount and all of a sudden, like, leaves a project.

And then Jonathan Nolan's like, well, shit, I need a director. oh wait, I'm related to one. And then Chris Nolan comes on and is like, hey, I'm going to rewrite your movie, okay? And he's like, okay. So you can read Jonathan Nolan, like one of his, a version of his earlier script and the final script side by side, which I did. And it's like the first third, like where we're on a corn fed planet, like that is so Stevie Spielberg. Right?

Steven Spielberg thinking about close encounters and Richard Reifis leaving his kids to go explore space. Like that is, that's the DNA of that version of the movie. And then I will say Jonathan Nolan's other version way, way worse, like way, way worse. I will not defend it against what Chris Nolan did here. But like the core pieces, the coop watches 23 years of life go by as he sobs, that's in Jonah's script. You know, and like all this stuff with the family. Malo was thinking about what we talk about all the time when we talk about like you have to show the shire before you, you, you. show what's worth saving.

So I don't know that like the Dust Bowl dying planet, right? There isn't that like, you know, nice tilled earth of the Shire, but there's Murph and there's Coupe and there's that relationship. And that's what the first hour is like really invested in. I mean, sorry Tom, not you, but like, you know,

that's what the movie's really invested in showing us. What a journey for Tom? That's the real Spielberg sort of aspect of it. That's the heart of Jonathan Nolan. And so I love that like Chris Nolan, I think this is by far his most emotional movie. And for that reason, I think it's only grown in my appreciation. Yeah, I think those aspects of it are the ones that just work their way into your heart and

stick with you. And you can think about even when you're not with the film, but then really just it's a satisfying experience to be back with the movie. Looks fucking great on 4K. Can't hear a goddamn thing as is so often the case with Nolan movies of this era. The IMAX stretches of the movie. look amazing and my ears like can't process it. But to your point, Joe, I think as a matter of intention, as a matter of structure, and then as a matter of shorthand, the way that the, not even just like the vast and the massive, the single biggest thing, will the species survive? Will the human race survive?

Is a story that we explore through the most personal and intimate relationships. A family. A lost love in Amelia and Edmonds' case, right? or Dr. Brand as a father to Amelia, Dr. Brand, right? We have that family relationship, but mostly, most of all, of course, Coop and Murph. And then you have these things like two of the three members of this very podcast love Carhart. We wear a lot of Carhart, right?

This is one of the all-time great Carhart jacket runs in the history of story. And right now, you can get a pretty similar. So that exact one is basically impossible to get. You can get a very similar one right now, Carhart Working, progress website, sent you guys the link last night. When Murph is wearing that jacket, despite everything that has happened as a way to carry her father with her, it's just that perfect little touch. Do I understand how exactly the quantum data glimpse from inside of the black hole is conveyed to Murph through the second hand of the clock? No, do I need to know? What I need to understand is that, A, he gave her

that watch. We're going to compare, right? B, she went back for it and C, he knew she would. Like, that's what we need to get. And we do. We understand that on a soul deep level. And that's why the movie sticks with you. Van, go ahead. I'm listening. Any thoughts on that carhart jacket? Well, no, I mean, I think the car

hard jacket is fire. You know what I like to, I just like to feel. I'm a working with you. I put the car hard on. I come in here, though, I'm a working man's podcast. I'll come on here to give the takes. You know, man no free ads you know it's everything to me

in all of these movies is just about how the filmmaker can make you desperate for the thing to happen you remember at the end that you've got mail and you know

he walks over and she goes she really I really hoped it was you I wanted to be you so bad I'm like I'm like we did too like we did too

we knew that it was going to happen we knew that it was going to happen We knew that it would be the movie is in making us want them to get together. And so by the time, it's different. It's one thing to do that with two people getting together. It's another thing to do that with someone solving essentially, shout out to Rhee Richards, the problem of everything, right, so he can get closer to his daughter. It's so many things in there, like how parents have to let their children go.

there has to be a sort of distance that you put between you and your kids so that they can grow older and experience their own adventures in the world for themselves. But then in older age, you come back to those kids and they steward you off into the thing, just like you brought them into the world. That happens in this movie twice in the reverse because then she goes off before he does and he is left to go out into the world.

She births him again. The movie is like subverting and moving around and rejiggering all these things about family and using the math of the universe and the gravity of love to sort of do it. It's great. But it does take a commitment. Like it does.

I think also all the things that we've watched and talked about in the 12-ish years since this movie came out and also like Mallory, specifically, I would say, in our time podcasting together, really helped inform my enjoyment of this watch. Like, thinking about Yoda saying we are what they grow beyond in The Last Jedi,

when Koop is talking about that could be coming your, you know, the ghosts, your children's ghosts and stuff like that, or the ghosts of your children's future. Or Carhart, let's talk about it, the last of us, when we went inside of this movie where they're constantly talking about, like, the concept of saving the species

versus saving your own kin. I mean, the irony of, Professor Brand saving his daughter, putting his nepo baby daughter on the ship and saving her future while lying to coop about whether or not he be able to save his daughter. Not irony, but just sort of like, Brand, the monstrous lie, you know, which is a real night of the Seven Kingdoms moment inside of this movie. But like, that idea of like who is worth saving, who is us inside of this? and is us humanity as a species or is us my daughter?

And who gets to decide that? Yep. Right. Yeah. Also, let the record state that Joel's jacket is a flint and tender, not a car heart, but I really appreciate the count nonetheless.

Carhartish. I didn't know that even. May or may not have a couple of those. She does. She's been on a real trucker jacket journey in recent years, please carry on. Yeah. So the movie, for the most part,

for most of the movie the film the villain is just shit right it's just stuff it's like climate change dust eating a lot of corn okay it's different corn situations corn sandwiches all that stuff's going on I'm not sure they're like all fritters

fritters they're having fun time with eating corn so corn's only thing left yeah okay so RIP okra yeah but after this then space and time becomes the villain and then the movie makes a very direct decision

to insert a human adversary. And this is always the part of the film that I enjoy but wonder why they did it. Oh, the man part? Yeah, so I get it. I understand it, right? But to insert an unhinged Matt Damon

into the movie, like surprise deploy a surprise Matt Damon incredible to this day it's incredible it worked it's fantastic and all of that but i just wonder why when the stakes are so high and we are already that invested into everything i wonder what the thematic purpose of a human uh somebody that like it's just that fucking crazy like what what was the purpose of that So this is my favorite part of the movie. This is fascinating. We can kind of tip a category pick because you just mentioned villains. So my pick for one of our recurring categories is who's the real villain of this movie.

And this is where I thought we could talk about some of this. But let's just do it here. Like my pick isn't Dr. Man, isn't Damon's character Man. It's... Say his full name. It's Dr. Hugh Mann. It's always a shot to like learn what the character's first name. names are in this movie, other than Donald, because that's repeatedly said.

So, Hugh, who is the humanity? Humanity is. Okay, we see you. Just perfect. No-N-N-N-Krist. Okay, we see you guys. Cheney-inly, no-notes. Oh, man, remarkable.

The best of us. Hugh, man, it's perfect. My pick for, like, the villain, and I think the man, some of what we learn about Dr. Brand, Michael Keynes' character and the choices that he's made to keep what he's kept secret about plan A. but mostly man is like the way that the survival instinct

the idea of a survival instinct in the movie that is necessary for us I think imperative for us to understand how that could become warped like if everybody in the movie is doing something heroic in order to save everybody or make sacrifices

that I don't think it lands as fully for us when Coop makes the choices that he does at the end I really agree And what I like about the, what happens after man's whole bullshit is like what brand goes off to do and what Coop goes off to do is like follow their hearts, right? Like, you know, she's looking for good old wolf, wolf Emmons. Is he alive? I don't know.

That's where she goes. We see his little name patch at the very end. So I think that has toast. No, he's dead. But like, no, what I meant was in that moment. Right. All right. Is he alive?

We're not sure. Right. So like she goes off in pursuit of that. He goes home in pursuit of like trying to. make good with mirth or do something with mirth, blah, blah. But in doing those too selfish or emotionally motivated things, that's the future, right? Brandt establishes like a homestead, a place for them to land,

and Kup goes to the interdimensional space library and saves humanity, you know what I mean? But they do it because they're doing something not altruistic, but ultimately emotionally selfish, which I like that complex. inside of it, you know? I think the idea that the, we've all said, like, it's so human and human impulse many times, and that's obviously just like kind of the core strand of DNA that makes this movie function

and the story function. And I think the fact that, like, the survival instincts and the selfishness fuel both the heroic acts and the villainous acts. And it's two sides of the same coin is, to me, the most interesting part of the story and what's so crucial, especially because we have evolution inside of that. Coop is like, I'm going home. I'm going to go home, right? He makes that choice, to your point, Joe. But then still the great, I mean, God, that when a look on Amelia's face when she realizes, like, oh, it's not just the robots who are dropping, like, you're going with them when Tarz is like,

see you on the other side. You get a chill because he's, he has, the thing that has driven him the whole time is going to do this thing to save my kids. Going to do this, I have a note on the time dilation and whether we should go down to Miller's planet because of what the math would for my kid. Every time, every decision he makes along the way is about getting back to his family, including literally saying, I'm going to go get back to my family. But at the end of the day, when it all comes down to it, he's willing to risk that outcome to allow everybody else to survive, which is the exact opposite of what man, the guy we have heard throughout the whole film is the best of us and remarkable and let all these people to go on the scariest and starkest

journey in in human history. Like, I love so much in the man, uh, Coupe fight when Coupe says you fucking coward and it is such a withering indictment and man just says, yes. Yes, yes. And so I love that we get that because that feels really true to me that that would be something that pulled that the fear of like wanting to push the button so someone came to rescue you, that people would do that.

And maybe the people who were supposed to save us. I don't know that the movie works without that. It might not. It might not because it's still a movie, which is always the thing. I mean, it is. It's still a movie, right? It's still a movie. In the movie, the thing still has to happen where the guy goes, oh, I did this.

So it's still a movie. And then, you know, there's actual utility for this character. But when I'm watching it, that's the part that feels most like a movie, beyond Christopher Nolan and like, you know, the three or two or three lines of weird exposition. Oh, is that the magic shoe? The shoe that was rumored to be the end and it goes, yes, this is that, that's it.

And like, he does it in every movie. I don't, I mean old shit you. Like, I. So obviously, I talk about this all the time. The clean slate is the, that's the OG of this. That's the number one. Oh, you mean the clean slate? The device that lets you change everything.

I'm like, what the fuck is like? Can we see somebody? You're going to do it just like that, Chris? He's like, fuck it, we got to get the ban. But that's the part of it that felt most like a movie. The rest of it feels, and this is how I fall into things. Like, I am a film lover. Everyone knows it's very hard for Van to be critical of a movie van.

It's very hard for me to be critical of a film. I go into the movie to like the movie, and you have to make me not like it, right? You have to make me not come out and say this is the best thing that's ever been made. Like, you have to make that happen. You have to impose that upon me. So when I'm watching a movie even now, I'm legitimately falling in and surrendering to everything about it. That is the part to where I'm like, oh, this is kind of like an episode of Star Trek. Not in a bad way, but like that's the part that I most see as being sort of ordinary.

I want to get to our categories, but I want to, I think this is a really good way to talk about, just to note really quickly a couple influences on the film and then what the film is influenced. Because, like, 2001, when Nolan talked about 2001 of Space Odyssey's influence on this movie, which when you go see Project Hail Mary, you'll see immediately that movie's influence on that movie. That is the er-text of space cinema for so many modern filmmakers, right? Like, when he talks about it, he talks about it as like this experiential thing that just sort of washes over. You have to surrender yourself completely to the experience of that movie. And so that there are things inside of this movie like, you know, the visual of gargantua or the space library or whatever the case may be or the ticking hand on the watch that you just have to sort of like that is, you know, similar to inception, we're not dealing in a place of easily expletable reality.

We're just sort of dealing in element. I mean, it's certainly a tenant, which we will get to eventually. But, like, you know, we're dealing in sort of, how do the, are the human emotions selling it? Which is something Mallory has already said. But to think about 2001, to think about the right stuff, which is an incredible film that I don't think enough people watch. But when you look at the opening of this film, like, especially his test flight, that is his nightmare that opens a film, that is very much like the right stuff. That's the grounded sort of like what. can man on the ground achieve sort of aspect of this movie that is the DNA of it. But I'm most

interested, I don't want to burn like whatever we're going to say about the Odyssey at the end, but I'm most interested in this movie thinking about what Chris said when he came on to talk about Dunkirk with us and this idea that like so many of Chris Nolan's movies are about a guy, people trying to get home. Yes. And that it's all been leading to the Odyssey. And that's not true of every movie. But like Chris made such a good point. And, you know, like if you think about Cobb and inception or whatever. And so you think, about coop on this journey and and for the history of of space sci-fi space exploration and like maritime exploration have been linked that's what the you know the USS enterprises you know

space the final frontier like this is this has been a long ongoing you get you get lost in space which is just you know robinson crusoe in space essentially so his family robinson in space so like the um the idea that this is like a proto-odicy for him, the way in which they like drop it on these planets that have frozen clouds or time dilated oceans, like these are like dropping on the various magical islands on the way. And the reason why a man is, a Dr. Hugh man is so important is like, spoilers for the Odyssey, broad stroke spoilers for the Odyssey. I think you're okay. There's a reason Odysseus makes it home and none of the rest of his shipmates do, right?

and there's a reason why there's, like, characters like eurylicus, I think. Like, you have to contrast what makes an Odysseus someone who can get home versus his shitty second in command who does X, Y, and Z. And so I think you need that contrast of like what is a, what is a Dr. Hugh Mann? Also, him saying, him saying no one has ever been tested the way that I've been tested. When, to Vance point, Romley was just kicking it on that spaceship for 23 years. by himself with, I mean, you know, with a robot. But like, you know, it's just like, that's not true, Dr. Hume, man.

Adel's a delusion. He was up there by himself. He went to sleep a couple of times. But I love. He had to have faith that they would come back. I love that performance in that scene because he's obviously slightly insane. When they get back, he's obviously holding it in. He's like seeing ghosts.

He's in his pajamas now. No more spaces. like he's like legitimately he didn't answer the door in some NASA shit he's like he's fuck it now like he's got some coffee I'm glad you guys are back

I didn't think I would ever see you guys again so no I get what you guys are saying and you guys are absolutely right but this also might be for me it might be indicative of the esteem that I hold the movie in now the movie almost and Project Hell Mary

felt like this to me too like I was I was just a ball of emotions. The movie was so effective on me. I think I'm going through something. It's a wonderful film. But I fall into interstellar. Like, I believe it.

It's a documentary to me. I don't know why. Like, I fall into interstellar. Everything that happens seems so genuine, even with some of the stuff that we've talked about. But everything, all the points you guys are saying, they're all landing. Melanie, anything you want to say about,

the Odyssey B, do you want to save that for the end or anything else? I mean, you know, I know it's our closing category, but you covered it. I mean, the journey home, the quest home is certainly the thing that revisiting Interstellar now, I think makes us feel like we are readying and preparing for the Odyssey and obviously also spending time with Matt Damon. Askew ma'am. Great stuff. And Anne Hartaway.

That's right. Yeah. I'm curious if. if Chris will talk about this in the many interviews he'll do around The Odyssey, but like the details like every minute on Miller's planet is seven years, right? Isn't that the case? Every hour, every hour. Sorry, yeah, that makes more sense.

Every hour is seven years. What did it cost us decades? Yes. But like, you know, Odysseus is detained for seven years on Calypso's island. Or like you've got Penelope's faith that he would return in Telemachus and like anger at his father's absence. Or like, if you just watch the trailer, you'll be. of Anne Hathaway saying to Matt Damon, like, promise me you'll come back and he says, what if I can't?

Like, how is that not the beginning of this movie also? So I'm just, I'm so excited to see. And then he passes her a brown and tobacco custom car heart Detroit truck or jacket. Yeah. And she wears it over her, her, her totally is all this one story. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I've already covered sort of like what was different about Jonathan Nolan's version and Chris Nolan's version. But I will just say I really love it when these brothers work together. I think they make great shit. Okay, anything else we want to talk about

before we get into these sort of superlative category things that we do? I guess just quickly, like, where we are in the McConnellesance at this point. You kind of alluded to this earlier, but that feels like kind of key context, right? Absolutely. This is his first film after the Oscar-winning.

Dallas Byers. It's the same year as True Detective. So this is just like, this is the peak. This is the peak moment. for him in terms of like a second peak, a new peak in terms of like him doing stuff that really recalibrated how people thought about

him as a performer. I have a thought here and I want us to put our content culture brains together has anyone reinvented like this? So think about it. So so so

think about it in this way. So Matthew McConaughey explodes onto the scene a time to kill all right, all right, days and confused, almost in a Brad Pittish sort of way. Not quite like Brad Pitt. He comes on, he's beautiful and all of that stuff. But then you have movies where Matthew McConaughey

is a serious Hollywood leading man. Then something happens throughout the 2000s. Matthew McConaughey becomes sort of a joke. Like, he becomes sort of a joke. And other guys start to like ramp up this cool factor, The Oceans 11's movies come out. Brad and George are Hollywood cool guys way up here. Other stars start to develop.

Vigo Mortensen comes up and becomes this huge box office star, but also a guy that's just in like dead-ass cool movies, like a history of violence and Eastern Promises. All of this stuff starts to happen. And Matthew McConaughey starts to become a guy that no one fucking takes seriously anymore, right? then he just completely nukes that with four or five different choices. Mud into Dallas Byers Club, into Interstellar, into True Detective,

and he's Zeniths and Apex's... Oh, I'm sorry. Magic Mike, please. Magic Mike, yeah. And like, he's Zenics. He doesn't like even come back. He creates a new Matthew McConaughey. and I'm trying to figure out

if anybody has ever done that in that way. I'm trying to think of somebody who has done it that way. I don't think there's a direct comp. I think you have someone like Downey whose personal life sort of blew up his career and he came back but didn't like I mean being Tony Stark is very different

from being like chaplain so like he did come back to do something different but like I don't know that I would call it the exact same thing. Colin Farrell is one of my favorite career trajectories, right? Because Colin was like this heartthrob leading man. And then he was like, and then he was also sort of considered, he made Alexander, like he was considered a joke for a while.

He did like SWAT. You're just like, what is Colin Farrell doing? And then he becomes like an actor's actor, you know, when he comes back. I'm a huge Colin Farrell. I'm thinking about horrible bosses. I don't know why. I'm like, because when he, I didn't know. he could be that funny and then there's the whole professor ex-joke and all that stuff.

I'm thinking about horrible. I just think that what McConaughey did is he just started like when he does Magic Mike, when he does mud, which is so good, when he does like Bernie, you know, like he does a bunch of things where he's just sort of like, I don't give a fuck at this point and I'm just going to do what's really interesting to me. And so it becomes less of like a calculated career and more of a like, well, if you're going to, like, not take me seriously anyway. I might as well just do what interests me.

And then in doing so, turns in this true detective role, which I will always swear really won him the Oscar. Like, Dallas Spiders Club is incredible, but, like, I don't think he wins that Oscar if true detective didn't come out right at the same time and just sweep him up in this moment. And then watching him in this, it's so wild, because I would say even now, like, McConaughey's still, you know, he does. did enough to be in his career. He went back.

Just say it. I know he went. He's doing the Uber. I made a joke about it. He now has reverted, not reverted. I don't want to diss the, what I'm saying is he, the guy

who he was at that time was probably closer to who he actually is. And so he doesn't really want to be taken super duper seriously. You can see him being an Uber Eats detective like on commercials. Like that's a thing.

And like the Cadillac. car guy. Like, there's a, like a cynicism about Matthew and an every manness that probably is, is more genuine to who he is. Well, this is why Nolan said he wanted to cast him in this film because he wanted an every man. But I just don't think that, like, age aside, I don't think Matthew McConaughey now is leading a Christopher, a big Christopher Nolan movie.

Yeah. The way that, like, he was in that very moment. I don't think, like, let's particularly. he's the same age now, I don't think Nolan's casting him in this role. Oh. Yeah. So, I say that with love and affection. I love him too.

I love him. And I think he's great. I think he's great in this movie. But I just remember a time when everybody kept waiting for it to happen. And he tried the romantic comedy thing for some reason people, some of them worked. But then everybody just went, okay, well, Matthew McConaeigh, it didn't really,

you know, he'll be like a leading man, but not like anything big. And then it came back and it was like, he goes, nah, I'm here. Like, yeah, I got this. Maybe there's a Nick Cage comparison in there some way, but not really. No, because Nick just doesn't give a fuck. Well, let's check back in after Spider-Noir.

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Registered Futures Commission Merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. All right, let's do our categories. As always, every category starts with the Christopher Nolan movie. Quote, why so serious, funniest line or moment from this movie, Van Lathan, when do you have? To me, the funniest line, I have to say it.

The funniest line is, I don't know why this makes me laugh so much. But John Lithgow just being pissed off that baseball is dead when the whole world. It's like, where's my hot dog? I come to a ball game. I want a hot dog. I mean, eat popcorn at a ball game. First of all, we do, number one. And then secondly, dude, there's no more food.

Like, we used to have real ball players in my day. They didn't go on strike. My man, the world is indie. Just can you enjoy it? That I always laugh at. that because that's how that's how my dad would have been pissed off at the end of the world. That was one of mine where you like cut away and it says the New York Yankees. Like that's just like very funny.

In Jonathan Nolan's original script, what happened is there's like a broken down van and there's like a bunch of ball, like what looked like minor league ball players or whatever and then like Coop stops to fix their van and like he gets it going for them. And then you see on the side of the van like New York Yankees like they're in like just a shitty van and that's how they get to their games. But like that was always the joke of just sort of like, 10% of the population is left, and that's why this is where the New York Yankees are playing. Mallory, what do you have?

That makes me think about an end game when, you know, the therapy scene. It's like how much we miss the Mets. Let's get like a non-New York baseball team in one of these apocalyptic scenarios. My pick is Tars, who I just think that we need the levity that Tars provides throughout the because it is a very, very intense movie in a number of different respects in moving in beautiful and profound ways in just like scary high-tension ways.

And so I love the throughline of the, how are his settings calibrated? Whereas his honesty setting, you know, 90% absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic, whereas his humor setting during takeoff, et cetera. And like, I love the payoff that we build to at the very end in the like, homestead museum on

Coober base. Yeah. When Coop is restoring Tars and he's like all right we're going to actually we're going to go to 75. Okay no we got to take this down to 60. Do you want to go to 55? It just makes me chuckle. It's great. I think these are right picks.

I think also Coop saying you told him I liked farming to older Murph is really really good. But for me it's when Damon, Dr. Hugh, man, I mean, Dr. Hugh Mann is the funniest part of this whole movie, honestly. But when Dr. Hugh Mann is gearing up to give his big speech, there is a moment.

And then the whole thing just explodes on him. I got iconic. That's genuinely iconic. I love that. That's a great thing. You know who's under- A good runner up at the- I'm sorry.

No, go ahead. Bill Irwin. Yeah. Oh, my God. I don't know why. He's underappreciated. Remember my blue heaven? Remember he's dancing around in my blue heaven?

And like, he's like, he's got rubbery bump. It's like, I don't know. He's just underappreciated. But like Rachel, Rachel getting married also. He's like so good in that movie. He's going to be in The Odyssey. That's right. And I don't think it's been announced who he's playing,

but I think some people are suspect that he's playing in like polyphemous or something like that. Oh, hell yeah. He's doing like a mocap performance. But yeah, Bill Irwin. That would be perfect. Mel, sorry, you were saying your runners-in-runner-s-R-Is. This is one of these, like, the line is delivered in a way that only Matthew McConae could deliver the line. And so I think it's the way he's delivering it

that makes me chuckle more than the language itself, though it is also just the writing is amusing. And the parent-teacher conference scene when he's like, you're telling me it takes two numbers to measure your own ass, but only one to measure my son's future. And the way he says it. Now, again, we say this with the self-awareness

of being people who record routinely a three-hour podcast. I want to own that. There's something about the way that Coop stretches out every word to like the amount of, time it should take to say seven words. We're like, that's also why the movie is two hours and 49 minutes. But I find it hypnotic and very pleasant, honestly. This is, this is like a, there are so many, so Damon, the way that Damon's deployed in this movie, the way that Ellen Burson's deployed

in this movie, like, there are just great uses of like powerhouse actors inside of this movie. And then you put David a Yellow-O in this, like, principal role. And I was like, what the fuck are we doing here with David on Yellow-O? Like, this is the biggest waste of absolute tell you have in this movie. I feel like early on, maybe this wasn't early on, but remember David was also in, he was also in,

Planet the Apes? Remember he was in Planet Apes? I forgot that. Yeah, remember he was in Planet Apes? He's in, I feel like he was just trying to get his face out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wasn't, he hadn't done, like, Selma yet or anything like that. So, like, he wasn't like it.

But, like, when you have, like, you see it now, it's drawing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Young Timothy Shalmay is there and you're like, yeah, he was a baby, like, whatever he was getting started. But I was like, David a yellow elf. You didn't know what you had here, man.

Anyway. Okay, next category is you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. Sickest set piece, Van Lee. Oh, man. So, look, there are a lot of them that are sick. But, okay, so what counts as a set piece here? All right, because, because, so whatever you want. Whatever I want?

Go lose. All right. Now, all you guys are going to go, some of you guys are going to go wormhole. some guys you're going to go black whatever. Man, the fucking Mavericks, Chasing Mavericks Wave, Water Planet, whole joint is

definitely a pick. That's my answer to me. Like that entire joint is so, I feel so minuscule. I am so scared for them. Even when I watch it now, like just the wave, those are mountains. Get back to the ship. Whoa, what the

fuck? That entire thing is which is high octane, man. And that's the stuff that Nolan's really good at. And I think, I mean, this isn't my Zimmer answer, but I'm like, I don't mean to like blow the Zimmer category later, but like the TikTok on the score.

So bad. I'm like sweating bullets that whole sequence. You can feel how heavy, like the gravity is on the, oh, it's just like, oh my God. It's, this is my pick as well. I do think there are a lot of candidates for this category, but that this is like kind of clearly the winner.

It's one of the, most iconic and indelible visual sequences from the film. And I think it's also one where a lot of the core character impulses and beats and the science aspects are beautifully captured. Like this is such a key stretch for the time dilation, which I think probably will all come back to in other categories. But even something like thinking about like the descent down to the planet and this question of like, you know, the idea of the air break, the air break, right, the coop is going to try.

Because like the fuel conservation is key and every second counts. and the question of like, do you want me to turn off the feedback? It's like, no, I need to feel the air. And you're like, we're watching it. We're getting to another category. You're like, we're watching a great man at work. And then it's like, it doesn't matter.

It's not enough because the scope of the thing they're facing is so gargantuan. So Titanic. I love that, to your point, Van, that recognition, that beat where he's like, we're in the middle of the swell. It gives you like something as kind of, grounded and documentarian as like you can feel that way watching 100 foot wave on HBO, right? But then you take this to these genre places. I love the moment where Amelia realizes after they find the beacon, they find the wreckage,

oh, this just happened for Miller. Right. Just happened. That is such a key aspect for- It helps us understand. It's crucial. It helps us. You can say one hour, seven years, we can get back to.

to Ram on the ship, and he's like 23 years passed, something like understanding that the reason they didn't know things had gone wrong is because it had just happened here, even though all this time had passed for them, is, I think, really crucial. When you rewatch and you can sort of like see where her ship crashed, like, you know, in the sort of that massive wide shot. Did you know, this is a fun fact I learned from this movie. Did you know the phrase fly by the seat of your pants comes from like aviators using the vibration in the seat of their airplanes to guide them as they go. No.

Or if I did, I've forgotten, but I love knowing it. I feel rich or for knowing it. He wanted to fly by the seat of his pants. That's great. I think also the seeing the looking and seeing just the wave of water,

that's like one of the more inception-esque visuals. To me in this movie where you're just like, you see something that allows you to understand the physical space and the reality of where you are and what the characters are facing instantly. And it's just, it's the best. You won't forget it.

I would say also, inside of that, when you see this robot that you thought you understood how the robot moves, like, level up or this, like, incredible. Two things I'll say. I think we all just did that.

Yeah. Because in the movies, I was like, oh, shit. All right, two things I'll say real quick. One is how when you get on that planet and that planet's water, once again, that feels kind of safe. The reason why I feel safe is because Like when we see planets that are barren and don't have any life,

when we think of planets that are bare. We don't think of planets covered in water. We think of the Earth as being a planet that can sane us, sustain us, because it's covered in water. So that you land and the planet's water, oh, this is Earth like they're water. They might have fucking fish. I don't know. Dolphins might have come around and say hello to you, whatever.

But then the water on that planet being the predator, being the thing that makes the planet uninhabitable, just automatically you're scared. On the backside of that, there's a profound statement that the movie continues to make about how we experience things with each other. If you've ever talked to somebody that's been through something really traumatic,

they always say it feels like it was just yesterday, especially for like a time. They always go, I know that's been a lot of time for you, but it feels like it just happened to me. It feels I am still connected to this event Like in a way that signals immediacy And so when you have three different people

When they leave there Like they almost could have saved her Something just happened to her While it was 23 years for this other guy Because you also hear that as a human being This one month where I was stuck in this trench Or doing this thing It felt like an entire eon

So all of that stuff, the same event, how they experience it differently, just kind of mirrors our experience here with different things that we go through. I love that. I mean, it reminds me of like the way I've talked about time since COVID and the way COVID just completely destroyed my understanding of how time progresses. Like every, like we're in 2006 and I'm just sort of like, yeah, but COVID was yesterday. Yeah. Like COVID was just last year. And that's, yeah. Trauma. Okay.

You either die here or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Who is the real villain of this movie? Fan? You already talked about this a little bit, but do you want to... It's Young Coop. Not Young Coop. It's Young Murf. Young Murf is the real villain of this movie. Young Murph. If it was up to Young Murf, we'd have been eating corn fritters until the ashrase killed the sun, okay? It's like if it, oh, I'm sorry, oh, spoilers, I'm sorry.

No, no, spoilers. I take that out. I'm not bad. It's too much. If it was young Murph. I think you're okay. It's a premise. It's a premise.

Young Murph and her pluckiness. That's the real villain arc of this movie. Is her getting over the pluck. Classic. Young Murph and her plucking is, hey, Murph, guess what? Daddy got to go save the species, okay? He might not be around to help you braid your hair, okay? Daddy got to go save the species.

Like, yeah, Daddy got to go get on the craft and pile. I know, it's hard for me. I'm getting older. Okay? I never had any kids. So maybe this is something that, you know,

it happens with kids. But when I look at it now, if young Murph gets her way, we're fucked. None of this happens because he wouldn't have gone. So this is the true villain arc is her stepping into her role as a genius. and actually picking up the pencil

and putting down the emotions and helping humanity figure out what we're going to do next. She was bothering the shit out of me early in the movie. I'm sorry. I love Youngmerf. That's so funny.

Incredible take. I think Young Murf is so good and you need to really feel that incredible shot when Coupe is driving away from the house and the camera is placed on like the side of the truck as if it's like a rocket taking off.

You know what I mean? And you have to like feel how painful this decision is for him. And so you just need that like you and like he pulls back the blankets and she's not there. Yeah. Like she was hiding there before.

I don't know. I get the bit van and I support it. It's not a bit. Even that though. Even that though. This also could be a black thing. You know what I told you, I told you to stay your ass in the house. I didn't tell you to get under the blanket. But he

likes that she comes. Yeah. Because that's the thing that, this is a, this is a thing that I actually wish. I wish that sometimes when I did my precocious shit that somebody went, oh, maybe we should kind of goose his curiosity a little bit. That's not what happened. Um, but no, like that's, the movie to me doesn't really have a true villain besides time. Time is the actual villain of the movie. So I would give it to young because I don't like the pluck. I'm going to I'm going to give it to climate change. Mallory Rubin was your great one.

Yeah, I already I already set mine at the beginning. I think the way that the that certain characters like Hugh Mann or in a way Thank you for using his own name. You're welcome the elder Dr. Brand or even in some respects like Tom, older Tom or refusing to let his family go even though they're dying

by staying there. The way that this like aspect of a survival instinct, your choice, the threat of time and loss can be warped and allow you to make the wrong decisions, like when man, when human says of Dr. Brand, when they're talking about that reveal, he knew how hard it would be to get people to save the species instead of themselves. I think that connects to what Van is saying, and is obviously true, but then you build toward, I've always really loved the moment where on the heels of that monstrous lie quote from Amelia, man says, like he acknowledges it, right? He's not, he's not, he's not There's no contention there.

He's like, unforgivable. And he knew that. He was prepared to destroy his own humanity in order to save the species. He made an incredible sacrifice. And this is the kind of warped thinking. There's a version of that that's true. But then there's a version of it that leads to the warped delusional thinking that man will then turn into, I can make an incredible sacrifice. I can kill coop.

I can do whatever I deem necessary and say it is under the guise of ensuring that the species perseveres. But really, it's because I don't want to die. So I just think the way that the film explores that. is fascinating and getting to see man as Cooper's choking and gasping for his last ammonia-free breaths. It's like, you're feeling it, aren't you? The survival instinct, that's what drove me

and trying to build a connection to this person he is seeking to kill. But also being like, so good. Also to be like, I thought I could stick around and watch you do this, but I can't. You know what I mean? And that cowardice of turning off his radio

is what allows Kup to call for help and eventually be okay. Yeah, so that's great. What's your pick, Joe? You said, climate change, is that your actual pick? It's a great one. I mean,

it's a great one. Your man, your Dr. Hugh Mann, quote, about convincing humanity to protect the species. I also wrote Last of Us-esque, like selfishness. Like, you know,

or myopic. Myopi. Is that the word? I think that, like, I mean, it's, it's, It's the thing I love about The Last of Us and I love about the Dr. Hugh Mann stuff and stuff like that is like it's very understandable.

Oh, yeah. Yes. But it's also like, it's not who you hope you'd be, you know, when faced with these decisions. Exactly. But it's probably who you would be. That's exactly right. The perfect way to put it. All right.

Are you watching closely, most exquisitely gorgeous shot? A crowd a category for this movie. Van, what are you? Yeah, it's very tough, you know. Yeah. I personally love the first pass to the warm hole. That's my pick. It's my pick.

Oh, yeah. Oh, look at us. That's my. It's gorgeous. That's my favorite. It just looks crazy. It looks crazy. It feels crazy.

You feel the weight of what's happening on screen. In an interview that I watched with Jonathan Nolan, which I referenced a lot when we did our prestige episode. It's great. It's on YouTube. It was at Sundance and it was like, it's like a career. retrospective of his career and where science and his career meet. And so they were talking a lot about the science of the wormholes in this and how like Kip Thorne like was very specific about how it

should look, like very, very, very specific. And it was like incredibly time consuming and hard for them to render it the way that he said. But they did it. And then there were like studies done later that corroborated that this was actually quite an accurate depiction of what going through. I mean, how could people know? I don't know. But. But they were talking about this about the visuals. And then the woman who was interviewing him was talking about the color in it. And she's like, she's talking about this color scheming before the wormhole and after. And he's like, here's the fun fact about both my brother and me were colorblind.

Which I don't know how broadly known that is. I didn't know it. Maybe it's widely known. I didn't know it. And he said, that's why you don't see a lot of red in Chris Nolan movies, which is not true tenant. But like, is maybe like true across his filmography. I don't know. But anyway, he was like, we're red-green color blind.

I was like, oh, that's fascinating to me. Interesting. This is my pick as well. And I think to that broader science point, Joe, you know, the stuff on the, again, let me be clear. Not a scientist, not an astronaut, not a physicist. I don't know fucking anything about any of this, not a mathematician. But you owned a telescope one. But I once had a telescope that they never figured out how to use.

So, yeah. This, like, everything with the wormhole here, there's the great ROM gives us a, it makes me think a little bit of Mr. Clark in stranger things, like the acrobat in the flee. You know, let's break out a pencil and a piece of paper and explain something very hard to understand in a very simple way. I always love that. Is there another way to explain wormholes?

Then the pencil through the paper plate and a piece of paper, whatever it is. And, you know, that part of the science, the time dilation stuff, I mean, this is a all, I think, all time, like pantheon, bootstrap paradox movie. We love talking about that stuff. That way. Really wonderful if you're interested in thinking about that.

So these are the science aspects of the story that I love. The parts where I'm like, there's a line in the movie about recursive and nonsensical, and then I wonder if the movie sometimes falls into that trap is more about the, like, what is solvable or not solvable about the equation and the connection to gravity and what we can parse, et cetera. But again, I'm fine with it. But this, did you guys go to the planetarium a lot when you were kids? Was this a thing that either of you love to do?

I used to go when I could. There wasn't much of one in Baton Rouge, but we tried. I loved. I'm like such a English social studies student broadly, and I was pretty bad at math and science, but I loved going to the science center and space was something I loved, and I loved going to the planetarium.

This wormhole sequence where you're basically looking at like a, like a gummy marble, like as the sphere explanation unfolds, and then you move on this, like, Bright River, it basically is like planetarium kid grows up to hit a bong with an astrophysicist. And I think that's ideal. This is why you like Avatar. This is why you like Avatar. As you know, the hallucinetic drug sequences of the Avatar films are definitely my favorite

parts of them. It's just fantastic. I like the fact that they don't just go straight into the wormhole either. They like orbit it. You know, the thing that they do where they shoot. Coop flying the craft and he's always on the side of something and they shoot it over the top. It just makes it feel a lot more rich. He didn't just go into the middle of the, they didn't pull out wide and then show the small craft going into the middle.

That's not what they did. They put you into the experience of going into the wormhole, which was very innovative to me. By the way, I just figured out, because when you were talking about this telescope, I was thinking I'm going to go buy a telescope. This is the part of miles. I'm going to get it. But I figured out why. Fantastic. Well, I have a negative opinion of telescopes

and I figured out why. Why? I used to know a guy and when I first got out to L.A. And the whole thing with the telescope... I know what you're going to say. He would use the telescope. He had a telescope on his balcony.

And the whole purpose of the telescope was like howling the house. That was the whole purpose of the telescope. It was like... How's the peeping, Tommy? Yeah. Like, he would have the telescope and the telescope

and now I'm like, I don't want it. He would use the telescope to look at... You just got to aim it up. Yeah. Aim it. It's just got to be aimed up at all time. I know. Look at the stars.

This was one of the first true real creeps that I ever met. This is when my antenna started to go up in L.A. This guy had the nicest crib I had ever been to. And we go there and he goes, the telescope is for two reasons. One is wooing women because you get a girl out there and you go, look through the telescope. And then, you know, you're doing something together. And then you're like over a shoulder, you're adjusting the sort of eye for her. That's what he said.

But he goes also, you know, these curtains around here. And I was like, dog. I'm driving home. I'm like, did you hear what he just said about the fucking telescope? I can't hang out with this guy anymore. I'm not going to. If you go to someone's house and their telescope is pointed level or or even more like down. Concerning.

Now if you have a telescope in your crib, I'm kind of looking at you a little funny. I'm kind of like what you're using the telescope for. It's, you know. Maybe I won't get one. Well, but now it's kind of quaint because I feel like now people do that with drones. Like, now people just fly drones around looking for women undressing. You're right. Have you ever had a drone come, like, hang outside your window?

I've had that happen in Oakland, and I'm just sort of like... Scary. Very disturbing. How is this legal? How are you allowed to just sort of, like, drop a camera in front of my window? What the fuck? Horrifying. Some quick runners up here.

You mentioned Joe, the, like, size perspective and how the movie reminds us of how small people are. I love how we get that in space and also on the terrain, like the kind of first zoomed-out wide shot on the ice planet, on Hugh Mann's planet of Cooper and Man, they're fighting and they're just like specks when we pan wide during their fight scene and their tiny little specks in this like icy abyss on this giant kind of glacier glacial escape. I love that. When after man, your comedy moment after man is like speechifying and then explodes the endurance because he didn't properly. latch on and ignored all counsel. When it's when in general, I think endurance like spinning like a pinwheel across the screen is just visually arresting and astonishing. But particularly the shot we get of Cooper and Amelia and Kay C. and Tars are in their ranger on the left of the screen and endurance is pinwheeling and the debris is flying everywhere and the ice planet is beneath them. That is like, it just looks so fucking cool.

And when you got to see that back in the day at the theater or you get to watch it now in 4K, it's like, fuck, this is why we watch movies. It's just amazing. Wait, quickly. Do you have any stranger things PTSD when you realize that there are 12 spots on the clock that is the endurance? I'm always thinking of the ticking clock and why it had to be 12, always, always. And then I just love the – it's like a kind of like a – a – wind to the wormhole shop, but, you know, in this case, the black hole gargantua, when tiny broken endurance is moving toward gargantua and that, like, amazing shot of light matter bending.

And it almost looks like rivers of lava, like as they're, that's just, that looks so cool. It just looks so great. I mean, like, also part of this is, I mean, I don't know if this is borrowing from someone else's category, but like the, the brand Cooper handshake on each side of, of that experience, the way that she reaches out for him on the way in, and then he reaches out for her on the way back. Fantastic. Great shit.

Okay. I can't remember to forget you. The scene you think about the most. I will say, not just because I'm saving it for later, but genuinely true. I think about that brand love monologue the most. That's the one I think about the most. Maybe it means something more, something we can't understand. Maybe it's some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can't consciously perceive.

I'm drawn across the universe as someone I haven't seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing that we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it. How hot do you think Wolf Edmonds was to inspire this? Had to be a tan. Galaxy crossing demotion. Who would you cast as Wolfman? How do he?

Great question. So he has a beard. So he has to be hot bearded scientist. I have no notes. Sounds great. Who would play in 2014, who is a great hot bearded scientist? So I don't think he's as pretty as like a Clooney. because, you know, you had Clooney and Gravity.

I don't think he's that pretty. I think he is probably, let me see somebody. Is he a bearded Walton Goggins? Maybe not. No. I'm trying to. I love Goggins, but he's never going to deliver a scientist of the top tier caliber to be sent on this mission to save her.

That's not his vibe ever. I'm trying to think of who it would be. Oh, oh. What's my man from train dreams? Oh, Joel Ogerton. Is he, is that, is that him? I could see that being him. For sure.

That's a good picture. Joel, Joel can grow a great beard. Did you see Matt Damon complaining about the fact that Chris Nolan made him grow a real beard for the Odyssey? He's like, can we do a fake beard? And Nolan's like, who do you think you're talking to? Grow the beard. What do you think you're talking to right now?

Grow your fucking beard. You're going to be out on the ocean for weeks on end. No glue is strong enough. No, grow the, against the salt water? Come on. Mallory, what's your, what's the scene do you think about the most? I, the first time I saw this and every time I revisit it, I am just shaken to my core. We've talked about this a lot already, but like the dawning horror when you realize the time that was lost on the water planet, like it hits so fucking hard.

You have the pre-trip down calculus. So you, in some ways are prepared, but it's like you can never be prepared. You can be prepared intellectually, but not emotionally. And that is one of the core aspects of this film. And I think that's really centered effectively here. You know, you have this discussion like Plan A doesn't work if the people on Earth are dead by the time we get back, et cetera. So there's how are we going to, okay, let's do this instead of this. And how are we going to save as much time as we can?

And it doesn't matter. Everything happens with the tidal wave. They've got to let the engines dry. The time is lost. And the Cooper brand argument after the wave crashes and they are realizing in real time, confronting in real time, what this means and what is happening. What's this going to cost us brand a lot, decades? And that argument they have like when he makes the, you know, you eggheads, you know,

we're not prepared for this. And she's like, we got further than anyone in human history. And he says, not far enough. And now we're stuck here till there won't be anyone left on Earth to save. And she says, I'm counting every minute, same as you, Cooper. It's just like a perfect movie moment. It's a perfect scene. It's a very important moment for Amelia, I think, for her character.

It's like everybody's carrying shit with. them, not just Cooper, but we feel it so keenly because he's our protagonist and we do know what the math means and what he's left behind and who he's trying to get back to. And that agonizing conversation they have about like, she basically has to explain, you know, time can stretch and it can squeeze, but you can't go back. And like you, it's just crushing down on you just like the water. Like, this is the realization and the crystallization of what we face, what the cost could be for the people on Earth, but also the stress of every decision that they make on the planet in the ship, what every single move or mistake they make might cost them and cost everybody

else is just like Titanic. So I think about that a lot. Also, it's so well said. There's also this tension between like, he's a smart pilot and she is, he's smart for a pilot. She's dumb for an astronaut. Like he's a, he's a mission, he's a mission guy. She is a science person. So there's a tension there in him just being completely, what are my parameters?

What is this? What is this? And she's sitting down trying to think of things in their totality. She has to remind him at the end that there's also a cost for her emotionally. Because she's an answer's person and he's a mission guy. So he's used to tapping her for data and then moving on with the data. This is a stupid answer that I'm about to give. but the most absurdest scene that I always remember

is just him going through like the black hole or whatever. Just how, just how like I had no idea what was going to happen. I still kind of don't know what happened. The Tesseract Library. The Tesseract Library, I still kind of don't understand it. And every time I watch the movie, I hope to understand it more and it never happens.

I don't know he comes. When I'm in the theater, this was the part that I was like, It's kind of like a, you know, like it was getting the head tilt. I was like that because I'm like, okay, so he's out of his suit. Is this happening for real? Is this like something that's, is this an allegory visually or like what's going on here? And every time I watch the movie, I hope to get it a little bit more and it's not what I know that the, they came and got him, but like it still doesn't make very much sense to me.

He got himself. He got himself. He got himself. So that's the bootstrap paradox aspect of this that I think is kind of satisfying on the mystery. box puzzle front. I don't, Willa, like, does five-dimensional space manifesting as three-dimensional space so that it can be accessible? We had that primer earlier from Amelia of like maybe time would render as a canyon or a mountain. So like what shape would it take for Kube to be able to under space library? Yes, a space library that, I mean, it's a wonderful set of bookshelves in

Mercerham back in the homestead. No question about it. So, yeah. Yeah, that's all great. But this idea of like, okay, we've been hearing throughout the entire film, they, they they put the wormhole here. The bulk beings. These anomalies and these gravity, these gravitational events and using gravity. So the idea that he is initially in this space and crying out to himself, to his kid,

he's the one who delivered the message stay, the young Merth decoded in Morse code. Because even then, in the climax of the film, his impulse is to say, don't do this thing. Don't wind up right here where you are. And then he has to recognize in real time, I'm the one who sent those coordinates so that we could get to NASA

so that I could go, there's no they, I'm they, I called myself here. And this fulfilling circular aspect of that paradox. And then the other little detail is like, because Tars is basically like, Cooper's like people, you know,

the conversation about could we have, you can't build this, we can't build this. In the future it is built by a more advanced evolved version of civilization that can, that only has a chance to evolve in advance

because of the things. things that Cooper and Murph and I never understand stuff like that. I love I mean as you know I love a bootstrap paradox and I love that like it was always going to happen this way because it already did happen this way and all that shit I love that part I like pushing the books and moving the watch I'm less I'm less

clear on here's my knock Tars has to be so stupid in that sequence oh this is a great note Tars has just be like what do you mean Coupe and Coupe who's like a fly boy is like well don't you see this is how this works I was just like I mean it's great that Bill Irwin's voice is there

so that it's not just like Coop muttering the shit to himself like you needed someone there. But they had, I wish they had like explained that Tarz was like slightly damaged and malfunctioning or whatever to help me understand

why he was so stupid in that moment. But yeah, that's fine. All right, swear to me. This movie is PG-13, which means it could have exactly one F-bomb and actually it does. This hasn't been true for a lot of our other

Nolan movies, but this one, as Malory already mentioned, Cooper does say, coward when he's fighting Dr. Hugh Mann. But where else would you drop an F-bomb inside of this movie? Van, do you have an answer to this? In the scene

where they tell the devil yellow old tells him that his son is nothing more than a farmer. My kid's going to fucking college. Okay? That's a great. I love it.

You don't tell me about my kid because that's where it would have been dropped in my life. You know what I mean? My mom and my dad. My kid's going to fucking college. You know? So that, when I thought about it, that's the scene where he has a lot of rage, especially for that lady,

that lady who actually, maybe not even to David or Yellowol, maybe to her, who doesn't believe that the moon landing is, what I'm not talking about that? Yeah, you don't fucking believe we went to the moon or you don't believe we went to the fucking moon.

Or just, you got to be, she says all that, you got to be fucking kidding me. You know, or something like that. her skepticism of all of that, I guess, is supposed to represent the cynicism that, you know,

humans have and scientific achievement at that point and all of that stuff like that and how there are some people that want to just, like, die on this barren sort of pine box earth and not go out and seek more and how that's actually been the thing that's always held us back and not necessarily, you know, whatever. But yeah, that's where F-bomb would have been perfect.

well this idea that like David a yellowos is we're a caretaking generation right it's our job to just sort of like so yeah it's our job to tell everyone just be a farmer for now get us through the other side don't don't dream of anything else you got to keep your nose to the grind so but also you know I have a different answer for this but we have a category later of like what hits harder like 12 years later and I will say that like severely editing school books hits differently for me now than it did in 2014 So, quote, challenging things I thought we all agreed was true. Like the fact that it's such a funny world that we live in now. It's like I watch Indiana Jones fight the Nazis my entire life. And I watched actually in Last Crusade did make an outright commentary on the burning of books. Maybe you should try reading books instead of burning them. And now all of this is mainstream. The Nazis are mainstream.

The censorship of the books is mainstream. Indiana Jones lot to me. Marlary. Mallory, where's your above? I'll stick with my girl, Amelia Brand here, for a moment and just kind of continue through that stretch of the story on the heels of the arguments

and the stretch down on Miller's planet where Cooper who, at least at this point in the story, as we've discussed, this is an evolution for him, but at this point in the story is very much focused on what he wants and what he cares about in his family. And then Amelia is in a similar position.

we should choose Edmund's planet, not man's. And Cooper's like, literally on the other side of the exact conversation he had with Donald on the porch about like, you know, just because you want it doesn't mean it's wrong, like it might, right? And then Amelia goes, so Cooper makes the call. We're going to, we're going to Man's Planet. And then Amelia has to just kind of proceed and goes and checks on the colony. Is it okay? And Cooper goes up and apologizes.

And she says, you might have to decide between seeing your children again and the future of the human race, I trust you'll be as objective then. And I think she should have said, I trust you'll be as fucking objective then because it would have been very well earned, very well earned at that point in their relationship and in the story. I mean, her tone is giving. Exactly. And I should say, I think Anne, the use of Anne Hathaway, Nolan's use of Anne Hathaway is so interesting because like putting her as Catwoman in the Dark Night Rises when she was at like a very low point in her career. There was that whole period of time right before

she won the Oscar for Les Mis, which is like it's Dark Night Rise as Lay Miz and then this essentially. Like there was that whole like Anne Hathaway likeability moment where it's like Jennifer Lawrence is cool and Anne Hathaway is a drama school try hard. It was just like really

you talk about character reinvention, like career reinvention. It was just like a really weird patchy time in Anne Hathaway's career. So Castingar's Catwoman was like this huge controversial thing. I think she actually completely killed it. It was so good in that. Very memorable.

Yeah, very good. And then she does Lea Miz, wins an Oscar. And then she does, like, her being in this movie, I think is like such a fascinating. Like Jessica Chastain, not just because she's been in The Martian, but like Jessica Chastain, like, makes so much sense in this movie. And Anne Hathaway doesn't make a ton. Like, I would not think of her for Amelia Brand right away. But I love that she's here because that sentimentality that she brings to everyone. everything, which is so key to, like, you believe in her intelligence, but also there's just, like, an inherent sentimentality to an Anne Hathaway performance that really works.

And just there's like a level of empathy from her, but also for her that we feel. Let me tell you who never had a, what's going on with Anne Hathaway, is Anna Hathaway? Me. Always loved Ann Hathaway? She's great. I believe you were on the right side of history. I'm just saying, not all the world is with you. The Catwoman thing was super interesting because I never, I never recall.

oiled from it, but I was like, huh. Because remember now, for me at least, the cat women, you know, it was Michelle Pfeiffer. And I just remember I was, you know, it was going crazy, man. It's like going to say, it's going crazy. It's one of the most important things that's ever happened in the world. It's going crazy, brother, you know. And then just the casting of catwoman, I don't know if you guys, there's a, well, I know you guys, who am I talking to? But that casting then drove Sean Young crazy.

like not to diss Sean Young, but Sean Young started going around the town Lost her Marbles Like showing up like So it was like this big huge deal And it was a very understated casting And then when you watch the movie

The first scene, you go, she's got it Like the first scene The first scene she's like She's got it She understands the role She kicks the goddamn cane Taze the thing off She's Catwoman, she's got it

But I did not think That she would nail it to that degree When she does that like scream On a die Yeah Yeah She's great. Okay, my, so I was, I was poking around sort of like a mirth thing, a murph, like, angry at her dad thing to put my F-bomb in.

That's a child. Hello, dad, you son. But no, not young mirth, but older mirth. But like, hello, dad, you son of a bitch is perfect and I wouldn't touch it. So I think I'm going to have to go to those aren't mountain, they're fucking waves. Those aren't mountains. They're fucking waves. That's good.

You know? That would be awesome. That's a great one. A great one. Yeah. That's no fucking moon is what that feels like. Okay. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.

Best use of Nolan verse regular. And I should say we, like, the other movies we've done, this has been a bit easier. Michael Cain is a constant. But in this, it's like Michael Cain and Hathaway. And I guess we're counting Matt Damon because he's, and Bill Orwin, if you want, because he's also in The Odyssey. But basically, like, if they've, before it was sort of like they've been in multiple. Now, like, they've been in at least two.

So what's your best use of a Nolan versus regular in this movie, Van Lee? I'm still going Michael Cain. I know I'm still going Michael Cain just because when you see Michael Cain in a Nolan movie, you know this shit is serious, okay? He shows up and it's time to impart some real wisdom onto the audience. It's Michael fucking Cain. This is very important now. The Michael Cain of my youth is very important to me,

dirty rotten scoundrels, nobody talks about this movie. This movie is fucking hysterical. Go watch the film, okay? like you move on and then I trust Michael Kane so much that when Nolan is taking these big swings like Michael Kane as Alfred and all of these Academy Award

winning people in a Batman movie I'm like oh Michael Kane wouldn't do it unless it was really serious so when I see him in this movie I know that there's a deeper reason for him to exist in this room and I'm like oh what's the mystery and I think he did that for a lot of Nolan movies for me so like at Hathaway all of these

people his ability to ensemble like we don't really we haven't really talked about it that much but like, you know, to get Casey Affleck to come in this movie and it's basically third or fourth fifth wield his bitch towards the end when he's kind of doing his thing at that point.

But yeah, so to me, Kane is the guy. I know there's a lot of other obvious answers, but Kane is the guy to me. Yeah, Michael Kane reading Dylan Thomas, though I will say like, does Dr. Brand know any other poem? It seems like he just knows that one.

If you're going to know one, it's a good one to know. Especially at this point. But I was, I mean, I think it's the surprise use of Matt Damon here. That's my back too. I will just, I was just watching a Ben Affleck, like, Matt Damon interview, where Matt Damon was talking about the call he got to be in this movie, and that Chris Nolan called him was like,

hey Matt, you know, that's saying, like, there are no small parts, only small actors. This is a really small part. But I want you to do it anyway. And I was just thinking about the way that, like, Matt Damon agrees to do this. Dr. Hugh, man, not part of any of the promo, a significant but relatively small part inside of this movie. But then gets the payoff of getting to be Odysseus, right, in The Odyssey. And I was thinking about Killian Murphy showing up to be the scarecrow for like two minutes

in all of these Batman movies. And to be like 12th build in Inception and then getting to play Robert Oppenheimer, you know. Has this ever been discussed on any, on any ringer pot? I've never got a chance to bring this up. The tilling of the soil for him, like he's, I looked at him as a big deal, right? And then he shows up as the scarecore. I'm like, yo, is he settling into character, actor territory here? And then he comes back in inception.

He's like really doing the whole thing with Nolan. And then, you know, obviously picky blinders is a big deal for him. But then he gets Oppenheimer and I'm like, it was all worth it. He was, he did his deal in the Nolan ensemble. The long game. He played the long game. Like, I don't know if I, if anyone's ever made that point before, but I thought that with Oppenheimer that like, it really paid off for him being way down on the Nolan list,

being a part of these big, these big productions. I promise you that I have examined every angle of Killian Murphy. Sure. And it's going to come up again. Malie Rubin. And what's your best use of, well, you said Matt Damon. My pick his statement as well. And I just think part of it is the thrill of the surprise.

I think part of it is that it's hard to like just exist inside of the vacuum of the film. So we have, you know, the context of him making the Martian the next year. And I love this idea of like just right before he's Mark Watney and the fact that he is in this harrowing circumstance of like complete isolation and dire straits is part of why we root for that character. And here it's like the kind of noxious element of what we end up learning about human. I love the way that he, the way that he like latches on to Cooper when he wakes him from his sleep and like presses his face into him. And that moment later that's like, I hope you never know what it feels like to like go that long without seeing a person and need to see a person that badly. And you're so inclined initially to be drawn to him that it is just so. effective and potent

when he betrays the viewer and the other characters alike. It's so memorable to me. I was thinking about that. I was thinking like casting Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Matthew McConae, this like real like sort of like 90s guy sort of casting aside of this movie, a West Bentley, etc.

But like the, the, the, I was thinking of that. I was like, oh, you cast Matt Damon so that we're inclined to trust him and then the twist is so whatever. But I'm like, but he had already played Home Ripley. Yeah, some of his best roles are as villains.

Courage under fire. You know, like, there are things that. Yeah, school ties. Oh, Jesus Christ. Don't bring that to some of a bitch. But I agree with you. But also I was like, but why does that work on me when he's done that? I was thinking of the same thing.

It's amazing. Because he's like, he's still such a cool. We still think him as a cool guy, you know? He's just such a week. We keep every time his villain turn always works so well because we trust his face. Amateur seek the sun, get eaten. Powers stays in the shadows. Stealth MVP of this movie.

that not enough people talk about Holly Rubin. This is, I think I'm going to go with something you said at the top, Joe. Because like, you know, we've talked on other pods about like the production design. And obviously the planet's look great, the ships look great.

But that's not really like an underrated or understated MVP in this movie. I did almost do Location Scout, but I did it, but I thought about it. It would be, I think, I mean, it's worth celebrating for sure. I'm going with the quiet, the use of quiet,

because the score is so, propulsive and energetic and in general the sound design and the deliberate sound design whether it's very orchestral or whether it's very deliberate something like when Kup is on his floating journey and then all

we hear is his rattling breath but we're still hearing something. The moments when the sound is sucked out of the film entirely just allow you to feel first, second, delude yourself and trick yourself into thinking that you can feel for a second what it would be like to be out there.

I think it's very effectively used and paired so memorably with the visuals. You have these like close up shots of, you know, the attempt to latch on. Latch. Yeah. The endurance and the way like the fingers are closing and we're seeing something that should be deafening and we can't hear a thing. Like it's just great. You could say Dylan Thomas here.

You were just talking about this. Maybe Dylan Thomas is the MVP in the movie. then what's your answer Baseball I'll never argue I'll never argue with a baseball pick So you got two different baseball scenes Right

That's right That are two different They expose two different things About humanity The first baseball scene Is people watching baseball And they can't even enjoy it anymore

because they're comparing the baseball to old baseball They are trying to be the way that they were, but they can't. They have to leave the planet. Our time here is over. They can't even enjoy the thing that they used to enjoy anymore because they realize that it's not the way it really used to be. The next time you see baseball, the ball is hit,

and it's on the planet, the ball does the whole thing. We are now different. And they use this game that's fundamental to Americana, like thematically to say, hey, we're not on this planet yet. We haven't figured it out. We're still trying to be as normal as possible, but look what happens to the ball as the ball is hit.

Baseball. Tying those two scenes together to describe the journey of humanity from the cornfield to the centrifuge. This is a perfect. Outstanding pick. Perfect answer. I also, I love this answer.

I also like I've referenced it before but a friend of mine years and years ago wrote this incredible review of Field of Dreams where he talked about the way that time passes inside of a baseball game which I'm sure he's not the first person ever talk about it but like the way in which well it's different now because of the pitch clock

right but like the way in which Thank you so much What the fuck? Is it ever what are you talking about? Is it ever because of what? Wow! Okay sports joke? Are you

fucking kid me? Who the fuck am I talking to? Is that me? Well, I wasn't. Swelling with friends. Mallory. Mallory took me to a baseball game

a couple years ago in Orioles and A's game and she taught me about the pitch clock. Wow. But like how time you, like baseball used to be a game that like didn't have time limits, right? It's just sort of like the innings can stretch or contract the way that they need to. And so like the idea of like,

especially inside of the context of the story of field of dreams, which is a lot about time and going back in time and all this or stuff like that. Okay. My answer was either going to be corn, but we already covered that. A very versatile crop.

Or I'm going to give it to Bill Irwin. We already talked about it. The fact of this was physically on set operating Tars and K's, like the fact that he was just like there moving this like incredibly heavy, you know, droid puppet.

thing that was like 200 pounds and then it gets digitally erased out of the movie so you never know you think it's a special effect but no it's just bill irwin like classically trained clown like moving this thing around the set i just think it's incredible and like you know uh people will learn more and more about this when they learn more and more about project hell mary but like you know when it comes to like putting something real in the room and a performer in the room for an actor to respond to i you know it's just an underrated part of all of these things okay you're waiting on a a train that will take you far away. This is my favorite recurring Christopher Nolan category,

best dead wife moment. There's an easy answer, but Mallory Rubin, what do you have here? I got to say, I think it's probably just because we're midway through the series, but this is where it really just is like, it's so funny. They're just always dead, huh? It's just, it's insane. Why? There are a couple moments, obviously,

where the dead wife and dead mom is invoked. valid picks. My pick is, once again, the parent-teacher conference. And the way that Coupe just goes for the jugular with this. You know, one of those useless machines that used to make was called an MRI. And if we had any of those left,

the doctors would have been able to find the cyst in my wife's brain before she died instead of afterwards. And then she would have been the one sitting here listening to this instead of me, which would have been a good thing because she was always the calmer one. Great McConaughey moment. Also just...

I burst out laughing. Just knowing that this category was coming, I just laughed so hard. It is like very funny. And if you're thinking about this Nolan trope and tendency, it's comical in a different way. It actually is kind of like effective also in the movie as a way to use like continue to use personal pain

to show us where society is and what that has cost. But yeah, that's my pick. Van, I just want to like share with you the way, like, we knew that this was like a trope inside of Crystal Nolan movies, but actually tracking it across every single movie. The way that he added both of the dead wives to the prestige that it wasn't in the book, they just like added two dead wives. The way in which like, you know, like in Batman begins, like, of course there's like Martha Wayne,

but there's also like Descartes has a dead wife for like, no, you know, Russell Gould is a dead wife for no, like, it's just put in, I don't know, he's just, it's his favorite thing to do. Anyway, Van, do you have an answer for this? It's the same one. And it's like,

using the, because, you know, obviously there's like, you know, inception, which, like, you know,

we get to see, she's lost it. She's in reality or whatever. It's like, whatever, it's a whole not. But in this one, the fact that we also

learned the limits of technology through this. Like, we use it to craft the whole world. And to know, that he is also out there's also some gender roles there like he a main

you don't go to the parent teacher conferences that's women's work so he's like so he's playing an away game already because he wouldn't have been there and he's only there because there no MRIs they only know MRIs because we lost all of our technology and we need more farmers the whole thing that's perfect

that's the only answer I have for that one so good all right the they won't fear it until they understand it and they won't understand it until they've used it. Clearest great man moment. This is something we've also been tracking across these null movies. I'll just say that mine isn't under,

I'm just going to repeat that that Dr. Hugh man, there is a moment and that explosion that just feels like a real subversion of like the classic great man speech that shows up in almost every Nolan movie. He's about to give it and then he just blows up in his face and I really really love that. Van, what's your

I'm going unconventional here. The first time I realized Coupe was a bad motherfucker is when he hacked the drone. Like, when he hacks the drone and then they fly in a drone around. And I'm like, you know, that's the first time in the movie

that I realized, you know, Coup is something special. Hacks the drone, flies the drone around, sets the drone down, lutes the drone to take it for parts. Like he's like a little Indiana Jones himself. I knew you guys would pick other stuff, so I wanted to take that one

because we weren't probably going to talk about. That's the first time I realized that Tom wasn't going to make very good decisions. And he's like, I'm just going to drive off this cliff. Unless you told me not to, Dad. You told me to keep driving, Dad. Right. Keep going.

Tom calling Murph a dumbass with the audacity. All right, Mallory. Okay, so obviously everything Cooper does, the drone, escaping from the water planet, the besting man, ultimately, rescuing endurance, like docking to save endurance is a great one. The decisions he makes at the end, the ability to reach Murph across time, all of it. It's all great man stuff. The entire movie is a great man.

movie. Because of that, I think that even though it is not my favorite scene in the film, I think that the conversation between Donald and Kup on the porch is so necessary as a primer for why Kupup craves these things and has this level of yearning in him. So, you know, I can't believe how many times the parent-teacher conferences come up, but after that, right? And they're kind of been a It was a great use of David a yellow woman. It was very beautiful. It doesn't matter. He saw it.

They're debriefing. And Coop's lamenting, right? He's like, it's like, we've forgotten who we are, Donald. Explore, pioneers, not caretakers. And then Donald's saying, you know, the kid, like, Tom's going to be fine. You're the one who doesn't belong. Born 40 years too late or 40 years too early. My daughter knew it.

God bless her. And your kids know it, especially Murph. And then Coop says, we used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and word. about our place in the dirt. So all of that is just like, it kind of allows you to accept that this person would do these things

and behave this way and feel like he needs to do these things, not only for his kids, for the future of humanity, because he once was a pilot and had this horrible crash, but because it is something inherent to who he is and how he thinks about what has been lost about the human experience and his ability to participate in it. So that's my pick, that porch scene, swigging some beers and talking about the stars.

Can you, you can? I believe you. Can you make beer out of corn? Because here's my question. Ocra's gone. MRIs are gone, but we still have beer. Where they get in the hops? Yeah.

I don't know. Can you? I'm going to add not a home brewer to the list of things I'm not. We should ask Riley. Riley brews his own beer sometimes. I mean, wheat, but also rice, I think. In this world, are there animals? They're not.

They're no more animals. Are the animals gone? I see any dogs. I can't see any cows. I mean obviously they had cows they would be having a fucking steak. Are the animals gone? And if there's corn, why are the animals going?

You can feed corn to the animals. You shouldn't, but you can feed corn to chickens. I don't know. Why would the chickens have been gone if they have that corn, they should be eating some chicken? I guess they ate them all because they might eat all the chickens, yeah. Pretty sad.

It's fucked up. I didn't see it like as a fuck. Yeah. He really got it. It's fucked up. Indiana Jones lied to you And there's no more animals And by the way

That means that they can't take any animals with them Like in the There's like there's there's there's there's there's is there a snake Or the snakes fucked up? Like what like we didn't we didn't we didn't How do you survive without animals in the chain like Also you you've got all these human embryos But we couldn't do like a Jurassic Park sort of like animal embryo situation

Maybe maybe they did though Maybe when they went to the new place They still have maybe D. I don't know how it works. Maybe they arched it out in some sort of way. Who knows? Dino, D-N-A. We got a new planet at the end.

She took her helmet off and the whole nine. It looks like that place is going to be, you know, fuck it that we don't get to go to Yellowstone anymore. I guess we'll make a new yellow snow. So it's still fucking sad, but whatever. All right. He is the hero.

Golf and deserves, but not the one it needs right now. Who was regrettably miscast and who would you place them with? Okay. I'm taking West Bentley out of this movie with love and respect to West Bentley I'm replacing him with Killian Murphy

and here's what we're doing we're making that character feel like he's a more important part of the movie so that when he dies unexpectedly on the water planet you're like that's Killian Murphy you know because West Bentley makes no impact on this movie he's just like kind of here kind of handsome you know kind of thinking about plastic bags floating around in the air whatever

the fuck he's doing right and then he just dies. And so, like, in that moment when, when, like, when they rescue Brand, but, and then he goes unexpectedly with the wave, like, it would have had much more impact if that's a character we either, like, liked if he had a relationship with anyone, you know, like, doesn't have to be romantic, but, like, he could have been, like, an old buddy of Coops or, like, something, you know, like, some sort of sort of connection. So that when they're like, oh, no, he died in that sort of, like, Rachel McAdams, uh, game night sort of way, like, he would have had some impact. So I say, put Killian Murphy in there.

And then you had that nice subversion of like Killeen Murphy's in all the promo. You think Killion Murphy's a big part of this movie then he dies right away. And then all of a sudden you get a surprise Matt Damon instead. And it's just this nice, again, a not a replicable sort of idea. I'm sad that like when people watch an interstellar for the first time now,

they already know that Matt Damon's in it. So, but anyway. Van, what would you say? What's the category again? Because you got me thinking about my whole trajectory with West Bentley. I'm still, I might be the world's last American beauty defense. defender? No, you and I, we remember when you selected it in the, in the mega movie draft.

We love, we love to defend Kevin Spacey and we love to support. See, you see you just did that. I wasn't even thinking about that. I was kidding. I was kidding. That was a joke. I was making a joke. But I do think about West Bentley and that plastic bag all the time. My primary West Bentley Association now after years and years of time on the Dutton Ranch is, Yellowstone. Oh, is he a Yellowstone guy? He is. Oh, yeah.

He's, to me, he's, I think a large part of the story or he's around him. Yeah, he's a central figure in Yellowstone. Yeah, that's very true. Fucked up character. West Bentley was another one where it's like, American Beauty and you're like, he's just going to go. And then it was like four feathers down, down. Van Lee, Ethan. What was the category?

Who was miscast? Who was miscast in this movie? and who would you replace them with? So I'm going to say that Casey Affleck was miscast in the movie. I don't, I don't, I just, I don't buy the anger and the whole nine and that stuff. I don't, I don't get it. I like, I won't want like a little swarmier bastard to be in there. As far as who I would recast them with them, trying to think.

So. I never, I don't think I ever answer the second part of it, the recasting part. That's hard. Yeah, I don't have to think about that, but Casey asks, like, every time he pops up in this movie, it doesn't make very much sense to me. He's just, I know you want to do the Nolan movie, but to me, out of, I put like a much more of a, I don't know, like, he, he kind of throws the movie off a little bit when he's in it to me. Someone, you want someone who, like, you would more readily believe would keep his family on a farm even though they're coughing to death? Yeah. Like, I'm trying to think of somebody who I, so it's almost...

I do think Timothy Shalamee is good casting for a young. For the young when he was perfect. Young when he was, Timothy was perfect for that. But, like, and I think the, they got the aging up good, too, because, like, you know. But I don't know. Casey Affleck in this movie, I don't like him in very much stuff that he's in. I think that he's been good in a couple of things. But, like, yeah, I didn't dig him in this that much.

I got kind of think who I'd replace him with, though. Molly Rubin, who are you? I have two nominees. Kind of like one of them is a little bit of a similar, yours was a much better version of this show, but kind of a similar logic behind it. Tofer Grace says Getty. I'm sort of like,

there's just no impact to this character. And it would actually be nice if, I mean, like, it builds for like the kind of Eureka and the kiss and stuff. And I'm like, I guess there's a version of this where if Murph had a real connection to somebody, that would be interesting. But even just the idea of like somebody in her work field

other than Dr. Bram, who, you know, because the idea that she's, like, not going back home because it's too painful and stuff. Like, that just felt like really a genuine nothing character. So it's more about the character than the performance, but maybe there's something there. And then I will say, I don't totally get John Lick-Gallis Donald. Oh. Like, I don't, I don't know. It's not, like, wrong or bad.

It just doesn't seem like the character is like a total matter. for what he can bring to the role or to a role like with his energy. So I don't know. I don't know who I would suggest instead. Do you want someone who feels like more naturally like a farmer or because my sense is like, you know, I don't know that Donald always was a farmer. We don't know exactly like what his vibe was before. Yeah.

Or do you want someone who's like or you just don't think this role is enough for John Lithgow to like sick his team too? He obviously has done so many like very serious and. somber things. But I think when I see him, I, like, want to be able to tap into the, like, humor and the, like, spark of oddity a little bit more than we could to do with Donald here. You're a third rock from the sun. There's like, I'm just sort of like, let John Lickgoe, you know, so, yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. I will say that there are a number of contenders for this category, which is not always the case. Well, because I think they cast at the movie really

brilliantly with them. And then some of the other people, they just, you know, they wanted to have names. Look, have you ever seen Rickashay? If you want to see evil John Lithgow, go watch Rickashay. Oh, my God. Let me tell you. You got to give me 10 seconds on Rickashet. That movie gave me, like, nightmares. I watched that way too young.

I would not be watching. No, it's not a horror movie. It's not a horror movie. It's a movie where it's basically Cape Fear with John Lithgow is this guy who has a grudge against this cop that Denzel Washington plays. He hires a Lady of the Night to come in. give Denzel Washington, like chlamydia, it's like crazy.

It's crazy. It's crazy. It's evil John Lithgow at his best if you're not watching Dexie. There's like there's like an integral like latex glove. It was a movie that like made me that movie, which I watched Way Too Young Plus, an episode of

Captain Planet made me convinced that like people were out there trying to like get you hooked on drugs or give you diseases that you didn't have or whatever. And so we had When a dare came to my school when I was a kid, I was so scared about that that I wrote it down on like a question, on an anonymous question on a note card of like to ask them like,

hey, is someone going to get me addicted to drugs by just like injecting me with heroin or something like that? And they just like very kindly did not answer that, that really dumb question for me. But like definitely ricochet was an inspiration for that. That movie fucked me up. Ed Harris. Ed Harris is the dad.

Is he? The right age? Would he not be? Oh. Ed Harris is the dad. Ed, like, Ed Harris. Make the role a little... I would love that.

Make the role a little serious, you know? He's not going to stand up and clap at the Oscars, just because everybody else is standing up and clapping. It's my favorite thing. Like, make the role a little serious. You know, Ed Harris is as pops right there. They're about the same age. They're about the same age.

It's a great suggestion. I just saw him in that, uh, he takes weird roles. saw him in that Glenn Powell movie. What the fuck, guys? What the fuck is happening, man? I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions about it. Ed Harris mostly is just wandering around being really proud of his wife.

And I think that's really cool. Cool role for Ed Harris right now. Okay. Nola, okay, it's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me. Nolan is not known for a sexual content, but let's go ahead and try to excavate the hoardiest moment of this film. You guys already mentioned my answer, which is a sopping wet Matt Damon clinging to Matthew McConaughey upon arrival. Like, imagine you think you're never going to see a human face again. And what you see is the dewy seasoned face of Matthew McConaughey just exuding an all right, all right, all right, sort of energy.

And you yourself are just sort of like wet and shivering in his arms. He's sort of like he threads his fingers through his hair. It's just a very like tactile moment. I just wanted to support it, you know? Great fact. For me, Mallory, what's your answer? Oh, yeah, Van, what's your answer? No, Van, what's your answer?

For me, it's the thought of Coop and, and Hathaway's character turning that whole planet into their personal fuckpad. They got a hard. I really agree. Time to get to work. I really agree. He takes the shuttle there. Yeah. They've had the tension.

They've gotten over their moonlighting phase. Now they do the whole thing. That whole planet's their personal loved in. You know, so that, yeah, that's what I think. They got to get busy right away. Do you think that's what the sequel? Yeah, when Murph said Brand, she's out there setting up camp alone in a strange gallery.

Maybe right now she's settling in for the long nap, if you know what any. By the light of our new son and our new home, go fuck her. Like, do you think that's what Murph said? Yeah. Let's add that to the word. where we could have inserted a fuck quite literally. Go guess some, Dad. These are great.

These are great. I have a third, I think, powerful suggestion to round out the field here. We've already all noted that our guy, Rom is left alone for 23 years. And when they return, he's just in a bathroom hanging out. It's been a minute. And I think there's a version of this movie that feels more authentic to what the human experience would be, where they return and he's sitting there just cranking it to some home videos. Because as we know, transmissions are still coming through.

They were receiving it not sending. How is he filling this time? If not, you know, we'd get some actual canonical answers, but the head canon. Indeed. Just watching some porn, watching some home videos and jacking off for the better part of two and a half decades. Do you think Kay, does Case have the capability? to like help in any kind of way. Possibly.

You know what I mean? I mean, it's, you know, not a lot of like orifices or like, you know, it's a very like bulky sort of. Yeah. Hey, do they bring that though? Think about it. Like, if I have a question about this, right? Because even when I was watching, like, if you watch Project Hill Mary or you watch the Martian or you watch all of these shows, two other people on the Martian, they had a baby

at the end of the movie. Remember they had they were together. So there's some stuff going on. Maybe not, you know, it's, I don't know what the regulations are or whatever. That might actually be frowned upon. But like, if you're going on a thing like that,

do you have time for the self-fulfillment? Or this is all business. If you're up there for 20-time. I will say, okay, the thing is like Christopher Nolan's movies are not horny by nature, usually. We'll get to Oppenheimer eventually. But like, but,

But in terms of like stripping down for the long nap in the space, this is like a highly, you know, we're just sort of body bag zipping ourselves into goo, water, whatever. We're not doing the alien stripped down into your undies and get into like a clear casket. So he really like skipped over a potential, you know, stripped down to your skivies and get in the pods, you know, sort of moment. I'm just saying.

What's the sexiest scene in Nolan history? Killing Murphy's sitting naked, cross-legged in a plush armchair. Like, all of these directors that I'm thinking about, I'm trying to think of

the sexiest, there's been some sexy, Nolan doesn't have a carrie and Moss spitting into the beer that she gives to Guy Pearce in Memento. That's a great pick. And that's early Nolan. That's a great one, yeah. I mean, Anne Hathaway is

as Catwoman is quite sexy. There's some sexiness. But in general, Nolan's not a very sexy guy. Not very utilitarian. He doesn't care about it. Interesting. All right.

And ideas like a virus resilient, highly contagious. The line that hits hardest 12 this years later. Mallory, what's here? This is similar to like what you were saying, Joe, about like the book burning or the climate change, kind of of a piece with that

where I think often my pick here is just about the beauty of the prose, but this is really more like, it's just unpleasant to think about this idea when you watch this movie right now. LeCoop says this world's a treasure, Donald, but it's been telling us to leave for a while now. Mankind was born on Earth.

It was never meant to die here. Like, the way that the planet is just melting around us and we're going to, well, will we be around? I don't know, but not too many generations behind us. We'll be here for the death of this planet. And as far as I know, we have neither or otherwise, I don't know. As far as I know, we have neither Plan A nor a Plan B. I guess Plan A is the billionaires get to leave and we will stay behind.

Van Lathan, what's your answer here? Plan A should be, we make them leave and then we, okay, anyway. It's the love and gravity bit. It's like such a profound, you know, man, maybe you don't need, you know, two people fucking in the movie if every fucking movie has this profound, pros in it. I remember when the Joker was explaining how things go to plan. It's like something that we know

intuitively, but the way he put it, I was like he's fucking guys, he's smarter than Batman. What's happening here? You know what I mean? And like the love and gravity thing, just any human being trying to understand the crushing weight of love and connection.

Like what the fuck is it? Like what is the deal? Like remember when Vision was talking about you know, the grief is love. I was like, what the fuck is going on? Persevering.

Yeah, so like that right there as the love being a cosmic force of the universe and not just something that we've invented to explain our chemical connection to one another is just insanely profound. It's outlasted the movie for me

in its relevance by a long ways. Yeah. It's so good. I mean, this obviously is the actual pick. I think the fact that the movie builds through kind of the technical, tactical, rational, logical discussion and, like, Kup has to kind of concede because Amelia is like, we love people who are dead, right? After he runs through all of the kind of like social utilitarian reasons to be drawn toward each other, it's just, it's really riveting. And he's like, you're right, I do have a dead wife and I do love her. Exactly.

Yeah. It's great. Like, love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it yet. It's frankly both very effective lampshading of some of the aspects of the movie and, like, beautifully empowering conceptually. It's great. I don't mean to bring the mood down. But my answer is Professor Brand talking to Amelia in one of the pre-recorded things.

And he says, then we must confront the realities of interstellar children. travel. We must venture far beyond the reach of our own lifespans. We must think not as individuals, but as a species. And that idea, like, I think about that all the time when I think about, like, you know, let's say, like, let's talk about climate change. Why not? When I think about, like, the people who are smart enough to know that climate change is real and yet, like, not wanting to do anything about it is the most, like, well, it won't impact me in my lifetime sort of attitude. that like makes me so pessimistic

about humanity, right? And it's just sort of like, I don't think you have to have a kid to care about like the future of the human species. You know, a lot of people make that argument, but like we're three people who don't have children.

Like I don't think you need that. You need like basic human empathy and a lot of people just don't have because if it's not going to hurt me now, I don't need, and it will make me uncomfortable to confront it that I'm just not going to confront it

and not change the way that I like use fossil fuels or whatever the case may be, you know? So like, I think about that a lot and I thought about that when I see about that line. There's a major, gigantic, huge comedian right now that I was in a conversation with maybe like, I don't know, 10 years ago, something like that, 10 years ago, whatever, it was having a conversation

and climate change came up. And I was like, you know, 300 to 400 years from now, there was a report on Great Britain and how climate change was in people. packed in Great Britain, not a thousand years, like a hundred years, 200 years. A little room to talking about it. This person went, I just don't care about 200 years from now.

I was like, that fundamentally told me who you are. And I don't care how it sounds or how it comes off. If you legitimately only care about your existence and you do not consider the part that you are a part of a traditional. and a community of human beings and not just you niggil, what about the seals? What about the whales?

What about all the stewardship that you're supposed to? If that's how you are, I'm like, I can't be fucking with you like that. It's just the way that it goes. Like, it's, because that's just too reckless.

And I'm enough of a piece of shit already to where I don't need to the death of the fucking beluga whales on my conscience too. I'm already doing enough fucked up shit. I just really agree. So I think this line about, Like, thinking about yourself as individuals versus a species or, to your point, van, beyond your own species into the stewardship that we have for the world is that really got me.

Corn fruit is coming up. Ten years. There's a point when plucky young Murph brings coop like a cornbread sandwich. It's like a sandwich with like the cornbread is the bread of the sandwich. That's yummy. That sounds so dry. That sounds so unbelievably dry. It depends on the cornbread.

The way my mama made the cornbread is actually more like a sweet cake almost. Yeah, like a cake. But like you wouldn't want a cake as like the bread of your sandwich. And like also I don't know what's in the middle of that sandwich if there's no meat. So I have no idea. Corn on corn, corn, baby.

Corn, corn paste on a corn bread sandwich. Baby. corn bread is delicious, but you usually want to have it with like a chili or something like that. But as like the, it's a lot to get through. Okay. Speaking of devastating things, you think darkness is your... You think darkness is your alley. They adopted the dark.

I was bored it to the voice. Bold it by it. Most devastating moment, does anyone not have... Come on. This is the easiest pick of the pond. Sobbing as he watches. It can't be anything about this. And he's like, my kid turned out of Casey Affleck.

I can't fucking believe it. It can't be anything but this. Going right to the log to watch the home video saying start at the beginning and then watching 23 years worth of updates about everything that has happened in the time that he has missed. And like you guys said earlier, an instant for him, a huge chunk of life for the people he loves most in the world. And the way that we crest from, I mean, the tears start right away. this is like a very iconic and famous, you know, meme and gift still to this day for a reason, very memorable visually. But the way we move from happy things, happy updates. Tom has finished school. Tom has fallen in love. And Cooper is crying because good things are happening to his son. And he is full of joy and possibility, but also misses that he's not there. And then the despair. Like, you get to meet your grandpa. You get to meet this baby, Jesse. And then, oh, my God, Jesse has died.

And Donald has died. And not only have they died, but they're buried out in the back where we would have buried you if you'd ever come back. And what is not said, you fucking didn't. And Lois has told me, I can't. I have to let you go. I have to let you go. So this is it.

You're not going to hear from me anymore on that devastation. And then the cut to black and the reach toward the screen. And then Murph, Jessica Justine, here she is. And she's grown. And she says that it's her birthday and it's a special one because you told me, you once told me that when you came back, we might be the same age. And today I'm the age you were when you left. And he is just shattered, sobbing that he has missed this much of their lives.

And that they do. And I love to when we build later toward like, the logs from home are always used. Well, I think in the film, like, when we're getting the update on, when Amelia is getting the update on her father dying in coup years, that we also get the like one of the twists in the film of twists is revealed. Did my father know too? You know, dad, I just want to know if you left me here to die, I have to know. And his face is he like has to confront the fact that she might think that for a second. Like, that's so good.

I once thought about if I was Coupe, no, if I was Murf and my dad was Coup and then I left all those videos and then he came back to see me when I was old, he would have brought some of that shit up. Okay. He'd have been like, by the way, June 3rd, 2045, who the fuck you think you're talking to? You're talking to everybody out the room. Give us the room. Everybody out. Who the fuck you think you're talking to?

You're talking to you, daddy? Go ahead and take them last breath. So I always, my problem with this is like, I struggle with this. He's trying to save them. the world. You cut the motherfucker of some slack, man. I know it's upsetting.

But like, you guys don't feel me at all on this. It's like, I know he didn't come back. He was supposed to come back. But there was a giant wave. He's not Kelly Slater. He did his best to try to get off the way. They don't know that. I know.

They don't know. That's the whole thing that, like, the whole thing that I love about this is like when Tom talks about it in terms of like faith, you know, like Lois says, I have to let you go. This idea that like Murph doesn't know and Tom, mom doesn't know and Brand is talking to Murph and he's like, I believe they're still out there. It's this like faith thing of like, you know, an older professor, Brand dying before

Morph can get the information about whether or not her father knew to that point of like what you just said. You know, she's like, did he know and then he dies? And then she just has to like have faith. And so then it all comes back to the end when she's like, you know, because my father promised me like that idea of finding that faith again, losing the faith in your father. in God, if you prefer, and then, like, finding it again. All that stuff really, really works for me.

And I don't know, like, I both agree with you, Van, and also just sort of, like, I have highly, highly irrational feelings about my parents, you know, and it's just sort of like, and especially the ones that originated when you were young. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, yeah. That's just how we are as animals, I think. I think, too, the way that Murph, like, you know, there's that moment where she's like, the ghost is a through line, obviously, but there's that conversation.

where she says, you know, I didn't call it a ghost because I was afraid. It's like, because it seemed very human. And like this, this seems very human to me too, especially if you're young to Joe's point, the idea that. And honestly, Coop says a version of this too when Amelia is like, you didn't explain relativity to your kid. She's like, sorry, we didn't have time to go over Einstein before I left because we were on the clock, but also she's 10. And like in a world like this where it is so hopeless and you have been deprived of like the capacity to. pursue all of your own abilities and optimize your own potential. And the thing you have around you every day is like, are you going to say, well, it'll be better next year, right? And then the one thing that you can count on is the person you love and then they're gone, that you would blame them for that, like even if you got to the point of being able to understand it. So in that original script, which again, is not nearly as good as the finished product. So I want to give Christopher Nolan his credit. But this sequence is there. And Jonathan Nolan has talked about this, this was the like, seen the whole movie is built around.

this idea of relativity. And he was talking about how Einstein, he's like, when he, you know, he's so cute, he was talking about it. He's like, Einstein, brilliantly depicted in my brother's new movie, Offenheimer. But he's like,

but he's like, Einstein didn't really like, fuck around with the math that often. He was like often talking in terms of like concepts and stories and like word problems. And so he was talking about the absolute like heartbreak and despair of two twins, like, you know, one set on a different timeline than the other

and coming back in the different ages of these twins and what you lose inside of that sort of story that Einstein tells. And so General Lillam is talking about, the quote he uses, he says the thing he's scared about the most is where does the story go? What's going to happen to all these people you love when you're not around to see what happens to them anymore?

And this idea of going through a black hole and the closer to death you get as you go through the black hole, the closer to godlike powers you have that you can see through time and space and all this sort of stuff like that. So this concept of like, what happens to you as you die, which Dr. Hugh Mann brings up,

you see your children's faces and stuff like that. But like all of this stuff is in the mix. And like Jonathan Nolan coming with this idea of like what would happen if you went to space and time, something time dilated and all of a sudden these children that mattered to you, you missed it.

And they didn't even know, they didn't have a good reason to know like why, you know, they have no idea. and they just think you were abandoned. And in his version of the script, Coup is watching these videos for days, right? If it's 23 years of videos,

like he's sitting there and you cut back and there's like growth of beard on his face. Like he's just like there for, I think this is a more effective, like, cinematic, you know, just watching it over the span of like a few minutes. But just like this incredibly impactful cinematic moment, it can only happen inside of a sci-fi story, is, is the,

building block for the, you reverse engineer the entire movie around it. Yeah. And it becomes a meme for a reason. Like it just, it just, you know, it's not just McConaughey's cry face. It's just sort of like what we know that that means. It's just incredibly powerful. It's kind of set the stakes for the entire story. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Most unforgettable Zimmerism. Mallory, what do you have? A lot of great candidates for this as well. I'm going to go with two hours since the movie. man's escape attempt and blowing up the endurance and then saving the endurance. I think the like frantic beating heart and ticking clock of the score,

the rhythmic nature, but also the race against time that we get from the musical composition there. And, you know, you mentioned the use of the score earlier. That ticking clock element really primes us for the music being deployed in this way and that is amplified here. And I just think it's really hypnotic. So that's my pick. What about you? Van. It's not the cornfield?

Can be. Oh, okay. I thought it was the cornfield. I thought we were, the cornfield is rousing. I loved it. Quick, quick, so I'm just,

that's, it's a cornfield for me. Look. When they, which part, which cornfield part? The cornfield at the beginning, the drone. The very beginning.

Yeah. The first stretch. Yeah. I got to, here's my note on this. You ready? Go for it. If the crops are dying

and the food is that rare, you can't drive to the crop. distracting and disqualifying. I'm sorry. Otherwise, great pick. That always kind of sweeps me away. Yeah, that's a good one.

I thought, are Williams and Zimmer the Beatles and the Stones? That's controversial because, I mean, all composers, but hasn't Zimmer, I think this is right, correct if I'm wrong, but Zimmer is like one of those guys who, like, employs a bunch of musicians under him to, like, also, like, he gets the,

credit, but then like a bunch of other musicians actually write a lot of the pieces of his scores. You know what I mean? That's not the case here. The story of how Hans Zimmer wrote this score is like incredible. We can talk about it a second. But like isn't isn't wasn't there like a whole thing like, you know, I think I think some other composers got sort of put their feet in the fire a bit more about this. But like they employ like a raft of composers underneath them to sort of buoy up their work because Hans Zimmer cannot possibly have written all of this stuff just himself. Do you know what I mean? So it's like a bit more complicated in that. But in terms of like reputationalally, I would say, yeah.

That's correct. Correct. I love Zimmer. Sorry if that was a killjoy answer. I was. You fucking me up. It's very upsetting. Homsodragons to Gmail.com if I got that wrong and just completely besmirched,

Hans Zimmer. This is how Hans Zimmer wrote the score to Interstellar, which along with like the score to Howl's Moving Castle has become this like very TikTok like, I hear that score all the time on TikToks and Instagram Reels that have nothing to do with Interstellar. It's become just like background music for a lot of content these days. But this is a quote from Hans Zimmer. Chris said to me in his casual way, so Hans, if I wrote one page of something, didn't tell you what it was about, just give you one page. Would you give me one day of work?

Zimmer told Shone, whatever you come up with on that one day would be fine. And so apparently he wrote a letter about, he wrote a letter to Hans Zimmer about a man having to leave home for a job and explaining to his son why he had to go. And so he didn't say anything about space or like space libraries or time paradoxes or anything like that. He didn't say, give me a sci-fi score. He said, this is the story.

It's about a man leaving home. And so the organ music that is played inside of this movie is, like, like, that's the like vibe, Hansa was going off of. And I just kind of love that it's like, I don't know. If someone, if someone comes to you and is like, I want to write a pantheon sci-fi movie, I think you have like, how could you possibly escape some of the, like, if you're a composer, like some of the references you would want to make to other famous sci-fi scores or something like that. And so the fact that he's like, I'm just going to give you this emotional centerpiece.

And you tell me what that musically says to you is how. we get the like main interstellar theme theme. I think it's a really cool story. So fascinating. It is fascinating. Yeah. Chris Nolan might not let people sit on his film sets, but he has some great ideas and he uses them sometimes.

Are you going to say, man? No, no, no, no, I didn't know. Where y'all find this goddamn shit at? I didn't know. I've never heard this. I've done a lot of work on interstellar. I've never heard that before. I don't know.

I get, I fall down. Rabbit holes. Okay. For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. That's a tenant line. Actor who never returned to the Nolanverse but should have. Who's in this movie who should have been in another Nolan movie but never was? Mallory, you've got...

It's Timmy. It's Shalemay. Right? And I feel like this hasn't been back yet. This is for now. I mean, they just did. You know, Timmy's been doing the... What's it called?

Timothy Shalamei Y. Give me an Oscar tour. The screenings across L.A. of all of his films. And so he's, you know, he was with McConaughey. He was with Nolan. And he, like, talked then. And, you know, you can find these clips online about how, like,

Interstellar is, like, his favorite movie all time. And he loves it. And he obviously worships Nolan. So it seems like they will work together again. But it's kind of surprising that it hasn't happened yet. I think he hasn't made that many movies since Interstellar Nolan, not, not Timmy. Yeah, Timmy's been busy. I think equally important anecdote to come out of that, give me an Oscar tour.

was when he mentioned that Matthew McConaughey left a giant shit in his toilet. What's going on there, guys? Wild stuff. Wild stuff. He's a child and that's the only of him of Phentonio did. But like Timmy could have been in Dunkirk, you know, for sure. He was a- Timmy could be Telemachus in an Odyssey.

Oh, my dad. Absolutely. All right. It's not, Jessica Chastain, does she ever do? another one with them? No. That seems to me to be a Nolan

coded female lead. Jessica Chastain. I love her. It's one of my faves. She's great. Get them back together. Most of the women in these movies

are dead, though. There's only so many spots. The credit I will give Chris Nolan in this instance is that I think I already said this, but that Murph was a boy in Jonathan

Nolan's treatment and he changed it to a daughter. So Jessica Chaston, a whole living breathing woman is something Christopher Nolan added to this movie. I know. You know? This would have been a fucking sausage face. What the fuck? Murph? Like this movie would have been to the interstellar

at the front house. If there's no mirth? What the fuck? Yeah. How was that going to work? It's all dudes. Like... Yeah. Well, and Hathaway. And Hathaway, but still, though, like, that's it. And the woman that don't believe that we landed on the moon, that's the whole fucking movie.

That's right. That's inception. Okay, so some men just want to watch the world burn the most Nolan thing about this movie. Van, what's the most Nolan thing about this movie? To me, how heady it is. There's not really an attempt in this movie to make this easier for people to understand.

And he doesn't really do that. Like he is on top of explaining the science and the world building, but only the service to plot. Not to make it easy for you. Think about the like the big short assumed that we wouldn't understand finance. So there's a device in the movie. Yeah. Fantastic.

Margot Robbie and Abatha. There's a device in the movie. The device has a name and it's Margo Robbie and Ababa. They do it a couple of times, right? They come back to it. Selena Gomez. Right. But Nolan, if he was making the big short, he would not have done that.

He would have had deep scenes of people, deep, deep thematic scenes of people talking about finance and explaining it on a whiteboard of something and either been like, either you got it or you don't move the fuck on. That's what he does. Tenton, this, inception. I hope you're staying with us. Because I'm not slowing down the plot or slowing down anything else. so that you can get it. And that,

that to me is the most heady thing about the film. Yeah. I love, Jessica Chastain in an interview was talking about how, they were all talking about Kip Thorne being on set,

the scientists who came up with this idea in the first place and, and like sort of what he taught them or whatever. And Jessica Chastain said she tried to memorize

like all of the numbers and figures that she had to like, the equation that she had to write out on the chalkboard. She was trying to memorize it so that it would look like natural as she did it or whatever.

Yeah. And she was like, this is so hard, this is impossible. How can anyone do it? And Kim Thorne was like, that actually should be like 20 chalkboards. And she's like, oh, okay, I'll be grateful. I'll be grateful for this instead.

Mallory, what's your what's your? Just I think, as we've discussed across every one of these pods pretty much so far, just his obsession with time specifically, inside of the headiness and inside of the idea of great pursuits and a quest, you know, the way that he thinks about time and the passage of time and how you experience time relative to. other people in a distinct way. Obviously, we talked a lot about that on the Dunkirk pod and obviously a ton about that on the Inception pod. You know, what does that do to you?

How does it influence your choices and how you think about your place in the world? It's just like one of, it is one of Nolan's core tenants. Can't wait to talk about this when I get to Tenet. But like, it's so funny because I also have Inception and Dunkirk written down here for my answer, which is when we're cutting, and it has to do with time, when we're cutting between like the man and Cooper for. fight and then we're cutting back to Murph having to like figure something out that cut back and forth between like two very urgent if this is if she doesn't figure this out right uh and if

like Casey Affleck isn't distracted by fire long enough for her to figure it out or whatever the case may be um and if Coop can't miraculously find that uh communicator a couple feet away from where he landed uh on side of this planet like none of this works and so the tension is high on both of these things, they're both operating on different timelines, right? Because because Murph's whole thing of like, I need to figure this out is happening in the case span of like an hour, maybe, something like that, like a couple hours maybe. Whereas like everything with man and coop and then it continues into like the docking and the explosion and all that sort of stuff like that, that back and forth of like figure it out, figure it out into

the Tesseract in space. So like with Dunkirk or with Inception, we're watching these like high stakes. We're watching Joseph Gordon Levitt have a gravity, zero gravity fight in a hallway while we're watching the van fall while we're watching this thing happen. With Dunkirk, we're watching Tom Hardy, you know, try to land the plane while this boat is trying

to take off in different timelines over different tempos of time, but the stakes are high on both and we're cutting back and forth and there's just something so to Van's point, like he's just going to trust that you're going to hang with him while he executes this. And

And it's so, I don't think I would have appreciated the nature of that if we hadn't done Inception in Dunkirk. And I was just thinking about like, this is a classic Nolan kind of across time in different timelines, high stakes. It all converges on something sort of set piece. Did Tom Hardy have a place in this movie? The answer is always, yes. I mean, we have to speak on behalf of CR. Tom Hardy is the poor deceased Wolf Edmonds. Tom Hardy with a beard.

We got there. That's what it is. Tom Hardy with a beard. It's Tom Hardy with the beard. But a really, really, really, really bushy beard so you can't see part of his face. His peeky blinders beard. Yeah, really bushy beard.

Tom Hardy is the guy. That's him. Think about it. All right. We got there. We did it. We did it right now. And it's powerful.

We should find a place for Tom Hardy in every single Nolan movie. Because I don't think that Nolan has made a movie yet. that Tom Hardy could not have been in. I quite agree. Yeah. I don't know if there's a non-Tom Hardy situation. Last one, at least. Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us.

What aspect of Nolan's upcoming The Odyssey are you thinking about slash most hype for this month right now? Van Leithen, what are you most excited for when it comes to the Odyssey? Well, really, it's kind of boring. That's okay. I want to, Nolan both, Nolan does How can I put this?

So, no, Nolan does Batman and the shit that Batman is doing in the movie, you can't do in real life, okay, you can't do it, right? It's Batman.

It is fucking Batman, by the way. So people know, it's like, it can happen. Next week, it can't happen. It's fucking Batman,

okay? It's a Batman movie. However, he has a way of making that story dramatically accessible. He has a way of

making Batman feel like Batman. I can't really, I don't know how to explain it. He brought Batman to us. We normally have to go to Batman. You know, Tim Burton's take on Batman is in this

Gothic painting come to life and all of that stuff. Or Joel Schumacher had two completely different takes on Batman. We normally have to go to Batman. Nolan brings Batman to you. I'm interested to see

somebody bring the Odyssey to us. It is in many ways the formative work of Western mythology in a lot of ways. But it is fantastical. There are elements of the film that stretch your imagination. And that stuff is sometimes hard to bring to an audience.

You have to make the audience walk to go find it. You have to make them. But Nolan doesn't do that. So what I'm interested to see is how the tension, how his style, how his approach to practicality in movies, how he's able to bring that story, which is, you know, very formative,

but also not accessible, wouldn't be traditionally accessible to me in a Nolan way, how he makes it that. I'm interested in feeling, like, in a tactile way, the scene, the viscosity of the odyssey, like all running over the screen. I'm interested to see how he does that.

I love it. I'm so excited. Mallory, what do you have? It's what we talked about at the beginning, trying to get home to your family after a great trial. These are like the core animating principles behind both of these stories. And if we want to add something else to the mix, I would just say water stuff, go. Great boat stuff. There was a rumor going around that Tom Hardy was on this movie. And Odyssey.

I don't know. if Chris Ryan will be the same. Yeah, it would be tough. I will say since we last recorded, since we did Dunkirk, we've just gotten much more information about the cast and who they're playing and stuff like that. So I think I'm just excited about to know who all the characters are. And I'm most, I mentioned Eurellicus already,

but Hamesh Patel, who I'm like, who I love, is in this movie, in a, like, we'll see how it all shakes out and what we have time for, but like in a non, like insignificant role, I just didn't know,

like, how big his role was going to be. I still don't. But like, the first look images of him look great. And I'm really excited that he's here. So, you know,

a tenant alum, Station 11, he's our guy. I'm really excited for him. And I'm excited for the Odyssey. Man, will you go watch the Odyssey with us? Can we all watch it together?

Yes. That'd be great. I think that we should all go see it together. we have a great time when we go to the movies together. I would like to see this. I am nervous. I don't know why I'm nervous. This is a big one.

This is a big movie. That's nervous. I know. I'm nervous, guys. I'm not nervous about the quality of the movie. I just say it's very low chances the movie doesn't hit. But like, I don't know. There's so much talk around this one.

We're in such a precarious time. I feel like I got a lot on the line with this. I don't know why. That's interesting. Do you mean we're a precarious time in the industry or in the world we live in. It's like, you know, the world we live in is what it is. The movie theater is my sanctuary.

But like just the Odyssey, I don't know. Just the whole thing. I'm going to be hanging on every word and every scene in the movie. It's a big one. I think so I remember when Dunkirk came out and I was like, I was skeptical that Dunkirk would do well and then it like did so well. And then of course Oppenheimer was like an absolute juggernaut. Now I almost feel like Nolan is like too big to fail.

Do you know what I mean? Like I just don't, I don't think that a flop is possible. But, you know, I don't know if that's what you're talking about. No, no, no. Flop isn't, I don't think a flop is possible. But I just like, I, this take with this, this is a, how about this? I actually feel like this is a bigger swing than people think that it is. This is a fucking gigantic swing.

I agree. I think this is a bigger swing. swing. It's in such capable hands that no one is really discussing it. But this is a gigantic gigantic swing. Yeah. But wasn't Oppenheimer, you know? Like, who thought

that that many people would go see Oppenheimer? And that's like the whole Barbenheimer like phenomenon. But like still, like Oppenheimer, there's like if you heard about anyone else making Oppenheimer, you wouldn't be like, that's going to be a massive hit. You know what I mean? Like it's just, I think people are just

ready for whatever Christopher Nolan and I'm excited. I'm excited, but I hear your nerves. I hear it. Anything else that we should say? We did it. Had a blast. Yeah.

It's an great time. Yeah. Great time. Since we're not there, I don't know everyone who's in the studio helping today. Who can we assume is, who's helping? What do you think, Mallory? Do we know? I'm sure that, well, we know for sure that Carlos and Arjuna are there.

Right. The Jomi is on the social. Yes. I don't know who else is in the studio because I'm not there. think I might have heard. Did we hear Chris Waller's voice? Perhaps. Is CT there? Chris, CT, Jack, Kevin, everybody here at Sycamore. There we go. Hey, we, we, we, we, changing the world over here. We'll see you soon. Bye. Aw. Pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of

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