Kermode & Mayo’s Take - NOW AND BEN

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Presenting a new feature on the Take Channel.  ANORA has been one of the most talked-about films of 2024 so we sent supersub BEN BAILEY SMITH to speak to director Sean Baker.  In this interview you can hear Ben talk to Sean about how he judges his own work, his love of Chihuahuas, that home invasion scene, little Orphan Annie, and of course Ben asked him about the Take That needledrop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But Simon, most importantly, it means that wherever I am this Christmas, I can watch the best Christmas movie ever, The Thing. Hello and welcome to a little bonus thing for you. We've had a lot of interest in Anorah, as you'll know, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to interview its director Sean Baker and we've sent junior cub reporter and occasional super sub Ben Bailey-Smith to chat to Sean and put some of your points about Anorah to him. We'll call this occasional bonus goodness Now and Ben. In this interview, you can hear Ben talk to Sean about how he judges his own work, his love of Chihuahuas, that home invasion

scene, Little Orphan Annie, and of course, Ben asked him about the Take That needle drop. All right. I am joined here by the director of Enora and a bunch of other critically acclaimed movies, Red Rocket, Tangerine, Florida Project, Mr. Sean Baker, how you doing? Great, great. Congratulations on the Palme d'Or. Oh, thank you so much. Would you say Anorah is your best work to you? Do you have favorites or is it like kids?

There's no, you don't pick a favorite. It's different from kids because this is how I see it. I can't judge my own films for at least 10 years. So I just saw Tangerine recently on 35 millimeter. We made a 35 millimeter print of it. And so I checked it at the Hammer Museum at UCLA and watching it on the big screen, it was almost, it was around the nine year mark. And I was like, oh, okay. I made a decent film here. I'm finally able to judge.

So with this one and Nora, no, I won't know until what 2034. Would you watch it again within that, that decade? No, I try not to. Now I haven't seen it since Cannes. Yeah. I should have because I hear it's been playing really well with audiences and I hope I don't regret it someday not being experiencing it with audiences. But I also edit my own films. So it's like, I've been sitting with this footage for two years and I'm really bored of it, quite honestly. I want to see this movie again. But, you know, maybe I will before the run is over.

Yeah, you say you edit your own films, you direct, you edit, you write them. Yeah. And I was today years old when I found out that you cast them as well. Are you running craft services? Sometimes. I'm with these indie films. I'm, Well, I'm definitely driving myself to set. Do you find it overwhelming though sometimes, like when you think, oh man, like-

Well, those are the roles that I'm comfortable with. I actually shot two of my films and I never want to do that again because I'm just simply not as talented as the wonderful cinematographers that I've worked with. So why take that role on? But with these other roles, editing and casting, I'm comfortable doing that and I like to do it. It's very important to me.

It's part of my vision, I think. It's part of what makes my films. On the editing front, because you say it's difficult to judge your own work and then obviously, like this period of time that you talk about at this sort of 10 year window and stuff, how do you find that inner confidence to say,

you know, I felt good about this when I was writing it, I'm pretty sure I felt good about it when we were shooting it. And then you're watching it and you're cutting it, you're thinking that's staying in. Yeah, that is difficult. You sat with someone. Yeah, that is difficult. Are you sat with someone?

Yeah, I do. I mean, I have my wife and producer, Samantha Kwan. She's there often and my other producer, Alex Coco, it's really the three of us and I rely on them mostly. I mean, for feedback, you know, I'll show them a scene and I'll say, what do you think? And they'll give me their honest opinion. I try to stay disciplined, you know, in terms of running time,

even though this one is a little bit longer, but I always knew, I always knew, nobody can blame me for being, for having a bloated running time from post-production, because I knew from the very beginning, this was gonna be around 215 to 218. Just from the page count alone. The page count, yeah.

I called for it. I'd say like, my wife is probably the quickest person to call out any bad ideas I have. So that sounds like a great call from you. I mean, they're honest. They're honest. And they also understand, I think we all have the same sensibility, the same taste,

the three of us. And Alex Coco was actually my assistant on Florida Project. And he was so damn good. I bumped him up to producer on Red Rocket. And now he's one of the three. So he really understands me. He understands how my films are made. I think we have the same similar, we have the same taste in other movies.

So yeah. And so the casting process, you know, taking that on board as well, it's another like huge responsibility because these, I mean, sometimes you just know, right? I'm sure with Annie, you just knew. Yes. Yes. She was precast essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, but with casting and I, I never want, want there to be a weak link. I know, you know, it's so important. A lot of my films have ensemble cast. I'm almost all of them. of them. So the goal is never a weak link. So I don't want to be in a place where I'm blaming a casting

director down the line. Like, oh, they didn't give me a 100% perfect cast. It'll be on me if that weak link is in there. And also, it's not that I, a lot of my casting, it sometimes takes place years earlier. Like I, we just mentioned Mikey, but also Yura and Karen, Yura Borisov who plays Igor in the film and Karen Karagoulian who plays Toros, they were both precast too, before I wrote the screenplay. I had the idea in my mind that I knew their characters and therefore I was able to say I want them to be in.

And so as I was writing the screenplay, I had those three actors in my head. I saw their faces as I was fleshing out their characters and that really, really helped. That was the writing process. Yeah. So it's kind of, it's an unorthodox casting process. I kind of just pick and choose actors I want to work with or people that I know who I feel that they can, they'll be able to tackle this character and get it right. And then as we're getting closer to production, there's all the background and the background I have helped with. Samantha is also

doing additional casting and we're in the moment reaching out to sometimes locals and sometimes we're street casting, sometimes Instagram. Instagram is a great way of casting. Thank God. Instagram has really helped me. You know, Bria Vinaitha from Florida Project comes from Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. So that's been another wonderful resource for us. I recognize one of the actors as well who sort of helps maybe with security at the club. Oh yeah. She's also sort of sidekick with the weed dealer in Red Rocket. Oh, Brittany Rodriguez. Yes.

Yeah. She's great, man. Oh, that was complete street casting. We were driving around Houston. I kind of feel that. I didn't even know, but I felt it. Yep. Yep.

We were on Red Rocket. We had such a tiny crew. It was eight people. So really, it was really up to us to do everything. And I remember driving around Houston one day and seeing Brittany walking her dog around. And I like chihuahuas. I have a chihuahua.

So I was thinking, look at this interesting person walking this chihuahua. I can't be sure if it's a chihuahua. Yeah, we pulled, we drove up beside her and we said, we're making an independent film in town and are you interested? And she goes, I'm an artist. I'm very interested.

That's crazy. And that's how it happened. And so with this film, we were able to bring her back for a supporting role. I was also able to bring back a lot of, there are lots of cameos in there from people from my previous films. Mickey O'Hagan, who plays Dinah in Tangerine, she's in the film.

Charles Jang from Take Out, he's in the film. So it was really nice to have a reunion. And with the bigger characters, and specifically with Mikey's, with the Inora character, how much collaboration was going on? Obviously, you said you knew how long the film was gonna be, you knew from the page count, the writing's clearly very specific. But when I think about scenes like, you know,

when the Armenians rock up at the house, obviously it's scripted, but at the same time, how much freedom will you get? Because the reactions are everything, right? Yep, yep. You know, you're reaching for a line in some of those moments. No, that scene actually had to be quite choreographed. Sure, physically.

Yeah, and also sticking to the page as much as possible because there's so much exposition in there and the flow of the dialogue, it had to, I wanted, it plays out in real time. So I needed the back and forth to feel like this is how this conversation would happen. This is how it would play out. You know, Annie trying to figure out

what the hell is going, all the characters trying to figure out what the hell is going on and how they were gonna deal with the situation they're in. So that, I do always encourage improvisation, but in that scene specifically, I call it the home invasion scene, the only time that my actors could really improvise was when there was some air.

You know, like, okay, there's a little gap there, I'm gonna throw in an expletive or I'm gonna throw in a one-liner. And sometimes they would give me gold, you know? But there were other sections in the film where I would actually rely heavily on improvisation. And so, for example, the beginning of the movie, right? The beginning before she meets Yvonne,

we just wanted to show the mechanics of the club and what a night in the life of Annie would be like. And I relied entirely on improvisation from Mikey. And the thing is that she had done so much research, she spent time in the club, she shadowed dancers, And I relied entirely on improvisation from Mikey. And the thing is that she had done so much research. She spent time in the club. She shadowed dancers. She understood what these interactions would be like and all the variations of these interactions

because each one is different. It's a dancer interacting with a client and they're both trying to figure out whether or not they want to proceed and actually get a lap dance together. So it's like, so it's, it's, there's some psychology in there too. She has to read a person and, and sort of gauge their interest in, and how, how, how, how much small talk has to happen and what she has to focus on in order to get that guy interested. And she did so much of that homework, that immersion

that she did, that she was I was able to rely on her for that opening. And we shot it like a Robert Altman scene where I just had her with a wireless mic and an earpiece. And I would and we had the club up and running. Like we had my producer in the DJ booth blasting music, which is usually a no-no, because you don't want to marry music with dialogue. But we pre-cleared this music so that we could cut it up. And I knew I was going to be cutting it up

in a social realist way, so jump cuts were allowed. And we just, on the earpiece, I would say, OK, Mikey, approach the guy on the right over there. And she would go over and have, and just improvise this transaction with him, this interaction. And she would go over and have and just improvise this transaction with him, this interaction. And it was really incredible to watch. And she would always bring humor to each one.

And you want to go to the ATM, baby? Yeah, it was great. It was wonderful. Let's go to the ATM. Yep. She would twist the guy's words and quickly, whatever would get that guy to the private as fast as possible.

And then when I felt I had enough of her with one of those background actors, I would say, okay, now move on and go across the room to that guy on the left. We would just with a telephoto lens just follow her. Sometimes we do, I think we did a handheld, we walked around with her too. That was really wonderful. For my actor to have done so much research that I could rely on 30 minutes of improvisation from her was just incredible.

I've never worked with an actor who did that much prep. I mean, really, it was so impressive. Love that. Yeah. And I love that the music was being played nice and loud as well. Because how many movies have you seen where people are talking, like we're talking in the club?

Yeah. How are you hearing? I know most of the time when I'm in a club, it's like I'm picking up 20% of what people are saying. 100% and your throat saw the next day. Yes, exactly. Hey Mark, I find that I've been thinking recently about merch. Merch? Yes, merchandise, especially all those goodies

we have for sale online, you know, branded mugs, t-shirts, water bottles, you name it. The torch, the director's chair, the full works. I wish someone had told me about Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run and grow your own business. I know all about that. So Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide, whether you're selling herrings or Harrington jackets with the take logo on the back Shopify simplifies selling online and in person, so you can successfully grow your business. Shopify even gets you selling across social media marketplaces like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok with industry leading tools. Get Shopify today. Sign up for a £ pound per month trial period. Can't

we fix this? Shopify.co.uk slash. Curmode. All lowercase. All lowercase. I mean, what is wrong with Kermode and Mayo? It's easier to be Mayo just for once. Easier to spell curmode. They've gone for Shopify.co.uk slash, let's say it together, curmode. And speaking of the music, do you know how jarring it is for us Brits to hear Take That?

I kind of do, actually. Played in that scenario, that opening frame. Thank you. I was like, wait a minute. I'm glad. That's the kind of song we'd see on like a Christmas advert, here's something really wholesome. Yep. You knew that, right?

I knew that. You knew that, right? I knew that. You knew that. OK. I discovered that. Let's just say I discovered that because I choreographed the opening, knowing that there was going to be this pop song that was going to bookend that first hour of the movie. Because the first hour of the movie is essentially like an abridged Hollywood romantic comedy, right? So it had to have a pop song that started and ended it.

And we had choreographed the opening to another song. When I got into post-production, the song no longer spoke to me. And it was a big pop song, big, big, the biggest of the big. So you can imagine probably who I'm talking about. Tell me you hadn't already paid for it. I did not. Excellent. Thank God, thank God.

So I threw it on there. It hadn't already paid for it. I did not. Excellent. Thank God. So I threw it on there. It wasn't exactly working for me. And we were frustrated. I was driving around with Samantha and my wife and producer on the film. And I was frustrated. And I said to her, there has to be a song about a greatest day, right?

This is like her greatest day. So there has to be a song with that as the title or the lyrics or something. And so she jumped on Spotify and she said, there actually is one by Take That. And I knew Take That from the hit they had in the US in the 90s, I Want You Back. And so I was like, yeah, play it. And it was an instantaneous earworm.

Like we listened to it, we were humming it by the second listen. I mean, we really fell in love the second listen. I mean, we really fell in love with it. We got home, we threw it on the opening credits because it has the same tempo as the song that we choreographed it to. It fit perfectly. It even landed on Mikey at the chorus. I noticed that. And we were blown away.

And I wondered if that was something that you'd put together, you know, in the edit. Serendipity. Yeah. And so then we did a little research on it and we realized it was a hit almost everywhere in the world except the U.S. And so, yes, I did answer that was on my long-winded way of saying I knew that it would mean more here than in the U.S. And I'm glad that U.S. that U.S. audiences are being exposed to it now because I'm getting a lot of compliments about it. Like, people really like the song. From the Florida Project onwards,

you know, it feels like you've always veered towards telling these stories about the kind of people that, you know, in the real world, we all just generalise about, oh, it's so bad for these guys. You know what's going on with these guys. The poverty in Florida Project. And obviously you've returned to some variations of sex work in the three following films.

What is it that draws you back there? I think it's hard to say exactly. I think it might just be a reaction of what I'm not seeing enough of, or perhaps representation being quite one dimensional with these types of characters. And so therefore thinking I can do something different with it

and wanting to explore them more fully and making them three dimensional. So there's that. And yeah, I think people have that sort of reaction because they, I don't think they unfortunately see these types of characters fleshed out to this degree. Yeah. I think there's also that thing of like, maybe there's a lot of people who feel, almost feel two-dimensionally about certain groups because it's something that they never touch upon in their real lives.

Yeah. And Hollywood has a tendency to, when you have a character like this, I'm not just talking about sex workers, I'm talking about any marginalized person. They approach it in a way which they sanctify that character. I mean, they make them saintly where it's like they can do no wrong. They don't have any flaws. They don't make any mistakes. And I think that that is,

unfortunately that plays against their intention of, they want to have some sort of empathy for these characters, but it turns into just sympathy instead. And I think audiences detect that. They're like, oh, I can't see myself in this person because this person is too perfect. And therefore there's no connection. And I think that my characters are full of flaws because, you know...

Oh man, that's hack. Yeah, because I know I'm full of flaws and I want to see, I want, you know, when I'm an audience member, I want to be able to see that stuff in order to say, oh, okay, I can see myself in these characters. Do you ever get pushed back against that in terms of, you know, the, I don't know, the money people like, do you ever get like, hey, Sean, more heroes, man. A tiny bit.

More smiles. Yeah, no, a little tiny bit. But I put myself in a place where I make these films independently and whoever's on board the last two films, you know, financed by FilmNation, they've been very hands off, you know, they, they, they, yeah, they've been very hands off and there might be a note here or there. And I can veto those notes if I want to. So I'm, I'm okay.

I have to make these films independently because, you know, as you just said, like I doubt that this screenplay would get past day one of notes from a studio or even a mini studio. They would be like, uh-uh, no way. Are you kidding me? You can't say that. Do you have any aspirations to try and do something with a big studio? Or you just-

Not really. I really don't. I mean, that's weird to say, but if I want to continue making these types of movies, not only in the subject matter, but the way I cast them, which is pretty unorthodox, you know, it's not always, I don't always gravitate, I don't gravitate towards the eight listers. That's usually the way movies are made. The first thing that people think about,

sometimes when I, the first question I get asked by people when I say I'm making a new movie is, who's in it? Instead of saying, you know, what is it about? And I'm like, that's not the most important part. Yes, it is important who is playing my characters, but why should it be, I guess, yes, for the box office.

It's good to have box office names, but that's just unfortunately not the way I think. And so. Yes or no question before I let you go. So it'll be nice and quick. Was it just me or is there, did you have anywhere in your head, or for Annie, in your head,

thinking about her name, when she leaves the club for what she thinks is the last time and arrives at Banya's house, all I could think was, I think I'm gonna like it here. No, yes or no? Yes. All right. Brilliant.

Sean Baker, thank you for your time. Very cool. Thank you for having me. That was definitely the most fun I've had.