The Big Picture - Barry Jenkins on ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ and Life After ‘Moonlight’ | Interview (Ep. 107)

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins returns to 'The Big Picture' to discuss his life and work since ‘Moonlight’ won Best Picture at the Oscars and the unique challenge of recreating 1970s Harlem for his adaptation of James Baldwin’s ‘If Beale Street Could Talk.’ Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Barry Jenkins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I think that what happens in the moment of creation is so profound in and of itself. Like literally two people exchanging cigarettes to me, you know, there's an intimacy in that. And that's all we need. I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world. Barry Jenkins is back on the show today. When Barry and I last sat down, he was promoting a little movie you may have heard of called Moonlight. That movie, his second, hadn't yet won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

But since that moment in February of 2017, his life has been a whirlwind. In a short period of time, he has become well-known not just as a great artist, but as a true ambassador of film. He's one of the most fun people to talk to about movies on earth. I suspect if he weren't making beautiful movies, he might have my job hosting a podcast about them. His new film, If Beale Street Could Talk, is finally here, and it's in harmony with the rest of Jenkins' filmography.

Using lush colors, his uniquely powerful framing and close-up, and the incredible score of his composer Nicholas Bertel, Jenkins has made an extraordinary adaptation of James Baldwin's novel of the same name. I talked to Barry about the bigger opportunities after that Oscar, making Beale Street glow, and the 10-hour mega project he has coming next. Here's Barry Jenkins. I'm so delighted to be rejoined by Barry Jenkins. Barry was here a couple of years ago talking about Moonlight, which of course won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Shocker. Damn, Barry, you're back here with If Beale Street Could Talk. I can't wait to talk to you about that movie.

But first, I just have to start by wondering, how did your life change after everything that happened with Moonlight? It was interesting, man. You know, for like four days, I'll say I was famous, you know, where I would like walk down the street. People were like honking their horns and everything. Or I go to the cafe and Mr. Jenkins, your coffee's on us, which is kind of cool, you know? But then as a writer, you're trying to disappear all the time.

I was like, this is not cool when I want to sit in the window at the cafe and just write, you know? Is that how you would write before? Is that how you were working on Moonlight? Yeah. I mean, even still now, you know, I have my spots I go to, I like to write in public, you know, you like to be surrounded by the energy of real life. I think it's kind of why I've chosen to live downtown all these years. But then the other side of it was you build a career, and your career is geared around trying to convince people to say yes. And then in the aftermath of something that was as successful as Moonlight,

you have to very quickly switch and realize I have to be very wise and diligent about knowing how often to say no. And so that's been really the biggest sort of change for me. I heard you say that people said essentially to you that you could do whatever you wanted after Moonlight. I didn't say that. Something like that.

Yeah. I mean, I was in a very privileged position, yeah, after Moonlight. Did you feel an unusual pressure because of that? You know, I didn't actually. You know, this was kind of one of the lovely things about, you know, how A Bill Shriek A Talk came to be. You know, I wrote both these screenplays on the same writing trip in the summer of 2013.

And so even before awards season wrapped up, before, you know, all the things, the results of Moonlight being released, before those things were solidified, I already knew I wanted to go on and make a Bill Shrieker talk. And so because of that, I was almost insulated or protected from the pressure, you know, the weight of having to choose, okay, how do I follow up this film? When did you officially start production on the movie? Production started last fall. So I'd say pre-production started like last August and we were shooting, and I want to say October of last year. Okay. So you had a little bit of time to kind of cook in between.

A little bit of time to cook, but I also started adapting Coulson Whiteheads and All of the Underground Railroad on Amazon. And we did a full writer's room for that in the spring and summer of last year before going into pre-pro on Beale Street. You know, it was so loud, the aftermath of Moonlight, that it seemed like the best thing to do was to just get back to work. And so that's what I did. Okay. Can you tell me when you first read If Beale Street Could Talk? When did it first come into your life? Yeah, I first read this novel in, I want to say 2010, 2011. A friend who works in film sent it to me and she sent it to me and said, you know, I don't think you've read this book. Everybody at that point knew I was a big

fan of James Baldwin, but I never talked about Beale Street. She's like, I don't think you've read this book. Everybody at that point knew I was a big fan of James Baldwin, but I never talked about Beale Street. She's like, I don't think you've read this one, but I think you should because I think there's a film in it and I feel like you'd be the perfect director to adapt it. This is pre-Moonlight. This is when I've only done the one feature film, Medicine for Melancholy, which is a budget of $12,000. Not something that projects to a person making a period adaptation, a Harlem set romance. But this friend knew me personally. And so I took her seriously when I read the book, I fell in love with it. What was it that you were responding to? Part of it was, and I hope people respond to this in the film as well, was this blend of the two

voices of James Baldwin. You know, one of those voices is very very lush and diligent about romance sensuality passion um both the intellectual and emotional um sort of feeling of love but then the other voice is very just as passionate just as searing uh about spotlighting social critique um and the american government and american society and the role that's played in the lives and souls of black folks. And Beale Street, those two things are just fused so organically that I felt like, one, this is quite challenging. The book is nonlinear. There's just so many things about it that were evocative but very challenging. But I felt like it was the kind of challenge that would be very rewarding if I was successful in pulling it off. What was the hardest part about actually adapting something like this? The hardest part of adapting this, and I'll divorce it from the actual story, from the narrative.

I'll just describe it as myself, Barry Jenkins, guy who worships James Baldwin. It's a very intimidating thing, but when you're creating something, you have to be free. And so the most challenging aspect for me was getting to the point where I felt like, okay, this is mine, you know, and it's not his, you know, and I have to, uh, feel free to allow myself to make choices that might run counter to the choices that I believe either he would want me to make or he would have made or that he already made. Um, and that was the biggest hurdle to get over, which was a mental hurdle, you know, not, not, not a physical hurdle. When you're working on something like this, are you consulting with the estate or other people that are connected to it in any meaningful way? Or is it, is it yours and you get to do with

it what you feel is right? Uh, it's, it's mine and I got to do with it, uh, what feels right, you know, and I'll, I'll say, you know, respect to the James Baldwin estate for empowering myself and, you know, Pastel, Plan B, Annapurna,na you know all the companies that supported the film um but implicit in that is that it took four years to secure to secure the rights and so you know i wrote the the novel i adapted the novel without having the rights to it what they call writing it on spec um i guess in la and because of that when i first contacted the estate rather than pitching them and going hey here's what i what I think I want to do. Here's what I might do with this character. Here's, it was like, no, no, this is exactly what I plan to do. I'm

pulling no punches. Um, and I think because I was so upfront with them over the course of this four years, they got to know everything that they could possibly want to know about how I was planning to make this adaptation. They also got to see Moonlight come to fruition, you know, in the intervening years. And so by the time we were off making the film, it was like, go with God, do what you do. That's pretty fascinating. So in many ways, Moonlight unlocked the ability to do this in exactly the way that you wanted? Kind of, kind of. If you read any quotes from the James Baldwin estate, they never mentioned Moonlight.

They always mentioned my first film, Medicine for Malachale, which the only thing they had seen, you know, before we began the process of working together, before we began the process of them allowing me to take possession of part of Mr. Baldwin's legacy. So it wasn't really Moonlight. And to be honest, we had come to an agreement before Moonlight premiered. So I can't say that it was from their point of view. From my point of view, what I will say is, you know, it was eight years between my first feature in Moonlight, and there were certain decisions that we made in making Moonlight, speaking mostly aesthetic decisions, but also in some of the casting as well. We made those decisions out of fear in a certain way. How so? It was like, oh, I think I want to do this thing where one of the most known actors in my film,

I'm just going to disappear that actor and not explain how, going into the second act. Oh, I think I want to cast this actor nobody's ever seen before to carry the film for the last 40 minutes in the third act. Or I think I want to have the characters look directly at the camera. I would make those choices and go, are we going to get away with this? Am I going to get fired? Are they going to take the film away from me? You know, made out of fear, you know, still made decisions, you know, we're doing these things, but always having this fear associated with them. I think going into Beale Street, because so much of that, so much of that instinctual creativity, so much of that working from our gut, so much of

those things paid off. And I don't mean paid off and they, you know, we won an Oscar. I mean, paid off. And the movie that resulted from that was ultimately the best version of the movie. I feel like I could have made, it's like, oh, now in Beale Street, let's make those decisions with confidence. Let's not be fearful. You know, let's not be timid about deciding, oh, I want to cast Kiki Lane as the main character in my film. Let's not be timid, you know, about deciding, you know, I just want to linger on Brian Tyree Henry's face for 20 seconds. Let's, let's not be fearful. Let's just do those things with confidence, you know? And, uh, and I think that's the ways in which, uh, Moonlight really affected the way we approach making Beale Street.

That's really interesting. I sense that confidence when I'm watching the movie. I don't want to go too far into Beale Street yet. I was, as you sense that confidence when I'm watching the movie. I don't want to go too far into Beale Street yet. As you talked about it, I was thinking, it's now 10 years since Medicine for Melancholy. It is the 10-year anniversary. Congratulations.

And I think that Medicine for Melancholy has a lot in common with Beale Street, perhaps more so than Moonlight. No, no, no. It's funny.

So here we go. I've been talking about this movie nonstop for the last two months. I haven't had that conversation. Great. Yeah, hats off funny. So here we go. I've been talking about this movie nonstop for the last two months. I haven't had that conversation. Great. Yeah, hats off to you, Ra. Yeah, I do think there is some synergy between them. I was just doing a breakdown of the sequence in the middle of the film where Tish and Fonny go to look at this loft. And, you know, we location scouted because I didn't believe that a loft could exist in present day New York that was similar to the one they would have been able to afford or look at in the early 1970s. But we found the place and I walked in and I was like, this is impossible. You know, how can you make a home out of this?

And then in this very lovely way, you see how love and faith interact with Fonny going, no, I will show you. And she believes him. And I think that if you go back to medicine, there is this sort of idea where Wyatt's character, this guy Micah, is trying to tell Tracy Hagen's character, see, we could be beautiful together. Can't you see it? And the whole film is him trying to convince her to see it. And every now and then she'll let herself slip in and kind of see it. But his reason for it is tainted you know and so the whole relationship is tainted as well um i think this relationship in bill street is much more pure and it's not tainted from within it's tainted from without but yeah there are some some similarities between them

you're basically trying to tell me i'm making the same film no i'm not saying that to you barry no no that's not what i'm saying i like you for saying that i'm saying you know that filmmakers they have themes and they have things that they respond to relationships that they build in their stories i got no themes i got characters I got characters. It's very interesting to me. So, you know, you mentioned casting Kiki and Stefan as well. And, you know, the relative unknown Stefan now with Homecoming, I think is becoming a little bit more of a known quantity, but is that something that was easy for you to do? Did you have carte blanche to say the two, my two leads are people you're probably never going to see before because they obviously

works, I think in many ways in the telling of the story where you don't come with any preconceived notions exactly but you know movies are to be sold as well and there's a there's a sort of a business aspect to that yeah i don't i can't say i had carte blanche i mean technically yes um but i think that you know when i approach making these films you know it is with a collaborative spirit no i'm not the person who's going to be marketing the film not the person who's going to be selling the film, not the person who's going to be selling the film. And so I think it is incumbent upon me to consider their thoughts and wishes, you know, in every phase of making the movie. However, you know, the casting is always a meritocracy for me. And so, you know, I have no

preconceived notions of who the leads are. I just don't. And I'm hoping that someone will walk through the door and show me who this character is. And, you know, I think Moonlight doesn't work, you know, without that as the bedrock of the casting process. And I can't say that this film would or wouldn't work that way as well. I just know when Kiki Layne showed up, I was like, oh, this is my Tish. This is the woman. I've been reading this book, reading this novel,

trying to see this face in my head. And this is the face. This is the hair. This is the skin. This is my girl I've been reading this book, reading this novel, trying to see this face in my head. And this is the face. This is the hair. This is the skin. This is my girl, you know? Yeah. And with Stefan, it actually worked the opposite. You know, because I had seen Stefan in Selma and I'd seen him as Jesse Owens in Race.

And I'm sorry, those are two of the strongest, most celebrated, you know, black men in American history. And now I want to cast this guy to play Fonny, you know? So I had to put him through the ringer because I was like, yeah, pun intended. Sorry. I put him through the ringer because I was like, oh, he's too refined. He's too this, he's too that. What did that mean? Like, how did you, is that something you had to do with him as an actor or just for your own mind?

For my own mind. It had nothing to do with him as an actor or just for your own mind? For my own mind. It had nothing to do with him as an actor. I'll say that on record. Nothing to do with him or his ability. It was just my own mind. It kind of goes back to what you were saying. You know, you walk into the theater and you're seeing this face anew. For me, Stefan's face wasn't a face that I was going to see anew.

And the face I'd seen him play, John Lewis, Jesse Owens, like, holy shit. Yeah. You're on that path now. You go and play wherever you're going to play next. I don't know. Malcolm X, the young years, who the hell knows. Are you pitching a movie right now? Yeah, I'm definitely not pitching a movie right now. Spike made the Malcolm X and it is the Malcolm X. No, it was one of those things where it had nothing to do with his performance. It was just the preconceived notion I had in my head. I don't know if audiences walk in and have that same feeling, but when I'm casting, I'm an audience of one and I'm trying to find a way to

see the film. And Stefan, he was such a man, such an awesome kid. He was like, Barry, I will put every scene in the script on tape. Everyone. And I said, Stefan, you don't have to do that. Just put these two scenes with these notes. And he went off and he put them on and then, you know, there you go. Did you have the thing where you saw hundreds of people for these parts? I did. I did. Especially for Tish, you know, Stefan came in pretty early and it was pretty clear to me that Stefan was a really fantastic actor and that he could do this work. Her character is more important and so then it became this thing of chemistry it's like okay how do we pair this guy with her is it this woman is

it that woman and then can we build a family you know around these two people um but for kiki's role for tish we saw yes hundreds cindy tolan our casting director did a great job she discovered jason mitchell was easy ever straight out of compton so it's just her thing she has her finger on the pulse that That's incredible. You know, I feel like we hear directors all the time say like, oh, I looked and searched under rocks for my star

and it took me 500 people. But what is that actually like? Does that mean that you are looking at hours of people on tape? Are you seeing face-to-face that many people? Some people face-to-face. You know,

I think this is where we have to give respect to the casting directors. They are seeing hours and hours of tape and they are face- face with many, many, many people. And then they preselect and then I come in and I'm looking at, you know, a lot of those tapes. Sometimes I'll ask for just give me all the tapes, you know, I just need to see more people and I'll just go and dig through all the tapes. But no, the casting directors are doing the brunt of that work.

And the thing for me with casting is you kind of know it when you see it. And so I feel like I just have to watch as much as I possibly can because you just never know. I mean, Trevante Rhodes, I happened to be in the room when Trevante came in to audition for Andre Holland's part of all things for Kevin. And I'm so glad I was physically there in the room because had I seen it on a tape, I might've been like, oh, this guy's totally not the Kevin character, but being in his physical presence, I could feel, but wait a second, I think he's this character. And I was verified because I turned to my right and Adela Romanski was literally passing me. He was like junior high, passing me a post-it note that said, not Kevin, black. And so we stopped Trevante, sent him out and brought him back in a week later. It's fascinating. On the flip side of that, you do something very cool in this movie where you take a lot of familiar faces and you dot them through the film.

You know, you take Dave Franco or Brian Tyree Henry, as you mentioned, or Diego Luna, Pedro Pascal, these actors who we know from things just in our life. And you give them these very tiny moments that are essential to you know the story that you're telling why more brand names for lack of a better word for those parts you know part of that is a function of a literary adaptation especially this adaptation you know the book is non-linear it takes like 20 hours to read the book two hours to watch the film so some of these satellite characters i like to call them have much more screen time, air quotes, screen time in the novel than they do in the adaptation. You know, you might have 20 pages of Pedro Pascal and Pedro Pascal's character in the book, but it's like literally a two minute scene in the film. And so in that way, now I'm relying on the audience

recognizing that face, not associating it with a different performance, but recognizing that face and being like, hmm, that person's familiar somewhat. And then these gifted actors bring a whole new life. It's like, no, this is not Pedro Pascal from Narcos. This is a guy who I don't know what his motivation is. I don't know if Regina's going to get through, but he's such a wonderful actor that in the course of two and a half minutes, you see this human to human interaction, this connection that you go, oh, maybe mama will do it. But then you keep going on. It you go, oh, maybe mama will do it. But then you keep going on. It's like, no, maybe mama won't do it.

So I think in that way, these things that can maybe be a hindrance in one way, you know, if Tish shows up and you've seen her in 8000 movies. Now she's not Tish. She's the actor. But it kind of goes the other way when Brian Tyree needs to show up and for like 12 minutes be the center of the film. It's nice to have this thing you can anchor to, but then the actor is so good that the anchor just gets cast away. Obviously, you know, as we said at the top of the show, you had a very high profile moment. Does that make it easy to say to someone like Dave Franco or Brian Tyree Henry, Hey, can you just do this little part? Bruh, this is the thing that was so shocking to me. So I love Diego Luna.

The Ito Mama Tambien was the first film I ever saw at a film festival. I was in film school. We drove to the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival and saw Ito Mama. Always loved the guy. I was sitting down with Cindy Tolan and she was like, what do you want to do for Pedro Cito?

And it was like three scenes. I was like, you know what, man? I always think of Diego Luna. You know, I think of that character, but he would never do this, right? And Cindy wrote Diego. And he's like, scenes. I was like, you know what, man? I always think of Diego Luna. I think of that character, but he would never do this, right? And Cindy wrote Diego. And he's like, no, of course I'll do it. And I was like, this is amazing.

If this is the power stone that you get for winning an Oscar, fuck yeah. Yes, I will deploy that power stone. Because it's, you know, I think there's this connection between Stefan James character Fonny and this guy, Pedro Cito. And this is a, the novel is a bit angry, you know, there's a bitterness to it. There's also the sweetness of a New York bohemian kind of life, the way these people connect through shared experiences. And for somebody who's as warm as Diego to embody that character, again, it's like 45 seconds in the film, you know,

spread across two different scenes, but that connection just clicks, you know, it just like, it just ignites something. So yeah, I was very, very happy to be able to reach out to Mr. Luna and get him in the film. It's a, it's a really good, I mean, all of those actors are doing amazing work. Brian Tyree Henry, I think has been picked out to say like, there's something extraordinary going on with his, his role. Well, it's because, I mean, it's like 12 minutes of the film right in the middle of the film. And he and Stefan, they,

you know, what I love about working with the people I'm working with right now, whether it's a cinematographer, the editors, our production designer on this piece, Mark Freeberg was awesome, but also Anna Perna, Plan B and Pastel,

you know, especially Anna Perna, who's distributing the film, you know, Brian Tyree Henry is not in the movie until like 45 minutes in and then for 12 minutes it's basically his film and but what i love about that is it created the space to do something that i've always wanted to do which is a really organic representation of what it's like for two men in this case in particular two black men you know you meet each other on the street and it's like oh hey how you doing it's like oh i'm

good and then you keep talking it's like oh i'm good and and then you keep talking it's like, oh, hey, how you doing? It's like, oh, I'm good. And then you keep talking. It's like, oh, I'm good. And, and then you keep talking. It's like, oh, I'm good. But, and then it's like over the course of five hours, actually, I'm not really good. And in this film, we were allowed to create the space, this like 12 minute window where you can see two actors legitimately in flesh and blood go through that process of I'm good. I'm good. And I'm good, but I'm not good. And I just love that Brian, uh, cause he came from Atlanta to literally from shooting Atlanta to do this one day on set, but both he and Stefan just got it. You know, they got the source material. They got what I was working towards. They got what Mr. Baldwin was working towards. And it's unorthodox to have a satellite character take over the film for

12 minutes right in the middle of the film. But what he's doing psychically or spiritually is so in tune with the journey Stefan's character might be forced to undergo that to me, it just, it takes all these themes from, you know, the iceberg theory of Hemingway, all this stuff beneath the surface, you see just all of it well up and appear on Brian's face in the sequence. Yeah, I was so glad that he accepted the part. And this little movie. It's very cool. Another thing that I don't think I had really seen before is New York and Harlem at this time in this way.

So I don't know if there were any reference points for you in terms of films that you had seen that you used to try to you know design the production with your team and also like what it was like to try to make New York in that time could you talk about that a little bit yeah that was actually the trickiest part of the process you know the films that I had seen from this time that that were in my mind the most were this film Claudine and another film called Uptight. Those are the two films. But I knew that because of our budget restrictions, for one, you know, this time in New York is a very particular, very gritty time. We just didn't have the budget to go all out. And just like from the ground up, Mark Freeberg, production designer was, it was going to be a New York of interiors, mostly interiors, and that the faces would become landscapes in a certain way. And so it was about trying to find both in the center of the frame,

the main characters, but also, you know, the extras, the background, the satellite folks, finding these people who just revealed these worlds and their faces, almost like, you know, if Ansel Adams was studio portrait photographer, you know, what would that be like? You know, it's why we chose to shoot on the Alexa 65 and so many of these, these other different things.

And then Mark Freeberg, our production designer was like, I can't patina five blocks of exterior New York. I can patina the shit out of every interior in this film. So let's go down that path. And we did. And it's kind of cool because Harlemlem is still like everywhere you know it's undergoing of course radical transformations but there are still these pockets where you turn the camera on and it could be 45

years ago you know the scene where brian and stefan meet it's not doctored at all that that block on linux is like that is what it is. Really? Yeah. So that actually, I mean, I probably haven't been there in 10 years, but when I watched it, I was like, this feels period. Now, I will say, if you pan the camera like 25 degrees to the right, there's a Whole Foods right there. But otherwise, that block is pristine. That sort of tells the story of New York in one pan. I guess, was there ever a version of the world where you didn't do this right after Moonlight? Did you ever think, I'm going to do something different? I didn't, no. And it was, again, kind of like the best protection in a certain way, the best self-defense, the best version of self-care.

The only way that would have happened is if the rights hadn't been secured, but they were. Even before Moonlight came out, it was pretty clear that this was going to be the next film. Let's take a quick break from our conversation with Barry Jenkins to hear a word from our sponsor. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Kavo. Control Center by Kavo is the one remote that does it all. This holiday season, help your loved ones take control of their TV with the gift of Control Center. Control Center cleans up your home theater so you can control everything connected to your TV

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one single remote control. Highly recommend Cabo Control Center. So shop now and get 40% off Control Center with promo code BIGPICTURE. That's $59.95, 40% off regular pricing of $99.95. Control Center is available at caavo.com and Best Buy. Control Center by Cabo, one remote that does it all. Now back to my conversation with barry jenkins you talked about um you know not having necessarily the money to create five blocks in 1972 or whatever year this ultimately is um but you did presumably have some money to spend maybe a little bit more than you had in the past was there any additional pressure did you find that things

actually were easier having a little bit more of that? No, it's never easier. No, it's never easier. I mean, part of it was we were able to pay all the craftspeople who work on these films, you know, their proper wages, you know, which is, you know, a very underrated thing to be able to do that we were very proud to do. But it's a period piece. And so there are these very subtle nuanced details um that uh that that that required spending um so and it wasn't a ton of money man you know i think it's a very fiscally responsible production um i don't want to over characterize your your your wealth and success yeah but when you come from a world where your first film cost twelve thousand dollars your

second film cost 1.5 million. Then it's like, Hey, you know, anything. That's why I ask you dealing with a Scrooge McDuck. Um, but no, it was, it was lovely to,

again, to make choices with confidence, you know, it's like, Hey, I want, I want to build this basement flat, like on a,

on a soundstage. And we want to build it. It's got to feel like this reference photo. And to have someone like Mark Freeberg, have the resources to be empowered to go, okay, I can do that. There's this 85-year-old draftsman I know who I want to bring out of retirement to build this crack in this wall. And to go, yes, I know it's a soundstage, but we need to have a crack in the wall because it's a basement apartment and the foundation is shitty. Okay, boom, go. We can afford to do that. So

in those ways, it was quite liberating. Film is such a strange art form. What ends up in the cinema seems like it just arrived, but there's all these little, little pieces, these very finite things that are basically unnoticeable, except for someone who either works in film or is looking for them. But those things add up to this feeling on a set so that when Brian Tyree Henry is there for a day, I want him to walk on set and feel like he's going to light a cigarette and he is in a basement apartment.

And that's where we put our resources. I'm always so interested in those things. There's also a version of those things that are not physical. You know, there are a lot of ideas in this movie. There's clearly things that you're trying to say. And I'm interested to hear you talk about that. But more specifically, when you're making the movie, do you have the kind of

relationship with your crew and your actors where you say this movie is about this, or this part of the movie represents this, or is it implicit? I try to, uh, to, to, to allow it to be implicit. You know, I try not to put that kind of pressure, you know, on the actor, on the crew person or myself, to be honest, you know, I think that what happens in the moment of creation is so profound in and of itself, like literally two people exchanging cigarettes to me, you know, there's an intimacy in that. And that's all we need, you know, the themes that will arise in juxtaposition, you know, with the scene now versus the scene that's going to come 40 minutes later. That's when these more intellectual ideas will take root. But on the day, I just need you to be able to look at the person across from you and

really connect and feel what they're going through. Now, there are certain things where, yeah, there is a meaning. You know, when Regina King, when I'm asking her, hey, just so you know, I want you to look right into the camera and put this wig on and off, on and off. I need to explain why I'm doing that and why I'm covering it in a certain way. Because then it's not only is it a collaboration, now I'm asking the actor to embody the theme. And if it's ever at that stage, then yes, I want to get in and really let's talk about it. Let's both take ownership of this. One of my favorite moments in the film is when Stefan James as Fonny is near the end where he's

having this vision of himself and he's just walking around this block of wood. In that case, yeah, I need to explain to the actor what is happening. You're not trying to sculpt the Mona Lisa. This is something completely different. It's much more esoteric. And let's together come to an accord where we can understand what this is. And if you need me to, I can give you flesh and blood direction of how you can move yourself through this scene. Because I don't want you moving towards an intellectual concept of what's happening. So it depends, scene to scene, beat to beat. So I'm sure that this has been asked of you before, but there's the Wong Kar Wai influence and aspect of the movie is very evident to me. And not just in the way that it looks, though.

I think there it feels to me at least that there is some look that you are inspired by, but also in the way that you basically tell a love story and what a love story actually can be. And this feels like both practical and ambiently like a real love story. Is anything I'm saying reasonable to you? No, no, it's reasonable. And I love that you said practically and ambiently. I much prefer the ambiently, I got to say. But it's sort of like when you're in love with someone and something happens to them or happens to you,

how you respond to that. Exactly. And there's a lot of decision-making and sort of facing the truth of what your life actually is happening in the story of this movie. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I agree with a lot of that. I mean sort of facing the truth of what your life actually is happening in the story of this movie. Yeah. I mean, yeah,

I, I agree with a lot of that. I mean, the, the one car wise stuff, man, I know it comes up a lot, has up a lot.

And I've been thinking about why it comes up a lot, you know, with this film in particular, we, our references were more still photography. We tried to stay away from cinema references for this film with moonlight. Yes, absolutely.

The references were, were, were cinema, which I was very clear about, very open about over the process of promoting that film. With this one, it was less so. What photography was it? like photo essays that were created of the period by these men who were from the community and really with the goal of reflecting the essence of what life was in Harlem around this time. With One Car Why, I think what's interesting is because I've been talking about this more, and it's been two years since I've had to talk about it. So it's interesting for it to come up again because I didn't expect it to come up as much with this film. But what I realized is I

didn't grow up watching a lot of movies. I didn't grow up wanting to be a filmmaker. So it's almost like you think of how you acquire language. And as an infant, if you grow up in a household that speaks three languages, you're going to speak those three languages. And I think for me, when it comes to cinema, I tried to create my own language. And that language was created out of watching a lot of Asian new wave cinema, a lot of French new wave cinema. And so even though I'm expressing myself in my own voice, the language itself, the bedrock of it is rooted, you know, in these places, which are very far flung from the place I'm from and from my own experience. And yet it's somehow it's made its way into the DNAna of the way i work i have no problem with that

no problem with that whatsoever and i hope um in the same way that the french new wave directors were watching all this really golden age of hollywood um kind of cinema and you can if you look for you can see those things and trufo and godard as well um i think it's just a sign of uh of respect and the power of cinema you know and uniting us and joining us through all these shared human experiences. That's definitely my interpretation of it too. It's not you're ripping something off. It's you can just feel the influence. I mean, as you know, some people say

you rip more than a car while, man. No, no. I hope that's not how you receive that. I'm wondering do you think of this as an optimistic story? I think it is. I think it is. And I don't know if you've read the book or- I have not. I haven't read the book, but the ending of the film is slightly different than the ending

of the book. And I think part of that was my ultimate goal to arrive at a place that was truthful and grounded, but optimistic and hopeful. I think in crafting this novel at all, Mr. Baldwin was working at so many different things. One of those things was acknowledging the role that our society has had, you know, in the degradation of the lives and souls of black folks from the very beginning of our time here. And yet there's always been love. There's always been joy. You know, we've always created art, you know, build families and communities. I mean, I think there's always been love. It's always been joy. You know, we've always created art, you know, build families and communities.

I mean, I think there's something implicitly hopeful in that, something explicitly hopeful in that. And so with building this film, this two hour experience of Tish and Fonny and their families, I think ending in the way that we do, solidifying that the family has not been broken, that the child has not been destroyed, that the love is still intact. I think that is a very hopeful and optimistic thing. It's a very simple thing. It's not somebody walking down the street, pumping their arms in the air, celebrating this million-dollar lawsuit windfall. But I do think it's a very grounded, truthful, hopefulness and optimism. And I think it's very much in spirit with the ethos of Mr. Baldwin's work and why we open with this quote about there being so many Bill Streets

all over America or any places that black folks have found a way to sustain life and love and family. Tell me a little bit about expectation, because you had this just incredibly extraordinary experience a couple of years ago, probably impossible. I would say certainly impossible to replicate given all of the ways that it played out. But you are a filmmaker, presumably a career filmmaker now. And how do you, well, if you want to be a painter, you're welcome to be a painter. I wouldn't put that on you. But essentially, how do you prepare

yourself for the reception of things after that cataclysmic moment a couple of years ago? this one as well. I think that I was very diligent about deciding what Moonlight was before any of the award season stuff began. And to be honest, I didn't realize I was in the award season stuff until I was halfway into it. I was so damn naive, but I was aware even from making Medicine of what it's like to be critiqued. And so I wanted to make damn sure I decided for myself what that film was before it went out into the world. I did that. And thank God, because it buffered me from a lot of things. I frame it that way to say that, you know, I've done the same thing with this film. And so the expectations of things that exist outside me, you know, and not within.

And for me, if I had known or attempted to steer Moonlight towards that stage at the Dolby Theater, that would have been disastrous. I would have done such a terrible job of that. And I think just like learning from working out of fear aesthetically and the choice we made in Moonlight versus now being like, you know what, I'm going to make these choices with confidence. I think now going through this process of dealing with the expectations of Bill Street, it's like, oh, you know what, it's best for me to divorce myself from those expectations. Let me just go out and just talk about this film

that I'm so happy and so proud of and all the people that I feel so fortunate to get to work with. So I've just kind of just taken those things and just thrown them off and kind of just here for the ride, man. What's happening with the Underground Railroad? The Underground Railroad is somewhere

between Chicago and Nova Scotia right now. Now, we did the writer's room for it last year, right before starting pre-production on Beale Street. And so now we've been going back in, you know, while being in post in the film and releasing it, releasing Beale Street. We're writing all the scripts and doing location scouting because I want to be on set directing it next year. How much of that life, how much of time will that take up? A lot of time. Yeah. I won't be doing anything like this, this time next year. Okay. Let's, let's enjoy this as much as we can then. How, how do you modulate a huge commitment like that time-wise? Because you know, all of your films, I presume, like what was the shooting schedule for Beale street? 32 days. So, you know,

that's pretty modest relative to what you're about to embark upon. Yeah. I've been talking to friends who've done it, you know, I've got a decent relationship with Steven Soderbergh and, you know, he did it twice on the Nick, you know, and I'm trying to figure out a way to talk to Cary Fukunaga because I know he did it twice on Maniac and True Detective. But, you know, I've heard the grapevine that it's going to be very, very arduous and difficult. But I just love this character so much, so much. Being in the writer's room, working with these amazing writers, pulling apart the novel. And really, just like with Beale Street, seeing, okay, how do we go from this medium to this medium and really enrich the experience of the audience? That I've kind of got tunnel vision around that.

I'm not allowing myself to be aware of just how difficult physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually demanding the process is going to be. I think if I just focus on it bit by bit, piece by piece, eventually I'll look up and it'll be like, hey, last day of production on this 115 day shoot. I'm always interested with filmmakers because this process is so long. What do you do with the creative thoughts that you have that you can't apply to the thing you're working on? thoughts that you have that you can't apply to the thing you're working on? So like, if you have an idea for a film while making this television series, what do you do with it? Can you, can you apply it? You know, that's a good point. Uh, it's also, it can become quite dangerous in a certain way because you end up affecting the aesthetic

contract of the piece that's in front of you. Um, and so I try to be very diligent. Like I said, before we went into pre-production on Beale Street I did a writer's room for the Underground Railroad because once I knew once we got into Beale Street it was just going to be all Beale Street all the time so unfortunately we don't often talk about this but you look at some filmmakers careers and in a way there's a sacrifice you know I'm just not going to be able to creatively think about anything else but the Underground Railroad for the next year and a half. And because of that, I've got to be damn well sure that it's something I really believe in and really love. And that is the case with this book. Last time you were here, you came in and it was right after the Super Bowl and you were very upset about the Atlanta Falcons strategy. I remember this acutely. Yes.

And you said 28-3 and how could you not run the ball? How could you not? You were pissed off. Do you have any sports takes you want to share before you go? I do man, Alabama seems impossible to beat I'm more a college football fan than anything so I've been watching that I don't know what to make of the Rams

I think the Rams could win every game or they could lose any game I don't know, because of this film I haven't been able to pay as much attention to it. I'm like tanking in my fantasy league. But you know, it's one of those things where a perspective on what I'm doing. I think the reason why I maybe was so obsessed with that Superbowl was because it was clear that we were kind of working towards some kind of Superbowl. It's like, how does that happen? And then you look at what happened with us and it's like, yeah, it was kind of Superbowl. It's like, how does that happen? And then you look at what happened with

us and it's like, yeah, it was kind of like that. You didn't blow it though. You held onto the lead or whatever. I mean, I don't, I don't know what to make of it. Maybe you were the Patriots and not the Falcons in that case. You know what? I mean, with the way things went, I mean, kind of. Could be. Barry, last question. On the show, I always ask filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they've seen? You obviously are a great cinephile. What is the last great thing that you've seen? The last great thing I saw, I went on the election night of midterms. I was just like, you know what? It was a rare day off for me. Thank you all for giving me the day off to go vote. I had the day off and I actually went and voted at the same building that we cut Moonlight in.

It's like in this building, the basement of the last bookstore. We cut Moonlight above the last bookstore. So it was like a kind of cool day. And I thought, you know what? I want to watch something. I don't want to sit around and wait for the results to come in. And I was really pulling for Andrew Gilliam in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

And I could already see, I was like, I don't know how it's going to go. So I went to the Arclight and I watched two films back to back. I watched the movie Border and I watched the movie Burning, the two Bs. Yes. Two foreign films. Two foreign films. And they were both just so wildly different than anything I expected. I knew nothing about them. I just knew that they were pretty good, I'd heard. And yeah, and they were both so visually stimulating, orally stimulating,

especially Border. And I don't know, it was just one of those things where I was like, you know what? I've got to keep watching more things. know it's funny when you do this what we're doing right now you can get so in your own work and it was nice to go and watch these two films by filmmakers who are so different than me you know and just see so many really wonderful things there's a sequence in burning that score to uh miles davis's score from elevated to the gallows that is you've seen it i I have. I've seen Burning. I haven't seen Border. It is exquisite.

Exquisite. The kind of thing that makes you jealous. It's like, fuck, I didn't do that. Kind of thing makes you jealous, man. That's the highest compliment I can pay. Yeah, really, really damn good. Everybody should go see Burning. I agree.

You did it though, and you let us immerse yourself in this work. So thanks, Barry. I appreciate you coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to this week's episode of The Big Picture. For more Big Picture, please tune in tomorrow where Micah Peters and I will be breaking down what I have been told, though I don't yet know, is the best superhero movie of the year and maybe the best superhero movie ever. It's called Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Mike and I will be breaking that down for you. Check it out then. Today's episode of The Big Picture was brought to you

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