The Big Picture - Jake Johnson and Joe Swanberg on Their New Film ‘Win It All’ | The Big Picture (Ep. 8)

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Sean Fennessey sit down with actor Jake Johnson and director Joe Swanberg to discuss their new gambling film Win It All, why they wanted to make a movie for Netflix, and what it’s like teaming up for multiple projects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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TuneIn, your everything audio app. Hey guys, Sean here. Chris and I went down to South by Southwest a few weeks ago and had a chance to sit down with the filmmaker Joe Swanberg and the actor Jake Johnson, who you may know from New Girl. They have a new movie on Netflix called Win It All, and this conversation is all about that movie, so please enjoy. Hello, my name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at TheRinger.com.

I'm joined in the studio in Austin, Texas with my friend and co-worker Sean Fennessey, who's also an editor. Hello. And we are so excited because we are joined today by Jake Johnson and Joe Swanberg, who have a movie at South by Southwest. They have Win It All, which we just saw last night.

Rousing crowd approval rating, I think. They have Win It All, which we just saw last night. Rousing crowd approval. I think it was a delightful movie, and I think I would say that me and Sean's review of the film is we turned to each other at the end of the movie and said, how far do you think it is to drive to Oklahoma so that we can immediately go play cards? Which is, it's the seal

of approval for any gambling. Totally. Even if it's also about crippling addiction. I gotta say, that one means a lot after the movie i was we went to you know uh the after party and we were talking to people and the conversation got into a lot the circle i was in about like the addiction of gambling i'm also a gambler and i realized everybody i was talking to i had a different read on where i'm like oh every time i see that movie, I do feel sad for Eddie. Yeah. I want to play poker. Yeah. I would love to play Hold'em.

I would love, if there was, I said, tonight with the after party and the dance party, I'm like, if somebody walked up to me and said, oh, this could be a bit, but there is a home game going on. It's a $500 buy-in. I would have kissed him on the lips. Joe, I'll see you tomorrow at press. I'm gone with these strangers. I'm playing cards.

And that night I would stay up all night. So you guys wrote this movie together. Jake, obviously, you're a gambler. Joe, are you a gambler? I am not. Well, I'm a gambler in life. I'm not a card player. Okay. So I just gamble on movies. So that's my addiction. Did you

take down Topher Grace? No, I've always been low stakes. So I took down some dude who might have looked like Topher Grace. But I want to clarify dude who might have looked like Tom Hanks. Okay. But I want to clarify one thing that Joe said, because if I was listening and he said, you know, I'm a gambler in life, I would think, ah, it's just a line. He actually is. And the way I'll back that up is we finance these movies. So we don't make it.

And I say at the Q&A, it's not a situation where, you know, we say it's an indie movie and really Universal paid for it. Right. And they give some notes but we're like they were the coolest coolest executives nobody it's when we did digging for fire joe convinced me that the move on these would be to have total control is to finance them and so we wrote personal checks and my lawyer my agent man everybody said the way an actor really loses in hollywood is when you start going into your bank account to do your own project yeah and i google it and i would see like actors where i'm like and that's not brandon frazier but he popped in my head for no reason no

disrespect brandon frazier but i'd be like oh like that guy he's broke weird why oh he funded like water world or something or his dream project his dream's like, oh, he's a baseball player on Mars or something. I'm like, that's a weird idea. And then I'm like, oh, I might be doing that with Joe. And Joe's like, but trust me, man, we're putting this in. And then as it works, I would realize Joe is really gambling like house money. Yeah. You know, like literally like this is the house for my family.

But he's like, man, I know we can do it. And I was like, oh, I play cards cards but he's actually the bigger gambler joe have you seen hearts of darkness the documentary about the making of apocalypse now uh no i never had it was made by coppola's wife yeah it's all about like he just puts up every asset well i totally relate to that and the story i always heard was that he in the midst of making Apocalypse Now had to shut down production and he went and made two studio movies real quick to earn some money to go back and finish Apocalypse Now. He's also had

Martin Sheen having a heart attack on set so that probably This is totally like disconnected from anything but the fact that that guy's kids are all successful filmmakers to me shows he must love movies yeah because most people grow up in a house with a parent who does something who's obsessed with something and it makes them the opposite they're just like the

movie industry destroyed my dad i never want you know yeah instead it's like his joy of it must be infectious did you grow up in a movie loving house? No, I actually grew up... Well, you know, my mom is really artistic and so was always encouraging that. My dad likes James Bond movies. I mean, he is so not... Most of my movies I've ever shown him, he's like, I'm proud of you, I love you.

It's just like total glaze. It's so not his kind of movie. And so he would rather... This is kind of like a James Bond movie. Yeah, well, this is, I bet I would be willing to put money on this being my dad's favorite of all that I've made, probably by a lot. But yeah, it was like, movies were always my thing, though. I mean, since the time I was a kid, I remember. Something about them felt special.

But you put your family now in your movies. i mean your your wife and your son as well as in well my wife's a writer and director as well and yeah but you know i think we're we're phasing out it was really nice for us to document him when he was at an age where that stuff couldn't really affect him now that he's getting a little older and he's more aware of it i think we're phasing out having him be in the movies just because i don't want, you know, I mean, he goes to public school in Chicago. Like, I don't want him to be like, ooh, you're the kid from the movies.

We're friends with whoever. What's it like making, you know, obviously, Jake, you're on a network sitcom, you've got a Hollywood career, but also you're making this very, you know, smaller project, very personal project. Is it a lot different to make that transition to be working so closely with Joe's family um um no because we've done i think

joe's family's been in every movie we've done yeah um so this is our third one together and uh drinking buddies was the big uh mind warp for me in that uh you know i was doing new girl i because of our bit i want to call girlfriends on upPN. It's a bit that's too long to explain for listeners, but it was based off something else. But that was when when I met Joe, it was after season one and or during season one. And he pitched me his model about how to make movies and how it could be. And on that one, he said, there'll be short days. You can have an IPA or two if you want. It's about a guy who works in a beer brewery.

We're going to improvise a lot. And I guarantee you every day will be fun. And I go, well, I'm just coming off a really big job. The hours were like 16 hours a day in season one. I'm like, I think I just want to be in Chicago and see family. And he's like, you'll see him all the time. And I'm like, yeah, but what if I'm up all day? I'm really really tired i don't want to have to like perform it and then he goes if your character is really tired then we'll make it work that your character was tired that day and we'll put it in

the story and i said to him all right man i gotta tell you you're saying all the right things but you sound a little bit like a car salesman and i come from a family of salesmen so i'm like i feel like you're selling me a car and i'm gonna buy it but if it's a piece of shit and if you sold me a bad car you're an enemy forever you have to be if i go to chicago and it's a bust and it's actually 12 hour days and you actually do the director thing that a lot of them do and that is say like oh man we're gonna improvise and have fun and then you get on set and they go totally i want to get it your way but we're running out of time could you say this which i wrote last night and you say you want me to enter the room and go what up my dog i like i can't my character quote unquote wouldn't do that and they go like we

just need it once and i go but if you are the real deal and it is that and then the movie's good i'll work with you forever man and the process was process was a blast. And when I say, people say, I've done these interviews with Ogo, like it's just a party. It's not, it's work. But it's a really fun way to do work. And so that was the one that kind of blew my mind. So now, you know, doing Digging for Fire

and this one, it's just, it's a model that Joe started that now we're forming our version within it, our little like, you know, subsector, what have you. And I just love it. You talked a little bit about gambling, and I think that one of the great things about this movie is that I always felt like I was in a safe pair of hands

while I'm watching it. You know, there was a couple questions last night at the Q&A about, like, why I expected something really dark to happen. We were actually even teasing out, like, what were some of the various darker endings that could happen, but you are gambling with tone. I mean,

there must, it must be a real tight rope walk to know. I mean, I thought the music did a really good job of like establishing like a kind of safety net around the movie in a weird way. But can you talk a little bit about finding the, the tone of the voice of this movie and how hard it is to maintain that? Well, for the first time ever, we found it on paper before we got to set.

I mean, Jake and I really challenged ourselves to write this one. And, you know, we showed it to people. Jay Gassner at UTA gave a lot of nice feedback and various other people. And so I think we learned through that process of sharing the script that the movie was way more intense than we you know we saw i coming off of digging for fire we were like let's make a comedy right we have so much fun shooting these things the tone on set is always really light it feels off to do something then heavy to sort of like turn off the uh energy and sort of channel that into uh a kind of contemplative vibe let's see what it feels like if we channel that back into something funny.

So as we're writing the script, we're laughing a lot. But as we started to share that, people were like, whoa, I'm sweating. I mean, this feels so tense. I'm midway through the movie and I don't know what's going to happen to this guy. It's really stressing me out. And we were like, really? I guess it's working. Yeah, exactly.

So we had a little bit of advanced knowledge that we were maybe playing in that space. But it is one of the nice things about just making the movie ourselves. Nobody was attempting to push us out of that space. And I think it's an aspect that we felt like it worked. We were like, I would watch that movie. If we would watch it and we would love it hopefully other people would love it but first and foremost we have to make a movie we're really proud so we're in a weird spot to then open up about it where we

put our own money and dig in for fire and then we made our money back we made a little bit more money so this movie was essentially house money yeah so part of the game for it was, well, win it all. And what part of win it all meant to us as a title is we want to make a movie that we think is a good movie. So if the critics hate it, people don't like it, then they don't like what Joe and I like together. And that's fine because if it all tanks and nobody bought it, never hated it, we're even. Right. But let's at least try to do something that we like.

And in terms of tone, the nightmare happens is when you go to a studio and you have executives and they're paying, they have to think, how do we market it? And they go, well, is it a comedy or is it a drama? Because if it's a comedy, guys, this stuff, the stakes are too high for Eddie. So what if, what if,

what if there was no guy in bag? Yeah. And you go, what? They go, what if, what if no, he didn't owe anybody money. And you go, what? They go, what if, what if no, he didn't owe anybody money. He was just a gambler who met her.

And you go, I don't know. And they go, well, we're going to try that. Then we're in a situation where we're trying to make that movie and people watching go, there were some funny bits,

but I didn't like it. So what's really nice about this model for us is I personally, I really wanted Netflix. We didn't show the movie to anybody else before we, they saw a rough cut, wanted it. That's exactly where I wanted it to live. Why did you want that? I don't want to do the theater push on something like this and go city to city and try to get people in Dallas

to get excited about it and do a morning show where I'm talking to two people doing this 6 a.m. weather and then go win it all. It's about Eddie Garrett, a small town gambler who's given a bag and having to go like, sounds scary. Well, it sure is. And I'm going to tell you what's scary about it, because those people watching that show that morning, I don't know if they're going to love this. Yeah. But I do think there'll be a percentage of people who do really love this and claim this movie as theirs. And I think those people know how to find things they like and i think those people would rather watch it at home either alone with a friend significant other whatever their galaxy is and i want to go

well i just let's just go straight to them it also enters almost immediately into the rewatchability canon where it's like you know when you grow up and somebody had hbo and you would just watch die hard yeah 30 times in the summer. But like this movie has beats and parts of it. I mean, I know that you will watch it again to like analyze the cards. Yeah. Once you got into the nitty gritty in the third act, I was like, cool, what hand is he holding? What's really happening here? What's the flop?

Here's fun trivia in terms of the hands. So I'm a big poker player. Joe isn't. But Joe is the filmmaker. And so we were always doing something that joe would have to go this is entertaining enough for me so i'm watching it i care but he is like i don't care i was the foil i was like i'm your general audience that doesn't know anything about cards so i gotta like what i'm watching i don't want to make the poker movie i want to make sure we get the poker right but also i'm not gonna go watch the poker movie so let's

make sure we're hitting both audiences. And so, yeah, we were like the checks and balances. But then here's how we actually shot it, which was really fun. All those casinos you saw were built. So Swanberg has this unbelievable crew. We're the people with a women's name who built those sets. Amy Holmberg was our production designer. So she built that out of scratch.

For no money. I mean, it's crazy. The casino in Chinatown. The Chinatown. Any appliance? No, we were in an alley in Chinatown. And then when you go inside, we're on a set that they built. Wow.

It felt real. Yeah. Then in terms of extras, rather than getting characters, we just got like 50 to 100 gamblers and gave them, there was no money, but everybody got chips. And I would sit at a table with people with a real dealer and everyone's like we would all, everyone's like, so what do we do? And we go, let's just run games. And I'd be like, guys, we're just playing. We're not playing for money. We're all having fun. But once you have chips in front of you, cause everyone had the same amount of chips, people started getting really competitive. So at first somebody would do something.

And then I would show a bluff to let people know, like, I'm coming after you. So once you get got in front of everybody, everyone's like, well, I don't want that again. And then I would show a bluff to let people know, like, I'm coming after you. So once you get got in front of everybody, everyone's like, well, I don't want that again. And then the camera was just constantly moving around the game. So we were all told, don't pay attention to the camera, just play cards. And so when you would be a big winning hand, it's because the table was winning. We had other tables where we were playing blackjack to get everyone together. So everything that you actually see in the movie is based off. We never cheated the hand. We didn't say this is a win this is a loss we just did five or six hands and

then put it at where we needed it did you actually shoot those scenes at night or did you shoot them in the middle of the day but you had to like drink old style and pretend like it's three in the morning well i we shot both because the truth is those were big days for us and so we started shooting it from the day into the night but it was a really bizarre environment to walk from like blistering sunlight into this really dark sort of like dank feeling chinatown casino and we got lost in there i mean that was a trippy day it was really smoky it was the weirdest best group of extras i've never been around because you're just in it and we wanted a a group that looked like those casinos look so you were sitting there at these tables and

you know a lot of people weren't speaking english and a lot of people were giving each other aggressive eyes and then some people were really like but they would win a hand and talk a little shit and i was like this really feels real that we're not playing for money like that guy doesn't like me you know i want a hand and was celebrating he doesn't realize i was doing it for camera yeah but now he's looking at me like i'm a punk and i'm like and i have a little bit of a stomach ache this is amazing it's a great moment where you're shit talking a guy and you call him pitbull well that actual table was funny is we went to that thing and we knew because of the suits, we wanted to build up Eddie and Nikki are feeling really confident, but they're really

for, they want to feel confident. And then they come in and the guy makes fun of my outfit and calls me Blues Brothers. Well, the guy with the brown hair was really nervous. The guy who calls me Blues Brothers, but actually geeked up to go. So I was in there. We didn't plan any of the pit bull stuff at first, but the guy just kept gunning at me. And I was playing nervous,

but then at a certain point, I'm like, sitting at a poker table, this guy's killing me. And then they were all like laughing, doing one-liners. And I'm like, all right.

And at a certain point, I'm like, guys, I got to fight back. So, you know, you talked about the blistering sun that you were walking out from. The movie takes place in Chicago, which I don't know if we've said yet.

You know, Eddie, your character plays a car parker, essentially, outside of Wrigley. Obviously, you guys are both from Chicago. Was it important that this movie have to be in Chicago? Is that the only way it could have been done? I don't think there was another version of it that we ever thought of. No, this is a Chicago movie. Yeah. And we just did, you know, we did Drinking Buddies in Chicago.

Then we did Digging for Fire in Los Angeleseles and i think it was fun to come back yeah chicago's uh it's it's kind of the home that connects joe and i where i think it's the thing one of the things we relate to it's doing a movie doing the movie in la felt like we were doing a small indie movie in la and we had really cool actors. Going back to Chicago feels like, oh, we're doing our movies. Yeah. Where it's like, these are where they belong.

It doesn't feel, it wouldn't feel right if I was outside of like the Anaheim Angels parking lot. Yeah, right. It's like, no, these characters in this world are based off Chicago. There are moments in the movie where I was just so blown away by the weather. I couldn't believe some of the stuff you guys got got that when their first meeting when Eddie is first meeting when they're on the

Storm at the track. Yeah But when that's happening are you just like I cannot one of the nice things about working this way is we have we wrote a Script for this one. So we knew all the beats but also because of the improv and because of the open nature of it, we get to be available for whether that would shut a movie down normally to us is like, oh, this is an exciting opportunity. Let's figure out how to make this work. And so we got some of our most beautiful shots in the movie from these random acts of nature. Now, what's really miraculous is he leaves the track after this massive storm and arrives back in Chinatown to start gambling again. And it's raining two separate days. Oh, really?

Like an indie film never gets this lucky. Usually a Hollywood movie gets to wait. They're like, all right, we're checking the weather. We'll move the schedule around. It's supposed to rain next Tuesday. So we'll be there then. James Cameron's rain machine. Yeah, we do not get that.

We're like, cool. We got two days in Chinatown. That is it. And it was the continuity. We felt weird about it, actually. We were like, something's going right here in a way that we're going to be punished for this later. Like we should not be having these things match. Yeah. So, Joe, you said you're not a big gambling guy, maybe not even a big gambling movie guy. But the minute we got up from the theater, I heard Rounders and the original movie The Gambler and Cincinnati Kid

and California Split. To me, I love California Split. Not being a gambling guy, it's one of my favorite movies. I just think it's a perfect movie. So there is that reference point for sure. Did you guys watch those movies before you started writing or thinking about it or were you just like, this is a memory in my mind? I don't like

to do that actually. I don't know about you but we're like I think we knew these characters and this stuff. It wasn't coming from a movie world. It was coming from a real life world and so I actually get a little afraid of going back and re-watching stuff because I don't want

I love the essence of the movie like to me a california split reference would be a really uh nice compliment to the movie because i think it's so good but you know hopefully it's in like essence and vibe not because it's like oh they did the shot from california split so i'm never i'm purposely avoiding those kinds of reference points i'm sure it came up just because we both love it. Yeah, I didn't, but if there was obviously one, I do love all the gambling movies.

I just think they're fun. Rounders is one, whenever that's on cable, there goes about 40 minutes. Yeah, you're in. It's just fun. Yeah. But no, we don't like to watch, so there's a running joke for us, and it's about a guy named Garrett.

This character's last name, the production, Garrett doubles down, Garrett landscaping. And Garrett is a character, it's an alter ego we've created on our sets, where he's basically, you know, the biggest D-bag of all time. But he's like, he believes he's the biggest movie star ever, the hottest hunk, the toughest fighter, the greatest of all time of all time but he's like he believes he's the biggest movie star ever the hottest hunk the toughest fighter the greatest of all time and joe is his director who has been hired by the studio to just get one last movie on this i'm the only guy broke enough that i'll take the job and deal with him but just really degrades him and you know garrett really believes the crew loves him and loves his bits but he has no respect for. He has no respect for anybody because the only reason everybody has a job is because of Garrett. So long story short, the reason to say this is everything we do, there's somewhere in there, there's the heart of Garrett.

So for us, this one started as we found a story structure where we liked the three-act arc of it. We liked that big peak. We wanted the resolution. We knew the ending. We liked the inciting event. We liked the three-act arc of it. We liked that big peak. We wanted the resolution. We knew the ending. We liked the inciting event. We liked the first act turn. We had enough of those story turns. And then we were like, all right, now how do we make the lead guy Garrett?

And we don't want to make him a total goober, but we got to have a little bit of Garrett. So you're like, okay, so he's this guy going in. That's his brother. And then we filled out all the character after. So a California Splitter or Rounders wouldn't really help us outside of being like, we just love how they did it, but there's no, once we're past this is our basic story, then we're back into our world

trying to make each other laugh. There's little things about Eddie that make so much sense for the, like the gold rope chain, which was like just such an interest like a great touch from like ah that guy you know like and it's like a guy who spent like his last 400 bucks on a necklace a few years back right yeah yeah and in a moment we had a little bit of dough or even like what how did you decide to how you were going to do your hair because it's like

even that was like i was like that's like That all came from Jake, I can say. You came to me with a really strong idea of his look. And it was not what I would have thought or done. So it was really fun to have you bring that. I feel like I've played cards with that guy a lot. And, you know, when I, for story, exaggerate that I was a degenerate, but I've always been a small stakes guy. But I like sitting in casinos. So I'm somebody, if I'm for story, exaggerate that I was a degenerate, but I've always been a small stakes guy. But I like sitting in casinos.

So I'm somebody, if I'm not working, I could sit and play poker for 20 straight hours and be very happy. Speaking my language. Yeah. And I'm not, but I'm not the way Eddie was at the table where he's talking and getting into it. I'm the opposite of it. I could sit there quietly. I don't need to small talk. I just like playing.

And there was always a guy at the table who pulled in who would have that look. He would have a vibe where I'm like, I don't think he's got a lot of money on him. But he's really vocal. And he's not that good of a player. But he's acting like he is. He does all the things. He can flip the chips. He's got his tricks.

And he's really aggressive early. Shows one hand lets the table know how good he is on a very basic play and that guy always has like a really nice watch or like two rings yeah or a necklace his hair is like really greasy but last second to look handsome he pushes it back but checks himself in the mirror at the casino when he takes like a bump of coke or like checks his nose puts water on his hands slicks it back why because he looks handsome because he looks successful so i was like i knew his look because i have sat next to that guy it seems like for my entire life yeah it's it's it's a really uh like great characterization even letting the

goatee grow in a little bit thicker is like there's a lot of really good choices there. But so I'm kind of curious now. You guys have made three movies together last night. You talked a little bit about feeling each other out on the first one. So is this now like a long term union where you guys are going to keep making movies together? I would say definitely. I mean, I love to collaborate. And from the very beginning for me, movies were a chance to work with people i liked uh and learn from other people it's nice to dive

into worlds that i don't know like making winter all was really really fun uh but you know i would say i have a hard time uh trusting collaborators in a on a level that I now trust Jake. And it's something about doing these three movies together where, you know, I'm a pretty, it's like to be a director, you gotta be pretty self-confident. You have to have a pretty strong idea of saying like, listen, none of us know how this is gonna go,

but trust me, I know what I'm doing. Even if you don't, even if it's a bluff, it's just a sort of requirement of that thing. Jake's one of the few people where he's like, I don't know. And now I'm like, okay, tell me why I'm not, there's, there's no need to do the bluff thing because we work in different worlds. I mean, we, Jake knows a lot about the industry and a side of the business that i've never even worked in and i come from a really small indie side that jake never worked in before we started working together so i think there's a kind of collaboration that's like really rare and mutually beneficial where every time we make a movie both of us are kind of like oh i didn't know that wow how'd you

learn that and it's like we're teaching each other tricks i would say we're only in trouble if we both run out of tricks then we're gonna sit down together and be like what should be the next movie be like i don't know i know i know all your tricks i could i can answer one of the things for joe and you know i could go on the whole thing and you know ask us but you know apart from being an unbelievably talented guy and a lot of fun uh one of the things joe has done for me and why it just it's it blows my mind to work with him and it comes from his upstart. And that is, it's the, the business I got into was you do your improv in Chicago, you go to New York, you try to get to UCB, you try to get a commercial agent, you try to get in the biggest movies, you try to do the game, you try to get cast and you just keep going.

And you never think you just get a part and you take it and while i was doing that joe was deconstructing what making a movie meant to him so you have a big crew what if we had a smaller crew you've got two cameras what if you had one camera what if the actor was also the sound person what if i did everything then it's you build it back up and when i came in he was just starting to build outside of his group and was really honest about the process it wasn't like a lot of directors and it's the bluff thing that fucking kills me is people don't want to talk to you real so i'll go oh it seems like a fine scene um why do they leave at the end and run out with their shirts off i mean i know that you think that's the bit that's going to get

you the big laugh but why are they doing it no No, trust me. It's going to work. I get it. Yeah. Why do our characters take our shirts? No, because it's a whole thing. Like, we got to get to the next. I know what you're saying. And then there's a point where they're just doing the eye roll like, oh, this is so exhausting.

Can you just do it? And what Joe will do is he'll break down where his thought process is. And a lot of times he's right. So then as an actor, you go like, oh, okay. Oh, you were thinking actually camera too. So you want us to run out because you want to follow us. Oh, that's actually really cool. And then you get to go, well, how can I help that? Do you want me to run faster? Let's talk it out, be part of this together. Because then what if I stopped here and he would go, ooh, if you stop there, I can go. And then you go, and then I'll lead out. And then we both give each other a thumbs up.

We feel good. And now we want to nail it. And Joe is like that with every actual side of it, from the writing, creating, to shooting, and not only that, to the financing. So all the boxes are checked with me where he's like, yeah, I'm not. He's like, we can not only make these, we can finance them and just be the investors. And then when we go to a film festival, we can finance them and just be the investors. And then when we go to a film festival, rather than have our agents sell them, he's like,

I think you're a good salesman. I think I'm a pretty good salesman. Why don't we sell them? And I go, because there's a company that sells them for you. And he's like, we could be that company. Yeah, I know, but Joe, it doesn't work that way and he's like well it could and then with all of it with joe it has been like my little experiment and i'm like the fucking guy is 99.9 right and so i'm like oh and as somebody who's also a gambler you know and i've talked to my

wife about it i'm like it's fulfilling that need that i don't get doing the mummy the mummy is a great job i'm appreciative to have it but there's no gamble right it just take the job and do your best and try to keep up with tom cruise with joe swamberg every second of it the second we come up with a new idea and he goes yeah the way it'll be we'll talk ideas i'll then think of something i'll write out a three-act structure not a script a two-page document that has 12 beats story beats it'll get you about 90 pages i'll pitch him over the phone either he'll go okay which means no or he'll go oh i like that one let's keep going then i'll send him that then he'll come back with something and then we'll start writing it then at a certain point he'll, I think we can make this movie for X amount of dollars.

Maybe we each put in blank. And that number is terrifying. Is there like an out like a equation that you have or not? Not for state secrets here. Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, no. Well, you know, the more the more movies I do and the more I sell myself, the more I learn about the business. So there are certain things that I know.

You know, I roughly know what certain companies pay for certain movies and things like that. I mean, I'm always asking questions. I'm very interested in the business side of it. I never thought I would be. I didn't come up as a business person. But I became a business person because I didn't want to be taken advantage of. And I think that the industry works in such a way where from making Drinking Buddies and making Happy Christmas, which is the one I did afterwards, I learned a few fundamental lessons that I can't go back from. And those lessons to me are all based on that the people who bring the value to a movie should be the people who are benefiting financially the most from it.

And the equation as it runs currently in the industry is almost the opposite of that. You're definitely from Chicago. The most... Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But that's what he was like, everything he was saying to me, I'm like, you're talking to my soul. You sound like Steve Albini.

You're talking to my ancestors. Yeah. But I was like, this is unfair. It doesn't make sense to me. This is a, this is a bad equation. And the people who do the most amount of work and bring the most amount of value are sitting at the bottom of the waterfall when this thing becomes profitable. And so I was like, I'm not going to sit at the bottom anymore. I don't have to. So I was like, what does it look like if I just go ahead and move myself to the top because I decided to and then I did it and it worked great and I was like Jake you got to move to the top with me stop sitting at the bottom and then I said yeah but they're all telling me I can't

be part of that and he's like I know and then I well, I am a fucking gambler. So what if I put X amount of dollars to the side? If I lose it, I feel like a big douchebag. But luckily I'm on New Girl. So I lost episode 17, 18, and 19 of season three. I'm not happy about losing three weeks. This was a failed experiment. I did a lot of scenes. But you know what?

I gambled. And I've won a lot of gambling. And I've lost a lot in gambling. But what it did, apart from the money, is going to why working with Joe is interesting is when you flip it like that, it changes the entire process because then all of a sudden you realize again, to, you know, be this guy, because you're, it's the art of it. Once you put your money in it, you better believe you're going to care about that product. And you better believe you go, well, what is it that we do? We're not looking to phone it in.

Well, what do we like to do? And that goes to win it all. Well, I want to make a movie that I, what I wanted to do with this money for this money that I was paying. So I wanted to sit at the Paramount theater and I wanted to watch win it all. And the guy with the long hair who carries me out, it's one of my childhood best friends, guy named Nick pool, who has always been a guy I know is so funny. And I was like, I want him to be in the movie.

I want him to be great. And I want a tone that feels as real as it is funny. And I don't care if anyone likes it, because I know if he likes it and I like it, then that's money well spent on, you know, money that's already house money. And so it just feels like I don't know where else in this industry I get to play this game besides with him. So when it's will there be more? It's well, unless I'm out of the business, I don't want to stop working with Joe. If everybody in the town and the world stops watching our stuff, we'll still make it.

It'll just be like an eight grand movie about a guy named Garrett eating M&M's and Skittles and getting fat and Joe on the flip side of that when it all is very much a Joe Swanberg movie tonally even structurally

but do you feel like you're changing as a filmmaker not just by picking up maybe some of the things that Jake knows from the industry but you know

you've worked a lot with Netflix now you've worked with movie stars now do you feel, you've worked a lot with Netflix now. You've worked with movie stars now. Like, do you feel like you're changing as a director? Not really. What I feel like is I'm figuring out how to take the thing that I do and get people to watch it.

You know, I mean, it's interesting because I bottomed out. I mean, I, you know, I made my third movie, which was called Hannah Takes the Stairs, got a nice amount of attention for a small indie film. And then I made a couple subsequent films which didn't get much attention. Then I made another one called Alexander the Last, which Noah Baumbach produced and also got some nice attention. So I sort of ride in the ups and downs of, you know, a very small scale of indie production. But then I made several in a row that nobody saw. And I also was not learning or growing.

I was like, I have maxed out what I can do in this space. So, you know, the change came, honestly, for my own sanity. I was like, I don't know why I would sit here and spin my wheels if I have an opportunity to grow and try something different. And so I made Drinking Buddies as an experiment, which I did not know if it would be successful. I mean, I, but I, what I did know is if I just went and made another of the things I was making, I wasn't, it definitely wasn't going to be successful. And I also was not happy. You know, I was sort of like having this weird feeling on set, which I had always loved to be on set. I love working with actors. I found myself there going like, I've done this shot before. I framed this up before. I've filmed this conversation before. Like, what am I doing

here again? And so it was really nice to make Drinking Buddies and feel like I wasn't changing the things I loved about filmmaking. But then when that movie came out and people were really watching it, uh, I think it was the most surprising to my group of filmmaker friends who are kind of like, that's just one of your movies. Why, why this one? And I was like, well, it's interesting. We made certain changes that, uh, make the film more accessible more palatable actually one of the reasons why i like working with jake so much is he was a big part of that because i was pitching a story that was very uh close to what we had but also very open-ended and sort of like treading into territory that didn't have a very strong narrative sense to it. And when Jake came onto that movie as an actor,

he sat down and broke it down and was like, yeah, but what if we did this, this, and this? And I was like, those are great ideas, man. Totally. That makes a lot of sense to me. And, and it seems like a movie I would like. And so, you know, these kinds of adjustments and the very clear before and after of like the audience size for my work, before Drinking Buddies and after Drinking Buddies, said everything I needed to know, because I don't want to make movies. It's hard to say this because what I don't want to do is disparage the movies I was making before or the audiences that were seeing them. But what I'll say is I reached a point where I was taking movies to the same film festivals I had been to the year before and the year before that and showing them to the same nine

people who I saw at the last two movies. And I was like, this is not why I thought I wanted to be a filmmaker. I've reached a certain level of success that I never thought I'd get to. I thought i wanted to be a filmmaker i've reached a certain level of success that i never thought i'd get to i'm really grateful to be here i don't take those film festivals for granted or those nine people who came out and saw my movies i i loved them but also i was like we could all just go get a beer and i could tell you a story i don't need to go through all the process of making the movie if it's just going to be you nine guys you're my friends like let's just hang out.

And so when I reached that point, it had to change. There's something about there's like a certain urgency to win it all, even though it's like a very nice summer movie and it's everybody people are eating outside and it's like got a nice vibe to it. But I think the fact that there's this bag of money plot point that is like it almost gives it a like a temporal urgency. Like, you know, it's not going to get the six months that would be a I can just work it off and be fine. Yeah. And so when you're cutting, are you like this is new? Like this is does it feel different when you're cutting something to a tempo like that? Yes, definitely. I mean, this movie had an engine that none of the other movies have. Drinking Buddies was really fun, but drinking.

But there's nothing happening in the first five minutes of Drinking Buddies where you're like, oh, I know what's going on. You're like, I'm going to buckle in for a relationship thing and like feel it out. And I mean, we talked a lot about that, that engine. So, yeah, there's a to there's a feeling that this is where it goes back to the Paramount. So at least from my start is I did a lot of live theater with a guy named Oliver Raleigh in New York. And we used to write the plays ourselves. And you would get in a room and every once in a while you would write something that would have a story engine. And once the story would kick off, you would feel the audience start nodding their heads.

And you would see people look at each other like, oh, this one and then you could run with that but as soon as you got off that story a little bit you would see people lean back a little bit and they'd be like oh i still like the characters i'm having fun but i'm not now engaged in the storytelling and in doing these movies and doing other indies like when i did safety not guaranteed and it was going off i felt people watching and then all of a sudden you would feel this collective, everybody's moving forward. And I was like, ooh, I like that.

And in this one, we were talking about let's get that story and see if we can get everybody moving forward and just drive them on a story engine and just get every twist and turn

so you can get everybody going up and down. And then once we have that, then make that a swanberg movie because what i love about joe's movies is there is a feeling of real and tone yeah and his look is gorgeous and all of that i'm like i don't want to just do a story story like i don't want to do something that feels generic but there's a lot of story points i needed to feel like it's real that these characters characters are real people, that the audience goes,

that's just Jake being Jake. Great. Oh, that's just this person being this person. Cause it feels that real to you. That's something that Joe does perfectly. But what happens if we throw a monster engine in it, which was really fun.

And now we're kind of talking to the next one. We can, we can keep going. You guys don't have to go. Yeah, sure. But then the, but then the game becomes with Joe and I

what happens if the engine is even bigger like the movie Get Out for example I just saw it, excellent in my opinion, I just thought it was perfect because that's a really funny movie, it's a lot of fun and it has a monster of an engine so you start, everybody knows

and then you just start driving and you would feel the whole audience bobbing their heads together where you're like, oh yeah, we're on a roller coaster. And it's going to take us to that peak in that second act and I'm like, I'm excited to see it. And I'm really excited about that idea in our

collaboration and where that can go. How do you guys determine success for the movie? Last night in the theater, there was a lot of laughs. It was a very boisterous crowd. You guys wanted to show it in that theater for that reason. But when a movie like this goes to Netflix, how do you know, other than just the people you know and love saying, I liked the movie, how do you know that it worked? Well, I don't know that we would have been so confident with it had I not done Easy and felt it. And also Drinking Buddies honestly found its biggest audience on Netflix as well.

I mean, it's become pretty clear to me over the last few years that the work that I'm making is finding its audience there. And so I have the question as a filmmaker and Jake and I have the question as a filmmaker and jake and i have the question as business partners uh do we go where the audience is or do we make the audience come to us and i just think it's not our need we're not the kind of guys that are gonna like put our foot down and be like no you have to experience it this way if there's a big audience over there that wants to watch it and we already made the movie we want, that makes the most sense to both of us. Have you noticed a diversification of your audience? Absolutely.

Different kinds of people coming up to you? Just to put this in perspective, I made movies for a decade that played in America. And if they played anywhere outside of America, it was almost always the UK and Australia. Two countries that speak English as their first language. Because I was making movies that were about the nuance of language. I mean, the ways my characters were interacting in those earlier movies was almost always about things they didn't say rather than things, you know, the way a hand touched a hand. And, you know, I mean, those are my kinds of movies. I love those moments, but also like, you know, German audience or French

audience was just like, we do not know what's going on here. Subtitles are not telling us what we need to know about what he just said or why longing. Yeah. Why the way he said it is a joke in America, but doesn't translate it with French subtitles. And so like making easy where the show goes up on the same day to 170 countries all around the world. When Netflix called me and they were like, it did really well in America. It also did really well in France and Germany. I was like, wow, I've been trying for a decade to break into that. I knew they would like my stuff. It's just they never had a chance to see it because a French distributor

and a German distributor is like, I'm not about to lose $300,000 trying to turn French people on to movies. Yeah. I got better things to do. And so that Netflix, uh, you know, it, it, it's interesting to me that it wasn't about the work necessarily. It was about the accessibility of the work. And the truth is I don't have any grudge against that French distributor or German distributor. I wouldn't even put my movies out in those countries. It's a losing proposition. But with the Netflix access, those people finally had a chance to see my work and they were like, we like it. And so with Win It All, now we get to go back to them and say like, check this one out.

Yeah. That's awesome. I also feel in terms of what makes how do you know if it's a success or not uh honestly and it seems kind of weird to say but if joe's really happy and i'm really happy with it i would really like people to like it and i would really like critics to like it but at the end of the day you know one day we're gonna be dust anyhow if they don't that's okay if the critics don't like this one when joe and i both watched it and then had our long talk on the phone and i was like i don't know man i love this one and he's like me too and i'm like this is the movie we talked about in my house and we're like absolutely and i think this bit works yeah totally me too and do you think that yeah and my house and we're like absolutely and i think this bit works yeah totally

me too and do you think that yeah and i think and we're like great good win man feels great i was kind of done with it yeah i felt like great and then netflix came in aggressively and that was the great so outside of that like even doing press it's like fun love to talk to people if somebody's like we didn't like it but we're at the usa today well then we don't need to speak it's okay i'll talk to you in the next one but if you don't like it like it's fine if somebody's not into it but they want to hear our thoughts on it i'm not here to convince you and fuck off i don't need to debate with you yo you didn't like the ending that's okay talk to the next joe like these movies we're making them in this new world in 2017 which is

what i love about it is you can make content for yourself and if people like it then awesome yeah i'm like guys it's the craziest we get to cut out all middlemen and just make work and say do you guys like it guess what it's going to cost you? Nothing. You already have a subscription. So try it. And guess what? Click on it. You already pay for Netflix. You're at home. You and your lady are having a drink.

Everything's good. You've watched all the Friends episodes. You're done with that. You go, all right. You either know Joe through Easy and his stuff, or you go, oh, it's Schmidt from New Girl. Should I watch that? That's not Schmidt.

Oh, it's the other one. Fine. Just hit it. And you start it. and if in those first few minutes you're out i get it but if you're in and you like it then that's actually the fan we want who then goes what else have they done i'm like oh let's just make movies for that person and say yeah you want to watch this one again you just put your baby to sleep you got two hours before it starts crying here's an hour and a half. Yeah.

And that's a model I'm very personally excited about. Well, thank you guys so much for coming by. We love the movie. We're so happy that you guys It's great watching.

When is it out? It'll be out April 7th. April 7th. All right. So this will go up right around then. Thank you so much. Thank you guys.

Always fun to chat to you. Really appreciate it